Most of you probably know by now that Andrew Bacevich, Viet Nam war veteran, Iraq War critic and author of the book “How Americans Are Seduced by War,” lost his only son in Iraq on Mother’s Day this year.
I recently heard a short interview with Bacevich on NPR and was moved by this quote:
What kind of democracy is this when people speak, and the people’s voice is unambiguous, and nothing happens?
Yesterday in an editorial in the Washington Post Bacevich expounded on this theme (h/t to sbj in Brenda Stewart’s diary Memorial Day). I think Bacevich’s analysis, thoughts and feelings are a profound statement about where we are this Memorial Day.
What exactly is a father’s duty when his son is sent into harm’s way?
Among the many ways to answer that question, mine was this one: As my son was doing his utmost to be a good soldier, I strove to be a good citizen.
As a citizen, I have tried since Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a critical understanding of U.S. foreign policy…
Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others — teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks — to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.
This, I can now see, was an illusion.
The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed.
He then goes on to hold both the Bush administration AND the Democrats responsible for not listening to the people because…
Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.
In closing, I’ll just add one more powerful voice who also, in my mind, correctly analyzes the nature of our situation today…Al Gore in an editorial this week in The Guardian:
The pursuit of “dominance” in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders.
Its no news to anyone here that our democracy is in serious peril – if not already lost. I just think we need to really wake up to the truths these two men are speaking and align our actions with the reality we are facing.
Thank you for always bringing us such important and valuable information, Nancy.
ABSOLUTELY!
Love ya
Shirl
We don’t have a democracy anymore.
I wonder if we really ever did have one?
We have never had a true democracy in the United States because we were founded by individuals who didn’t trust the demos, the many poor, to be smart enough to make the kinds of decisions a republican form of government requires of its citizens. The American experiment was that people acting together can make decisions as well or better than kings and inbred aristocrats. For most of our country’s history, to further that experiment we have expanded the definition of citizen. For the most of our history, we have placed great faith and treasure in the most democratic of American inventions—-free public education. The right wing in America has spent billions of dollars to buy votes and politicians to slander, defund, and undermine the curriculum of public education, the orginal purpose of which was to create knowledgeable and active citizens. They have succeeded so that now too many Americans think Genesis is a scientific treatise rather than an ethical one. They miss the point on both counts. Karl Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses.” Nothing much has changed, except that we can add the statement that television is the crack cocaine of the masses.
The beauty and ugliness of democracy reside in the same truth: in a democracy citizens get the government they deserve.
If we think we deserve better, we have to be better citizens. That means we have to think and vote with the transcendent notion of what will better us as a whole rather than just our part of the whole.
“If we think we deserve better, we have to be better citizens. That means we have to think and vote with the transcendent notion of what will better us as a whole rather than just our part of the whole”
>>>>>>>>
Yep..and the question is..how do we get people to realize that?
I just want to say that you really captured a lot of wisdom in those words phronesis – thanks for that.
My one question would be whether even thinking, educated voters can change things now. The game seems to be rigged to the point that I wonder if we’re beyond that as an avenue for change. This is why I think Bacevich’s words are so powerful. When it comes to the Iraq War – the people voted with at least a modicum of intelligence – and nothing changed. So, what now??
You’re right. It’s easy to become cynical when change looks impossible, and I’m hard pressed right now, as I think you are, to discern a meaningful difference between our two parties. Both are wholly owned subsidiaries of corporate America (Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big InsCo).
What can we as citizens do? I think we are getting to the Jeffersonian point. Maybe our new declaration of independence will show up first floating around the frog pond. But a first step has to be for Americans to stop acting like subjects and begin acting like citizens.
Are we too lazy? If we are, we deserve Dubya. I’m convinced that incompetents like Bush 2 and Reagan get elected because the a majority of the electorate chooses to believe bullshit because it allows people to be lazy. It is the death of a republic. Thus went Greek poleis like Athens, thus went Rome, and thus goes the United States.
Plato, in his Republic (the Greek word actually more closely translate as constitution), outlined a kind of natural history of societies. I think it’s still true. Democracies become tyrannies because citizens want to give the power to make decisions and take civic actions to someone else. And sometimes they don’t even care if that someone else is a small fanatical minority whose world-view is infantile fantasy. To be involved politically requires a lot of extra energy (just ask Cindy Sheehan) especially when we have to provide for our own food and shelter. So we get intellectually lazy on purpose and believe the bullshit so we don’t have to worry about it.
This fact is behind our founders original limiting of citizenship to property owners. Historically, in a republic citizens are self-sufficient (not necessarily rich) economically and are willing to bear arms to defend themselves and their fellow citizens. Jefferson, Madison and the other founders were afraid of (although they didn’t call it this back then) the middle and working classes because they were not necessarily “free” from economic constraint. So they would not have the leisure to be politically active or they could be pawns of others because of economic dependence. The shining light of America has been the continual expansion of citizenship from that original small beginning and the suport of that expansion through public education. These central elements of a healthy electorate are under ceaseless attack from fascist elements in America.
Given all this, I think progressives need to become staunch defenders of the Second Amendment.