Ah, serendipity. I, for one, welcome our new moral overlords.
First, a letter to Romenesko from Dennis Persika (no relation, I'm sure)
What would we as a profession do, and what would the rest of the American citizenry do, if, for example, the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, bolstered by a cadre of armed federal marshals, barged into the offices of The New York Times today?
They could claim that the Times is a threat to national security and that they need to scour the filing cabinets and computers of Times staffers to see if they can find the source of the stories that the administration and its supporters say are threatening national security. And they could also claim that they are trying to protect the nation against future stories that they fear could be a threat to national security.
The rest of us could rail all we wanted about the raid, but if the marshals are in the Times building I think you could accurately say that they have the upper hand.
Indeed. And, as an aside, I direct your attention to this rather shocking display of Dolchstoßlegende that I have ever witnessed (link from the letter). Really. It's breath taking to see such eliminationist rhetoric so nakedly displayed.
Next up, this panel organized by Harpers discusses the "unthinkable": American Coup D'Etat. Lot's of interesting stuff in that article. Just a few choice bits.
The question that arises is whether, in fact, we’re not already experiencing what is in essence a creeping coup d’état. But it’s not people in uniform who are seizing power. It’s militarized civilians, who conceive of the world as such a dangerous place that military power has to predominate, that constitutional constraints on the military need to be loosened. The ideology of national security has become ever more woven into our politics. It has been especially apparent since 9/11, but more broadly it’s been going on since the beginning of the Cold War.
Duh. Another bit that explains a lot about the increasing politicization of our military that I hadn't thought of before.
Which brings up a crucial point. Let’s accept as a fact that the U.S. military has become more overtly ideological since 1980. What has happened since 1980? Roughly, that was the beginning of the all-volunteer force. What we are seeing right now is the result of twenty-five years of an all-volunteer force, in which people have self-selected into the organization.
Everything has unintended consequences... Didn't really consider that an all volunteer military would have the effect of self selecting evangelicals (I suppose, as they say in the Harper's article, that recruiter's mining the rich fields of the evangelicals probably reinforces this self selection)...
BACEVICH: Let us also consider the classic case of gays in the military. Bill Clinton ran for the presidency saying he would issue an executive order that did for gays what Harry Truman did for African Americans. He wins the election. When he tries to do precisely what he said he would do, it triggers a firestorm of opposition in the military. This was not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff merely saying, in private, “Mr. President, I would like to give you my professional opinion.”
KOHN: It was the most open revolt the American military as a whole has ever engaged in.
LUTTWAK: Ever?
KOHN: Open revolt, yes.
But you see, Clinton was a democrat, and as Michelle Malkin has so clearly demonstrated in the link above, Liberals are the enemy. And since the military is the most ideological it has ever been - becoming just another wing of the Republican army (hey, why else do the Republicans have the military show up - in uniform - at political rallies against regulations? It isn't for the free air freshener give aways), we seem to be pretty much up shit creek without a paddle.
But there is a more subtle danger too. The civilian leadership knows that in dealing with the military, they are dealing with an institution whose behavior is not purely defined by adherence to the military professional ethic, disinterested service, civilian subordination. Instead, the politicians know that they’re dealing with an institution that to some degree has its own agenda. And if you’re dealing with somebody who has his own agenda, well, you can bargain, you can trade. That creates a small opening—again, not to a coup but to the military making deals with politicians whose purposes may not be consistent with the Constitution.
But hey, everything changed on 9/11.
Finally, I want to point y'all to an old speech by Norman Mailer that was given in the run up to the latest war with Iraq at the Commonwealth Club of California. The whole piece is good, but there's a bit at the end which put a chill down my spine when I read it. And it's an observation that kind of ties everything together in a nice little bow, explaining the unholy alliance of the Right wing, the Evangelicals and the Military...
That is a very large statement, but I can offer this much immediately: At the root of flag conservatism is not madness, but an undisclosed logic. While I am hardly in accord, it is, nonetheless, logical if you accept its premises. From a militant Christian point of view, America is close to rotten. The entertainment media are loose. Bare bellybuttons pop onto every TV screen, as open in their statement as wild animals' eyes. The kids are getting to the point where they can't read, but they sure can screw. So one perk for the White House, should America become an international military machine huge enough to conquer all commitments, is that American sexual freedom, all that gay, feminist, lesbian, transvestite hullabaloo, will be seen as too much of a luxury and will be put back into the closet again. Once we become a 21st century embodiment of the old Roman Empire, moral reform can stride right back into the picture with all the hypocrisy attendant on that. The military is obviously more puritanical than the entertainment media. Soldiers are, of course, crazier than any average man when in and out of combat, but the overhead command is a major everyday pressure on soldiers and could become a species of most powerful censor over civilian life.
To flag conservatives, war now looks to be the best possible solution. Jesus and Evel Knievel might be able to bond together, after all. Fight evil, fight it to the death! Use the word 15 times in every speech.
There is just this kind of mad-eyed mystique to Americans: the idea that we Americans can do anything. Yes, say flag conservatives, we will be able to handle what comes. We have our know-how, our can-do. We will dominate the obstacles. Flag conservatives truly believe America is not only fit to run the world but that it must. Without a commitment to Empire, the country will go down the drain. This, I would opine, is the prime subtext beneath the Iraqi project, and the flag conservatives may not even be wholly aware of the scope of it, not all of them. Not yet.
Three an a half years after that speech, with everything that has happened since then, I think we can safely assume that they are not only aware of it now, they are fully behind the program one hundred percent.
I know Malkin is.
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