>I suspect the reason that the US public seems to be
so >impossibly naive, is that if they reject the
latest >frauds, they threaten the entire system of
pretend. So >then what? The simulacrum begins to
liquefy and melt >away, leaving nothing but a very
disturbing
>armature. And who wants to live with that?
A good friend of mine is a Vietnam vet. He was there during Tet. There are pictures of him in his den, just a few, taken in some muddy hole with a large weapon. He's fit and dangerous in these old photos.
Now, he's an intelligent, funny, big hearted and sharp witted bear of a guy.
Even so, he believes that the US lost the Vietnam war because of the media sapping America's "will to win".
When I mention a few other important factors (granting him, for the sake of argument, the media angle) - the tenacious Vietnamese resistance, the techno illusions of Westmoreland and Mcnamara, the ennui amongst many soldiers who didn't know why they were there - he lets this pass over him like wind over the aerodynamic surface of a Porsche, and speeds along, beliefs unaffected.
This belief structure has helped him nicely during the present crisis. War Plan Iraq was just, the weapons are there, Dubya is a bold leader with vision, Iran, Syria and N. Korea had better watch out, we're marching to protect ourselves and the world, this is the best of all possible countries.
The list continues.
He is not stupid, and listens to my counter arguments politely and with interest (he likes to debate and all his flag waving buds just agree so it's no fun talking to them). But always his push back, even when he concedes that US foreign policy has been destructive in some way or another, is that the intentions were good.
It is this stubborn faith in American goodness that is really the foundation of all other assumptions. Was support for the murderous contras criminal? Well yes, but we're a "young nation" and we're bound to make bad mistakes like a steroid enhanced teenager with good intentions but clumsy methods.
This is the velodrome through which our debates race: no matter how heinous the crime mentioned, the underlying reasons were good so there's no need to look too deeply at ourselves.
Even slavery and the Indian wars - the original sins of the nation - were "mistakes".
I think that he may feel, deep down, that he has no choice. Because, if he allows one admission of plain guilt on the part of 'leaders', no good intentions, just narrow interests and bloody minded ruthlessness, the implications for all the other 'good intentions' explanations is too grave - they'd all crumble.
His patriotism is very important to him. it's not all he has - there's a loving wife, good friends, successful kids - but I think it sustains him as he remembers the terrors of the past. What was it all for? It couldn't have been for nothing, or General Dynamics' profits or McNamara's addled theories.
Of course, most Americans don't have this burden of memory to carry but, I think, there is a similar mechanism at play.
Progressives must try to suppress, or get beyond, the contempt they sometimes feel for ordinary people who don't want to know and look deeply into human motivation to think of alternative methods for reaching true believers.
Who, like all of us, are scared of the abyss.
DRM
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