well, first, the US spends so much money on the military it is, quite simply, obscene. it's not so much the rank and file personnel that most progressive sorts distrust, it's the undergirding principal of militarism, that violence (at least that violence done in the service of those with power/capital) solves problems and is virtually infinitely justifiable.
Second, there's the hypocrisy of the way violence is treated in highly-militarized cultures like the US: we are "tough on crime": we lock up "violent offenders"; we treat juveniles who commit "violent crimes" as adults, but then we turn around and enforce through numerous institutionalized, material, and discursive structures an essentially mandatory kowtow at the shrines to our military power, for "those willing to fight and die for their country."
Meanwhile, back on main street, PTAs are scraping together nickles and dimes to put computers--even just one per room--into their elementary school classrooms. They're holding bake sales, and, worse, listening to the spiels of "business liaisons" who will help pay for the computer BUT ONLY in exchange for free marketing opportunities: a free onramp into our kids' brains. At the same time the military--cozying up to the politicians, who are often former military men--gets a blank check to drop daisy cutters onto civilian populations.
so i understand the point of the question, and agree that the politicians and our culture's contradictory attitudes towards violence and adulation of a specific kind of militarized masculinity, in general, must bear the brunt of the blame, but that's the culture that people involved in the military benefit from, and rarely challenge in a substantive way.
<edited for clarity>
[ 24-01-2002: Message edited by: alas ] |
