[Mb-hair] Re- Tomgram- Andrew Bacevich on the New American Militarism

[John Zuehlke]

On Thursday, 21 April, 2005 Michael Butler <michael at michaelbutler.com forwarded an article entitled: "Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich on the New American Militarism". In this article he expressed concern that a 2003 survey of military personnel found that "two-thirds [of those polled] said they think military members have higher moral standards than the nation they serve". He also pointed out that similar sentiments were found in the civilian public.

He wrote: "Such attitudes leave even some senior officers more than a little uncomfortable. Noting with regret that "the armed forces are no longer representative of the people they serve," retired admiral Stanley Arthur has expressed concern that "more and more, enlisted as well as officers are beginning to feel that they are special, better than the society they serve." Such tendencies, concluded Arthur, are "not healthy in an armed force serving a democracy."

That last sentence is, IMHO, a great understatement.

Come the probable economic collapse of our beloved nation, the "Power Elite" (to borrow the term coined by C. Wright Mills) would quickly resort to naked autocratic force to control the inevitable social unrest. Since this "Elite" has been the great beneficiary of the changes made to our economic system over the last several decades - to the great detriment of the poor and middle-income population - the last thing that the "Elite" want is a democracy, especially an "economic" democracy.

To guard against this, the corporate media has pursued a relentless campaign to convince us that we should "privatize" because privately run corporations (which are essentially dictatorships in structure) are far more "efficient" than governments (which, at least in theory, are democratically responsive to the will of the populace). Therefore, the populace must be convinced that they, and the governments that nominally represent them, are both intellectually and morally inferior to the corporate elite and their authoritarian extension, the military (either private or co-opted from government). 

To prevent the military/police forces from identifying with- and worse, joining with- the general populace, it is imperative that they 1) feel morally superior to the "rabble" they are policing, and 2) that they enjoy a somewhat "privileged" lifestyle that they are in fear of losing.

Using this guideline, the ideal military/police force would be drawn from foreign countries that feature both extreme poverty and a culture different enough from ours to make "identification" with the American citizenry difficult. Clearly, a force "drafted" from our own country, especially one that represents a broad cross-section of our people, would be the last choice of the Elite.

(Unfortunately, we cannot look to either major political party to fight this horrible fate as they both have been complicit in creating the very economic conditions that have brought us to this crisis: Nixon destroying the Bretton Woods Agreements to stabilize international finance; Reagan to put us into a perpetual war economy; Clinton to finish off what was left of our manufacturing capability with NAFTA and other, unfairly-drafted trade agreements and begin the wholesale demolition of the "safety nets" for the poor; the Bushes to eliminate the civil rights impediments to dictatorial power.)

Sorry to be so glum. I truly hope that I am dead wrong.





Blessed be with peace, love, freedom, and joy!

John

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