Austerity

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to assist the cash-strapped government of Cyprus with an emergency infusion of € 13 billion.

Naturally, there are strings attached.  In this case, the austerity measures demanded by the EU and the IMF include a 10% forfeiture of savings bank deposits.

The bankers and politicians fail.  Innocent people pay the price, as they have throughout the global economic crisis.  First, they lose their equity in stocks and in their own homes.  Now they are being penalized again for their own hard work and thrift.

And so the greatest wealth transfer in modern history continues apace.  How soon before austerity comes home to roost in the United States?  How will we respond? 

I truly want to believe that there would finally be a backlash against the plutocrats, a true occupation of Wall Street, but I cannot.  Sadly, the public will do what it’s done since 2008.  It will blame the Democrats, shiftless welfare cheats, and spendthrifts who owe more than they can ever pay.  In the end our false consciousness, our willingness to be capitalism’s useless idiots, will be our undoing.  We’ll lick our masters' boots even as they kick us into our graves...

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Please Back Off

I’ve just finished watching Won’t Back Down, last year’s movie about parents who defy the odds to improve their kids’ education.

Won’t Back Down, financed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and businessman Philip Anschutz, promoted by Michelle Rhee, and touted by conservative school “reform” advocates, makes its point in a predictably hamfisted fashion so that even the densest teabilly Wal-Mart shopper can figure it out.  I thoroughly hated it, as I expected to.  The story was inspired by a real-life incident a couple of years ago where parents used California’s parent-trigger law to convert a failing public school into a charter institution.

The producers signed a raft of well-known names for the project.  Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the main character, Jamie, while Viola Davis plays Jamie’s ally, Nona.  Clearly the project was well-financed, considering they also brought on Ving Rhames and Holly Hunter. 

Despite the strong cast, I was underwhelmed by the acting.  There was very little chemistry among the actors, and I just wasn’t convinced by their performances.  Also, and I can’t explain why, the Gyllenhaal siblings have always rubbed me the wrong way.  And so I couldn’t help but chuckle at thought of Maggie Gyllenhaal, a paragon of liberal smugness, cynically accepting the lead role in a right-wing propaganda flick.  Really, Maggie?  Did you need the money that badly?

Back to the film: Jamie is a plucky single mom who works two jobs while raising a daughter with learning disabilities.  Frustrated by her little girl’s lack of progress in school, she joins up with burned out elementary school teacher Nona after discovering a loophole in the law which allows parents and teachers to take over a school if it is failing.

Gyllenhaal and the scriptwriters self-consciously strive to imbue Jamie with an air of blue collar authenticity.  Jamie speaks in malapropisms while letting her daughter watch TV and munch Snickers bars after school.  She’s awed by Nona’s neatly kept home.  Her sense of boundaries is poor at best as she importunes parents, teachers, and administrators alike to do what’s right for her daughter. 

Won’t Back Down is a mostly conventional buddy film / fight-the-system tale.  Predictably, it concludes with the obligatory corny feel-good scene I remember in every Eighties inspiring teacher movie from Stand and Deliver to The Dead Poets’ Society.  But that’s not its worst sin.  At least twice in the film, Jamie quotes Gandhi’s purported aphorism, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” as justification for her efforts.  It’s like when wingnuts such as Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck quote Martin Luther King; it just comes off as vaguely sacrilegious.

At its heart, Won’t Back Down is an odious anti-union, anti-public education screed.  Throughout the movie, Jamie and Nona are stymied at every turn by two-dimensional cardboard cutout foes in the form of a sclerotic school bureaucracy, a do-nothing board of education, and a union which protects incompetent teachers through tenure.  (A “job for life after two years,” as one character puts it, perpetuating a cherished conservative myth.)  Unionized teachers, we’re given to understand, have no incentive to educate beyond collecting their inflated taxpayer underwritten salaries.  

While Won’t Back Down is a poorly made hack piece which will be soon forgotten, I wish I could say the same for the movement that spawned it.  We are on a slippery slope toward school privatization and teacher deprofessionalization because of the moneyed conservative forces working toward this end.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one well-known culprit.  The Walton Family Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation are two others.

But the worst of the rogue’s gallery of charitable foundations, to my mind, is the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.  Mr. Broad, who made his fortune in insurance and by building innumerable subdivisions of tacky tract houses, did what any other egotistical plutocrat would do when faced with the prospect of paying taxes.  He simply donated a fair chunk of his wealth to a charitable foundation he created then devoted himself to doling it out as a means of wielding power.  Among its programs, the Broad Foundation sponsors an “academy” to train school administrators for the new reality of K-12 education, which is that public schools must produce a uniform “product” regardless of students’ widely varying individual aptitudes.  The test will tell: Poor scores equal unemployed teachers.

Eli Broad suffers from the same conceit other wealthy individuals share.  Because he was successful at business, this makes him an expert in every other field of endeavor.  This is especially true when it’s a service provided by the public sector.  As we all know, government’s sole raison d’être is to siphon off the hard earned wealth of job creating entrepreneurs.  Therefore, it can only be made efficient when business people either privatize, or at least apply private sector practices to, government work.  (Never mind the non sequitur underneath this assumption; there’s no moneymaking potential in taking the liberal arts courses where you would learn what one is.)

The Broad Foundation is gradually making inroads into higher education.  My alma mater recently opened a new field house built with money donated by the Broads.  To my deep distaste, the president of the endowment foundation of the college where I work is the CEO of a real estate development company owned by Eli Broad.  I believe these are harbingers of a larger trend.  It won’t be long before pressure is brought to bear on college presidents and boards of trustees to scale back or eliminate general education requirements and non-vocational majors in favor of the University of Phoenix model of workforce training.  It’s never a good idea to encourage the life of the mind when the kind of people you want working for you are narrowly trained technicians who don’t ask a lot of probing questions.

If there is a hell, I hope there is a special corner reserved for Eli Broad.  As it is, the evil he’s done in his lifetime will be perpetuated through his foundation.   And I am not one of those progressives who put their faith in the secular eschatology of revolution.  Sometimes the bad guys win.  The hardest part is when everyone around you is convinced they’re the good guys and are cheering them on to victory.

Just like in Won’t Back Down. 

     

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Don't Call Your Soul Your Own

The customer service policy of UK-based quick-service dining chain Pret à Manger has made the news this week.  Hardly Page 1 stuff, but interesting in its way.

Apparently, Pret à Manger enforces cheerfulness among its employees by sending a mystery shopper to each outlet once a week.  If the anonymous visitor is greeted with sufficient obsequiousness, every worker at the store gets a cash bonus. 

How nice.  Because, after all, I know I want to be treated slavishly whenever I stop in someplace for a cup of coffee.  A fleeting encounter in the bustle of the day with someone I’ll likely never meet again, an exchange forgotten by me almost as soon as it ended, becomes an elaborate three-minute playlet of manners in which the other person’s livelihood depends upon how well he or she projects friendliness.

“Pret” arrived in the States a while back, I’m told, but it has yet to open any stores on the West Coast where I live.  But the chain’s effort to extract the last drop of cheerfulness from its low-wage workforce, described in The New Republic by Timothy Noah, demonstrates late capitalism’s quest to not simply claim their employees’ physical and mental labor but to take hold of their inner lives as well.  (It comes as little surprise that McDonald’s--home of the original McJob--owns an equity share in Pret.)

I like courteous service as much as anyone.  I enjoy dealing with friendly people, provided the friendliness comes from the heart.  But even as civility erodes to nothing, it appears that its last remnants survive within the plastic confines of the food service industry.  Still, I'm not sure if the Pret model is universally appealing.  It certainly isn't for me.  I’m more partial to the efficient, even detached, service at the old school joints I haunt when I’m in the city.  Places where the waitstaff are clad in white jackets, the lighting is low, and the paneling dark.  Aside from the occasional night out, however, I prefer to dine at home. 

But Pret’s customer service policy is a manifestation of a broader trend in the service industries in which so many of us now toil and a dark harbinger of things to come.  No telling how this affects the worker internally.  Kids sick?  Not feeling well yourself?  Bills past due?  Car trouble?  Fight with your spouse?  Your dog died?  Tough luck; you’ll just have to smile and accept your lot as a member of the servant class. 

The work I do has its own emotional labor demands.  But I can’t imagine having continually to contort my affect so as to best please each individual I come in contact with.  

Timothy Noah is undoubtedly correct when he observes that this push toward agreeableness favors women over men given the lifelong cultural pressure on the former to be pleasing to others.  My ex-wife, the product of a culture where emotional reserve is considered a virtue, loves to mock American women’s exaggerated emotiveness.  (“H-i-i-i-i-i!  How are y-o-u-u-u-u!  It’s so good to s-e-e-e you!”  Always makes me laugh.)  Such displays can hardly be sincere, even among friends.

However, sincereity isn’t really the point, then, is it?  Good management practice nowadays dictates exerting as much control over the workers’ lives as can be legally managed.  There’s an element of dominance and submission creeping into the workplace that was unimaginable a generation ago.  And why not?  After all, self-actualization in our society is fully achieved only when one is in a position to exploit others.

And so the Pret à Manger story is simply another installment of a long-running drama in our economic race to the bottom.  Its main plot thread is trivialization of the individual.  The truest expression of depersonalization is when we are asked to alienate not only our time and skill, but our inner selves in the bargain.  The day will soon be upon us, I’m afraid, when we can no longer dare call our souls our own.  

  

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Generation Gap

My HMO recently assigned me a new doctor.  Well, he actually wasn’t a doctor; he was a physician’s assistant.  This fact wasn’t a problem in itself.  But being a careful consumer of healthcare services in the information age, I researched his professional background online.  What I learned gave me pause.

It turns out that my primary care manager, to describe his role in insurance speak, was born in 1987.  I would be placing my health in the inexperienced hands and technology addled mind of a Millennial, and that would not do.  I called my HMO, told the customer service drone on the other end I wanted a new doc, and to my pleasant surprise I got my way.  My new “PCM” is an actual MD, and she was born in 1961.  Her professional record is substantial and, as far as I was able to find, unblemished.

Problem solved, at least for the time being.  I know that this conundrum will recur as the years progress.  Eventually, the professionals of my generation or earlier will have retired and my only choices for doctors, lawyers, and accountants will come from today’s young’uns.  I am dreading the prospect.

I never thought I would feel this way.  After all, I’ve worked with young people throughout my professional life as well as in my community service activities.  More importantly, I’m a little disappointed in my own kneejerk judgments in light of my own youthful frustrations with what I saw as my elders’ misperceptions of my Generation X peers.

If you look at media depictions of Gen X from the Eighties and Nineties, you would have trembled for the future.  Personally, I was a little mystified by them.  Even relatively sympathetic pop culture depictions of Xers, such as the movies Reality Bites, Clerks, or just about any of the early work of Richard Linklatter failed to reflect my subjective experiences as a teen and twentysomething.  Nor did the literary emanations of Chuck Palahnuik or even Douglas Coupland, who did the most to popularize the moniker “Generation X,” fully resonate with me even though I enjoyed them on their own merits. 

I suppose it was because by my late twenties, I was a married homeowner with a couple of kids and a middle management job I’d held since graduating college several years earlier.  I was neither a slacker nor a techie.  I wasn’t financially dependent on my parents as I tried to make my breakthrough as a—fill in the blank—poet, musician, film producer, artist, or dancer.  I suspect the majority of people my age didn’t have these experiences either, any more than the typical Baby Boomer was a hippie other than perhaps in the sartorial sense.

But as I contend with increasingly callow groups of kids each semester, my resentment waxes while my hopes for the future wane.  Official expectations don’t help matters.  The executive dean at my small campus suffers from a case of youth worship bordering at times on ephebophilia.  (The semi-fictional Dean Kimpossible who occasionally haunts my posts is an all-too-slight exaggeration of an all-too-real person.)  My job security as a non-tenured prof consequently demands that I cater to the shallow intelligence and short attention spans of my young charges.  Standing on principle can lead to unemployment in academia just as easily as it can anywhere else in this economy.  I may be craven, but I’m employed.

What I find so hard to grasp is not so much their dependence on technology, but the way in which they use it.  I was inspired by the role of social media—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al.—in organizing and publicizing protest during the Arab Spring.  By contrast, Millennials at home use it to ceaselessly document the minutiae of their daily lives.  The outcome is that, to a larger degree than any generation before them, the present youth cohort exists within a self-referential bubble nearly impossible to burst.  Collective narcissism, if you will.  Already driven to distraction by their toys, our Millennials have had their self-esteem propped up by parents and the educational system to the point where failure really isn’t an option; accordingly, it has all but been eliminated as a possibility.

So, why did I refuse the boy-PA as my primary care doc?  Was it necessarily his youth that made me ask for someone else?  Well, let’s just say it was a matter of premonition and a desire to avert the inevitable just a little bit longer.  Many of my students are self-declared nursing majors or they plan to go into some other healthcare field.  A few of them have told me they’re pre-med.  I guess someone has to do it.  And while I know that the rigors of training will pull the bullshit card on a few of them, I also know that many will get through nonetheless.  (There’s also the possibility that the medical and nursing schools will eventually have their own versions of Dean Kimpossible, in which case we’re all screwed.  I try to push those thoughts aside for the sake of my own fragile peace of mind.)     

I have this recurring scenario which runs through my head whenever I think of the day when I must entrust my health to today’s youth.  It goes something like this: I’m undergoing a major procedure, let’s say open heart surgery.  My life depends upon a successful outcome.  And the next-oldest person in the OR is twenty years my junior…

Scene: The Operating Room. 

Time: The not-so-distant future. 

The PATIENT is already prepped and on the table.  Enter DR. CHELSEA, DR. TIFFANY, DR. TODD, NURSE BRITNEY, and NURSE JOSH.

DR. CHELSEA

Dr. Todd, is the patient anaesthetized and ready?

DR. TODD

Yeah, we good.

DR. TIFFANY

 Wait…Chelsea, have you, like, ever done this procedure before?  Do you even know what to do?

DR. CHELSEA

(Scoffs)

Huh, yeah!  I totally looked it up on Wikipedia!

 DR. TIFFANY

Oh, wow! That’s such a great idea!  I’m so doing that next time!

DR. CHELSEA

(Smugly)

Yeah, well, that’s why I was first in my medical school class!

 (Turns to NURSE BRITNEY)

Scalpel, please. 

(NURSE BRITNEY seems distracted as she hands DR. CHELSEA the scalpel.)

 What’s wrong, Britney?

 NURSE BRITNEY

(Tearfully, her voice quavering…)

It’s Dr. Jared.  He…he…unfriended me on Facebook!  I…I…just don’t know what to d-d-do…

(NURSE BRITNEY’s voice trails off into a sob.  She buries her face in her hands.  DR. CHELSEA, overcome with shock, suddenly drops the scalpel.  It lands with a clatter on the instrument tray.)

DR. CHELSEA and DR. TIFFANY

(In unison…)

Oh…my…god!!!  What a jerk!

DR. TODD

(Scoffing)

Huh, Jared!  What a pantload!  You could do way better.

NURSE BRITNEY

 (Sniffles, smiles behind her facemask)

Thanks, guys!

NURSE JOSH

(Abruptly, in an alarmed tone)

Aw, dude!  Check it out!  The patient’s vitals are slipping!

 DR.  CHELSEA

(She is clearly annoyed by the interruption)

Josh, WTF!  Can’t you see Britney’s upset?  Stop being such an asshole, okay?

 NURSE JOSH

I’m just sayin’…

 DR. TIFFANY

Yeah, well, save it for later.  The patient’s not going anywhere.  And Britney’s hurting now!

(There is a loud, steady tone as the PATIENT suddenly flatlines.  DR. CHELSEA turns around, clearly agitated.)

 DR. CHELSEA

What now? Can’t this guy leave us the hell alone for two seconds?

 NURSE JOSH

Aw, weak!  He’s dead!

DR. TODD

What a dick!  He could’ve at least waited a coupla minutes before bailin’ on us.  Epic fail!!!

DR. TIFFANY

Hey, wait, this means we’re done for the day!  Let’s go out tonight!

 DR.  CHELSEA

Omigod, that’s great!  I just bought a low-cut dress that totally shows off my new tattoo!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY grasp each other by both hands.  They jump up and down in unison)

Omigod!  Omigod!  Omigod!  A-i-i-i-e-e-e-e-e!

NURSE BRITNEY

And let’s go to the beach tomorrow!  I just got a new thong and a bikini wax!  I am so ready to forget Jared and meet some new guys!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY begin jumping and squealing again.  NURSE BRITNEY joins in)

DR. TODD

(Jerks his thumb toward the now deceased PATIENT)

Uh, what about this choad over here?

 DR. CHELSEA

(Sighs disgustedly, snapping off her surgical gloves)

Oh, him.  I don’t know…just call it, already.

(Exit DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY and NURSE BRITNEY, shaking their heads in annoyance at having been inconvenienced)

 DR. TODD

(Motions toward NURSE JOSH)

Dude, like, cover him up or something!

(NURSE JOSH carelessly throws the sheet over the PATIENT’S head)

So, like, what’re you doin’ tonight?

 NURSE JOSH

I’m goin’ to a rager over at my cousin’s place.  He’s got this DJ playin’ there, name’s DJ Spazzz.

 DR. TODD

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  I heard of him! 

 NURSE JOSH

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  This dude’s, like, off the chain, yo!  You comin’?

 DR. TODD

Ai’ight!

 NURSE JOSH

S-w-e-e-e-t!  We outta here!

(DR. TODD and NURSE JOSH pull out their phones and begin texting intently as they amble towards the door.  Exeunt.  Fade to black…)

Fade to black, indeed…

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Andrew Kehoe: An Overlooked Conservative Martyr?

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shootings here is an ode to an unsung hero, an overlooked martyr of American conservatism named Andrew Kehoe.  Mr. Kehoe, like so many Americans today, was a man who had had enough and was prepared to tell the world, in the most dramatic fashion, that he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Andrew Kehoe lived on a farm outside the small town of Bath, Michigan in the late 1920s.  A civically minded sort, Kehoe served as a member of the Bath school board and had been the town clerk for a spell.  While in office, Kehoe pursued a single-issue agenda.  Specifically, he believed he was paying too much in school taxes.  Why, he didn’t even have kids!  Accordingly, Kehoe defined himself as a public servant by insisting on strict fiscal discipline. 

Kehoe’s desire not to waste the people’s taxes on such frivolities as books, facility maintenance, and teachers’ salaries brought him into bitter conflict with the profligate district superintendent, one Mr. Huyck.  Contributing to Kehoe’s ire was the fact that the prohibitive school taxes he was paying were breaking his finances.  He was so financially pressed he stopped paying the note on his farm and let his homeowner’s insurance lapse.  The bank soon informed Kehoe that it planned to foreclose, threatening his rightful stake in the “ownership society.”        

Driven to despair by the great liberal conspiracy to destroy the productive classes, Andrew Kehoe decided to push back against high taxes and oppressive government.  In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” and Kehoe was just the sort of patriot to act upon that little nugget of wisdom handed down by one of the founders of our great republic.

A skilled electrician, Kehoe supplemented his slender income by doing maintenance work in the Bath schoolhouse.  (No contradiction here—getting a government paycheck is okay when you do it.  It’s only wrong when someone else does it.)   While puttering in the basement, Kehoe assembled a cache of dynamite and surplus military explosives.  Wired to an alarm clock, it made a pretty good time bomb. 

Andrew Kehoe knew he had to spare Bath’s schoolchildren from a bleak future living under the heel of a tyrannical government.  Worse, they might grow up to live unproductive lives earning so little as to not shoulder their fair share of the tax burden.  Kehoe also knew his wife couldn’t bear to face life without him, so he compassionately bludgeoned her to death and set fire to their house before heading into town to go out in a blaze of glory. 

Kehoe arrived in Bath just in time to see his plan come to fruition.  The bomb detonated with a ferocious blast.  In the confusion, Kehoe called Superintendent Huyck over to his truck.  As Huyck approached, Kehoe lifted up the .30 caliber rifle he purchased exercising his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  He fired a shot into the cab’s interior, having had the foresight to rig a bomb in the truck for just such an opportunity.  The rifle shot set off the truck bomb, killing both Kehoe and the oppressor bureaucrat Huyck.  The bomb also sent flying the scrap metal with which Kehoe had so thoughtfully loaded the truck, relieving a few more people of their lives in the process. 

The toll of Andrew Kehoe’s handiwork came to 45 deaths, most of them children between the ages of 7 and 12.  But when you think about it, wasn’t that a small price to pay when you’re striking a blow to preserve liberty in this great country of ours? 

Lord knows we need someone like Andrew Kehoe today.  You see, the problem with people like Adam Lanza is that they don’t act on principle.  Because the one thing that distinguishes a patriot from a lone nut is principle.  Because someone has to defend America from that Kenyan Muslim usurper in the White House, big government tax-and-spend politicians, limousine liberals, welfare queens, abortionists, Hollywood activists, the ACLU, atheists, feminists, queers, illegals, terrorists, tree huggers, peaceniks, labor unions, community organizers, and those Occupy freaks…oh, wait.  Never mind…

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Got Hawks?

The rumors have been circulating for weeks, but it will become official on Monday.  President Obama will nominate former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense.

Hagel is a Republican.  Although it has become customary for recent administrations to name members of the opposing party to cabinet posts as a token of bipartisanship, particularly in their second terms, Republicans have consistently run the Pentagon for the past sixteen years regardless of which party has held the White House.  The lone exception has been outgoing SECDEF Leon Panetta, who has held office for a paltry eighteen months. 

The reason for this trend, I think, is not a purported desire for bipartisan amity.  Rather, it’s because Republicans have coopted national security as their policy issue.  Presidents of both parties have shown little hesitation to resort to military force; nevertheless, Republican administrations have cloaked themselves in a reputation for toughness the Democrats can never seem to match.  So, whenever a Democratic president taps a Republican to oversee defense policy he is sending a message that he and the nation will be resolute in the face of foreign threats.

The Democratic reputation for weakness has little historical basis.  In the past, even when they ran for office on a peace platform, Democratic presidents have stepped readily into the role of wartime leader whenever necessary.  Woodrow Wilson and FDR cemented the U.S. in its role as global power by leading the U.S. through the world wars.  Lyndon Johnson soundly trounced the hawkish Barry Goldwater in 1964 by playing upon public fears of thermonuclear holocaust, only to escale the war in Vietnam after he won. 

The so-called “Daisy Girl” spot aired by the Johnson campaign is still considered among the most effective political commercials of the TV age.  The best response the Goldwater team could muster was a message featuring a grim-faced Ronald Reagan downplaying Goldwater’s reputation as a warmonger.  Reagan’s legendary stature as the “Great Communicator” notwithstanding, the commercial was no match for the Daisy Girl ad.  The prospect of nuking little girls playing in meadows was just too unsettling for many voters.

Unfortunately, Johnson's eagerness to prove himself as a wartime leader permanently altered the complexion of his own party.  His insane escalation policy in Southeast Asia, along with the social divide created by the Civil Rights Movement, irrevocably split the New Deal coalition which had ensured Democratic electoral successes for nearly four decades. 

The result was that in 1972, the Democratic coalition prominently featured antiwar activists.  George McGovern ran on a promise to end the U.S. role in the Vietnam conflict.  Concurrently, the Southern Strategy had lured the better part of a key Democratic constituency—conservative whites—to the Republican Party.  In spite of McGovern’s bona fides as a decorated World War II veteran, American voters overwhelmingly chose the tough-talking Richard Nixon. 

The 1972 disaster tarred the Democrats with the peacenik brush.  Never mind that Nixon brought the troops home a few months after the election without any loss of face.  The Republicans were tough realists; the Democrats were wimps.  Jimmy Carter, who had spent more time in uniform than any president since Dwight Eisenhower, was dogged by this reputation.  If Gerald Ford had been faced with the Iran hostage crisis instead of Carter, and had he dealt with it in an identical fashion, it is unlikely Ford would have been judged a failure to the same extent as Carter.  To a public largely devoid of critical thinking skills, perception is reality and Carter went into the crisis already looking weak.

Post-1972 Democratic campaign themes didn’t always help matters.  A 1984 Mondale campaign ad interspersing images of innocent-looking children with those of launching missiles set to the strains of Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach Your Children” didn’t even win over aging Baby Boomers.  By contrast, the Reagan reelection campaign emphasized the theme of renewed American greatness.  Metaphorically addressing Cold War security issues, the “Bear in the Woods” ad made the case for a strong national defense in the face of an adversary whose intentions weren’t always evident. 

Nor did the efforts of Democratic presidential candidates to appear martial go over well; one need only recall Michael Dukakis’ infamous tank ride to grasp that simply posing with military hardware won’t automatically give you street cred.  Bill Clinton’s draft board contretemps garnered him conservative hostility in the ’92 race, though his antiwar stance during Vietnam had seemingly evaporated by the time he reached the White House.  The interventions in Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans, as well as his eagerness to (figuratively) stand toe-to-toe with Saddam Hussein would have cemented the rep of any Republican administration, but few adherents of either party have cared to acknowledge Mr. C’s frequently belligerent foreign policy.

By the time of the 2000 election, the respective images of each party had become fixed.  Al Gore had gone to Vietnam while Dubya played hooky from his Air National Guard duties, but that hardly mattered.  The wimp factor loomed large, and Gore’s condescending, pedagogical persona did little to help the Democratic cause.  The red/blue divide was drawn down the very middle of the American electorate, a division which has changed little in the intervening dozen years.  Public opinion concerning the War on Terror and our ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq has largely followed this divide.

Republicans have dominated the national security issue for so long that the collective wisdom of the party leadership has trickled down to the rank and file voter.  (Popular belief may be one of the few instances where “trickle down” has actually worked.  It certainly hasn’t economically.)   One can learn this in just about any discussion with a Republican on defense and foreign policy.

I’ll give you an anecdotal example.  During the bleak second year following the invasion of Iraq, I was at one of my son’s Little League games and the topic of the war came up among the dads watching in the bleachers.  One of them, a pudgy electrical supplies salesman I’ll call Laszlo, was describing the battle for Fallujah with particular relish. 

Laszlo spoke sagely of flanking and envelopments and preparatory fires, of reconnaissance patrols and intel analyses and the marksmanship feats of snipers.  I mean, wow, it was like you were really there!  In my mind’s eye I saw flags waving and eagles soaring.  I could hear a Toby Keith anthem swelling in the background as F-16s swooped to punish the enemies of freedom.  It was all I could do to suppress the lump rising in my throat and the tears of pride welling in my eyes—

But I composed myself long enough to exclaim, “Laszlo, that’s an incredible story!  You obviously know a lot about this stuff!  When did you serve?”

Laszlo suddenly looked sheepish and said, “I tried to enlist after high school, but my trick knee kept me out.  My wife’s nephew is a Marine, and he told me all about it.”

Hmmm, yes, it’s always a bad back or a trick knee that prevents these suburban heroes from doing their part to safeguard democracy.  But that’s okay, because the simple act of registering Republican will make you an automatic expert on matters of war and peace. 

President Obama appears to agree.  Don’t misunderstand me; I’m criticizing the president’s political motives and not Hagel’s qualifications.  Chuck Hagel led an infantry squad in Vietnam and knows first-hand what it means to serve and sacrifice.  But the president’s audience for this move, the voters he’s trying to convince, are guys like Laszlo who are perfectly happy to send other peoples’ kids off to war.  

This is the place where I should say that the Democrats need to take back the national security issue from the Republicans.  This may not matter as much as I’ve implied, however.  Electoral choice is illusory in a two-party system.  Both parties are the tools of Big Capital, and peace is bad for business.  Consequently, it matters little whether President Obama chooses a Republican or Democrat to helm the Pentagon during his second term.  Senator Hagel is a good choice given the personal attributes we valorize as an imperial nation.  I only wish our values would lead us to select a different kind of person to hold such a critical post.

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

A Small Diversion....

Diary of a Mad Proffie

Thursday, January the Third

Dear Diary,

Had another classroom nitemare.  I dreamed it was the first day of the semester, and this time I forgot to bring copies of the syllabus.

I wonder how much longer it will be before I dream I came to class in my undies…

XOXO,

Unassuming