How Long Will The Generals Wait?

Is the United States of America now, or will it very shortly be, ripe for a good, old fashioned, military coup? The kind that happen in other countries (often with the support or instigation of the United States)? Why not?

The agenda for military coups is usually presented as a necessary last-ditch response to a dysfunctional political system (partisan deadlock), corruption (money in politics), social unrest (black lives matter?), high crime rates (or the appearance thereof), ready-made scapegoats and enemies (the Muslims are coming for you), collapsing morals (abortion and women in general), a failing economy, even a worrisome election result (a socialist president?). Those were good enough to justify coups in Argentina and Chile and Greece and Guatemala (over and over), and if we don't mind them when they happen in Egypt or Pakistan or Indonesia because of the need for 'stability', then why not in America? Nothing is more respected in the U.S. than the military and certainly when compared to politicians or journalists or unions or lawyers or teachers or really anyone else at all (and thank you for your service).

True, there is limited financial advantage for the military in seizing political power - the U.S. armed forces already has access to unlimited amounts of money and gets not only any weapon they want, but even extra ones they may not have asked for. (Yay! Bonus bombs!) It's like computers that give you fourteen different ways to do the same thing, you need multiple death-avenues to be considered 'ready' for the world. But even if it doesn't mean more money for tanks, a military coup seems the natural fulfillment of the current American zeitgeist. An ambitious or concerned general and a population looking for a non-nonsense strongman figure from outside of politics. A  military with the physical ability to dominate and control, the high value placed on soldiers as moral agents, the decline in the status of a country that thinks, a military that thinks, it should be respected and dominant in the world. A political system that a person of honour (which is how generals see themselves) could see as not living up to the noble nature of God's constitution.

Or perhaps a President Cruz gets the backing of the military to suspend elections for awhile to deal with a crisis...are you sure the military would be more committed to the constitution than a president or a congress would be? If the political class can be corrupted by money, power, and stupidity, is there any reason in principle the joint chiefs of staff can't be? Sure, not all soldiers may go along, but the U.S. has seen civil war before, and a soldier's loyalty is to his or her comrades and leaders (according to soldiers in fire fights).

What's to stop the military in the most militaristic nation on earth (I mean you, America) from looking for a military solution to problems at home as well as abroad? The individual goodness of heart of the individual people? Did that work in politics or journalism or Wall Street? Does the system corrupt less when your job is to kill and die than it does when it is to report on news? Do you have less stake in competent government, are you less tempted by money, power, and security, are you certain to be less personally ambitious or less given to blind fanaticism or delusions of grandeur as a retired general than as a Fox News correspondent?

It's one thing for the military to stay out of politics when things are going well for a country, when it is dominant and respected in the world, confident and prosperous, stable and effectively, honestly, run. When the system is seen to be working, and full of intelligent, honourable officials, and a military officer can take pride in being an American. A coup is much more tempting, much easier, more likely to be going through some soldier's head five years from now, if the economy doesn't improve, if there is unrest, more terrorist attacks, a failed government.

Remember, in Michigan the Governor has, and has used, the power to appoint non-elected heads of municipal governments, bypassing elections and the democratic will of the people, because of whatever he deems to be a 'crisis'. So far those haven't been military governments, but then again so far there hasn't been any rioting in protest - if there were to be, would the army stay out of it? If ordered to support an unelected government official in Michigan? How far is that from a military take over? Are you sure just being American is enough insulation from what other countries have gone through? If God will forever protect U.S. democracy because he loves America so much, why is it so corrupt and idiotic now? Maybe the Lord only works best through autocratic power structures and domineering use of force, like everything else these days...

WWDD: What Would Donald Do?

The refugees are coming (or not)! The refugees are coming (or not)!

The Paul Revere-like cry thunders a warning across New England. Warn the troops, lock up your wives and daughters, form neighbourhood committees to make sure they live somewhere else. Still the alarm rings out in the midnight ride of Donald Trump, "danger, danger Will Robinson!" Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party...because Lord knows the party isn't going to come to the aid of any man or woman, child even, be they poor, middle class, minority, Non-Christian (that includes Episcopalian), or - God forbid - alien ('foreign' is too PC a word to use, too humanizing).

But the real question to ask Don and the chorus of little mini-Dons piled knee-deep about him is this: if New York City was bombed into rubble, if there was no electricity, no banking system, no police or courts to enforce property rights, if a third of Donald's family had been executed, if he he could not buy food and an armed gang took over his house (a Tower, one imagines) - if one of his children (I won't name drop) was shot dead in front of him, or raped, or if he himself went four days without food, well, what are the odds he'd be headed to the Canadian border desperate to be let in?

I know, Don is a Republican, so in such a situation he would walk right up to the head bad guy, punch him in the nose, and end the whole war. But Don is probably banking on never having to find out. And he may be right. Probably someone who is rich enough can move his money out of a war-ravaged America, invest in munitions, hire an army of body guards, and safely sit perched like Snoopy pretending to be a vulture looking down on the carrion below and feeling himself master of it all. But it's easy to think, sitting in a wealthy city, in a peaceful country, on TV, everyone's darling, that the way things are now is the way things will always be. That civilizations don't fall, or change, that once a superpower always a superpower. Don't tell him that Spain was once the richest country in the world and now is not, or that Britain once owned parts of France. He can't be told that borders change, economies rise and fall, power shifts from country to country, that no-one, no country, stays on top forever. Rome didn't, Spain didn't, England didn't, the US won't. Soon, later, now?

What would you do if Syria was happening in the U.S? If you had young children, no access to your money, no house, if you were being bombed and shot at, if there looked like there would be no end, if your choice was between a dictator who was trying to kill you or terrorists who would execute you? Would emigration start looking good to you? Would Donald seek refugee status somewhere where he could be safe with his money and his family? Can you really see him picking up a shotgun and fighting in the front lines hopelessly against all comers?

Mexico might start looking pretty good (but would they let you past the wall?) Or would he have hightailed it to Switzerland long before things got that bad? Perhaps buy safe passage for himself and his family from the terrorists. What if his daughter was held for ransom? Would he pay it? If he were held for ransom, would he want his family to pay it - Donald tied up in a cave for three years, hungry, isolated, beaten regularly - so, What Would Donald Do?

I know, American Exceptionalism means that if an American does it, it must be exceptional. What would be fascism in another country is patriotic in America. What would be terrorism if ISIS did it is just a routine drone strike if the U.S does it The Muslim religion is ancient and out of date and pre-modern and anti-women; the two-thousand year old texts from Christianity are the basis of the constitution and we must kill and die for them, even if it means women aren't allowed to be priests or grow old or be a size to large (or be paid as much as a man). Jesus would never let global warming end civilization. We already know how the world ends - The Rapture - so don't worry about nuclear war, or rising temperatures, or famine, or pollution, or extinction of species. Between the two of them, God and Donald got it all covered.

Who Came First, Stupid Leaders or Stupid Voters?

Two things stand out about Donald Trump (peace be upon him). One, that he is popular (at least among Republicans) and two, that he us an asshole. Now it's one thing to be an asshole in private life, and another to be one in public life. Trump is wealthy, popular, famous, powerful and successful, so his being ignorant and hateful gives permission to the public to be those things, freely, openly, publicly, proudly. Where would all the little Trumpettes be if they had to choose between rational, calm, intelligent, non-pig-like candidates? Probably they would stay home. Or they'd vote for Lyndon LaRouche (is he dead? This could be his moment).

But when the worst of human character traits becomes the best a nation can offer itself one has to wonder; are the hateful among the leaders giving permission for the hateful among the voters to come forward, or do the hateful among the public allow hate-filled candidates to emerge as legitimate. Which came first, the bowel or the rectum? (There is probably a biological, evolutionary answer to that question but we are talking politics so there's no room for science, is there?). Maybe it started with Fox News making bigotry and stupidity and hate/fear/lunacy mainstream (and, eventually, one assumes, profitable). Maybe all that really bad ideas in the world need is just time, and they will become legitimate.

If everyone you see on TV is stupid, stupid ideas become regular, everyday, ordinary, perfectly reasonable ones. If everyone on TV says we need war with Iran, then war seems like a legitimate, reasonable, mainstream option to be considered. Maybe we should, in fact, nuke a non-nuclear country...to prevent them from getting nukes like we have and are prepared to use against them. Maybe the President is a Kenyan. Or a Muslim, or a Nazi, or Stalinist, or an alien life form from Mars disguised as a human bent on taking over the earth and enslaving us all. If people in the public eye talk about it in serious tones on newscasts and in public (and televised) forums, there must be some legitimacy to it. If a United States Senator doesn't know if Obama is really Christian, how can I know? Maybe he isn't.

Look at the TV, look at the candidates, I always knew you couldn't trust them foreigners and this proves it. Donald came right out and said it, and he's a star. I was right all along, Mexicans are rapists, Muslims can't be Americans, and Americans are the greatest people in the universe. They wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.

Fear Of Terrorism?

The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack in Canada is sort of like the risk of being killed in a car accident. We know that all of us who drive are at a theoretical risk every time we're out. We know that there will be deaths - we don't know when or to whom they will happen - we know that we are all potential victims. In fact, in 2011, over two thousand Canadians died in traffic accidents and in 2010 there were 1.24 million such deaths world wide.

We also know that as a practical matter we will never get the number down to zero. There will always be accidents, and there will always be the possibility it will be us who are in them. No-one can keep us, nor do we really demand that the government keep us, totally safe from any possibility of crashing. So what do we do to deal with this massive threat to our personal lives and security, this recurring, year after year, senseless, cowardly (that's the word you use about all terrorist attacks, even if it involves a shoot-out with police and the terrorist dying) brutal death toll? How do we cope when faced with meaningless, violent, death that could come to anyone of us or our families every day?

Well, we take reasonable precautions, like not driving in really bad whether, not driving drunk, obeying traffic laws and being careful. We also ensure that if something happens, there are effective responses. There are ambulances and hospitals and police and health care and the courts, if they are necessary. And what else do we do? We go on with our lives. We don't panic, arm ourselves, demand a police officer ride with us everywhere we go, or give up our right to gps units and Tim Hortons travel mugs. We continue to drive, go places, see people, do things. We live with the risk.

Same with the risk of being mugged, killed in a drive-by shooting, targeted by the mafia, having a heart attack, your house catching on fire, or nuclear war (which is still a threat). Let me repeat: a) take reasonable precautions, b) establish effective responses should they be needed, c) get on with your life.

The Canadian police -national, provincial, and municipal - despite all their numbers and funding and authority, cannot protect you or me from the risk of murder or assault. Murders and assaults happen everyday in Canada. To someone. Maybe next time it'll be you. Why do we demand a higher security, a more extreme and frightened response, to the risk of a terrorist assaulting you than a mugger, street gang, drug addict or friend of the family assaulting you? Is it that gang murders generally happen in gang neighbourhoods and terrorist seldom target poorer areas? Is it that terrorists are somehow in league with foreigners? The guns are out there, circulating around the world, and we all have causes we are willing to kill for. It's a globalized world. We can no longer fight our wars exclusively in other people's countries. The shock of the Paris attacks is that it is not a story of the French invading and colonizing and bombing people in Africa - that would be normal and just one if those things countries do - the terror part is that the killing happened in Paris: we are not even safe in our own cities! Welcome to the world.

You are not safe in your city from dying early because of air pollution, being hit by a bus, being shot for your purse, being raped, being beaten up for money, being murdered by your spouse, or the many other much more likely things to happen to you. You don't walk in bad neighbourhoods at night unless you have to (and many people have to). You don't leave your drink unattended at a bar (but you still go out with friends). You look both ways before crossing the road (but people still get hit).

When it comes to death by terrorist, it's different. They are a group, a mass, a people, a country, a type, religious or ethnic. They must be destroyed, all of them...because terrorism is not just a threat to you or me individually, terrorism is an affront to our power as a nation. To our rightness and justness. You being killed in a drive-by sucks for you but says nothing about us as a people. Terrorism provokes our sense of outrage because it strikes at our sense of self, as a nation. How dare someone hate us? How dare they act on that hate? How dare they think that they can just kill our citizens the way our citizens kill others of our citizens? What kind of evil people would see us as the enemy? Don't they know who we are? We're on the side of the angels. God loves us especially. We never did anyone any harm. We're the good guys. Terrorists commit the sin of hating who they are supposed to love, whereas we only hate the people we are supposed to hate.

We have good reasons for our violence (see the bombing of Libyan cities to protect civilians...and where do most civilians live? In cities). Terrorists are evil because they kill for the wrong reasons. Who really cares if there are American bases on Muslim holy ground? That's a stupid reason to kill. Regime change in a foreign country - now that's a proper reason to kill. Why doesn't everyone see that? Why do other groups insist on killing for what they think is important? Ultimately, what the world needs is to be more like us, for our priorities to be everyone's priorities, all territory to be our territory, for everyone to value only what we value. Why can't the terrorists see that?

Paris, Terrorism, Islam, and You and Me.

Once again terrorists have struck at a Western city, and once again it is Paris. And yes, the terrorists have been identified as Muslim and members of the violent and aggressive Islamic State. There, I've used the words 'terrorists', ''Muslim' and 'Islamic' all together. No-one can say I'm soft on terrorism.

But if the problem is Islam, if there is something intrinsic and essential about being Muslim that is causing the violence, then there are only two solutions. Either convert every Muslim to some other religion: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (or atheism) even by force, or alternatively, kill them all. If you want to only kill the extremist Muslims, then you are admitting that not all Muslims are responsible for violence and so the problem cannot be Islam but something added to it in this particular case

Islam is not the problem. Yes, it can be used to motivate or justify violence, but so can democracy, patriotism, capitalism, revenge, pride, nationalism, language, loyalty, even love can motivate violence (love of country, love of fellow soldiers, love of royalty). The problem is not the reasons people give for committing violence, it is the willingness with which people commit violence, the readiness with which we are willing to kill.

There really is a moral equivalency between our side killing them and their side killing us. As outraged and grief-stricken we feel at the Paris killings, that is how outraged and grief-stricken Yemenis feel when we bomb their families. Ask yourself whether you would rather live in Paris today, after 120 people out of a city of. Million were murdered by a handful of terrorists, or live in Baghdad during the American invasion, when by December 2005 just one US air force wing had dropped five hundred thousand tons of explosives on Iraq. Think there was anybody terrified by that?

We all assume that the cause someone kills for is what's important, rather than the fact that they are killing, period. Since we only kill for reasons that are important to us, our violence is always justified. Since the enemy kills for reasons that are not important to us, such as getting foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia (bin Laden's reason for 9/11), they are always wrong. If the reasons they killed for were important to us too, then they wouldn't even be the enemy, they'd be allies or surrogates.

It is wrong to blame religion for causing violence, but it is right to criticize religion for not ending violence. How would the US fight any of its wars without faithful, God-fearing, peace-loving, Jesus followers ready to kill and torture and bomb others? The difference between a US bomb killing a family of Iraqis and an ISIS gunman killing a family of Parisians is that in one case we agree with the cause and in the other we don't. Both groups are just as dead. If we didn't believe that what we kill for is more important than whether or not we kill at all, if we didn't believe that the things we value are worth killing for and the things they value are so clearly not worth killing for, well, then, what would we do? How could we function? How would we be able to fight wars at all?

Blame religion for not making every violent, war-like, hate monger on whatever issue and on all sides (including ours) ashamed to open his or her mouth. Complain that religion has not been effective enough in bringing peace to wars fought for other things. It has not made enough people better enough to stop this shit from happening again and again. But then, what has? Maybe we need stronger, better, more positive religion. Maybe, if we are religious people, we should be calling out our leaders and brothers and sisters. When you think of all the reasons people kill each other: domestic abuse, drug deals, money, territory, revenge, anger, and yes, God, maybe the problem isn't religion. Maybe it's people.

What is Remembrance Day? Really?

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, a day set aside every year to celebrate the making of war veterans through our past wars and to encourage our young people to become veterans themselves in our future wars. I know that's not what they say it's for. They say it is to 'honour' the people who fought in our wars. What makes fighting in a war honourable? Certainly not bravery, enemy soldiers were just as brave and we are certainly not celebrating them. Not patriotism; Nazi soldiers were no doubt patriotic, as patriotic about Germany as ours were about Canada. Not self-sacrifice, since both sides sacrificed, died, were wounded. For that matter, most of the people who die in wars now are civilians, and Remembrance Day is definitely not about remembering or honouring them. Civilians killed in war aren't even people, they're not even soldiers, they are 'collateral damage', and certainly there is no day set aside to think about them.

Patriotism is not a virtue, neither is bravery or sacrifice or loving your spouse or your children or being loved by your parents, because those things apply to both sides in any conflict and if we admit that the Taliban were fighting for their country, were brave, skilled, loved their families and left widows behind them when we killed them, well, it sort of makes you question how honourable killing them really was. Our soldiers deserve our gratitude because it is they who fight and not us. In fact, they are fighting for us. And by 'us' I mean the Prime Minister.  The PM said "bomb Libya" so our troops bombed Libya. If the PM had said "bomb Sweden" our troops would have bombed Sweden. Our fighting men and women are thankfully free from ever having to consider the moral implications of whether or not they should bomb Sweden - their moral choice is made when the sign up: follow every legal order.

Fighting the Taliban wasn't necessary to protect any Canadian rights or territory; we invaded their country, they didn't invade ours. The Afghanistan mission was a failure anyway; we neither caught nor killed Osama bin Laden there, which is why we went in the first place. But, and here's the point, given that the Canadian government was going to send X number of Canadians to war there, I am very grateful that I wasn't one of them. Therefore, although I honour our veterans, I do not honour them for what they have done, because war is largely immoral, inhumane, unChristian, and unjustified - war is never the last option, you always have the option of doing without whatever the war is over. I don't honour them for what they are, because what they are is being played for suckers by politicians who wouldn't declare war in the first place if they didn't figure their political objective was worth the cost of a certain number of our soldiers dying. I honour our fighting men and women because when our soldiers go off to battle irrelevant enemies in far away places, as ordered by whatever politician happened to get 38% of the vote in the last election, it saves me from having to go to jail for refusing to wage war myself.

If a veteran on Remembrance Day ever took a young person aside and said, "Listen, I've been to war. If anyone every tries to send you to one, for God's sake don't go. Refuse. Go to jail. Face a firing squad. Don't believe what they tell you. There's always another way," then I might be happy. Just one. But you can't expect that, because that would invalidate the veteran's own value as a veteran, which is based on war being a good, noble, heroic, necessary, honourable, Godly thing.

If I approached you to donate to end world hunger, you might think it was wishful thinking, that there will always be hungry people, that ending hunger would cost too much, that it is impractical - but you still might donate. If I told you I was working to create a world without war, what would you do? We all know what we are willing to sacrifice to win a war. What are we willing to do to not have wars?

Look Who's Hot.

New Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is, by international female consensus, hot. This may seem like (or even actually be) a case of woman objectifying the male body in ways feminists have always complained men objectify women, but don't be deceived. It is simply women doing to men what they don't like men doing to them because, well, it's their turn.

For years (centuries? Millennia? Forever?) men have rated the female body strictly as a machine for sexiness, while women during the same time never ranked one male as sexier than another, or at least not based on his appearance - or if they did they did not do so publicly and openly. Now, just when women are starting to take the power of, and right to, objectification for themselves, men are telling them objectification is wrong. When, the frustrated feminist wonders, will it be their turn to be pigs, or is that to forever be an exclusive male privilege?

I'm old enough (sadly) to remember when the feminist argument would have gone, "men objectify women. It is bad when people to objectify each other. Therefore no one should do it." Now the argument is, "men objectify women. It is bad when people objectify each other. Therefore we should all objectify each other equally." Everyone treating each other equally badly has become an adequate substitute for everyone treating each other well. This may be a legitimate, practical feminist reform, but it is not as easy for me to get behind or support as the old goal of building a society where no one exploited or objectified anyone. Call me an idealist (please) but the latter is a more attractive rallying call for me as a male feminist than the former.
It seems like we've lowered our goals.

As well, there is still the question of the individual male youth who internalizes this discussion of the male body as meaning he is not good enough, tall enough, doesn't have nice enough hair - in other words, ends up with poor body image issues. I know he would have to be a weak, effeminate, rare, sensitive, insecure male, but nonetheless such individuals may exist. Real men, of course, can take it. Why, real men love it when women look at them purely as sex objects; I know because a) I am a man, and b) because even though women pretend not to like it when guys cat-call them on the street, we all know that secretly it turns them on. Come on, all we're doing is appreciating your legs, you should be proud of them. It's meant as a compliment.

I know the male gaze carries with it the implied threat of violence that the female does not, but the gaze that objectifies, rates, discusses - coldly, matter-of-faculty - carries with it a sort of put down which is probably not healthy for viewed or viewer. You will never get people to stop responding to some people as sexy and some others as not. But what do you do after you've said to yourself, "so-and-so has a great body"? Do you shrug and move on. Do you harass? Do you start public online discussions about that person's body part? Do you get on your high horse and say that it's different when you do it because you've earned the right to ogle or disdain other people, and by God that's what you're going to do?

It's not a big social problem, by any means - women publicly objectifying men's bodies - but it is a bit disappointing for feminists to take it on as a cause. As a male I have had decades of hating myself and my body, and it effecting my social life badly. It really does seem to me that simple politeness dictates that if you think someone you don't know has a sexy body part, don't go on about it publicly and over and over. Messages build up, and weakened minds can take them the wrong way. Besides, it doesn't make the person doing it look very good. At some point we all (hopefully) have to get out of high school.