Freedom Granted, Freedom Won

Surf any site where endless war and nationalist frenzy are celebrated, and chances are good that you'll bump into this:

It is the Soldier not the reporter, who has given us Freedom of the press. It is the Soldier not the poet, who has given us Freedom of speech. It is the Soldier not the campus organizer, who has given us the Freedom to demonstrate. It is the Soldier not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the soldier, who salutes the Flag, who serves beneath the Flag and whose coffin is draped by the Flag, who allows the protester to burn the Flag.

Columns of drums beat as a solemn white male voice -- Bruce Willis? -- recites each line, indicting those who fail to fall to their knees at the sight of a camo-painted Hummer, or the image of George Bush in his flight suit, or a cluster bomb cleansing some Haji-infected neighborhood.

Pretty stirring stuff. Gets the wood nice & stiff. Only thing is, it's bullshit.

Of all the American manias, worship of the military is particularly noxious, and if allowed to grow unchecked, it can be especially dangerous -- that is, if you take seriously liberty, freedom and related human concepts. A lot of this fetishizing comes from civilians who've never worn the uniform, but who get excited with the idea of (others) Kicking Ass, and who believe that the military is some kind of high religious order to be obeyed and revered above all else. But there are those who've worn and wear the uniform who feel pretty much the same way. It's drilled into them from boot camp on; and it is particularly appealing to those who have little else in their lives.

I know. I was there. I saw it. When I was in boot camp, our Drill Sergeants, when not calling us scum, maggots, ladies, faggots and pussies, told us how special we would be once we graduated and went into active duty. We were part of a fearless Warrior Tribe, the best & toughest in the world. We were connected to something larger than ourselves, a sacred trust where no one was left behind, and everybody had your back. To a bunch of 18/19-year-old kids, mostly rural whites and inner-city blacks, this was hard-core stimulating. A lot of those I trained with had nothing in the civilian world to go back to. This was it, their shot to achieve greatness of some kind, and no commie civvie was gonna tell them otherwise.

It's a seductive pitch, to be sure. About half-way through training, a handful of us were ordered to report to one of the Drill Sergeants' office. We stood at parade rest while the Sergeant, a 101st Ranger, lean, mean, tightly-coiled, tried to interest us into going to Officer Candidates School once we graduated from basic. He told us that we were officer material, flattering us, albeit in a barking, rigid way, and promising us long and lucrative military careers. It was a real high hearing that, and I know that at least one of us did go on to OCS. For the rest of training, we were extremely motivated, wanting to show the Sergeant how right he was about our warrior potential.

So I understand where this mindset originates, and how powerful it is to those who desire some kind of power in their lives. But even a general glance at American history shows us something else.

The notion that the "Soldier not the reporter" gave us freedom of the press, and the "Soldier not the poet" gave us free speech, while reassuring, is mostly wrong. Actually, war, the threat of war, and post-war periods often deliver the opposite of free press and speech. You can start with the post-Revolutionary period and find numerous violations of freedom of the press and speech, mostly notably in the Federalist-supported Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which essentially made it illegal to criticize the president (John Adams), the possibility of war with France (desired by Alexander Hamilton) being a motivating factor. Continue through the 19th century and you'll find writers, speakers and activists, primarily those who advocated for women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery, harassed and shut up via various sedition and criminal conspiracy laws. Neither the Mexican War of 1846-48, nor the Civil War of the 1860s, ensured, protected or expanded free speech and a free press. Those rights were fought for and largely won by the writers and poets themselves, oftentimes in the face of mob violence (as was the case with Mexican War dissidents). The grabbing of Mexican territory and the smashing of the Confederacy had more to do with strengthening and consolidating Federal power (while enriching those with the right connections) than with clearing the path for unfettered discourse.

Enter the 20th century, and you'll find that far from animating the Constitution, American wars and those who waged them further undermined critical speech. You need only look to Woodrow Wilson's administration to see repressive state power justified by war in Europe and class war at home. The Sedition Act of 1917 and the Espionage Act of 1918 made it a crime to criticize US entry into World War I. Newspapers and magazines were shut down or denied mailing privileges; public speakers were banned, harassed, and in the case of Eugene V. Debs, jailed for daring to oppose Wilson's autocratic laws. During World War II, conscientious objectors, pacifists and other opponents of that savage conflict were herded into work camps under what was called "Civilian Public Service" where they performed hard labor, nine hours a day, six days a week, and had to pay the government for room and board. Those who refused this arrangement were imprisoned. After the Second World War, loyalty oaths, censorship and blacklisting further narrowed permissible public speech, and again, it was civil libertarians and other activists, not soldiers, who battled the government and beat back political repression. And of course during the Vietnam War, the government was busy spying on dissidents, when not infiltrating their ranks and helping to create disorder and exploit rifts.

In today's Terror War world, we have the Patriot Act, as well as an increase in domestic spying and surveillance of those who are critical, if not deeply afraid, of where we are heading.

In short, the romantic idea that American soldiers fought and died to allow dissidents room to operate and breathe really doesn't hold up. You might be able to point to the defeat of Nazi Germany as an exception to this, assuming that the Germans wanted or even had the power to invade and occupy the US (the war with Japan, begun years before Pearl Harbor, was a battle over Asian markets). Of course, the Soviet Union played a major role in Hitler's downfall, yet I rarely see American patriots give Stalin any serious credit on this front. Indeed, the corporate press, when noting the end of World War II, make it seem as if the US won it all pretty much single-handedly. So even in the one case where their claim may be valid, patriots must still romanticize reality in order to make it true.

The same goes for the freedom to demonstrate, the right to a fair trial, and the freedom to burn the flag -- it was the activists, lawyers, writers and other advocates who were on the frontlines of those battles, at times facing the very soldiers who supposedly were granting all that freedom to begin with.

Soldiers, by and large, are tools used to advance the interests of those who own and run the country. They are lied to, conned and conditioned to believe they are fighting for "freedom" when in most cases they are killing, dying and being maimed to enrich domestic elites and their allies/business partners. This is a big hard truth to swallow, which is why a lot of military personnel, and many vets, prefer the standard story. Recently, I caught on radio a reporter just back from Iraq, and he addressed this very issue. Many of the soldiers he spoke to were upset that what was said to them by recruiters and officers did not hold up in Iraq. The con job was cracking. But instead of exploring why this was so, many of these disgruntled soldiers further retreated into a black & white world, where they are on the side of Good and anyone opposing them is Bad. This is understandable on a basic human level -- nobody likes to be lied to or made a chump. But it's also dishonest and potentially destructive, both to the soldier and the society at large. The Soldier Mantra cited above is an authoritarian appeal and an intellectual and historical dodge. You don't honor the troops by reducing them to stereotypes, however seemingly attractive.