Stop the War! (1968)

Watching the 10-part (18 hour) documentary The Vietnam War on PBS, I was struck by what a large contingent of delegates at the 1968 Democratic nominating convention in Chicago raised signs in protest of the war ... and these were political party delegates ... mainstream Americans ... part of the system.

Vietnam, don't forget, was also a Democratic Party war.

What struck me was that, 50 years ago, the opposition to America's immoral (and illegal) war had definitely gone mainstream.  

And that is something that has changed dramatically in the half-century that has passed.

Americans today are far more passive in accepting an endless series of wars, known to be based largely on outright lies (as was Vietnam, which was the salient fact that was exposed in The Pentagon Pagers).  Americans are more than happy to yield their American value system (supposedly something for which they'd die) and all their civil liberties for empty promises of relief from fear.  Cowardly?  In the extreme.

Mainstream Americans today, regardless of which side of the political divide they stand, act like sheep; and neither political party has a monopoly on cowardice.  That's the one thing Americans share.

A tightly-controlled US press ensures that.

The uniformity of opinion molded by the media is reinforced through the skillfully orchestrated mass emotions of nationalism and patriotism, which paint all dissidents as “soft” or “unpatriotic.” The “patriotic” citizen, plagued by fear of job losses and possible terrorist attacks, unfailingly supports widespread surveillance and the militarized state. There is no questioning of the $1 trillion spent each year on defense. Military and intelligence agencies are held above government, as if somehow they are not part of the government. The most powerful instruments of state control effectively have no public oversight. We, as imperial citizens, are taught to be contemptuous of government bureaucracy, yet we stand like sheep before Homeland Security agents in airports and are mute when Congress permits our private correspondence and conversations to be monitored and archived. We endure more state control than at any time in U.S. history.

 

And yet the civic, patriotic, and political language we use to describe ourselves remains unchanged. We pay fealty to the same national symbols and iconography. We find our collective identity in the same national myths. We continue to deify the founding fathers. But the America we celebrate is an illusion. It does not exist.

– Chris Hedges

      Chicago, 1968

The staggering cost of empire

How much does it cost the United States to maintain its global empire and domestic security state? The following table summarizes defense-related costs in the US federal budget since 2003 plus supplemental spending (OCO=Overseas Contingency Operations, basically a un-allocated "slush fund). These numbers do not include other costs (such as the Department of Homeland Security, veteran's care and interest payments). The actual amount that Americans spend on their endless wars exceeds $1.2 trillion every single year.

The real costs of these wars, though (and the US is now involved in seven), are the "opportunity costs" ... what could have been done with that money?  What good could been done with that money?

Look what a sorry return Americans got for all those lives (over 6,251 American soldiers) and dollars spent (between US$4 and $6 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan alone).  Fifteen years ago, I believe Americans chose a truly pathetic way to think and to live.  And now they're stuck with their wrong choice; the nation in involved in seven long-term wars it cannot win. Who can accept the astonishing stupidity of it, the utter mediocrity of a society that aspires to do nothing more, nothing better, with its tremendous wealth?

Maybe roads, schools, bridges, railroads, and dams don't matter as much as conquest and empire.  Maybe child development, education, old age security, unemployment benefits and health care don't matter as much as tax breaks for the ultra-rich.  But I choose to believe otherwise.  And my choice is one I can easily live with.

US Military Spending History since 2003:

FY	DoD Base  Budget	DoD OCO	Support Base	Support OCO	Total Spending
2003	$364.9	$72.5			$437.4
2004	$376.5	$91.1			$467.6
2005	$400.1	$78.8			$478.9
2006	$410.6	$124.0	$109.7		$644.3
2007	$431.5	$169.4	$120.6		$721.5
2008	$479.0	$186.9	$127.0		$792.9
2009	$513.2	$153.1	$149.4		$815.7
2010	$527.2	$163.1	$160.3	$0.3	$851.6
2011	$528.2	$158.8	$167.4	$0.7	$855.1
2012	$530.4	$115.1	$159.3	$11.5	$816.3
2013	$495.5	$82.1	$157.8	$11.0	$746.4
2014	$496.3	$85.2	$165.4	$6.7	$753.6
2015	$496.1	$64.2	$165.6	$10.5	$736.4
2016 Actual	$521.7	$58.6	$171.9	$15.1	$767.3
2017 Enacted	$516.1	$82.4	$175.8	$19.4	$793.7
2018 Budget	$574.5	$64.6	$173.5	$12.0	$824.6

They took an oath to serve

A good soldier follows orders, and does not question those orders, even when those orders are immoral or illegal. They "took an oath to serve." My country, right or wrong.

A good soldier always has the excuse that "I was just following orders." That absolves a good soldier for responsibility for his or her actions.

"Just following orders." That's the excuse that was used by the defendants at the Nuremberg trials ... that their oath of allegiance to the State, and to serve as an instrument of that state, absolved them of responsibility for their own actions.  They were hanged anyway ... the judgement of the court being that we are all, individually, responsible for our own actions.  Not the State, not the Marine Corps, the First Baptist Church, or the Boy Scouts of America.  

Moral autonomy is having the freedom and possessing the courage, and the will, to make moral decisions on one's own, individually.  It's standing on one's own two feet; and sometimes that requires sacrifice. There is no freedom without the exercise of autonomy. It is not a free nation that prohibits dissent.

Moral autonomy is at the root of what is termed "character."  Character is always individual.  You don't display character by joining a group.  Moral autonomy is the ability to choose the right course of action, by oneself, without any outside pressure or influence.

Our first allegiances, as men and women of characters, should always be to our principles, and to our families, those who depend on us, not to some oath of allegiance to a State.   To put allegiance to country above our principles is to act as a tool of an authority that seeks only to enrich and empower itself at our expense; in other words, to act as a slave, rather than a man. It is not merely a choice to act amorally, without conscience, giving over our moral choice to another; it is moral cowardice to refuse to do what we believe is right, using our "oath of allegiance" to excuse that choice.

Oath Keepers and Patriots, May 1941