BUSHCO: "hyper-masculinity fashioned in the conservative oil fields of Texas"

[kpete]

War Talk, the Death of the Social, and Disappearing Children: A Lesson for Obama

Tuesday 16 December 2008

by: Henry A. Giroux, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Under the Bush administration, the language of war has taken on a distinctly new register, more expansive in both its meaning and its consequences. War no longer needs to be ratified by Congress since it is now waged by various government agencies that escape the need for official approval. War has become a permanent condition adopted by a nation state that is largely defined by its repressive functions in response to its powerlessness to regulate corporate power, provide social investments for the populace and guarantee a measure of social freedom. This has been evident not only in the all-embracing militarization of public life that emerged under the combined power and control of neoliberal zealots, religious fanatics and far right-wing conservatives, but also in the destruction of a liberal democratic political order and a growing culture of surveillance, inequality and cynicism.

..................In the Bush-Cheney view of terrorism, war is individualized as every citizen becomes a potential terrorist, who has to prove that he or she is not dangerous. Under the rubric of the every-present state of emergency and its government-induced media panics, war provides the moral imperative to collapse the "boundaries between innocent and guilty, between suspects and non-suspects."<1> War provides the primary rhetorical tool for articulating a notion of the social as a community organized around shared fears rather than shared responsibilities and civic courage. War is now transformed into a slick, Hollywood spectacle designed to both glamorize a notion of hyper-masculinity fashioned in the conservative oil fields of Texas and fill public space with celebrations of ritualized militaristic posturing touting the virtues of either becoming part of " an Army of one" or indulging in commodified patriotism by purchasing a new (hybrid) Hummer.

......................

The Bush administration's aggressive attempts during the last eight years to reduce the essence of democracy to profit making, shred the social contract, elevate property rights over human rights, privatize and corporatize public schools and promote tax cuts that benefit the rich and destroy social programs and public investments failed completely when applied to the vast majority of citizens, but especially failed when applied to children. And yet, children provide one of the most important referents for exposing and combating such policies. Making visible the suffering and oppression of children cannot help but challenge the key assumptions of "permanent war" and market-driven policies designed to destroy public institutions and prevent government from providing important services that ameliorate ignorance, poverty, racism, inequality and disease. Children offer a crucial rationale for engaging in a critical discussion about the long-term consequences of current policies. Any debate about war, regime change and military intervention is both unethical and politically irresponsible if it doesn't recognize how such policies affect children. For the Obama administration, the focus on children may be one place to begin to develop a unifying rallying point of political struggle and resistance in order to make clear to a broader public that a permanent war strategy and discourse of moral absolutes of the past promote democracy neither abroad nor at home, and its alleged value can best be understood in the hard currency of human suffering that children all over the globe are increasingly forced to pay.

more at:
http://www.truthout.org/121608A

[ixion]

1. for all their alleged "masculinity", they live like cowards

thus, not really masculine.