Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

Continued from Part 1

Demonization and Wars of Annihilation
To make people fight with the will necessary to win, the other side must be demonized, often dehumanized. We must fight them because they want nothing less than to wipe us from the face of the earth. Within such a framework, it is hard to see the other side as having honor and accept the idea of innocent bystanders. Within such a framework, logical goals and acceptable stopping points get lost.

Since “they” want to kill you, it is better for you to kill them first. The world of limited warfare gives in to the world of total war.

Civilian-Military Split

Ironically, the rise of “civilian” armies ended up segregating the “civilian” world from the “military” world. Before Napoleon, Bell argues, soldiers were civilians. The officers were the nobles of the land. The grunts were part-time soldiers. When not at war, they had to go find other jobs in order to get paid. Every person in the military, from the kings on down, was fully in the civil world.

Then, with the start of total warfare, the “military” world came to be thought of as its own sphere. It has its own rules and status. People would and could do things in war that they would not do as “regular” people. Wars became fought by specialists, by soldiers and warriors. The military became professional.

This last point is extremely interesting to me because it is the opposite of what I had previously learned.

Summary
That’s what makes total war so destructive and desperate. The line between combatants and noncombatants are blurred. Almost everyone is fair game. The levels of hatred and destruction are ratcheted up but they are compartmentalized as exceptional feelings.

These feelings and actions are not acceptable in the normal world, but in a state of war, everything is ok. The actions by “0ur” professional fighters are rationalized as necessary in a state of war when all of “them” are trying to annihilate us. The actors are excused while the targets are undifferentiated and many.

In the meantime, the other side is applying the exact same standards to us.

Tags: Books, History, Politics by Ms. SP
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It’s been a while, but back in my post about The First Total War by David A Bell, I mentioned that he has some really interesting ideas that are worthy of consideration. Here I go…

End of War
Bell points out that our world has a lot in common with Napoleon’s world. For us, before the Communist block broke up, there had not been armed conflict between the major world powers for a while. Then, once the Soviet Union fell, there seemed to be a sense that large-scale world peace may be possible. After all democracies do not fight democracies, right?

We’ve seen how quickly that idea crashed and burned as we’ve been in almost non-stop warfare for the last two decades.

The same pattern occurred with the success of the French Revolution. The thinkers of the day saw the fall of the “old world,” a world of royals fighting for greed, power, and territory. With the people in charge, surely we would not fight amongst ourselves, right? The Enlightenment idea that Man and Man’s history were perfectible was demonstrating itself.

Then Napoleon and his Republican army brought into Europe warfare of a style and scope that they have never seen before.

Civilian Warfare
In fact, it seems that putting warfare into the hands of “the people” only escalates the affair. This is something that the majority of today’s people do not understand.

Tyrants and dictators are relatively easy to deal with. Even if they are “crazy,” like a Gaddafi or a Kim Jong Il (or a Napoleon), they have one goal in mind. They want to remain in power. Everything else is negotiable. Accordingly, they may be scary or dangerous, but you can put them in the rational actors category because what they want is easy to understand.

When the kings of Europe fought each other, the civilian population was, more or less, left alone. There were rules, and it was to no one’s benefit to decimate the population or destroy the lands that the fighters wished to rule. The nobles fought each other, and it was better to capture one of your social equals alive for the ransom that they would bring than to leave them dead on the field.

When “people” fight, they don’t use warfare as a tool. It often becomes an expression of hatred and irrationality. To make the people fight, when they have little to gain from the endeavor, you have to make a very strong “Other.”

Continued in Part 2…

Tags: Books, History, Politics by Ms. SP
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I recognize the need to make some really tough decisions these days. Congress, however, has determined that federal funding for public broadcasting, the Arts, and the library system is something that should be eliminated.

I understand the rationale behind this decision, but I think many of us are being short sighted.

The House has already passed the bill to zero out public broadcasting monies. The Senate is up next. I hope enough people can give voice to the importance of this service to prevent many of these outlets from going out of existence.

My family immigrated to this country when I was very young. Although both my parents were teachers in our original country, they did not have the language skills and credentials to get similar jobs after the move. They decided to give my brother and I a chance at the American education system and worked multiple jobs so we can live in a good school district.

As a family on a limited budget, the library and other free services were godsends. They allowed me access to high-quality, intellectually-stimulating, and FREE information and materials.

One of the responsibilities of government, especially our government, is to provide an equal opportunity to succeed. By removing many of these free access points, the gulf between the Haves and the Have-Nots can only grow. Where are the poor going to find the discretionary funds necessary to purchase the books, computers, Internet connectivity, and the range of CDs and DVDs available at their local library? or the science, nature, and children’s programming available from PBS? or the intelligent discussion and non-top-40 music going on at public radio?

We cannot expect to take away avenues that develop opportunity and ability and expect that we’ll continue to function as leaders of innovation and progress.

170 Million Americans

Tags: Governance by Ms. SP
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