Celebrating Death, again

Steven Johnston
Neal A. Maxwell Chair in Political Theory, Public Policy, and Public Service, University of Utah

For America’s elected representatives, the 2011 holiday season called for gift-giving, both material and symbolic. The recipient, if you will, was patriotism. First came the “Vow to Hire Heroes Act.” Now we have the Civil Service Recognition Act. The Democratic and Republican parties may be split on which version of neoliberal capitalism ought to govern America’s social, economic, and political life, but they can always agree on the fundamentals of patriotism, including the need to feed this insatiable affective cultural machine. Patriotism is always on guard for new sources of sustenance to maintain its glossy sheen. Nothing rivals dying for your country, unless, of course, it’s killing for your country—though when it comes to killing, the celebration tends toward the discrete.

The Civil Service Recognition Act provides for (to quote the statute) “the presentation of [a] United States flag on behalf of federal civilian employees who die of injuries incurred in connection with their employment.” It is not just military service personnel who risk—and lose—their lives working in the name of the American people (members of the diplomatic corps offer one prominent example). Nor do you need to serve abroad to have your life placed in danger. It can happen on the home front as well, a space increasingly militarized and securitized in the last thirty years.

Who would object to honoring those who 'serve' their country and pay the proverbial ultimate price? Well, the American Legion, for one. Initially, it condemned the bill, citing the following language as objectionable: “A flag shall be furnished and presented…in the same manner as a flag is furnished and presented on behalf of a deceased member of the Armed Services who dies while on active duty.” Fang Wong, the Legion’s national commander, objected to the equation of civilian and military service, privileging the latter: “Civil service workers do not sign a pledge to defend America with their lives, they are not forced to serve in combat zones, and their work routines do not include engaging enemy forces overseas.” Not surprisingly, right-wing bloggers joined in the condemnation, one describing it as “The Flags for Bureaucrats Act,” arguing (I use the term loosely) that it was “just another trapping of power available from the federal government to all those people in the ever expanding federal bureaucracy.” The statute was quickly changed, as supporters of the bill insisted no equation was intended—or possible. The American Legion supported the amended bill without hesitation. Patriotism’s love affair with death again won the day.

Still, and somewhat strangely, the ritual enacted into law hasn’t changed (a flag will still be presented). How to make sense of this? It seems that the American Legion was primarily interested in policing the terms of American political discourse. You simply cannot say publicly (this applies especially to the state) anything that seems to equate civilian and military service. The latter is sacrosanct.

What allegedly distinguishes these forms of service? Though Fang Wong won’t explicitly say it, it’s the act of killing for country that separates the two. Presumably most civilians who die in the performance of official duties do not kill, but this distinction does not always hold true—just ask the CIA. Does the exception prove the rule?

Ironically, the right-wing hysteria may be warranted, a defensive reaction designed to deflect attention from another reality not to be exposed—the mercenary character of the military forces of the United States, which are routinely showered with (more and more) trappings to join and remain in the military. If anything, the military represents the pinnacle of achievement in the American welfare state, though many Americans might be loath to think in such terms. This is the comparison that must be unthinkable, certainly unspeakable. What’s more, the real issue is not that civilian service might rise to the level of military service; the fear is that military service is no more elevated than civilian service. As Andrew Rosenthal points out, many conservatives don’t consider government jobs real jobs; well, how is it that a military career became so highly valued in a country whose founders were deeply suspicious of a standing army? Many conservatives deride professional politicians (Mitt Romney, ludicrously, tried to tarnish Newt Gingrich with this label in a recent GOP debate). While not endorsing such a judgment (I like politics), I would ask how professional military service achieved its exalted status. Shouldn’t it be something that everyone does, briefly, when young? And if a permanent military force is needed, why isn’t it on the list of America’s necessary evils (like government itself)? How is it, for example, that make-work jobs fighting an imperial war in Iraq come to be honored? How was it contributive to America’s collective project?

Finally, the Civil Service Recognition Act, ostensibly reflecting a generous political impulse, excludes and marginalizes as much as it includes and honors. It privileges forms of service informed by death rather than life. Service here functions as a euphemism for sacrifice, itself a euphemism for death. Not surprisingly, then, the thousands of citizens of the Occupy movement will receive no formal recognition for their democratic activism on behalf of justice, fairness, and the 99% (even though they, too, it turns out, risk their lives in its pursuit).

If anything, democratic activism, perhaps especially if undertaken by the wrong people, often fosters state violence and disenfranchisement. Republicans across the country have undertaken a party-sponsored program to systematically eliminate as many likely Democratic voters (openly targeting students) as possible from the electoral process in pursuit of a one-party state. Tragically, those who do in fact kill and die in the name of America’s democratic values thereby see their efforts, in the end, subverted, even destroyed, by those who deploy them with undue ease. For what exactly are they killing and dying?

The Return of the Big Lie

William E. Connolly

Johns Hopkins University

The facts are well known. A recent ad by the Romney campaign ran a video allowing viewers to watch and hear the very words of Barack Obama: “If we keep talking about the economy we’re going to lose.” That quote closed a series of statements attributed to the President. But the quote was undated and, well, incomplete. It turned out that it had been delivered by Obama during the 2008 campaign. It read in full “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘if we keep talking about the economy we are going to lose.’”

Outraged Democrats protested the ad. “Neutral” commentators said it was “egregiously misleading” and a sign that the campaign in general was going to be rough. Romney refused to apologize. He said “what is good for the goose is good for the gander”--a quote that hovers somewhere between almost saying that he could identify similar misrepresentations from Obama and expressing identification with a base that is eager to have him run such lying attack ads. A senior advisor, Eric Fehrnstrom, announced that the ensuing controversy worked to the advantage of Romney because it called people’s attention to the economy: “...their reaction was quite hysterical,” he said, “But that was the point.”

The original ad was not simply an instance of misrepresentation; it was a Big Lie. A Big Lie is a representation that not only attributes to the opponent things he did not say but joyously reverses what was actually said to express loyalty to its base and disdain for the opponent. A Big Lie is joyous not simply because it misleads. It is so because it speaks to a portion of its base who welcome and demand such misrepresentations even if they are exposed as misrepresentations. A Big Lie, then, is a BIG lie, a lie expressing a perverse symbiosis between leaders and audience that allows its effects to reverberate even after it has been exposed. Thus correction of a Big Lie is insufficient to counter it. We now have a rather long record of Obama being called a Muslim, a socialist, and a Kenyan who is not an American citizen; these widely circulated charges express the characteristics of the Big Lie. And we have a record of followers of Palin and Bachmann introducing editorial changes into Wikipedia entries to alter the record so their gaffes have the look of historical accuracy. Perhaps we should think a bit more about how a Big Lie works. 

A Big Lie works because the most intense devotees who receive it are eager to have it circulate widely even if and when they know at one level that the evidence points in the other direction. The repeated charge that Obama stimulus package–-which in fact was far too small--did not decrease the unemployment rate that would otherwise have arisen possesses some of these characteristics.

Adolph Hitler introduced the phrase into popularity. He did so in a vintage manner. He attributed it to Jews and the Marxists who, he said, blamed German generals for the loss of WWI instead of casting blame upon “betrayers of the fatherland”. He then said in Mein Kampf:

All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily...” 

Hitler only got it partly right. He universalized a tendency that varies significantly from place to place and time to time. And, at least in this statement, he does not emphasize enough how a big lie requires a constituency already primed to receive it at one level even when at another level they know it is a lie. A Big Lie speaks to multiple levels of self and culture, calling up a visceral will to believe among resentful constituencies that overwhelms their awareness at a more refined level that the evidence is at odds with that will. Even if the factual correction is admitted, a residue of distrust and vilification of the candidate is retained.

A Big Lie today contains a yet more complex, layered message. Yes, it expresses a campaign to increase intensity of support among a core constituency eager to vilify opponents. But it simultaneously amplifies a vague sense already there among inattentive moderates that politics itself has become dysfunctional. This asymmetrical combination endows the Big Lie with its contemporary power. Thus it was not surprising when the former Chair of the Republican Party, Michael Steele, in a recent edition of “Hardball”, refused to condemn the Romney ad. Instead, he treated it--if vaguely and without examples--as a generic sign that the campaign was intensifying on both sides. Politics is rough, Michael Steele says, so this sort of thing is to be expected from all parties as the campaigns proceed. 

Steele’s response may seem off base and banal at first hearing. But it actually performs asymmetrical functions for two different constituencies: it refuses to take back what their most ardent followers want to hear and it justifies Romney’s Big Lie to others by equating it with all statements that exaggerate or abstract from context. It thus retains the base while also speaking to inattentive moderates and “independents” who they need to conclude that politics in general is and must be dysfunctional. A dysfunctional politics, after all, encourages the inattentive to identify with the fantasy of unregulated markets pried free from a dysfunctional state. The Republican use of filibusters works in a similar way. They want people to forget (or never notice) that they are the ones who have used this tactic more than anyone else in American history, and they want to help them remember that there is a stalemate in Congress. The inattentive who respond to the second part of that message thus vindicate themselves in remaining inattentive. Such an effect increases the power of the right edge of the Republican base, a base that is primed already to respond to messages of aspirational fascism. 

There is an element of truth in what Steele says. That is part of its power. Both sides do misrepresent and simplify too often. That needs attention whenever it occurs. But to draw every instance of misrepresentation under the same umbrella is to recapitulate the Big Lie. Again, it justifies that mode of politics to a receptive base as it encourages moderates to either withdraw from politics or to internalize lies they are already tempted to believe. 

The politics of the Big Lie becomes viable in a society in which one segment of the populace welcomes it, another attributes it to politics in general to avoid having to think about what it portends, and a third fails to explore how to engage a world in which factual correction is insufficient to contemporary politics.

We form part of the third constituency. We have to learn how to challenge Big Lies as we remember how factual correction is pertinent but insufficient to the challenge. Correction is insufficient because there is never a vacuum on the infrasensible register of politics. We thus have to participate ourselves on that register without allowing our participation to contribute to the Big Lie. Perhaps John Stewart provides an example of how to proceed as he enacts image laden messages with a complex character. His messages expose lies; they suggest alternatives; and they disclose by parody how his own messages themselves also work on the infrasensible register of politics. 

I have tried to think about the indispensability, complexity and dangers of such a politics in “Experience and Experiment” and in some postings on this blog. John Protevi also engages this issue. In a world of 24 hour cable news and a society riven by the politics of ressentiment more reflective intervention is needed on this territory by those who seek to preserve the life as well as the form of democracy.

Vow to Hire Heroes

Steven Johnston

University of South Florida

Three days before Thanksgiving, Barack Obama signed into law the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a piece of political legislation of, at best, dubious economic value. It offers tax credits to employers who hire veterans. Both parties lined up to support the bill knowing full well that it amounted to little more than political pandering. Despite the fiscal crisis supposedly plaguing the American state, the legislation found few if any detractors. The debt owed the brave men and women who make enormous sacrifices to keep America safe, secure, and free rendered discussion irrelevant. The United States military is perhaps the only institution that transcends the fanatical obstructionism of the Republican Party, an entity so hell-bent on free market utopianism (among others) that it continues to inflict enormous damage on the country and its future. Good patriots that they are, Republicans no doubt believe that harming the country they love is proof positive they love it (with a partial exception for Ron Paul). True, former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen recently took the GOP to task for endangering the country’s national security with its anti-tax hysteria, but Cohen issued his rebuke not on behalf of the well-being of the United States but of the American empire.

Does the United States military deserve the plaudits routinely showered on it? This is an open question. For one thing, it is not a citizen army composed of people serving their country in the spirit of equality and mutual obligation. It is a self-selecting professional mercenary force. Too many Americans clearly prefer to have someone else shoulder the responsibility for common security. They have other and better things (the list is endless) to do with their lives.  This might seem (to them) like a free ride without repercussions, an attitude no doubt fostered by a culture of exceptionalism. Nevertheless, entrusting a free way of life to guns-for-hire enables adventurist presidents like George W. Bush to endanger the country at will without genuine fear of domestic blowback. The military draws for support on regional cultures, perhaps especially in the south, that thrive on war and the warrior ethos. They tend to support overwhelmingly the very party and policies that place them in harm’s way and exact such staggering tolls on them and their families. It’s a tangled web of narcissism, masochism, and sadism, which I cannot explore here.

The imperial adventures they authorize, whether deposing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq or fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, do not involve American safety, security, or liberty, widespread legitimizing rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. To keep American forces deployed worldwide for longer and pointless engagements, the country keeps throwing an increasing number of benefits in their direction, both material and symbolic. Mercenaries must be compensated.

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street participants offer and risk their lives in the name of democracy. They do so not only without prior promise of remuneration from an obliging state but also with a reasonable expectation of downright indifference from a highly depoliticized country. Such indifference enables, even encourages police forces from coast to coast to abuse and assault fellow citizens with a sense of impunity.

Mayors from New York to California invoke concerns for public hygiene and equal access to public space to justify their militarized responses to democracy in action. New York’s mayor, learning from a previous public relations disaster, planned, in secret, a late night raid on Zuccotti Park to clear Occupy Wall Street activists. Bloomberg’s late night pincer movement resembled the totalitarian tactics of the secret police in the Soviet Union depicted so brilliantly by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It’s not that the thuggish behavior of American mayors, high-ranking campus officials, and their police auxiliaries doesn’t provoke outrage: witness the effective response to the UC-Davis Chancellor, the suspension of the Davis Police Chief, and the Berkeley Academic Senate’s vote of no confidence scheduled for Monday, November 28 against that school’s chancellor for police violence against students of Occupy Cal.

Still, the outrage tends to be unduly confined to the already like-minded. It does not produce widespread disgust followed by real political consequences. We are not (yet) Egypt. Bloomberg’s career should have ended with this vicious middle-of-the-night assault on citizens. Of course, it should also have ended following the 2004 GOP Convention in New York where similar police state tactics were implemented against citizens enacting democracy as George Bush waged his personal war of choice in Iraq, but as the recent GOP debate in Washington suggests, no politician will pay a price for sacrificing civil and political liberties in the name of security. Why is it that most Americans tolerate, even cheer, police violence against citizens? Is it that identification with gratuitous displays of state power allows them to imagine that they themselves also possess agency in a world that routinely and rudely reminds them they are impotent?

Occupy Wall Street protestor & USMC Sgt. Shamar Thomas shares his views on police repression with NYPD officers (full video here).

Back to patriotism and economics: You would think the Occupy Wall Street movement might generate a jobs bill to assist the unemployed millions who are entitled to as much consideration as war veterans. No, they are entitled to greater consideration, for these activists actually contribute to democracy by bringing it to life. They do not spread death across the globe in the name of freedom or nation-building. The students who were brutalized at UC-Davis need no lessons in courage from camouflaged warriors who won’t hesitate to go into battle as long as thousands of others are willing to do likewise, as William James famously claimed. (This is one reason James scorned traditional war memorials.) If heroes should be employed, start with the courageous citizens who risk life and limb and occupy space in America’s major cities on behalf of the 99%. A major jobs bill might even stave off the economic collapse that looms on the horizon, thanks in part to European recklessness and intransigence. Such collapse would likely be accompanied by widespread state coercion singling out the usual political suspects for blame, applauded by a majority always in need of scapegoats. Think of it as Sinclair Lewis’s nightmare come true.