I’ve seen a lot of movies and documentaries about the Holocaust or with themes related to the Holocaust and totalitarianism. Of the films I’ve seen, these are the thirteen that stayed with me. Please note that these movies have adult themes; they may not be suitable for children or teens.
American History X (1998): Searing movie about neo-Nazis and the power of hate. Violent scenes for mature audiences only.
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001): Excellent dramatization of Anne Frank’s life, to include the tragic end at Bergen-Belsen.
For My Father (2008): A movie about Palestinians, Israelis, and suicide bombers, but also a movie about the difficulties of confronting and overcoming prejudice.
Hotel Rwanda (2004): The genocide in Rwanda, and how one brave man made a difference.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): Powerful indictment of Nazi war criminals after World War II.
Katyn (2007): A reminder that the Nazis weren’t the only mass murderers in World War II.
The Last Days (1998): Incredibly moving documentary that explores the fate of Hungarian Jews. Highly recommended.
Life Is Beautiful (1997): It’s hard to believe that a comedy could be made about the Holocaust. But I think this movie works precisely because the main character is so resourceful and full of life.
The Lives of Others (2006): Astonishing movie about life under a totalitarian regime (East Germany). A “must see” to understand how people can be controlled and cowed and coerced, but also how some find ways to resist.
Lore (2012): Movie about a German teenager who has to survive in the chaos of 1945 as the Third Reich comes crashing down. Various small scenes show the hold that Hitler had over the German people, and the reluctance of many Germans to believe that the Holocaust occurred and that Hitler had ordered it.
Sarah’s Key (2010): Heart-wrenching movie about the roundup of Jews in France, which reminds us that the Nazis had plenty of helpers and collaborators.
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005): Inspiring movie about Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany. The Scholls were college students who took a courageous stand against the Nazis. Executed as traitors in 1943, they are now celebrated as heroes in Germany.
The Wave (2008): Compelling movie about the allure of fascism and “the Fuhrer (leader) principle.” Highly recommended, especially if you want to know how Hitler got so many young people to follow him.
US Postage issue, 1894, $2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s title is from James Madison, architect of our Constitution. Madison famously wrote against the perils of forever war. In other words, he wrote about the perils we face today in our ongoing, seemingly unending, war on terror.
Here is what Madison warned us about:
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debt and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare …
Strong words — and words to ponder as we continue to maintain an enormous defense and homeland security complex with bases and commitments around the world.
How, indeed, do you maintain personal liberties and individual freedoms in a garrison state? The short answer: you can’t. Just read Madison.
As a history professor with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering teaching at a technical college after 20 years’ service in the US Air Force, I’m sympathetic to education that connects to the world of doing, of making, of providing goods and services to consumers. Yet we must not allow education itself to become a consumable. When education becomes a commodity and students become consumers, the result is zombie education. Often characterized in practice by the mindless munching of digestible bits of disconnected PowerPoint factoids, zombie education leads to more mindless consumption of commodities after graduation, a result consistent with greed-driven capitalism, but not with ideal-driven democracy.
Mindless consumption is bad enough. But zombies are also mindless in political contexts, which is why totalitarian systems work so hard to create them as a preliminary to taking power. Think here of Hannah Arendt’s critique of Adolf Eichmann as a man devoured by the demands of his job (the extermination of the Jews in Europe), a cliché-ridden careerist who was unable to think outside the constraints of Nazi party ideology.
But let’s return to the economic bottom line. In his signature role as Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) describes the latest generation of college graduates as NINJAs (no income, no jobs, no assets). Basically, they’re screwed, he says. This may even be true if you view a college diploma strictly as a passport to a vocation that pays well.
But true education is much more than that. True education is transformative. It’s soul-enriching and soul-engaging. It opens alternative paths to living that don’t begin and end at the workplace. It measures personal fulfillment in ways that aren’t restricted to take-home pay.
Higher education is (or should be) about enriching your life in terms that are not exclusively financial. It’s about the betterment of character and the development of taste. It’s about becoming a savvier citizen whose appreciation of, and dedication to, democracy is keener and more heartfelt.
And that’s precisely why it’s worthy of greater public funding. State and federal funding of higher education must be restored to previous levels precisely because an informed and empowered citizenry is the best guarantor of individual freedoms as well as communal well-being.
Education, in short, is not a commodity – it’s the commonwealth.
But today’s view of education is often narrowly focused on individual profit or vocational training or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), a bias that carries with it class-based strictures. Students are told it’s OK to be selfish but also that their role is to be consumers, not creators; conformists, not dreamers.
Powerful institutions at local, state, and federal levels share this bias. Educators currying favors from business and industry spout bromides about “competitiveness.” Business leaders address graduates and tell them the secrets to success in life are a positive attitude, punctuality and smart clothes.
If we view education as an ephemeral commodity in a world of goods, so too will our students. They’ll lump it together with all the other trivial, product-based, corporate-funded information with which they’re constantly bombarded. Critical thinking? Informed citizenship? Boring. And could you shut up a minute? I need to take this call/send this tweet/update my Facebook.
Staring vacantly into electronic gizmos as they shuffle to and from class, students are already halfway to joining the zombie ranks. Let’s not infect them further with commodity-based zombie education.
What is to be done? History is a guide. Consider the words of John Tyndall, eminent rationalist and promoter of science. In “An Address to Students” in 1868, or 145 years ago, Tyndall opined that:
“The object of [a student’s] education is, or ought to be, to provide wise exercise for his capacities, wise direction for his tendencies, and through this exercise and this direction to furnish his mind with such knowledge as may contribute to the usefulness, the beauty, and the nobleness of his life.”
Of course, back then such an education was reserved for young men. We congratulate ourselves today for including the “her” with the “his,” of promoting “diversity,” usually defined in racial or gender or ethnic terms.
But what about the diversity of a college education that embraces, not just hardheaded utility or the politics of identity, but ideals about the beauty and nobility of life? What about the fostering of judgment, the ability to go beyond prefabricated, binary thought processes of ideology to a form of thinking that can assess the value and significance of events, situations, and choices on their own terms?
But zombies don’t care about beauty or nobility. They’re not worried about making judgments, especially moral ones. All they want is to consume. Defined by their appetite, they are hollow people, easily led – and easily misled.
As long as we market education as a consumable, the zombies will come. They may even find ways to pay their tuition. Just don’t expect them to de-zombify upon graduation. Just don’t expect them to become noble citizens inspired by, and willing to stand up for, the beauty of true democracy.
It’s impossible for Washington to think outside of the Pentagonal Box
Andrew Bacevich, a retired U.S. Army colonel and professor of international relations, writing in January 2009 as Barack Obama took office as president, made the following cogent observation about the need for true “change” in Washington:
When it comes to national security, the standard navigational charts used to guide the ship of state are obsolete. The assumptions, doctrines, habits, and routines falling under the rubric of “national security policy” have outlived their usefulness. The antidote to the disappointments and failures of the Bush years, illustrated most vividly in the never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not to try harder, but to think differently. Only then will it become possible to avoid the patently self-destructive behavior that today finds Americans facing the prospect of perpetual conflict that neither our army nor our economy can sustain.
Of course, Obama promised “change,” but with respect to national security policy, the sum total of the last five years of his watch has simply been more of the same.
Admittedly, the war in Iraq finally ended (for U.S. troops, not for the Iraqi people), but that was only because the Iraqis themselves refused to countenance the eternal presence of our troops there (of course, our boondoggle of an embassy in Baghdad survives). Obama didn’t get us out of Iraq; he acquiesced to a deal Bush had already struck with the Iraqis.
Meanwhile, the U.S. remains ensnared in Afghanistan, squandering lives and resources to the tune of $100 billion a year. Vague promises are made of an American withdrawal in 2014, but with an “enduring presence” (God help us) for another ten years after that. Under Obama, drone strikes have expanded and continue; the national security state remains fat as it ever was, garrisoning the globe and spying on the world (including, as we recently learned, American citizens); and various tough-talking “experts” in Congress continue to call for new military interventions in places like Iran and Syria.
Why has this happened? One reason is that Obama and his team wanted to be reelected in 2012, so they embraced the Bush neo-conservative approach of a hyper-kinetic, interventionist, foreign policy. Fresh thinking was nowhere to be found, since any downsizing of American military commitments or its national security apparatus would have exposed Obama to charges of being “soft” on (Muslim) terror.
With respect to a bloated national security apparatus and wasteful military interventions, change didn’t come in 2008. It was a case, as The Who song says, of “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Nor is change coming, seemingly, in the future. Americans remain wedded to a colossal national security state that neither the president nor the Congress appears willing to challenge, let alone change.
Fresh thinking is the one thing you can’t buy in Washington because it’s priceless. And for the lack of it, we’re paying a very high price indeed.
Next Article: Some fresh thinking on where we should be headed.
A recent article at NBC News is unusual in that it highlights the awfulness of war even when the killing is “surgical” and done by drones. Brandon Bryant, a former drone operator for the Air Force, suffers from PTSD and feels that killing by drone caused him to lose respect for life, that he became like a sociopath. Especially upsetting to Bryant was when his commander gave him a “diploma” (most likely an award citation) that stated he had contributed to the deaths of 1,626 people.
Drone strikes are basically extra-judicial death sentences from the sky. For Americans, they seem unproblematic because we’re not exposed to them and because our government tells us only “militants” and evil-doers are being killed.
But the temptations of drone warfare are considerable, as I wrote in an article for Truthout in August 2012. Here’s what I said back then:
What happens when we decouple war’s terrible nature from its intoxicating force? What happens when one side can kill with impunity in complete safety? General Robert E. Lee’s words suggest that a nation that decouples war from its terrors will likely grow too fond of it. The temptation to use deadly force will no longer be restrained by knowledge of the horrors unleashed by the same.
Such thoughts darken the reality of America’s growing fondness for drone warfare. Ourland-based drone pilots patrol the skies of foreign lands like Afghanistan in complete safety. They unleash appropriately named Hellfire missiles to smite our enemies. The pilots see a video feed of the carnage they inflict; the American people see and experience nothing. In rare cases when ordinary Americans see drone footage on television, what they witness is something akin to a “Call of Duty” video game combined with a snuff film. War porn, if you will.
Many Americans seem happy that we can smite foreign “militants” at no risk to ourselves. They trust that our military (and the CIA) rarely misidentifies a terrorist, and that “collateral damage,” that mind-numbing euphemism that obscures the reality of innocent men, women, and children obliterated by missiles, is the regrettable price of keeping America safe.
But the reality is that sloppy intelligence and the fog and friction of war combine to make seemingly antiseptic drone warfare much like all other forms of war: bloody, wasteful, and terrible. Terrible, that is, for those on the receiving end of American firepower. Not terrible for us.
There is a real danger that today’s drone warfare has become the equivalent to the Dark Side of the Force as described by Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back: a quicker, easier, more seductive form of terror. It is indeed seductive to deploy the technological equivalent of Darth Vader’s throat-constricting powers at a safe distance. We may even applaud ourselves for our prowess while doing so. We tell ourselves that we are killing only the bad people, and that the few innocents caught in the crosshairs constitute an accidental but nonetheless unavoidable price of keeping America safe.
My copy. Not the sexiest cover, but a good primer nonetheless
When I entered the Air Force in 1985, I grabbed a pamphlet by Brian M. Jenkins of Rand. The title caught my eye: International Terrorism: The Other World War. Back then, the country was focused on the Cold War against the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union. Jenkins suggested there was another war we should be focusing on.
In his pamphlet, he provided a “working definition” of terrorism:
“Terrorism is the use of criminal violence to force a government to change its course of action.”
And: “Terrorism is a political crime. It is always a crime…”
But Jenkins also knew that terrorism, as a word and concept, was contentious and politicized. As he explained:
“Some governments are prone to label as terrorism all violent acts committed by their political opponents, while antigovernment extremists frequently claim to be the victims of governmental terror. Use of the term thus implies a moral judgment. If one group can successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its moral and political point of view, or at least to reject the terrorists’ view. Terrorism is what the bad guys do. This drawing of boundaries between what is legitimate and what is illegitimate, between the right way to fight and the wrong way to fight, brings high political stakes to the task of definition.”
Jenkins correctly notes that the word “terrorism” implies both a political and moral (and legal) judgment. By his working definition, to be a terrorist is to be a criminal.
Can nation-states be terrorists? Interestingly, no. Not if you accept the definitional imperative common to international relations. Nation-states draw their identity (and authority) in part by and through their ability to monopolize the means of violence. Because a state monopolizes or “controls” violence in a legally sanctioned international system, it cannot commit a criminal act of terror, however terrorizing that act might be. (By this definition, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing 200,000 people were not terrorist acts, even though the intent was to terrorize the Japanese into surrendering.) Put differently, a state can sponsor terrorism, but it cannot commit it.
It’s an unsatisfying definition to many. AsGlenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer and journalist for the Guardian, has noted many times, terrorism as a concept is now so highly politicized, so narrowly defined and closely tied to evil acts committed by Muslim extremists, that the word itself has become polluted. It’s more weapon than word, with an emotional impact that hits with the explosive power of a Hellfire missile.
Terrorism, in short, has become something of an Alice in Wonderland word. As Humpty Dumpty put it, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Such is the case with “terrorist” and “terrorism”: they’re often just epithets, ones we reserve for people and acts we find heinous.
Terrorism exists, of course. But so too does politically-motivated manipulation of the English language, as George Orwell famously warned. If terrorist = criminal = always them but never us (because we’re a nation, and a good-hearted one at that), we absolve ourselves of blame even as we shout, like the Queen of Hearts in Alice, “Off with their heads!” at the “terrorists.”
That shout may be satisfying, but it may also be all too easy — and all too biased.
A good friend of mine wrote to me the other day about an increasingly rare privilege he enjoyed, courtesy of a visitor from Europe. In my friend’s words,
Yesterday we had a friend visit from Europe. We sat from about 7 PM to midnight just talking about anything from personal or work problems to politics and the time just flew by… The contrast with the limited ability of the well-educated Americans we have met here to really discourse was astounding. Free discourse and examination of competing ideas is fundamental to democracy yet most Americans today consider it either “impolite” or “bad manners” to reveal themselves in even random conversations. Most Americans have decided to live in a black or white world, not the grey that is the reality.
Imagine that! My friend’s European guest demonstrated both the ability to reason, distinguishing facts from theories and conjecture, as well as tolerance, the ability to entertain other points of view, even when they disagree with your own.
Remember when Americans enjoyed the cut and fray of conversation, the pleasure of minds working hard to shed light on difficult matters? Just as our bodies prosper from demanding physical chores, so too do our minds.
Sadly, discourse in the USA today, such as it is, is mostly polarized. It’s I’m right and you’re wrong, and the way I prove it is to outshout you. This is one reason why otherwise thoughtful people tend to avoid protracted or revealing conversations. What’s the point, when all the other person wants to do is to cow you, condemn you, or convert you?
That said, Americans are slowly losing the ability to converse, for lots of different reasons. Young people are educated indoctrinated to get a job, with “success” measured by their pay and benefits. They place little value on becoming educated, informed, critical thinkers. They’re constantly distracted by various electronic devices and video games, and constantly bombarded with trivial information masquerading as meaningful news.
Immersion in the trivial stifles creative discourse and is an ever-present threat, as Alexandr Solzhenitsyn warned us 35 years ago:
People also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.
Solzhenitsyn
A large part of leading a meaningful life is healthy communal discourse. But our society no longer sees discourse — the true exchange of ideas — as valuable. You can’t put a dollar figure on it, you can’t sell advertising for it, you can’t assign a metric to it, so just abandon it.
Writing skills are also degenerating. My students have difficulty sustaining an argument in print. They have difficulty in conversing intelligently on a range of subjects. They can’t distinguish facts from propaganda, or they prefer to deny facts that disagree with their received opinions. And they are tainted by me-first American exceptionalism.
And it’s only gotten worse since 9/11. As my friend noted, “On top of the social attitudes of feeling that conversation on serious topics is outré, the post 9/11 suppression of free speech has had a devastating effect on private discussion of national politics.”
In these times of conformity and confusion and complicity with power, we need thoughtful and contrarian discourse more than ever.
Come, let us reason together. And let’s not be afraid of heated discussion. A controlled burn can stop the most raging wildfire in the mind. We all need to burn more brightly to shed the light that is the essence of an active mind and a thriving democracy.
The Good Old Days of Artificial ObsolescenceA U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon. Not stealthy, but still a great jet. And compared to the F-35, very cheap indeed! (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Harley Earl was Vice President of Styling for General Motors and considered the father of American automotive design. Since its inception in the 1920s, GM styling was based on a concept known as “artificial obsolescence,” which involved redesigning and retooling the entire line of cars every two years so that car owners would want to sell or trade in their old car and buy the “latest” model. It worked so well for GM that Ford and Chrysler were driven to follow the same business model which ultimately, years later, led to the financial collapse of the automotive industry.
The economic waste due to the enormous cost of retooling body parts and production lines so that automobiles could present a “fresh face” to consumers was of little consequence to executives. What mattered was that to be “in” consumers had to have the “new” model. This manufactured need boosted short term profit for the companies. When I [b. traven] worked in Detroit, I had an older utilitarian Ford station wagon which drove my co-workers crazy. It was disloyal to my GM employer, but it got me where I wanted to go. Even back then I was a brand and style contrarian.
Artificial obsolescence and manufactured need is of course not limited to cars. Consider America’s defense industry and its high-ticket items. Let’s kick the tires of the F-22 Raptor “stealth” fighter and the F-35 Lightning II “stealth” fighter-bomber. First of all, stealth technology (involving esoteric and expensive radar absorbing and reflecting materials) adds billions of dollars to the sticker price of these planes, yet the need for this “option” is marginal (at best). There’s little need to evade sophisticated radars in a world with only one superpower.
Leaving that aside, consider the effectiveness of previous American fighter jets, such as the F-15 Eagle (available in air superiority and “strike” versions), the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the F-18 Hornet (and Super Hornet), even the ungainly A-10 Warthog. All of these planes are proven performers; they are also far cheaper than the F-22 and F-35, and arguably more effective.
Even our profligate Pentagon spenders stopped buying F-22s because at roughly $400 million a copy, they were just too expensive (and also too proneto killing their pilots). Yet the Pentagon is persisting in plans to spend roughly $400 billion to acquire F-35s (despite serious teething pains and horrendous cost overruns), even though older and more reliable models like the A-10 or F-18 are perfectly capable of accomplishing the mission.
That’s the story of our military-industrial complex and the compliant representatives of the people who approve these foolish expenditures. They’ll spend countless billions on the equivalent of new tail fins for their latest Cadillac fighter jet. Harley Earl is laughing somewhere.
But what’s really obsolete is our thinking, which prefers the new and shiny, never mind the cost, all in the name of short-term profits for industry. It’s an economic model that wasn’t sustainable in the automotive industry. And it sure isn’t sustainable in military circles at a time of supposed fiscal austerity.
But, heck: We’re winning style points even as we imperil our economy. Hooray, America!
Update 1 (10/3/2013): The Inspector General (IG) for the Department of Defense has identified 719 problems with the F-35 fighter-bomber. Efforts to solve these problems will continue to drive up the per unit cost of the F-35. Meanwhile, Predator and Reaper unmanned drones continue to supplant manned fighters. And when we need a pilot in the cockpit, legacy fighters such as the F-15, F-16, and F-18 continue to perform the mission.
Actually, what matters more than new planes to combat effectiveness is the skill of pilots and the weapons attached to those planes. Yet with the F-35 we continue to pursue the “bleeding edge” of aircraft technology — and hence our country continues to bleed scores of billions for a plane we arguably don’t need. But we are scoring style points…
Update 2 (10/25/2013): For a detailed (and very sobering) article on the F-35 and all its problems, see Adam Ciralsky, “Will It Fly?” at Vanity Fair. Link here. Also useful is this article by JP Sottile.
Bracing Views 