Bacevich’s ten principles for reducing U.S. tendencies toward militarism:
A liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies. It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die. Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump’s supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working class, the refusal is unimpeachable. But like the know-nothing disavowal of knowledge after 9/11, when explanations of terrorism were construed as exonerations of terrorism, the refusal of empathy since 11/9 is a will to ignorance. Far simpler to imagine Trump voters as possessed by a kind of demonic intelligence, or anti-intelligence, transcending all the rules of the established order. Rather than treat Trump as the outgrowth of normal politics and traditional institutions — it is the Electoral College, after all, not some beating heart of darkness, that sent Trump to the White House — there is a disabling insistence that he and his forces are like no political formation we’ve seen. By encouraging us to see only novelty in his monstrosity, analyses of this kind may prove as crippling as the neocons’ assessment of Saddam’s regime. That, too, was held to be like no tyranny we’d seen, a despotism where the ordinary rules of politics didn’t apply and knowledge of the subject was therefore useless.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Science? The substance of here & now, the evidence we do see.
Must Read
Should Read/Listen
There are times when it is appropriate to bow your head in quiet contemplation and there are times when it is appropriate to raise your arms up, look to the heavens, and feel joy for the things which make us beautiful and full of light. This song, which we used to sing at Boy Scout camp when I was a teenager, is appropriate for the latter. Rise and shine.
I’ve taken over as admin of our local Democratic Town Committee’s Facebook page and Twitter feed so I’ve shifted focus a bit from spending time reading articles of personal interest to more of a focus on cultivating common ground on political issues. That stated, I haven’t stopped reading for personal interest. (Side note: If you have any insights on how to build a Twitter following, please let me know.)
And things Democratic party leadership needs to pay a lot more attention too (I think the majority of the rank-and-file gets this stuff but understanding is a bit slow to percolate up – looking at you Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer, et al. Giving Tom Perez a few months to get things in order before adding him to the list.):
From Benjamin Wittes:
So long as we live in a democracy, each of us has agency and a responsibility for the stewardship of our fellow citizens, and though we may not succeed in all our goals, we are obligated to try.