Friday, October 20, 2017

"Where are you going, where have you been?"



Comment on the arguments of John Kelly:

Argument 1. Those who criticize the President don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t served in the military. To demonstrate how little lay people know, Kelly provided a long, detailed explanation of what happens when a soldier is killed in battle: the body is wrapped in whatever is handy, flown by helicopter, then packed in ice, then flown again, then repacked, then flown, then embalmed and dressed in uniform with medals, and then flown home. Kelly provided a similar amount of detail about how family members are notified of the death, when, and by whom. He even recommended a film that dramatized the process of transporting the body of a real-life marine, Private First Class Chance Phelps. This was a Trumpian moment, from the phrasing—“a very, very good movie”—to the message. Kelly stressed that Phelps “was killed under my command, right next to me”; in other words, Kelly’s real-life experience was recreated for television, and that, he seemed to think, bolstered his authority.

Fallen soldiers, Kelly said, join “the best one per cent this country produces.” Here, the chief of staff again reminded his audience of its ignorance: “Most of you, as Americans, don’t know them. Many of you don’t know anyone who knows any of them. But they are the very best this country produces.”
The one-per-cent figure is puzzling. The number of people currently serving in the military, both on active duty and in the reserves, is not even one per cent of all Americans. The number of veterans in the population is far higher: more than seven per cent. But, later in the speech, when Kelly described his own distress after hearing the criticism of Trump’s phone call, the general said that he had gone to “walk among the finest men and women on this earth. And you can always find them because they’re in Arlington National Cemetery.” So, by “the best” Americans, Kelly had meant dead Americans—specifically, fallen soldiers.

The number of Americans killed in all the wars this nation has ever fought is indeed equal to roughly one per cent of all Americans alive today. This makes for questionable math and disturbing logic. It is in totalitarian societies, which demand complete mobilization, that dying for one’s country becomes the ultimate badge of honor. Growing up in the Soviet Union, I learned the names of ordinary soldiers who threw their bodies onto enemy tanks, becoming literal cannon fodder. All of us children had to aspire to the feat of martyrdom. No Soviet general would have dared utter the kind of statement that’s attributed to General George S. Patton: “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”



Our identity as a nation – unlike many other nations – is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility. We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution. We become the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., by recognizing one another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

2 comments:

  1. This has been one of the most disturbing few days of the totally disturbing Trump regime, to find out that a 4-star general has that much contempt for American civilians and that he has such contempt for a Congresswoman of color that he figured he could tell such blatant lies about her, accessing some really blatant stereotypes and using her in the way he has. Between Masha Gessen's disturbing article and Lawrence O'Donnell's commentary pointing out the milieu of Boston Irish that he shares with Kelly, this is only going to get worse. I can only imagine his attitude toward black Marines and soldiers and their families.

    Congresswoman Wilson noted that it was Trump calling La David Johnson "your guy" instead of "your husband" that hurt his wife the most. I interpreted that as a desacralization of their marriage bond, something which has a deep resonance in groups whose marital relationships were dismissed. I would guess that Trump wouldn't have even thought that that could be an issue or Kelly, either. I think you have to be a member of such a group who has been so devalued in that way to get that. It's one of the tragic aspects of marriage equality among gay men that so many gay men regard their relationships that way. This past few years, looking at the long lasting problems of the world, I think the internalization of long held stereotypes and discriminatory practices among those so abused is among the most enduring damage that they do. I think it accounts for why Russia can't seem to get out from under dictators, the Czar, to the Communists to the billionaire oligarchs.

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  2. "I would guess that Trump wouldn't have even thought that that could be an issue or Kelly, either. I think you have to be a member of such a group who has been so devalued in that way to get that."

    I think you're right, and isn't Ironic, since Kelly thinks only Gold Star families and those who know them well can be allowed to question him about his attitude toward Rep. Wilson.

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