Wednesday, July 03, 2019

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Dipshittery...

I saw pictures of a tank* rolling across the Anacostia River Bridge this morning, and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

(* technically, it was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, but at 27.6 tons carrying a 25mm chain gun, a TOW anti-tank missile and a 7.62mm machine gun for backup, it's got a pretty tanky affect)

Much has been written in recent days comparing the President's* Independence Day celebration to those of authoritarian regimes the world over. Aside from a reflexive shake of the head at our tinpot leader's predictable instinct for look-at-me showmanship, I didn't give it much thought.

Then I saw the tank, and I was both pissed and unnerved. (I understand that it's not a tank. Enough already.)

Pissed, because it's honestly and ironically un-American to flash our military might to celebrate the country. No less a figure than Dwight D. Eisenhower - the last military leader to serve as President - offered this counsel on the issue, "We, the United States, are seeking peace. We are the pre-eminent power on earth. For us to try to imitate what the Soviets are doing in Red Square would make us look weak.”

(NOTE: Turns out Ike's inauguration parade in 1953 featured tanks and rockets. Apparently his thinking evolved. He did, after all, famously and presciently warn of the creeping influence of the military-industrial complex. This is why I should probably do research before I post, rather than after. Doesn't change my overall opinion, though. In modern peacetime America, tanks on the streets are weird and chilling.)

And pissed because displays of militarism on the 4th of July run counter to what I know of the American Armed Forces. I spent my entire childhood around military men and women. They are professional, and diligent, and honorable, nearly to a one. They're also exceedingly humble, in my experience. I can tell you with certainty that my father, no shrinking violet of a bleeding-heart liberal, would be highly annoyed with the festivities planned in the Nation's Capital tomorrow. He, like so many of his fellow soldiers, served not for acclaim, but out of a sense of duty. In essence, the diametric opposite of the current Commander-in-Chief.

I was unnerved because the scene was so jarring, so contextually...wrong. Tanks roll into places marked by strife, by instability, where ruling parties seek to quash dissent, or occupying armies show force to keep the defeated in fear and awe. They don't patrol the streets of high-functioning modern democracies. I don't mean to be alarmist, for sure, and I know the Bradley in question wasn't 'patrolling' anything in a real way, but the visual struck me cold nonetheless.

People purporting to be patriots will cheer American might tomorrow as planes fly over D.C., fireworks explode in the sky, armored vehicles pass by on Constitution Avenue. Those 'patriots' are cowards in my book. They're losing the war of ideas, so they wrap themselves in the might of the American military while they suppress votes, cage brown people in a form of fear cloaked in other-hating bravado, and celebrate a President* anathema to nearly everything I thought I knew of America.

I'll return to Eisenhower to close this melancholy message. In a radio chat in 1959, the general-turned-statesman said, “If my message to you on this Fourth of July could be put into one sentence, it would be this: State the facts of freedom and trust in God, as we have ever done.”

We're denying the facts of freedom, and trusting in our worst instincts. I don't expect to have a terribly happy 4th of July this year.

12 comments:

  1. Maybe you should drink, Rob. It helps.

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  2. Well put. Condolences to all of you in the D.C. area subjected to this ass-hattery. Rob, may your next post include stupid puppy tales and maybe a pic of her with headphones on listening to the Old 97s.

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  3. Citizen Cope show at the oceanfront in Virginia Beach tonight. See you there.

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  4. We have not seen any MAGA gear this year in Georgia. We saw some last year. So we got that going for us.

    The tanks will be an excuse for the Trump Army to meet up and try to validate each other’s existence. Should be a blast.

    I will drink for all of you.

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  5. pour some out for the hefty lefty

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  6. and pour a little bit more out on the sticky floor for sign of the whale, front page, and buffalo billiards, all of which are closing this month.

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  7. Those three bars closing is a collective punt in the groin. Rob and I spent many a stupor in those places. Dang it.

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  8. I had the pleasure of watching Jared Lorenzen run the Air Raid in it’s earliest Division 1 iterations under Hal Mumme. Kentucky wasn’t very talented but the singular talent of Lorenzen and the novelty/genius of the Air Raid made them more competitive than they had any right to be.

    RIP to an SEC legend.

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  9. If Landon Donovan is going to be on TV consistently, he’s going to have to make a tough decision about his hairline.

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  10. American soccer is never not stressful. I blame the Bradley family for much of this.

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