interesting piece in the new republic -- a review of 10 excellent reasons not to join the military.
i disagree almost wholly with the review. and, though i haven't read the book, i have a feeling i'd disagree with most of it as well.
the piece takes as its starting point the supposition that cindy sheehan and the other authors of the book's essays are representative of the liberal left. i would say that they represent only themselves, and i appreciate the fact that they are willing to produce a work that -- whether right or wrong -- takes an extremely negative view of the military and military service. rather than address the real problems that the u.s. military and militarism in general are causing in the u.s., the piece deals in received wisdom and popular opinion. it's an absolute phallacy that liberals hate the military, or hate our troops, or hate our country. lies, all of it.
i do feel, however, that as daily american life becomes increasingly militarized -- as the military industrical complex increasingly controls our economy and prevents growth and flexibility -- it is patriotic and necessary for those of us on the left to call into question much of the received wisdom surrounding american attitudes toward our military.
it's important that we try our best, through reasoned dialogue, to interrogate the ways in which the u.s. military seems to be an outpost for overly aggressive, violent, mysogynistic, homophobic men. if we want the military to project the most american of values -- peace, justice, sacrifice, love -- we need to confront those people who would join the u.s. military out of hatred for the foreign Other, out of hatred or fear of civilized discourse, or out of the desire to be trained to kill other humans
nor is it unpatriotic for the left to question public displays of military might that have become so commonplace as to be blindly accepted. why must we have shows of military might at so many of our nation's sporting events? fly-overs, the national anthem, color guard -- in theory i have no problem with these things, but the fact that they have become normalized and taken for granted is worrisome. to me, the state should never boast of being an agent of violence and destruction. it should be an agent of peace.
all this said, i do NOT blame individual soldiers for the current state of u.s. militarism. after all, for many enlistees, military service is the ONLY way to grasp any sort of livelihood at all. we need to begin to dismantle the military's ability to be the sole economic engine of large swaths of the u.s. i think that, in general, a military culture that promotes violence and aggression, combined with rightist politicians who get rich off of military contracts, are responsible for the rise of militarism.
i am not anti-military, and do not believe that the armed services is an inherently bad entity. but i believe it needs to undergo a transformation to better reflect the fact that the u.s. is no longer a member of a unipolar world. while we may have the mightiest military, we are lagging behind the rest of the world where it counts the most: in the relevance of our political, social, and cultural ideas. spend half the military budget -- yes, you could cut $250B from the u.s. military budget and we'd actually improve the military's ability to fight new types of warfare -- on education, on social and cultural projects, on training scientists and engineers, and we'd not be fighting illegal and unnecessary wars. neither would the military be a place where violent and aggressive men can feel at home.
i disagree almost wholly with the review. and, though i haven't read the book, i have a feeling i'd disagree with most of it as well.
the piece takes as its starting point the supposition that cindy sheehan and the other authors of the book's essays are representative of the liberal left. i would say that they represent only themselves, and i appreciate the fact that they are willing to produce a work that -- whether right or wrong -- takes an extremely negative view of the military and military service. rather than address the real problems that the u.s. military and militarism in general are causing in the u.s., the piece deals in received wisdom and popular opinion. it's an absolute phallacy that liberals hate the military, or hate our troops, or hate our country. lies, all of it.
i do feel, however, that as daily american life becomes increasingly militarized -- as the military industrical complex increasingly controls our economy and prevents growth and flexibility -- it is patriotic and necessary for those of us on the left to call into question much of the received wisdom surrounding american attitudes toward our military.
it's important that we try our best, through reasoned dialogue, to interrogate the ways in which the u.s. military seems to be an outpost for overly aggressive, violent, mysogynistic, homophobic men. if we want the military to project the most american of values -- peace, justice, sacrifice, love -- we need to confront those people who would join the u.s. military out of hatred for the foreign Other, out of hatred or fear of civilized discourse, or out of the desire to be trained to kill other humans
nor is it unpatriotic for the left to question public displays of military might that have become so commonplace as to be blindly accepted. why must we have shows of military might at so many of our nation's sporting events? fly-overs, the national anthem, color guard -- in theory i have no problem with these things, but the fact that they have become normalized and taken for granted is worrisome. to me, the state should never boast of being an agent of violence and destruction. it should be an agent of peace.
all this said, i do NOT blame individual soldiers for the current state of u.s. militarism. after all, for many enlistees, military service is the ONLY way to grasp any sort of livelihood at all. we need to begin to dismantle the military's ability to be the sole economic engine of large swaths of the u.s. i think that, in general, a military culture that promotes violence and aggression, combined with rightist politicians who get rich off of military contracts, are responsible for the rise of militarism.
i am not anti-military, and do not believe that the armed services is an inherently bad entity. but i believe it needs to undergo a transformation to better reflect the fact that the u.s. is no longer a member of a unipolar world. while we may have the mightiest military, we are lagging behind the rest of the world where it counts the most: in the relevance of our political, social, and cultural ideas. spend half the military budget -- yes, you could cut $250B from the u.s. military budget and we'd actually improve the military's ability to fight new types of warfare -- on education, on social and cultural projects, on training scientists and engineers, and we'd not be fighting illegal and unnecessary wars. neither would the military be a place where violent and aggressive men can feel at home.
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