BYGOREVIDAL ■ ■ HEREHASNOTBEEN a political debate in the UnitedStates since theone that endedwiththe Japaneseattack onPearlHarbor. FromSeptember1939toDecember7,1941, therulingclassoftheUnited States was split between those who would join the Allies in their war against Hitler and those who would stay out. For three years there was fierce argument in Congress, the press, the schools. At my school, Exeter, there was a sharp division between the isolationists, known as America Firsters, and the interventionists. True to the populist tradition in which I was brought up, I was isolationist. Then, or as Lincoln once so bleakly put it, and the war came; and I enlisted in the Army, age 17. Since the victory of 1945, the United States, as befits the leader of something called “ the free world,” has fought open and unsuccessful wars in Korea and Vietnam; and relatively covert wars in Cambodia, Laos, the Caribbean, Central America, Africa, Chile, the Middle East, etc. In almost every case, our overwhelming commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights has required us to support those regimes that would deny freedom , democracy and human rights to their own people. We justify our affection for fascist (or, to be cozy, authoritarian) regimes because each and every one of them is a misty-eyed convert to our national Voices of dissent are either blacked out or marginalized. ity state’s directives to overthrow an Arbenz here or a Sihanouk there or— why not?—devastate a neutral country like Laos to show how tall we can stand in all our marvelously incredible credibility. Voices of dissent are either blacked out or marginalized, while known apostates of the national religion are either demonized or trivialized. Meanwhile, no one has noticed that the national security state, in its zeal to bring the national religion to all nations, has now deprived us of our original holy text— our Old Testament—the Constitution. Every war that we have fought since 1945 has been by executive (or National Security Council) order. Since only Congress may declare war, these wars have all been in violation of the Constitution. To the House of Representatives was assigned, uniquely, the power of the purse. But, in thrall to those religious wars that we forever fight, our debts are now so great that Congress dares not prepare a proper budget. So the power of the purse has been replaced by a ridiculous formula, involving a blind arbitrary cutting of the budget should Federal waste exceed a certain arbitrary figure. Although the most militant of our national religionists enjoy calling themselves conservatives, they have not managed to conserve either the letter or the spirit of the Old Testament. religion, which is anticommunism. Then, once our dictator is in place, we echo Andy Hardy: Hey, kids, let’s put on an e lection! And so, in the presence of cold-eyed avatars of Tammany and Daley, our general does. To their credit, our rulers don’t often bore us with tortured rationalizations or theological nit-picking. They don’t have to. Since we have no political parties and no opposition media, there is always a semblance of “ consensus” for these wars. Congress funds the Pentagon, which then responds to the national securORSOMETINEKNOWLedgeable foreigners have found it difficult to talk about much of anything to Americans because we appear to know so little about much of anything. History of any kind is a closed book to us. Geography is no longer taught in most public schools. Foreign languages make everyone’s head ache—anyway, they all know CUETHEGRE Art by Frank Gaard Design by Diana Boger 4 Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1989-90
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