Sound Familiar?

    Sam Tanenhaus is an American historian, biographer, and journalist who writes often for The New York Times and the New York Review of Books.  His biographies include those on Louis Armstrong, Whittaker Chambers, and William F. Buckley, Jr., which he’s currently working on.  He has received both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his work.

    In a recent essay in the Book Review section of the Times, Tanenhaus asks “if there is a useful precedent for this most unpredictable of election seasons.”  He rejects references to 1978 when the Republicans had to settle their differences at a divided convention, and to the riotous, violent Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968.  Instead, he turns to 1936, the year Franklin Delano Roosevelt was lining up to run for his second term, a year when populist demagogues were also in evidence in American politics.

    In 1936, Tanenbaum writes, “the country was lifting itself out of the Great Depression, helped by the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, but the climb back to prosperity was long and slow, and a mood of populist unrest began to steal across the land.”  He then cites to the description of the period offered by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.:

        The followers of the demagogues mostly came from the old lower-middle classes, now in an unprecedented state of frustration and fear, menaced by humiliation, dispossession, and poverty.  They came from provincial and traditionally nonpolitical groups in the population, jolted from apathy into near-hysteria by the shock of economic collapse.  They came, in the main, from the ranks of the self-employed, who, as farmers or shopkeepers or artisans, felt threatened by organized economic power, whether from above, as in banks and large corporations, or from below, as in trade unions.  To a considerable degree, they came form the evangelical denominations; years of Bible reading and fundamentalist revivalism had accustomed them to millennial solutions.  They were mostly men and women of native-born old-immigrant (Anglo-Saxon and German) stock; if [Father Charles] Coughlin’s [right-wing] Irish Catholic supporters seemed an exception, the exception was more apparent than real, for the Irish were beginning to see themselves as part of the old immigration rather than the new.  In sum, they seemed to represent Old America in resentful revolt against both contemporary politics and contemporary economics.

Sound familiar?


References:

Sam Tanenhaus, “What  Do This Season’s Political Books Tell Us About the Election?”, New York Times, Book Review Section (June 16, 2016).

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval 69 (Houghton-Mifflin 1960).

We Have Been Warned

     Anne Applebaum  is a well-regarded journalist and author.  She studied at Oxford and the London School of Economics, married a former Foreign Minister of Poland, and is an expert on Eastern Europe and Russia.  She wrote about her view that Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is a warning to America in her bi-weekly foreign affairs column in The Washington Post three days after the British referendum.  Here, in part, is what she said.  Pay attention.

        I do realize that it’s facile to talk about the impact on a U.S. election that is still many months away, that it’s too simple to say ”first Brexist, then Donald Trump.”  But there is a way in which this election has to be seen, at the very least, as a possible harbinger of the future.  This [British] referendum campaign, as I wrote a few days ago, was not fought on the issues that are normally central to British elections.  Identity politics trumped economics; arguments about “independence” and “sovereignty” defeated arguments about British influence and importance.  The advice of one-trusted institutions was ignored.  Elected leaders were swept aside.  If that kind of transformation can take place in the U.K., then it can happen in the United States, too.  We have been warned.

Applebaum’s right.  We have been warned.

Norway Anyone?

    There’s an article in the current issue of The New York Review of Books [March 5, 2015] entitled “Norway: The Two Faces of Extremism” by Hugh Eakin, a senior editor of the NYRB.  The article deals with Norway’s manner of dealing with the enhanced threat of Islamist extremism that is plaguing all of Europe right now, with the unusual background twist occasioned by the country’s most devastating act of terrorism in its history which occurred in the summer of 2011 involving the massacre of 69 people, many of them children, at a summer camp on a small Norwegian island.  The twist comes into focus when we learn (or remember) that the terrorist, a Norwegian right-wing extremist, was not a Islamic jihadist at all, but an avowed enemy of Islam, upset because of the country’s “multiculturalism” and lax immigration laws.

    Notwithstanding these terrible events and the prospect of further terrorism in Norway and elsewhere from whatever source, the author of the article gives a brief description of what Norway’s all about.  It’s that which I thought you might find of interest:

    By almost any conventional measure, Norway is a blissful anomaly. According to the International Monetary Fund, the country’s GDP per capita is now more than $100,000—more than Qatar’s and second only to tiny Luxembourg’s; remarkably for an oil country, it also has low income inequality, thanks to a highly redistributive tax system. Norway is the most democratic country in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s measure of sixty different political criteria, and it outperforms any other nation on measures of gender equality. Along with [Erna] Solberg, the current prime minister, many of the most important cabinet members are women, including the ministers of finance, defense, trade, environment, and social inclusion.

    Nor does the country suffer from the urban malaise that plagues many of its neighbors. Its small population occupies one of the largest countries in Europe, and its uncrowded cities are known for their clean water and air. Despite vast oil resources, Norway gets 99 percent of its electricity from hydropower and produces so little waste that, along with Sweden, it has begun importing garbage from other countries to fuel its incinerators. Almost every child is educated through the public education system. Norwegian prisons are considered models of enlightened rehabilitation. And on measures of “social trust”—the degree to which people say they trust others and their governments—Norway routinely ranks first or second in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Since 2008, the tax returns of every citizen have been published in a searchable online database.

The point of this is:  Norway Anyone?

Military Sex: The Few, The Proud, The Deplorable

Our local paper recently carried a syndicated preview of "Lauren," a three-part dramatic series forthcoming on YouTube which focuses on sexual assaults of women in the military. The article contained a couple of alarming statistics: it appears that the Defense Department has estimated that nearly 3,200 sexual assaults were reported in the military last year and, what’s more, 86 percent of sexual assaults of women each year go unreported.

What are the implications of these statistics?

Well, for starters, we can conclude that the 3,200 assaults actually reported in 2011 were just 14 percent of the total — which means that there were a total of 22,850 sexual assaults of women in the military that year. This, in turn, translates to about 1,900 a month, or 63 a day.

There were a reported total 214,100 women in the U.S. armed services last year. Assuming that none of them was assaulted more than once, it means that 10.7 percent of all military women were assaulted that year. If 2011 is a representative year, in other words, more than one in 10 military women are sexually assaulted each year.

In 2010, the year of the last census, there were a total of 143,300,000 women over the age of 12 living in the United States. That year there were an estimated 207,750 sexual assaults, reported and unreported, committed against that population (one every 2.5 minutes); again assuming that none was attacked more than once, about .15 percent of all women were victims of sexual assault. These figures, monstrously high as they are, pale into comparison with military figures for, statistically, military women are over 70 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than civilian women.

As I see it, these numbers give rise to two glaring implications. First, the U.S. military is a terribly violent and dysfunctional organization when it comes to the treatment of women and to sexual behavior within its own ranks. It’s not surprising that sexual offenses against women soldiers are notoriously inadequately investigated and prosecuted for, if they were, we’d probably have to pull out of Afghanistan just to raise the manpower.

And second, why would any woman even remotely consider joining the military? Why?

USA! USA! Let's Hear It For Patriotism!

The National Football League held its two conference championship playoff games in January, the winners of which played in the Super Bowl two weeks later. One of the games was between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens. It was an excellent game, won by the Patriots in the final seconds following a failed field goal by the Ravens that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime.

Before the game there was the obligatory over-produced, flamboyant singing of the National Anthem. This time it was sung by Steven Tyler who regaled a large New England crowd and a huge national television audience with an absolutely terrible rendition. (As one post-game critic put it, "If he’d been auditioning for ‘American Idol,’ he wouldn’t have made the cut.") Anyway, as Tyler was winding down, there was a "fly-over," not of the usual three or four jet fighter planes, but a single unmarked, dark, mysterious, very large, what seemed to me like, cargo plane. But whatever it was, no question, the thing was big. As the plane lumbered off into the overcast sky, the camera panned to a close-up of the face of Tom Brady, the Patriot’s all-pro quarterback, as he looked skyward, and then to the team’s monster star tight end, Rob Gronkowski, who could be seen mouthing the word, "Wow."

Right. Wow. But there’s not much news in that, is there? Patriotism, military prowess, and sports, particularly violent sports, all coming together for a glorified patriotic celebration in the middle of one of America’s favorite pastimes, professional football, is nothing new. (And what did you say is the nickname of the New England team again?) It’s been true for years. It’s just one of many of the constant reminders that we live in a warrior culture, that we are a warrior nation. And I’m not referring to "warrior" in the good, archetypal sense.

I was reminded of our obsession with patriotism earlier that Sunday upon reading a feature article in the Traverse City Record-Eagle. The Record-Eagle, if you’re not familiar with it, is a pretty fair newspaper for a small town but, like everyone else in this part of the Midwest, it too is enamored with patriotism and everything military, real or imagined. For example, at the mere drop of the hat it will run a long, front-page spread about what I call "war nostalgia." You can always count on it on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Veterans Day, and Labor Day, but also on days commemorating Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, the Normandy invasion, as well as the Civil War, World War I, the Viet Nam War, and our current wars. And I’ve left some out. Really. Think of a way to ennoble a war, a battle, or a military skirmish of whatever kind, and the Record-Eagle will be there.

The article of which I speak was comprised of several short items, the first of which was entitled, "Grateful Citizens Salute Army Veteran." Here it is in its entirety (the name of the subject of the article is changed):

"John Doe, of Traverse City, wears his Army hat everywhere. He’s a veteran of World War II, serving in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 to 1947. He had it on in Glen’s on East Eighth Street before Christmas when a young girl thanked him for his service. He finished his shopping, only to have the cashier tell him his groceries were already paid for. Later he went to Applebee’s with his wife and a neighbor. They all ordered shrimp dinners ($9 each) and coffee, and a fellow diner paid the bill."

"I’m proud of serving our country," Doe said. "And I guess others are grateful, too."

Being a contrarian, my reaction to this story is that I feel very sorry for Mr. Doe. Imagine, wearing your Army hat everywhere 65 years after the war ended. Not only is that sad in itself but, according to the story, Mr. Doe didn’t even serve during the fighting part of the war. You either remember or know from the history books that we dropped a couple of rather dreadful bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 of 1945, that the Japanese surrendered on August 15, and that we didn’t enter mainland Japan in any numbers until September. At that point, the Japanese people were thoroughly beaten, annihilated really. There wasn’t any more fighting, certainly not in Japan. Which is to say, the war was over before Mr. Doe began his military service.

Actually, since I think it’s a little strange for a guy to wear his Army hat 65 years after the fact, I would have felt a little squeamish even had Mr. Doe been in combat on Guadalcanal, Tinian Island, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa, or had fought aboard one of our ships or planes in the Battle of Midway, the Coral Sea, or the Philippine Sea. But, fortunately for him, he just missed those engagements. In Japan in the fall of 1945, the real danger was becoming infected by the radiation left by the bombs we’d dropped. The role of the military at that time was not fighting a war but doing police and administrative work, the work of post-war occupation; this is not to say that it was unimportant but that it was less like fighting a war than it was like working a job. At the time, those military jobs weren’t any more dangerous than the ones held down by the fathers of some of my friends back in Indiana in the Gary steel mills.

But yes, I am grateful in a way that Mr. Doe was there to do whatever he did in Japan. I would have felt a lot better, however, had he not worn the hat the other day and, upon being asked about his WWII experience, he had said something like: "Me? I really didn’t do much. Heck, I got there when it was all over. If you want to express your gratitude, express it to the guys who were in combat on Guadalcanal, Tinian Island, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa, or on a ship or a plane in the Battle of Midway, the Coral Sea, or the Philippine Sea." Had he done that, I would have been a little less uncomfortable celebrating his military service.

The point is that, in an era of unending American exceptionalism, unusual, excessive forms of patriotism are not only accepted, but honored.

Why? Why the hell do we do that?

Lessons for Gentlemen

Gentlemen:

There were two items of interest in my local paper recently (and, yes, they really were in the paper). Each of them provides gentlemen such as us with a lesson from which we can all learn.

1st Item

The Sheriff of Box Elder County, Utah, reported that a duck-hunter, who had climbed out of a boat and was attempting to move some decoys, was shot in the butt by his dog. The man had laid his gun down in the boat and his dog stepped on it. The gun went off and the man was hit with 27 pellets of birdshot in the backside from 10 feet. The Sheriff said that the man, who was treated at a local hospital, would have suffered more serious injuries had he not been wearing waders.

Lesson: When duck hunting, gentlemen, don’t trust your dog with a gun.

2nd Item

A woman was arrested in Otsego County, Michigan, who allegedly attacked her husband after she found him watching a movie that featured nude women. The report said that the woman became upset with her husband’s “viewing choice” and, after first striking him in the groin, went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and threatened to cut off his genitals. This prompted the husband to call 9-1-1, which he did after his wife first took the phone and threw it at him. The woman was arrested for aggravated assault, domestic violence and phone tampering, and was jailed.

Lesson: When watching porn, gentlemen, don’t trust your wife with a butcher knife.

We're the Greatest!

News Item: "The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale of nearly $11 billion worth of arms and training for the Iraqi military despite concerns that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is moving to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government. The military aid, including advanced fighter jets and battle tanks, is meant to help the Iraqi government protect its borders and rebuild a military that before the 1992 Persian Gulf war was one of the largest in the world; it was disbanded in 2003 after the United States invasion." [New York Times, front page (December 29, 2011)]

With this infusion of hardware, the Iraqi military will be just as it was before the Iraq War. Just like it never happened. Right?

Whatever. In any event, the regular U.S. military is leaving Iraq (sort of) and winding down in Afghanistan (maybe), but our good old military-industrial complex keeps right on hummin’ along.

Aren't we the greatest!