Wednesday, November 5, 2003|
David Brooks essentially advocates atrocity: 11:37:20 PM | It's not that we can't accept casualties. History shows that Americans are willing to make sacrifices. The real doubts come when we see ourselves inflicting them. What will happen to the national mood when the news programs start broadcasting images of the brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt? Inevitably, there will be atrocities that will cause many good-hearted people to defect from the cause. They will be tempted to have us retreat into the paradise of our own innocence. Somehow, over the next six months, until the Iraqis are capable of their own defense, the Bush administration is going to have to remind us again and again that Iraq is the Battle of Midway in the war on terror, the crucial turning point where either we will crush the terrorists' spirit or they will crush ours. The president will have to remind us that we live in a fallen world, that we have to take morally hazardous action if we are to defeat the killers who confront us. It is our responsibility to not walk away. It is our responsibility to recognize the dark realities of human nature, while still preserving our idealistic faith in a better Middle East. Welcome to our new American-style fascism. Funny, it's not so different from its predecessors, is it? S said Brooks' piece made him think of "Selling Murder: The Killing Films of the Third Reich," a film that featured the Nazi propaganda used to convince Germans it was okay for the state to murder their neighbors who were mentally or physically disabled (among others, of course). The film, S says, was mostly of a class given to Nazi Youth. Like Brooks' essay, it started kind and "reasonable" and ended up advocating atrocity. Meanwhile, one soldier is on trial for being a coward. I guess he wasn't quite on board for that "morally hazardous action" Brooks says we should be prepared for. It's as if we are incapable of learning the simplest of lessons from history, as if we were blind to everything that has come before. 
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I must admit I'm confused. 5:18:21 PM | Since joining the Salon blog community, I've read Miguel Octavio's The Devil's Excrement occasionally to learn a bit about contemporary Venezuelan politics. I know very little, though somewhere deep inside I know that the relationship between what has been a bloodless coup in our own country and those bloody and otherwise that have happened across Latin America for decades is a strong one. This alone has made me interested in reading more about Latin American politics. I read a review today in the NY Times of a new film, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which seems to be in exact opposition to the views of Chavez' government presented by the Devil's Excrement. I've yet to see the film, and as I said, I know little about Venezuelan politics. I know, too, that things are often more complicated than they appear, and that both documentaries and blogs (and books, etc.) tend to present one-sided arguments. Still, I'm troubled. That our intelligence agencies have had their fingers in the messes across the Americas is well documented and supported (it's even been admitted, at times), so I find it a little suspect that Devil's Excrement denies the full breadth of this possibility. Perhaps it's not a good source afterall. I worry that our future may be similar to the present in some of our southern neighbors, and for this reason I've wanted to learn more about our neighbors' histories and current situations. Please post any recommendations in the comments attached to this post. Meanwhile, we're headed into the run-off for governor in Louisiana this weekend. Bobby Jindal has just received the endorsement of Mayor Nagin, who went against his party (Democrat) to back Jindal. I've not followed it as closely as I do Illinois politics, in part because we own property there and we don't here. But I do know that what is Democrat in Illinois doesn't exist down here. The politicians are all conservative. I know, too, that there is hope among many people that someone will come along and fix the problems that have been entrenched in Louisiana politics for centuries (yes, centuries!), and that there is little chance Jindal, or his opponent, will be the one. Now that I'm living in a state where politicians are carted off to jail with an almost ordinary occurence, perhaps I should start learning more about Louisiana history instead of focusing on Latin America to see which direction our nation's headed. Perhaps it is here, in the swamps, where our future lies.
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Last update: 7/17/05; 10:06:00 AM .
