https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/11/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-101-november.html
US Endless War and Ways to Stop the US System of War
Dick, US Pervasive War System, Part I
Hedges and Bacevich, “the folly of endless war”
Walter Hixson, [US History of] Imperialism and War
Quakers’ Way to Peace
US Patriotism, US Militarism, and US WAR, Part I
Why have we been at war since 1941? The inclusive, pervasive patriotism is a main origin, with its arrogant US Christian nationalism and US exceptionalism inserted in every nook and cranny of USA. We are taxed and disciplined by relentless, yet to most invisible, patriotic propaganda for militarism, empire, and war. The Nazis used regimented education to persuade and secret police, concentration camps, torture, and murder to compel their citizens to kill others en masse. Similar regimented results have come to us on little cats’ paws: nationalistic, militaristic education and cultural blizzard: TV ads praising gifts to US troops abroad (where are they not?) from three local TV stations and McDonald’s; stores giving discounts to veterans. No need for Storm Troopers here. Record how the patriotic militarism system USA works—and expands its power— and tell about it (here), and to every ear and eye available to you. Help to bring critical thinking to our public schools. Think what a more peaceful nation and world we would have if every public school US history course did 2 things: 1. Replaced “America” with the truth: North America or US or USA; 2. Assigned Walter Hixson’s history of [US] Imperialism and War. [Part II will confront the economics of war USA, the military-corporate-congressional-administration complex of profit and inequality.] Dick
| The Chris Hedges Report with Andrew Bacevich on his book “After the Apocalypse” and the folly of endless war. CHRIS HEDGES. NOV 9, 2022. |
| Listen · 31M |
In the months of July and September 1940 the French historian and future resistance fighter Marc Bloch, who fought in World War I and World War II, wrote a short book called L’Étrange Défaite or Strange Defeat. It was a searing condemnation of the French high command and political class which was responsible for the humiliating defeat and disintegration of the French army with the Nazi invasion of France. Bloch, who went underground to fight the Nazi occupiers, was executed by the Gestapo in 1944. His book, published after the war, was the model for historian Andrew Bacevich’s book After the Apocalypse. In his book Bloch wrote: “Our war up to the very end, was a war of old men, or of theorists who were bogged down in errors, engendered by the faulty teaching of history. It was saturated by the smell of decay…” Bacevich is no less censorious of the political and military class that has led the United States into one debacle after the next since Vietnam, a war he served in as a young officer. He argues they are woefully out of touch with reality, crippled by self-delusion and unable to adapt to a changing world. Unless they are wrenched from power, he argues, the twilight of the American empire will be one filled, especially given our refusal to seriously address the climate crisis, with catastrophe after catastrophe. Joining me to discuss his book After the Apocalypse is retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich and emeritus professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is also the cofounder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Share
The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Walter Hixson. Imperialism and War: The History Americans Need to Own. 2021. Page 1: “The potent patriotic discourse of American exceptionalism provided the glue that forged the unlikely and fragile union of 13 highly disparate British colonies….” “This book argues that it is long past time to unpack this destructive discourse animated by national self-worship and to replace it with a desperately needed new paradigm of cooperative internationalism.” [If this history of the USA or North America had been taught in our schools, we would not be fraught with constant fighting and conquering. Please read the book and buy it for libraries and give to friends and officials. –Dick]
QUAKERS COUNTER WAR BY PEACE: PREVENT WARS, STOP WARS, HEAL THE BROKEN PEOPLE AND THE EARTH
Statement on the peace testimony and Ukraine: AFSC joins with other Quaker groups in affirming our commitment to seeking peaceful alternatives to armed conflict and ensuring the human costs of war are not forgotten. Whichever way this war ends, we know that healing and sustainable peacemaking will take more than a generation, and will only be possible through inclusive and sustainable processes.