Violence, USA: The Warfare State and the Brutalizing of Everyday Life
Samantha
2012/06/19 20:48:22
Since 9/11, the war on terror and the campaign for homeland security have increasingly mimicked the tactics of the enemies they sought to crush. Violence and punishment as both a media spectacle and a bone-crushing reality have become prominent and influential forces shaping American society. As the boundaries between "the realms of war and civil life have collapsed," social relations and the public services needed to make them viable have been increasingly privatized and militarized.(1)
One consequence of the permanent warfare state is evident in the public revelations concerning a number of war crimes committed recently by US government forces. These include the indiscriminate killings of Afghan civilians by US drone aircraft; the barbaric murder of Afghan children and peasant farmers by American infantrymen infamously labeled as "the kill team";(3) disclosures concerning four American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters; and the recent uncovering of photographs showing "more than a dozen soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division's Fourth Brigade Combat Team, along with some Afghan security forces, posing with the severed hands and legs of Taliban attackers in Zabul Province in 2010."(4) And, shocking even for those acquainted with standard military combat, there is the case of Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who "walked off a small combat outpost in Kandahar province and slaughtered 17 villagers, most of them women and children and later walked back to his base and turned himself in."(5) Mind-numbing violence, war crimes and indiscriminate military attacks on civilians on the part of the US government are far from new, of course, and date back to infamous acts such as the air attacks on civilians in Dresden along with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.(6) Military spokespersons are typically quick to remind the American public that such practices are part of the price one pays for combat and are endemic to war itself.
The history of atrocities committed by the United States in the name of war need not be repeated here... Not only does the alleged normative violence of war disguise the moral cowardice of the warmongers, it also demonizes the enemy and dehumanizes soldiers. It is this brutalizing psychology of desensitization, emotional hardness and the freezing of moral responsibility that is particularly crucial to understand, because it grows out of a formative culture in which war, violence and the dehumanization of others becomes routine, commonplace and removed from any sense of ethical accountability.
Other excerpts:
Under such a war-like regime of privatization, militarism and punishing violence, it is not surprising that the Hollywood film "The Hunger Games" has become a box office hit. The film and its success are symptomatic of a society in which violence has become the new lingua franca. It portrays a society in which the privileged classes alleviate their boredom through satiating their lust for violent entertainment and, in this case, a brutalizing violence waged against children. While a generous reading might portray the film as a critique of class-based consumption and violence given its portrayal of a dystopian future society so willing to sacrifice its children, I think, in the end, the film more accurately should be read as depicting the terminal point of what I have called elsewhere the suicidal society (a suicide pact literally ends the narrative).(10)
War and the organized production of violence has also become a form of governance increasingly visible in the ongoing militarization of police departments throughout the United States.
Gun culture now rules American values, if not also many of US domestic policies. The relationship Americans have to guns may be complicated, but the social costs are less nuanced and certainly more deadly. In a country with "90 guns for every 100 people," it comes as no surprise, as Gary Younge points out, that "more than 85 people a day are killed with guns and more than twice that number are injured with them."(22)
An undeniable effect of the warmongering state is the drain on public coffers. The United States has the largest military budget in the world and "in 2010-2011 accounted for 40% of national spending." By siphoning funds and public support away from much-needed social programs, war, to use David Rothkopf's phrase, "diminishes government so that it becomes too small to succeed."(27)
The warfare state hastens the dismantling of the social state and its limited safety net, creating the conditions for the ultra-rich, mega corporations and finance capital to appropriate massive amounts of wealth, income and power.
One consequence of the permanent warfare state is evident in the public revelations concerning a number of war crimes committed recently by US government forces. These include the indiscriminate killings of Afghan civilians by US drone aircraft; the barbaric murder of Afghan children and peasant farmers by American infantrymen infamously labeled as "the kill team";(3) disclosures concerning four American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters; and the recent uncovering of photographs showing "more than a dozen soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division's Fourth Brigade Combat Team, along with some Afghan security forces, posing with the severed hands and legs of Taliban attackers in Zabul Province in 2010."(4) And, shocking even for those acquainted with standard military combat, there is the case of Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who "walked off a small combat outpost in Kandahar province and slaughtered 17 villagers, most of them women and children and later walked back to his base and turned himself in."(5) Mind-numbing violence, war crimes and indiscriminate military attacks on civilians on the part of the US government are far from new, of course, and date back to infamous acts such as the air attacks on civilians in Dresden along with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.(6) Military spokespersons are typically quick to remind the American public that such practices are part of the price one pays for combat and are endemic to war itself.
The history of atrocities committed by the United States in the name of war need not be repeated here... Not only does the alleged normative violence of war disguise the moral cowardice of the warmongers, it also demonizes the enemy and dehumanizes soldiers. It is this brutalizing psychology of desensitization, emotional hardness and the freezing of moral responsibility that is particularly crucial to understand, because it grows out of a formative culture in which war, violence and the dehumanization of others becomes routine, commonplace and removed from any sense of ethical accountability.
Other excerpts:
Under such a war-like regime of privatization, militarism and punishing violence, it is not surprising that the Hollywood film "The Hunger Games" has become a box office hit. The film and its success are symptomatic of a society in which violence has become the new lingua franca. It portrays a society in which the privileged classes alleviate their boredom through satiating their lust for violent entertainment and, in this case, a brutalizing violence waged against children. While a generous reading might portray the film as a critique of class-based consumption and violence given its portrayal of a dystopian future society so willing to sacrifice its children, I think, in the end, the film more accurately should be read as depicting the terminal point of what I have called elsewhere the suicidal society (a suicide pact literally ends the narrative).(10)
War and the organized production of violence has also become a form of governance increasingly visible in the ongoing militarization of police departments throughout the United States.
Gun culture now rules American values, if not also many of US domestic policies. The relationship Americans have to guns may be complicated, but the social costs are less nuanced and certainly more deadly. In a country with "90 guns for every 100 people," it comes as no surprise, as Gary Younge points out, that "more than 85 people a day are killed with guns and more than twice that number are injured with them."(22)
An undeniable effect of the warmongering state is the drain on public coffers. The United States has the largest military budget in the world and "in 2010-2011 accounted for 40% of national spending." By siphoning funds and public support away from much-needed social programs, war, to use David Rothkopf's phrase, "diminishes government so that it becomes too small to succeed."(27)
The warfare state hastens the dismantling of the social state and its limited safety net, creating the conditions for the ultra-rich, mega corporations and finance capital to appropriate massive amounts of wealth, income and power.
Read More: http://nnomy.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent...
Top Opinion
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Rodney 2012/06/20 05:20:24
+14Let's see, everything you listed there seemed to have happened POST January 20, 2009, so does that mean you have abandoned Barack H. Obama? He is after all the Commander in Chief and the one whom the military takes it's orders. He is also the one who has the Kill List and increased the usage of Drones.
My itty bitty union netted 30 million dollars in one year, off the backs of their members, and they invest in the same crap that you all rail against. Yep, they invest in CORPORATIONS! OMG!!
Because we're union and have so many rules and practices, we all engage in different levels of productivity for the same pay. Yes, we're all equal, we just don't do an equal amount of work. Ain't it grand!
I don't know who told you I was a member of a union or how you supposedly knew that. I suppose lies get passed around in the blogosphere, just like in real life.
Your disdain of the Second Amendment as 'gun culture' is a complete joke. 85 people are killed everyday with a gun. Let's see, there are 330+ million of us, so that means 0.000000257% are killed with a gun. 85 people make a stupid decision so lets take away a basic human right from 330 million. How many die in automobile accidents? From disease caused by smoking? Drinking? Drug overdose? Out and out stupidity? Sorry, can't protect people from themselves. Let's ban cars. Smoking (they're trying, ain't working). Let's ban alcohol.... oh, wait, they tried that, didn't work out too well...... drugs? Oh, yeah, been trying that one for years, too - not too much success. I know, ban stupidity - oops, no more liberals.....
Get a grip.
Libya, Somolia, Yemen, Pakistan? Those never happened right?
Freedom isn't free. The heros coming home in those boxes served their nation and made the ultimate sacrifice; your use of this image to further your insane argument is disgraceful.
I participated in a little soiree in SouthEast Asia that was 'created' by a Democrat President (JFK) and a Republican got us out of. KMA, B.