Category: Debris

I subscribe to the Pop Culture Association & American Culture Association listserv, which typically fills my in-box only with announcements of calls for papers and research queries. But occasionally someone’s dander will rise and an interesting discussion will follow. This week, several participants have been debating the merits of the various Cultural Studies textbooks, and from that debate has blossomed a chat about the practical impact of myth and heroes on American politics. I was only skimming the messages until I discovered this note, written by John Shelton Lawrence, co-author of The Myth of the American Superhero (2002):

I would challenge people to think about President Bush’s donning of the flight suit today, engaging in flight, appearing with his flight helmet on deck of the Abraham Lincoln and place it in the context of the film Independence Day. Is the president being scripted to match the plot of a superheroic action president in the film? The question seems worth exploring.

If you’re at all intrigued by this question, Dr. Lawrence has posted an interesting article on his Web server. “Post 9/11: Who Can Save the Day?” is an anecdotal but historically sensitive discussion of the “relationships between U.S. foreign policy makers and some important popular artifacts.” He takes on, in short order: Teddy Roosevelt and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, FDR and William Randolph Hearst, Clinton’s and Dole’s celebration of Independence Day, and Dubya’s affinity for Rambo. The last section, as you might have guessed, is the most relevant today. After describing the administration’s push for the American Services Members Protection Act, Lawrence concludes with this fun little anecdote (and by “fun” I mean horrifying):

In February 2002 the president’s pleasure in superheroic fantasy and his eagerness to use it in conveying his own political values was revealed in an incident with Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel. To accompany a “Masters of the Universe” article on the Bush administration’s crusade against evil, Spiegel created a satirical cover depicting each national security player in the role of a zealous destroyer from American popular culture. George W. Bush, surrounded by his advisers, received a muscular Rambo body holding an automatic weapon and ammunition belts.

Daniel Coats, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, visited Der Spiegel‘s editorial offices — not to protest the caricature or the article’s viewpoint about reckless unilateralism — but to report that “the President was flattered,” whereupon he ordered thirty-three poster-size renditions of the cover for the White House. Each policy maker on the cover reportedly wanted a copy.

[insert loud guffaw, deep sigh, profane tirade, or sarcastic insult — whichever best suits you.]

I watched the address last night and got exactly what I expected. As an aside, I don’t understand why the President’s staff informs the media of what he will be saying hours before he says it. I guess it is just more time for the administration to disseminate its message.

I watched a fantastic installment of Frontline last night called, The Long Road to War. The first half hour was devoted to a political biography of Saddam, the second segment dealt mostly with the ’91 Gulf War, and the final bit addressed the Clinton and Dubya years. I’m so glad I caught it because it helped fill in a lot of holes for me. It was also nice to get the story from a relatively objective source, which was then supplemented with original interviews with prominent Iraqi officials and neo-cons like William Kristol and Richard Perle, who offered a fascinating peek inside the Hawk mentality. Here’s a helpful chronology from Frontline’s Website.

Some interesting facts (that were news to me):

Saddam’s relationship with the CIA goes back to the early-60s, when he was an up and coming enforcer (torturer/killer) for the Bath Party. The CIA helped them overthrow the existing government, which was pro-Soviet, and Saddam slowly rose through the ranks until he deposed his mentor in 1979. To inaugurate his regime, Saddam, at a formal dinner, had several of his best friends removed from the room and executed. Video footage of the dinner (which was shown on Frontline) was also broadcast throughout Iraq to let the people know what kind of a leader they now had. An odd moment: you can see Saddam crying after he gives the orders. Even in the 1960s, by the way, Saddam had a separate library devoted to Stalin. Nice.

One interesting segment dealt with the feud between Saddam and Bush 41. All commentators, American and Iraqi alike, agreed that each man had disastrously misjudged the other. Bush made the regrettable mistake of making it personal — calling out Saddam by name — and in the process he did nothing but elevate Saddam’s status in the Middle East. Not only was Saddam taking on the United States, but he was now actually taking on the President himself. What a hero. Saddam, for his part, assumed that Bush would never actually attack him. After being supported by America throughout the 80s during his war with Iran and in his suppression of the Kurds, Saddam guessed that Bush would never risk American lives in the Iraqi desert.

The big revelation for me was learning about the massive mistakes that we made at the end of the Gulf War (and that were strangely well-intentioned). After beating down the Iraqi army and destroying most of Saddam’s Republican Guard, our forces planned to eliminate what remained of enemy opposition. Powell, who was on the scene and who was disturbed by what he was seeing (on Frontline they showed footage of American helicopters gunning down retreating soldiers), Powell called Schwarzkopf and suggested that they call it off. Schwarzkopf passed the recommendation onto the White House, who went along with Powell. Rather than risk more American lives and needlessly kill more Iraqis, a truce was declared and Schwarzkopf was sent alone to sign off on Iraq’s terms of surrender. Here’s where it gets interesting.

The Iraqis asked for permission to fly their helicopters. Knowing that we had destroyed most of their roads and bridges, Schwarzkopf agreed. Then, the Iraqis asked for permission to fly their armored helicopters. Again, Schwarzkopf agreed. Why did the Iraqis need those helicopters? Both in the North (the Kurds) and in Baghdad itself (Shia Muslims), opposition forces were rising up to depose Saddam — just as Bush had hoped! What did we do about it? Well, after allowing Saddam’s troops to use their armored helicopters, we just threw up our hands and said, “We did our job. Now it’s up the Iraqi people to deal with Saddam.” Tens of thousands of resistance forces were wiped out while our military looked on from a safe distance, forbidden to intervene.

I’m really frustrated by the frequent comparisons of Saddam to Hitler — Saddam is contained, after all — but the footage of the crushed uprising was eerily similar to what I saw in The Pianist this weekend. Young men were dragged on the ground and shot point blank in the back of the head. Women and children had no choice but to put their belongings on their back and step in line. Everyone fought for bread and water. Bush didn’t act until several weeks later, when Saddam turned his attention to the Kurds. We set up and protected relief camps that were filled with Kurdish refugees, but by then the resistance had been quashed and Saddam was firmly in power again. Several interviewees said that, had America intervened, even for only a few days, Saddam would have been ousted by his own people.

I also enjoyed the program because it dealt explicitly with the divide in the Republican party between what they called the Neo-Reaganites and the Practicalists. The divide has created an interesting tension in Dubya’s administration. On one side are folks like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who have been pushing Bush toward war with Iraq since well before 9/11; on the other are Bush 41 and Powell, who warned the President months ago that he would never get support for war from the U.N. The Hawks versus the Diplomats. I was well aware of this divide, of course, but the show cast it in a new light. I have more sympathy for the Practical thinkers, especially for Powell, who has been dutifully fighting an honorable diplomatic battle that he has always known would never amount to more than ceremonial political maneuvering. But I have to admire (in a sick, sick way) the Machiavellian efficiency of the neo-cons, who exercise such remarkable control over affairs. That they’ve managed to do it under the flag of “Christian Providence” is just forehead-slapping.

I have to admit that some of the administration’s attitudes toward Saddam make more sense to me now. I am so ready to see his reign brought to an end, and to think that that will happen without actual military force is, at best, idealistic, at worst, hopelessly naive. But I’m still horrified by the prospect of our looming war because I genuinely believe — and the Frontline special only reinforced this belief — that our administration honestly thinks that it will be stage one (or maybe stage two, after Afghanistan) in a military-supported, imperial quest to democratize the world. Talk about naive.

Mark Levine, an assistant professor in the History Department at UC – Irvine, has written a piece for Alternet that asks a simple but important question: How will the Left respond to a “Bush Wins” scenario? In other words, what will happen to the energies and coalitions formed around the anti-war movement this year when American forces depose Hussein quickly and with relatively few casualties — few enough, at least, to avoid swaying public opinion back home? What will happen when Bush successfully establishes something resembling (superficially, at least) a democratic-like regime in post-war Iraq? Remember that the general opinion of the American populace is that we have already achieved an overwhelming victory in Afghanistan — a victory against terrorism, a victory for democracy. Problem solved. Time to move on.

The political Left, having established its most public position in decades, could be heading toward another in a series of significant embarrassments. With war now only days away (I assume), parts of the anti-war movement seem to be — and I say this with some hesitation — relishing the prospect of disaster. Today, Antiwar.com posted a link to this article, which promises “thousands of U.S. fatalities.” Surely the Left — which, you must admit, expresses its concerns in moral terms as often as the President does — can stake out its position on stronger grounds than, “Well, when thousands of Americans die, then, then the whole world will finally see how misguided Bush really is.” Surely the Left can hope for better than a bloody “I told you so.”

Levine writes:

the reality is that if the war is quick and a U.S.-occupation established effectively, progressive forces need to accept the removal of Hussein as a great opportunity to build democracy and justice in Iraq, whatever the actual motives of the Bush Administration. The social and political forces unleashed by the end of decades of Hussein’s murderous rule will not easily be penned in by a US-sponsored show-democracy; but whether these forces use a reopened public sphere or turn to violence to respond to the likely betrayal depends in good measure on how adroitly the world progressive community can lay fast but deep roots in Iraq.

Levine argues that the Left should be working overtime now “to inoculate the American people against what the Carnegie Endowment for Peace has already labeled the ‘mirage’ of democracy that will likely be planted in Iraq after a short war.” Doing so is a tricky game, though, especially when American attention spans are busily occupied by American Idol and Anna Nicole. Harkening back to the finest hours of the New Left, Levine suggests that our greatest potential might lie in student movements. But he warns that the Left’s credibility also rests on its ability to refocus “on the larger world systems which have produced toxic conflicts such as Iraq, Sudan, Colombia and the Congo. In other words, taking steps toward a more holistic approach to peace and justice.” I hope I get to see it happen.

But, of course, the Left continues to hold out hope for peaceful resolution, and the White House waffling of the last few days has offered occasional glimpses of promise. The best initiative for peace that I’ve found was offered this week by Sojourners – Christians for Justice and Peace. After meeting with Tony Blair and Clare Short, an ecumenical delegation of church leaders worked with Sojourners to draft a 6-point “Alternative to War for Defeating Saddam Hussein.” It seems remarkably pragmatic and just to me — a welcomed relief after months of naive anti-war sloganeering. Instead of annotating the proposal, I would encourage you to read it for yourself and pass it along.

I’ve heard the soundbite hundreds of times over the years, memorizing subconsciously its particular pauses and inflections. Not until the weeks following September 11, though, did FDR’s most memorable message resonate in any meaningful ways for me. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He was speaking, of course, within the context of our Great Depression, but that notion — that America must choose to never surrender its defining characteristics to irrational fear — has since been rightly applied to a host of economic, social, and political concerns.

The peculiar dangers of “fear” — its threat to democracy, humanism, rationality, diplomacy, spirituality — have been on dramatic display in recent days. I’ve instituted a boycott of all 24-hour news channels in my home, but last night, as I burned off my frustrations at the local Y, I was deeply disheartened by what I saw on the TVs that surrounded me. Connie Chung’s silent lips mouthing the latest terror alerts. “Survival experts” providing how-tos on terrorism preparedness. Home Depot employees reporting raids on their duct tape and plastic sheeting inventories.

I’m trying so hard to avoid surrendering to cynicism, to have sympathies for those who are genuinely afraid right now, to understand why Our Christian President (TM) has felt it necessary to whip us into such a frenzy of excitement and paranoia. As I’m prone to do, my thoughts have lately been drifting toward the 1950s and its obsessive/compulsive fixation on communism. I can practically hear Senator L. B. Johnson, his Texas drawl demanding that we respond to Sputnik before the Russkies take control of the atmosphere and unleash catastrophic weather on us (which he really did). I can hardly flip on the news without hearing Bert the Turtle reminding me to “duck and cover” at the first sight of a nuclear flash.

The lines between fact and parody are blurring in frightening ways. Look at this bit from The Onion:

Saddam Enrages Bush With Full Compliance
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush expressed frustration and anger Monday over a U.N. report stating that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is now fully complying with weapons inspections. “Enough is enough,” a determined Bush told reporters. “We are not fooled by Saddam’s devious attempts to sway world opinion by doing everything the U.N. asked him to do. We will not be intimidated into backing down and, if we have any say in the matter, neither will Saddam.” Bush added that any further Iraqi attempt to meet the demands of the U.N. or U.S. will be regarded as “an act of war.”

And now this from yesterday’s White House press briefing with Ari Fleischer:

And I have a document — I’ll be happy to release this to you — about the fact that Iraq has not complied, they cover up their compliance in seeming efforts to comply, such as their statements about unconditional U-2 flights, which we now know from the letter that was sent by the Iraqis, so-called conditional became — so-called unconditional became conditional as soon as the ink was dry on their letter. It was never unconditional to begin with; it always had conditions attached.

It’s all just too much at times, which, I guess, is precisely their point. Lull us into exhausted submission. I heard a report on NPR a couple weeks ago about the effect of impending war on our economy. The general consensus among those interviewed was, “Well, if we’re going to blow up Baghdad, I wish we’d go ahead and get it over with. I’ve got stuff to buy and episodes of American Idol to watch.” I don’t use this term lightly — and I’ll probably retract this in a day or two — but it all stinks of fascism to me.

On Saturday, I’ll be standing at the corner of Morrell Road and Kingston Pike, smack dab in front of Knoxville’s largest shopping center and busiest intersection, participating in a peace vigil. I’m of two minds about it. I’m not so naive as to think that my presence will change the minds of those drivers zooming by, conducting their Saturday morning errands. But I’m excited by the idea of taking part in a global protest, and I also like the idea of being a living representative of that significant section of Christian America that feels increasingly alienated by an administration that so frequently claims our interests.

A friend from Canada wrote, asking what friends and neighbors in the States are feeling and saying to each other. This is how I responded.

I’ve been noticing a really odd disconnect between the American political climate as it’s depicted in the media (a too-easy target these days) and what I hear in typical conversations. Generally speaking, I think that most media outlets are slightly more liberal than the average American, which makes the media’s apparent disregard for the popular anti-war sentiment all the more frustrating (and borderline suspicious). Though estimates have varied wildly, something like 100,000 people gathered in Washington last weekend, and if I hadn’t actively sought out coverage, I wouldn’t have even known about it. In most major papers it was literally page 8 news.

I have also yet to speak to a single American who is adamantly in favor of war. Sure, a certain portion of the population will simply parrot the words of those politicians who they most respect — “You’re either for us or against us” — but that tendency is hardly exclusive to Americans. Instead, everyone I speak to is, at best, unsure of the President’s motives, and most are downright upset. Granted, I spend most of my time in a university environment, which also tends to be more liberal, but I have yet to detect anything like a swell of broad support for war. In the days following 9/11, most Americans wanted to fire back. Now, there seems to be a more healthy skepticism.

As an amateur political nut, I’m really intrigued by all of this. Bush and his buddies dug deep into the well of standard Republican tactics. They demonized an enemy (the axis of evil) in order to unite support, they reminded Americans of our “moral responsibility” to police the world, and they distracted us from traditional Democratic issues (social reform, health care, workers rights, etc.). Now, though, they’re obviously surprised to discover that their political rhetoric isn’t as stable as it was during the Cold War years. You can practically see it on Bush’s face. He says, essentially, “The U.N. won’t tell us what to do,” fully expecting every American to back up his claim. But a lot of us don’t, and now he’s stuck in quite a battle with France and Russia, frustrated that he even needs their input. I have no doubt that if a majority of Americans *really* wanted war, this UN resolution would be irrelevant.

The war issue is obviously really complex — I think there are some very compelling arguments for the ouster of Saddam — but I have no doubt that Bush’s motivations have always been largely political. War has always been a good Republican issue, especially leading into election season. But I think it might just backfire on him this time. I guess we’ll find out on Tuesday, when we have our midterm elections. If the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, which just might happen, then I think Bush’s saber rattling will go down in history as a political mistake.