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

[WilliamPitt]

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


Afghan girl in a war-torn region. (Photo: Reuters)

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.

The concept of war occupies a strange place in the current lexicon of foreign and domestic policy. It no longer simply refers to a war waged against a sovereign state such as Iraq, nor is it merely a moral referent for engaging in acts of national self defense. The concept of war has been both expanded and inverted. It has been expanded in that it has become one of the most powerful concepts for understanding and structuring political culture, public space and everyday life. Wars are now waged against crime, labor unions, drugs, terrorism and a host of alleged public disorders. Wars are not just declared against foreign enemies, but against alleged domestic threats.

The concept of war has also been inverted in that is has been removed from any concept of social justice - a relationship that emerged under President Lyndon Johnson and exemplified in the war on poverty. War is now defined almost exclusively as a punitive and militaristic process. This can be seen in the ways in which social policies have been criminalized so that the war on poverty developed into a war against the poor, the war on drugs became a war waged largely against youth of color and the war against terrorism continues as a war against immigrants, domestic freedoms and dissent itself. 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.

War as spectacle easily combines with the culture of fear to divert public attention away from domestic social problems, define patriotism as consensus, enable the emergence of a deeply antidemocratic state and promote what Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has called the "war on the constitution." The political implications of the expanded and inverted use of war as a metaphor can also be seen in the war against "big government," which is really a war against the welfare state and the social contract itself - this is a war against the notion that everyone should have access to decent education, health care, employment, and other public services. One of the most serious issues to be addressed in the debate about Bush's concept of permanent war is the effect it is having on one of our most vulnerable populations, children, and the political opportunity this issue holds for articulating a language of both opposition and possibility.

The rest: http://www.truthout.org/121608A

[villager]

1. a necessary update of Randolph Bourne's WWI-era "War is the Health of the State"

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/warhealthstate1918.html

[Hissyspit]

2. kick

I was reading this as you posted it. Was just about to post it myself.

[conscious evolution]

3. K&R

[Gregorian]

4. More reason to hold the perpetrators accountable.

There is not much else to say. Obama most certainly gets this.

Just the depleted Uranium alone is a killer for the children of Iraq. And for the next few billion years.

[Autonomy]

5. What if no one threw a war and everyone came?

Someday, war will declare war on War. Maybe that day will be past the Futurist Singularity? I don't know, but there has to be a tipping point, where the inversion and expansion of a definition (preceding a set of actions) leads to a loss of meaning such that meanings are swapped... and the conspiracy plots its own course.

[truedelphi]

6. Sci Fi writers have long foretold of a battlefield in which FedEx wages Phsyical Assault on UPS

Etc.

And the Major Media LOVES war. CNN sees its ratings soar before an election, and during the week leading up to war and the short month or two afterwards.

And look how glued we were to TV during the 9/11 attacks. Coming soon, a terrorist op carried out by ABC!!

[WilliamPitt]

7. .

[WilliamPitt]

8. .

[kentuck]

9. I like the cartoon...

I'm sure you can identify with it also. :-)

[WilliamPitt]

10. Not at all.

:crazy:

[mgc1961]

11. Your contributions are always welcome.