Having worked with immigrant students for the last 4 years, I work with many young men who due to interrupted education are still in high school at "military age". Not only do most young immigrants understand the privilege it is to be in the U.S. and work hard to achieve their dreams, but the violence they are fleeing almost all has roots in U.S. policy. There's not enough room to go into the U.S. backed coups, but I will say ATF found that 40% of guns recovered from crimes in Central America and 70% in Mexico came from the U.S.
We need to look at everyone through the lens of humanity, even terrorists and criminals. The less OTHER'ing we do with people, the better off society is in general. Thank you for writing this though :)
Solid essay - your call for looking at people through a lens of humanity certainly feels right. For me, I try to use humanity as the anchor when the media stories get crazy.
This essay was not the place, but somewhere in your writing you need to help us put in context the idea of the just war. You consistently frame national defense as a tool for evil, counter to the welfare of the people. I know there are lots of foreign policy abuses but isn't there some case for national defense in resisting the naked aggression of Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping? Until you address this question, your world view is missing a key part of its foundation.
Thanks for helping me think through today's headlines.
I'm having questions arise over your use of the word "naked". What I can gather is that your falling for the Sui Generis propaganda trope peddled by military powers who are afflicted with the reflexive "there's a violent solution to every political problem." With the complicity of most media, they'll tell you terrorism (every one not on their side) has no cause, despite an otherwise alleged "rational" universe under the law of causality, other than its own evil. The nature of news reporting is increasingly truncated to eliminate context and history. Granted, their audience appreciates simplification, and even thoughtful persons a not researchers, and your question is appreciated but your verging on justifying the militaristic status quo. Why is it up to you to try to justify militarism? Don't we have enough hawk politicians and weapons industry lobbyists already doing that, almost to the point of the nation's fiscal collapse?
Oiram - thanks, good response. My adjective 'naked' could have been the word 'unambiguous.'
I have consumed western propaganda most of my life. Guilty. However, I am working at applying more critical thinking. Part of that critical thinking leads me to believe there is a role for the military - where, how, who, and when are all part of the thinking. It seems that justifying or rejecting militarism is part of every citizen's obligation.
As to the status quo, rejecting it is actually my point - I am prepared to do so, but as I think that through, aren't there limits to rejecting a military response? I think so.
Aggression from 3 countries that have directly been on the aggressed end of American imperialism for ~80 years? I'd say it is more speaking the language of the U.S. than it is violent states in a vacuum. This is not me acting as an apologist for their internal politics and behavior, but the United States created all 3 of those "rivals" through it's own hideous behavior. I'd encourage you to look into the histories of each and where the U.S. pops up. It's never to be "the good guy."
This is a very sick mentality that, as you rightly said, is embodied by the saying 'when you're a hammer all you see are nails'.
I wish the USA and its allies had the grace to be a constructive force in the world, get their military out of the Middle East and the rest of the world, and support their own populations instead.
When the article started, I assumed that the battalion of public-service veterans were writing to warm about treason in the ranks - Trump quickly found Secret Service members who were willing to become Trump staff rather than SS staff; FBI staff were known to really hate Hillary Clinton, and worked to find things wrong with her in 2016.
If anybody has a mentality that the American people are the Enemy, it's a law-enforcement organization that has been criticized.
Obviously none of you have read Information Warfare by Billyana Lilly. The case studies of what is going on being directed by Putin. I guess it going to take someone targeting you and beating your spouse almost to death to get you to open your eyes. This article is misinformed and misleading. Wow.
And all this sounds all too familiar. When I was a child in California, "wetbacks" from Latin America, protesters against the Vietnam war, and Martin Luther King and his associates, among many others, were treated the same way by the "establishment". In this essential regard, little or no progress has occurred in the USA during my lifetime.
"Person in the street shrugs / 'Security comes first' / But the trouble with normal is / It always gets worse" (Bruce Cockburn, "The trouble with normal", 1983)
An interesting statistic in this regard would be the quantifying of per capita armed enforcement and security employees of every kind, from the unarmed support staff of all these to all involved in weapons production. With a side note about the changing ratio of government (all levels) vs private armed security staffing. This would include the conflict theater mercenaries, like the Eric Prince business, whatever it's called now. My guess is that this "industry", which can include the armies of investigators, analysts, prosecutors, every activity that deals with violent conflict, is an unimaginable money suck on the world's economy and resources, both human and otherwise. The ultra rich can easily buy their own private armed forces. Ordinary citizens can organize into armed "militias" freely. Let's imagine the accumulation of expense and human resources consumed by all this diverted to beneficial productive activity. What would be the drop in crime and armed conflict and the gain in human comfort and sustainable future? The costs of all this are always increasing as is the problems it's supposed to be reducing. Well, they'll tell you, imagine where we'd be if not for our security apparatus. But then the notion creeps up on you: How much of insecurity is because of it?
How much did the U S sped over the past century to maintain the capitalist class structure of the western hemisphere that has resulted in the border crossing/asylum seeker crisis? The banana and coffee plantation operators will tell you it was worth every penny.
Pelosi's claim that pro-Palestinian protest is influenced by Russian infiltrators is her way of maintaining her membership in the corrupt club of supporting Israeli control of our institutions.
I’m excited to support your work (tho I wish your tour was coming to CA) but after all the annoying bullshit with substack I can’t imagine paying to subscribe through them and giving 10% off the top to the free speech chuds. I hope there continues to be more opportunities to support this newsletter outside of substack.
I think you make some great points, HamNo, and I'm not trying to debate them. From my view, the thing about Pelosi is less about National Security Brain Disease and more that she can't envision anyone in her party not agreeing with her, so either treats them as gadflies (AOC and other Squad members, when she was speaker) or curiosities that can't possibly exist (Dems and Lefties who are protesting Israel's actions in Gaza) so they have to be plants or Suspiciously Motivated. She's always had blind spots for anything that gets in her way of being right about everything.
Clearly Pelosi has a lot wrong with her politically. But I do think she is not as much of an outlier on this aspect of her political thinking as a lot of us would like to think.
Sure, and I don't think she is. I just think that Pelosi in general is motivated more by imperiousness than fear or desire for "law and order." In her haste to cast doubt on any internal protest of the way things are going, she's using the same (wrong, tired) attack that conservatives used against BLM protestors and basically any time lefties protest and mean words are said. This doesn't strike me (and again, I'm probably wrong here) as Security-Brain so much as Ossified I Am Always Powerful And Correct Brain.
I'm calling it the Kissinger brain syndrome, in which all events are subject to a power metric calculation and the human suffering resulting from its consequences are just part of the cost of maintaining dominance. So what we have here is the "its just the way it is" folks vs the "doesn't have to be this way" folks. You can also call it the "bottom line" mentality of the reductionistic, failed imagination, of those who have risen within the power structure that doesn't benefit anyone outside the club (See G Carlin "big club, you're not in it").
I . . . I don't hate this viewpoint. Pelosi is definitely of the era of "What America Does Is Good Because America Did It" era that Kissinger personified, and is ossified enough to take it to the grave because she's insulated from any of its consequences.
Having worked with immigrant students for the last 4 years, I work with many young men who due to interrupted education are still in high school at "military age". Not only do most young immigrants understand the privilege it is to be in the U.S. and work hard to achieve their dreams, but the violence they are fleeing almost all has roots in U.S. policy. There's not enough room to go into the U.S. backed coups, but I will say ATF found that 40% of guns recovered from crimes in Central America and 70% in Mexico came from the U.S.
Yes, good comment. This piece didn't even touch on the fact that this is all our fault historically speaking.
We need to look at everyone through the lens of humanity, even terrorists and criminals. The less OTHER'ing we do with people, the better off society is in general. Thank you for writing this though :)
Solid essay - your call for looking at people through a lens of humanity certainly feels right. For me, I try to use humanity as the anchor when the media stories get crazy.
This essay was not the place, but somewhere in your writing you need to help us put in context the idea of the just war. You consistently frame national defense as a tool for evil, counter to the welfare of the people. I know there are lots of foreign policy abuses but isn't there some case for national defense in resisting the naked aggression of Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping? Until you address this question, your world view is missing a key part of its foundation.
Thanks for helping me think through today's headlines.
I'm having questions arise over your use of the word "naked". What I can gather is that your falling for the Sui Generis propaganda trope peddled by military powers who are afflicted with the reflexive "there's a violent solution to every political problem." With the complicity of most media, they'll tell you terrorism (every one not on their side) has no cause, despite an otherwise alleged "rational" universe under the law of causality, other than its own evil. The nature of news reporting is increasingly truncated to eliminate context and history. Granted, their audience appreciates simplification, and even thoughtful persons a not researchers, and your question is appreciated but your verging on justifying the militaristic status quo. Why is it up to you to try to justify militarism? Don't we have enough hawk politicians and weapons industry lobbyists already doing that, almost to the point of the nation's fiscal collapse?
Oiram - thanks, good response. My adjective 'naked' could have been the word 'unambiguous.'
I have consumed western propaganda most of my life. Guilty. However, I am working at applying more critical thinking. Part of that critical thinking leads me to believe there is a role for the military - where, how, who, and when are all part of the thinking. It seems that justifying or rejecting militarism is part of every citizen's obligation.
As to the status quo, rejecting it is actually my point - I am prepared to do so, but as I think that through, aren't there limits to rejecting a military response? I think so.
Aggression from 3 countries that have directly been on the aggressed end of American imperialism for ~80 years? I'd say it is more speaking the language of the U.S. than it is violent states in a vacuum. This is not me acting as an apologist for their internal politics and behavior, but the United States created all 3 of those "rivals" through it's own hideous behavior. I'd encourage you to look into the histories of each and where the U.S. pops up. It's never to be "the good guy."
lol. Lmao.
This is a very sick mentality that, as you rightly said, is embodied by the saying 'when you're a hammer all you see are nails'.
I wish the USA and its allies had the grace to be a constructive force in the world, get their military out of the Middle East and the rest of the world, and support their own populations instead.
When the article started, I assumed that the battalion of public-service veterans were writing to warm about treason in the ranks - Trump quickly found Secret Service members who were willing to become Trump staff rather than SS staff; FBI staff were known to really hate Hillary Clinton, and worked to find things wrong with her in 2016.
If anybody has a mentality that the American people are the Enemy, it's a law-enforcement organization that has been criticized.
Obviously none of you have read Information Warfare by Billyana Lilly. The case studies of what is going on being directed by Putin. I guess it going to take someone targeting you and beating your spouse almost to death to get you to open your eyes. This article is misinformed and misleading. Wow.
And all this sounds all too familiar. When I was a child in California, "wetbacks" from Latin America, protesters against the Vietnam war, and Martin Luther King and his associates, among many others, were treated the same way by the "establishment". In this essential regard, little or no progress has occurred in the USA during my lifetime.
"Person in the street shrugs / 'Security comes first' / But the trouble with normal is / It always gets worse" (Bruce Cockburn, "The trouble with normal", 1983)
If subscriptions were a dollar per instead of five, you’d have more than five times as many subscribers, betcha
An interesting statistic in this regard would be the quantifying of per capita armed enforcement and security employees of every kind, from the unarmed support staff of all these to all involved in weapons production. With a side note about the changing ratio of government (all levels) vs private armed security staffing. This would include the conflict theater mercenaries, like the Eric Prince business, whatever it's called now. My guess is that this "industry", which can include the armies of investigators, analysts, prosecutors, every activity that deals with violent conflict, is an unimaginable money suck on the world's economy and resources, both human and otherwise. The ultra rich can easily buy their own private armed forces. Ordinary citizens can organize into armed "militias" freely. Let's imagine the accumulation of expense and human resources consumed by all this diverted to beneficial productive activity. What would be the drop in crime and armed conflict and the gain in human comfort and sustainable future? The costs of all this are always increasing as is the problems it's supposed to be reducing. Well, they'll tell you, imagine where we'd be if not for our security apparatus. But then the notion creeps up on you: How much of insecurity is because of it?
How much did the U S sped over the past century to maintain the capitalist class structure of the western hemisphere that has resulted in the border crossing/asylum seeker crisis? The banana and coffee plantation operators will tell you it was worth every penny.
Pelosi's claim that pro-Palestinian protest is influenced by Russian infiltrators is her way of maintaining her membership in the corrupt club of supporting Israeli control of our institutions.
OooOoo I’m here to be an annoying bitch sorry.
I’m excited to support your work (tho I wish your tour was coming to CA) but after all the annoying bullshit with substack I can’t imagine paying to subscribe through them and giving 10% off the top to the free speech chuds. I hope there continues to be more opportunities to support this newsletter outside of substack.
I think you make some great points, HamNo, and I'm not trying to debate them. From my view, the thing about Pelosi is less about National Security Brain Disease and more that she can't envision anyone in her party not agreeing with her, so either treats them as gadflies (AOC and other Squad members, when she was speaker) or curiosities that can't possibly exist (Dems and Lefties who are protesting Israel's actions in Gaza) so they have to be plants or Suspiciously Motivated. She's always had blind spots for anything that gets in her way of being right about everything.
Clearly Pelosi has a lot wrong with her politically. But I do think she is not as much of an outlier on this aspect of her political thinking as a lot of us would like to think.
Sure, and I don't think she is. I just think that Pelosi in general is motivated more by imperiousness than fear or desire for "law and order." In her haste to cast doubt on any internal protest of the way things are going, she's using the same (wrong, tired) attack that conservatives used against BLM protestors and basically any time lefties protest and mean words are said. This doesn't strike me (and again, I'm probably wrong here) as Security-Brain so much as Ossified I Am Always Powerful And Correct Brain.
I'm calling it the Kissinger brain syndrome, in which all events are subject to a power metric calculation and the human suffering resulting from its consequences are just part of the cost of maintaining dominance. So what we have here is the "its just the way it is" folks vs the "doesn't have to be this way" folks. You can also call it the "bottom line" mentality of the reductionistic, failed imagination, of those who have risen within the power structure that doesn't benefit anyone outside the club (See G Carlin "big club, you're not in it").
I . . . I don't hate this viewpoint. Pelosi is definitely of the era of "What America Does Is Good Because America Did It" era that Kissinger personified, and is ossified enough to take it to the grave because she's insulated from any of its consequences.