In an NPR interview, Professor Bacevich reflects on the bitter irony of having spoken out against the war, seeming to win a political victory in the form of an antiwar popular mandate, and yet contunuing to suffer profound human losses as the war grinds on. He asks:
What kind of democracy is this, when the people do speak, and the people's voice is unambiguous, but nothing happens?
It is a very good question.
4 comments:
Wasn't that a nice piece of work? Loaded with irony--I thought it was particularly poignant for Thys to include the younger Bacevich's sister, Jennifer, saying, "I think a lot of people think that this is a story just about a professor that was against the war, that had a son that died in the war. And it’s not, you know. More than anything, I think, we think our brother was just a – he was a fantastic human being, and a really…"
The irony was particularly heavy there, because that's about the only thing we hear about this honorable man. Everything else is how the father was against the war, how he feels responsible for his son's death and then that zinger at the end.
The elder Bacevich is still grieving, his voice nearly broke; Thys on the other hand delivered his lines in the patronizing, unctuous tones of an undertaker. Makes sense, really--it's just business, to him, he got what he wanted, his anti-war piece, although--ha ha--NPR called it a
"remembrance". Remember what? Humanity? Journalistic integrity? The ironies do abound.
c may not like it, but the elder Bacevich's question is legitmate, important, and newsworthy. It's hardly a gratuitous "zinger". It may be ironic that NPR did not have more to say about Lt. Bacevich, but that pales in comparison with the monumental ironies which prompted Professor Bacevich's question. And his obvious pain makes his question more rather than less poignant.
C; you mean me?
Actually, I do question whether Mr. Bacevich's question is legitimate, because it assumes the "people's voice" is "unambiguous", and that is simply not the case. I do not hold that against him because the fact that he will never again see his son alive is obviously foremost in his mind just days after the young man's death. It would color everything a father thought and said.
I'm guessing that's why NPR sends reporters to visit family soon after a death in the field: raw emotions are good for human interest stories. You want to find out how much Prof. Bacevich loved young Andrew? Ask him in the days after Andrew died.
But don't tell me that this poor father is going to be able to objectively assess the political situation surrounding his son's death during this period. That's just ridiculous. And taking advantage of his grief to retail this anti-war soundbite is despicable.
Imagine--that's all we can do, eh?--the stories Jennifer and her father told Thys about young Andrew. "He was a fanstastic human being...." At some point, however, Thys prompts Prof. Bacevich about his opposition to the war; or the professor's regret naturally flows forth--whatever--and his grief is expressed in political terms.
Now imagine the father and daughter turning on Morning Edition to hear the tribute to their brother. I wonder if they were surprised.
You acknowledge that "It may be ironic that NPR did not have more to say about Lt. Bacevich, but that pales in comparison with the monumental ironies which prompted Professor Bacevich's question."
"Monumental ironies" affects me like hand waving. The irony of this "Remembrance" is real, it's right in front of you, and it demonstrates NPR's bad faith.
c,
You are obviously a thoughtful person, and your sympathy for the Bacevich family appears genuine and admirable. However, I am uninterested in debating the professional ethics of this NPR reporter; to my mind that's a red herring. The issue I care about is whether the current state of politics in this country merits a serious questioning of the fate of our democracy, as Prof. Bacevich suggested in the question which I quoted in my original post. I believe it is a reasonable, important, even necessary question because executive power has been deliberately concentrated in a way which facilitates a project of global military supremacy, but which threatens the separation of powers, which seriously erodes individual rights and liberties, which moves our foreign policy further and further from any kind of democratic accountability. And so we find ourselves in a situation where we were led into war on the basis of a series of falsehoods, where a majority of the public now recognize this to be the case and want a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, yet we watch apparently helplessly as the imperial executive continues on its destructive quest for military dominance and Americans and Iraqis continue to die. The war itself has been a major political windfall for al Qaeda, has seriously damaged America's standing in the world, has destroyed the regional balance of power in a way which inevitably benefits Iran, has strained our military forces to the breaking point, and destroyed the social fabric of Iraq in way which will bring mass suffering for years, if not decades, to come. In all of these ways, this war has made our world, and Americans who have to live in that world, less safe. These are some of the monumental ironies to which I refer. These ironies are documented up and down this blog with plentiful links to evidence, so I will not take the day off from work in order to reproduce all those links in this comment thread. You may explore them yourself if you are actually interested.
I suspect that part of your objection to this story is your sense that these deaths are being "politicized" unfairly; but the war and its casualties are intrinsically political. Those deaths are a direct consequence of the politics of going to war, and carrry that political significance whether you wish to admit it or not. If we pretend otherwise we cannot honestly discuss the costs of the war and the pain and suffering it causes. Under those conditions, there can be no real democratic deliberation about the war (again, my point). To insist that these deaths must be somehow apolitical is misguided, and plays into this administration's disingenuous, cynical and manipulative attempts to distort the debate over this war by hiding the arrival of flag-draped coffins from the American public.
Finally, Prof. Bacevich's question was not just an expression of his personal grief, it is directly related to the main themes of his writings, the product of many years of study and reflection. If you have read his works, you know this to be true. If you have not, you should. For concerns about the ways in which militarism and executive power are eroding the foundations of our republic, see for instance The New American Militarism, pp. 208-211.
If you still want to see my posting of Bacevich's question as a cheap shot, there is not much more to talk about. I've done my best to explain myself and be straight with you here.
Post a Comment