The Big Dick School of American Patriotism

[kpete]

Published on
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
by TomDispatch
The Big Dick School of American Patriotism
America's new military mystique and what we make of it
byNan Levinson

Let’s face it: we live in a state of pervasive national security anxiety. There are various possible responses to this low-grade fever that saps resolve, but first we have to face the basis for that anxiety -- what I’ve come to think of as the Big Dick School of Patriotism, or (since anything having to do with our present version of national security, even a critique of it, has to have an acronym) the BDSP.

The BDSP is based on a bedrock belief in how America should work: that the only strength that really matters is military and that a great country is one with the capacity to beat the bejesus out of everyone else. Think of it as a military version of 50 Shades of Grey, with the same frisson of control and submission (for the American citizen) and the assumption that a good portion of the world is ripe to be bullied.
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These days, no one in America directly takes on the military. Not the president, who just requested $534 billion for the new Pentagon budget, plus an additional $51 billion for supplemental war funding. Not Congress, where the range of debate over an “authorization” of war in Iraq and Syria goes from “hawks,” who want assurances that we’ll blow ISIS to oblivion by any means, to “doves,” who want assurances that there will be no “boots on the ground” while we blow ISIS into oblivion. Certainly not the courts, which, among other things, have consistently refused to let military objectors invoke their right to disobey illegal orders. And not American citizens who are now well trained to spend their time thanking their all-volunteer warriors for their sacrifices before turning back to the business of everyday life.

It seems to matter little to anyone that, since 9/11, what is supposed to be the greatest fighting force in the world has been stymied by modestly armed insurgencies -- in response to which we keep buying our military yet newer props like the wildly overpriced, over-touted, and underachieving F-35 fighter plane, and sending them back to clean up the very messes they helped produce not so long before. There never seem to be any consequences to this repetitive course of action. Well, none if you don’t count the squandering of whatever political capital this country had after 9/11, or the way a million or so veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan will require costly care for the rest of their lives, or the billions spent on war rather than the environment, infrastructure, education, or (fill in your favorite civic need here).



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more:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/18/big-dick-school-american-patriotism

[hughee99]

1. $51 billion for "supplemental war funding"? What war?

As I've been told, we're out of Iraq and Afghanistan, what other "war" needs funding? Or are they just planning ahead?

[KamaAina]

2. I thought this was going to be about Cheney

[tblue37]

3. Reminds me of the commercial for a gargantuan SUV that ends with the owner

admitting that its real selling point is that it can crush other cars.

[Scootaloo]

6. Interestingly, the two are intertwined - seeing as that's the selling point of the humvee

[bullwinkle428]

8. Are you referring to the "Canyonero", as featured on "The Simpsons"?

[tblue37]

4. Those who make policy are controlled (owned) and well rewarded by those who profit handsomely

from war. Therefore, military responses are the first, last, and always choice.

[WillyT]

5. K & R !!!

[Danascot]

7. The irony is

those who champion the Big Dick School of American Patriotism are highly likely not to have one.