Mark Twain’s War Prayer

Mark Twain’s War Prayer

For the first few days of the DNC I wondered if I should have bothered to go. Not that it wasn’t interesting, but FDL had plenty of people there who know US politics better than I do, and the entire thing was very antiseptic, with little in the way of protest. A giant, very well choreographed, photo opportunity. But it was the way that photo op was staged that began to fascinate me, because I can tell you there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the English speaking world. Americans and America really are different, very different, from their cousins and the DNC illustrated it perfectly.

I started to realize this when Biden’s son came out and started praising his Dad as a wonderful father. Call me a cold-hearted Canadian as one of my friends did, but my reaction was "I don’t give a damn if Biden’s a good Dad. Was he a good Senator? Will he be a good VP or President?" And yet, the, forgive me, sob story about his family was a huge hit with the crowd and the Americans I talked to. Everyone loved it, the only person who didn’t was a fellow Canadian I talked to.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, politicians everywhere use their families, both wives and cute kids, as photo-op props. But we don’t have the wives give major speeches as a rule (except to charities) and we don’t have the sons come out and speak. The emphasis on family is a magnitude greater in the US. Heck, you can even be a bachelor and get elected Prime Minister in Canada. Being married is not a political necessity if you want the highest job in the land. Nor is there any assumption that you need a happy family, or even that your family life is any way relevant. Some years ago the Prime Minister’s son was up on rape charges, the PM was watching from the gallery and there was hardly a news story about it. Nor did I ever meet a Canadian who thought there should be.

I think the emphasis on family is partially because of the lack of a very effective safety net in the US. Just as in traditional societies, in the US you need one group of people you can rely on to help when everything goes bad. Since that’s not the government, who won’t do much when you get really sick, it has to be your family. Being willing to stick by family, through thick and thin, is the paramount virtue in a society where family, at the end of the day, is the only thing you’ve really got.

And then there’s religion. Kaine’s speech, which was "faith, faith, more faith!" really brought it home to me. Again, it is impossible to imagine in Canada or Britain, that a major politician would give such a speech. Religion is supposed to be separate from public life—believe what you want. Even Preston Manning, the old leader of the Reform Party in Canada had to do a Kennedy—had to declare that while he was against abortion due to his faith, that wouldn’t affect his actions as Prime Minister if elected. When Tony Blair, in England, declared Iraq was a mission from God for him, people rolled their eyes. Again, not considered legitimate. This is, I notice, slowly changing, but so far it is still mostly the case that religion is private, not public.


Then there’s the military. Both parties trooped veteran after veteran onto the stage, attempting to wrap themselves in military glory, or at least portray themselves as military friendly. Once again, this just isn’t the case in England, Canada or Australia. Oh sure, bows of deference to "supporting the troops" are made in all three countries, especially when there’s a war happening. But the glorification of the military and the huge emphasis on it simply does not exist, nor would it be considered acceptable. There is still strong separation of politics and the military, even veterans are not expected to use their military bona fides for crass partisan politics, or really, for politics at all. The military is strictly apolitical and unlike in the US, where it really isn’t most of the time, the separation is generally taken seriously. Harper, the Canadian prime minister most identified with US neocons, is the first PM to try and propagandize the Canadian military, but again, it is still nascent compared to the full blow militarism in the US.

The joke about the GOP is "God, Guns and Gays", but watching both conventions what I found is that both parties are for militarism, religion and the family above all other considerations. I don’t think many Americans really even understand that the three are not the same thing and that patriotism is not synonymous with loving God, the military and your family. I found Mel Gibson’s movie, "the Patriot" revealing in this regard. Mel’s character wasn’t a patriot, he didn’t even want to fight until his family was attacked. That’s not patriotism, that’s tribalism that would have been understood by primitive men and women long before nations even existed.

As with the British in the Victorian era, convinced that God was on their side in their wars, this unholy trinity has fused. Not only does God love America and hate America’s enemies, but the superimposition of love of country with love of family has led to an inability to recognize outsiders as even human.

The excessive worship of the military has led to a version of the old Admirals’ love of their ships – a paralyzing fear of losing troops, which takes precedence over actually accomplishing the mission. It is "the military" that is important and every soldier insists his life is somehow important. Seems almost inarguable but it leads to lesser military effectiveness in a myriad of situations, but nowhere more than in anti-insurgency operations where the willingness of American troops to blow away civilians if there is even a miniscule chance that might make troops safer has actually lead to troops being less safe, because it has increased the number of people who have reason to want to kill American troops. Fire discipline is rule #1 in counterinsurgency, but if your job#1 is not to be successful at the mission, but to save your own life, then having a twitchy trigger finger "kill them first, check the bodies to see if they were actually a threat later" makes sense.  However while that twitchy trigger finger might save your life, every time it leads to you killing the wrong person you have betrayed the mission. And in the not very long run, it costs more lives than it saves.

But in domestic political terms, when even the Democrats, the so-called secular party, put God and the military and individual families above society as a whole, above one’s duty to everyone in the country, it’s a problem. The identification of family as paramount over all else means that things like welfare don’t really make sense. After all, the family will look after you and if you don’t have a family that will, like Biden, well then, that’s a personal moral failing. The glorification of the military for itself and rather than for what it can do means that no one can seriously take a look at the military and say "what is half the world’s military budget getting us? Wouldn’t this money be better spent elsewhere? Shouldn’t these men and woman be helping to build the country rather than to destroy other countries?" Since that glorification slops over onto police and even over onto prison guards, it stops a cold hard look at how the US justice system is completely out of control and how the US has become the world’s leading prison state.

And the glorification of God, as if he gives more a damn about the US than anyone else, as if he likes war (all indications are he doesn’t), as if he thinks that family trumps all other obligations (he doesn’t, ask Jesus about having to leave your family to serve him) adds nitro to an already combustible mixture and makes it even harder to question. After all, if God is for guns, cops, family and a big military that stomps infidels, how can you argue against that? If God loves America and likes war, well then, who can argue against that?

In fact, if God approves of anything a government does, good or bad, who can argue against it except on theological terms? "well no, in the Bible it says…" If God is a legitimate participant in politics, soon politics becomes religion.

Faith, the military and the family. The three idols that every American politician must bow down before. No wonder American politics is where it is.