The Nation: A Great Country Is One That Can Beat the Bejesus Out of Everyone Else

[newthinking]

A Great Country Is One That Can Beat the Bejesus Out of Everyone Else

And other myths of American patriotism.
Nan Levinson
March 17, 2015
The Nation Magazine

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.

The BDSP is good citizenship conflated with JROTC, hosannas to sniper kills, the Pentagon’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War—what are we celebrating there anyway?—Rudolph Giuliani pining for a president who loves America in Reaganesque fashion, and the organizers of South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day, who wouldn’t let the local chapter of Veterans For Peace march with their banners because, so the story goes, they didn’t want the word “peace” associated with veterans.

Of course, the Big Dick School of Patriotism isn’t new—revolutionary roots, manifest destiny, history as the great pounding of hooves across the plain, and all that. Nor is it uniquely American, even if there is something culturally specific about our form of national hubris on steroids. Still, there have been times in our history when civilians—some in power, some drawing strength from numbers—have pushed back against the military and its mystique, or at least have demanded an accounting of its deeds. And of course, until the Cold War bled into 9/11, there was no national security state on the present gargantuan scale to deal with.

http://www.thenation.com/article/201641/great-country-one-can-beat-bejesus-out-everyone-else

[swilton]

1. It seems that one of many solutions

cropping up in critiques of militarization is a mandatory draft.

Totally disagree - a voluntary draft will always produce the Dick Cheneys of this world who can buy their way out.....or the grandstanding politicians who exploit their military service for political gain and reinforce militarization through the revolving door.

The BDSP is analogous to our society's infatuation with guns and both are embedded in our cultural myths an ideologies - I haven't a clue as to how one would socially engineer a change.

[newthinking]

2. I absolutely believe a mandatory draft would make the MIC be more responsive

[blkmusclmachine]

3. https://thatsmyphilosophy.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/7-mountains.jpg