Print this post.By Case Wagenvoord [print_link]
Tom Brokaw, like Tom Hanks (Saving Pvt. Ryan) have become hagiographers and sanitizers for WW2. Meanwhile, the actual roots of inter-imperial war go unexamined.
When a country’s past is fable, the present veers towards unreality. The past is not static. It changes as we change, as we become more perceptive with the passage of time. Often times, this change is painful as we are forced to confront the ghosts of the past we have kept hidden.
Fable becomes a refuge from the pain of self discovery. Once we have exchanged the dynamic of an ever-changing past for a static world of make believe, the past ceases to be a source of growth and becomes frozen in amber, thus dooming the present to repeat the sins of the past over and over again.
America’s past became frozen with our victory in World War II, a victory that has turned out to be democracy’s swan song.
At one time our wars saw the mobilization of the citizenry followed by its demobilization once victory was achieved. World War II was different. There was no demobilization as we slowly morphed from a republic to a militarized security state.
Victory in World War II gave rise to the fable that we were a military superpower. From this, it followed that we made the error of equating hardware with strength and equating strength with nobility of purpose. Just as the Spanish believed they were saving Indian souls by enslaving and slaughtering them, so we believe that we are bringing democracy to the Third World by raining Hellfire missiles on mud huts.
In the process we are slowly spending ourselves into penury just to live this fable of the past. To this end our oligarchs glamorize World War II as a time of high honor and righteousness. Fairy dust so fills the air that we are blinded to the reality that World War II was an exercise in industrial slaughter. It was in this war that we crossed a moral threshold as civilians became legitimate military targets. The Germans built camps; we firebombed.
In order to keep a dead past alive, the mind needs a constant stream of delusions that protect it from the truth. This is why we need al Qaeda and terrorism. They protect us from the harsh reality that we are a hollowed-out shell. This delusion is abetted by Wall Street with its constant stream of asset bubbles, which maintain the illusion that we are the richest nation on earth when, in fact, we are broke.
We are like the aged dowager, living a life of genteel poverty, who maintains the illusion of wealth by plunging further and further into debt in the belief that her children will deal with it after she is gone.
Now, as we sink even deeper into the quicksand of delusion, we are being told that there is now a link between Colombia’s rebels and al Qaeda to smuggle cocaine into Europe via West Africa.
How wonderful! Now we have more countries we can “intervene” in as we continue with our Eternal War of the Empty Policy. Nothing shores up a bully’s ego like beating up on a kid smaller than he is. Each blow hides his fear and his weakness. His redemption is found in the blood of his victim.
Like the bully, we seek our redemption in the blood of innocent women and children as we continue to beat up on the weak. It’s a feel-good thing, especially for the bureaucrat bored to tears by endless meetings and reams of policy papers. What a thrill it is to order wholesale slaughter and destruction with a nod of the head knowing full well that no blood will splatter his expensive wingtips.
This is what happens when our leaders try to drag a fabulist past kicking and screaming into the present , thus corrupting the future as they do so.
Frequent contributor to TGP Case Wagenvoord blogs at http://rightwingstoner.blogspot.com and welcomes comments at Wagenvoord@msn.com. His essays focus primarily on history, culture and politics.