3/30/23

 Thursday, March 30, 2023

In bed at 10:40, up at 6:20.  22℉, high of 41℉, wind SSW at 5 mph, gusts up to 25 mph today, wind chill is 15℉, ranging from 14 to 35℉. Some wintery mix is expected today.  Sunrise 6:37, sunset 7:15, 12+38.

Christian Nationalism.  The current issue of The Atlantic online contains an article by Kelefa Sanneh with the title "How Christian Is Christian Nationalism" and the subtitle "Many Americans who advocate it have little interest in religion and an aversion to American culture as it currently exists. What really defines the movement?" Most of the information in it is unsurprising since Christian Nationalism is simply a form of neo-fascism.  What mainly caught my eye was this: "But they also note that the white Christian nationalists in their survey expressed the most hostility not toward immigrants or toward Muslims but toward socialists."  By 'socialists' they mean Democrats and anyone who supports government programs that in any way redistribute wealth, i.e., me.  This poll finding is consistent with other polls I've seen that say the people in this group of Whites would rather have their child marry a Black or other minority or a believer in another religion than marry a 'socialist.'  Political identity tends to be the dominant concern in separating 'the good guys' from 'the bad guys.'  I think of this contempt for 'socialists' whenever I hear references to Donald Trump's ominous campaign promise: "I am your warrior.  I am your justice.  I am your retribution."  I suppose this rhetoric can be interpreted innocently, as something like "You can show those nasty Biden voters who claim to have won the last election  how wrong they are by re-electing me next time."  But 'retribution' suggests a lot more than demonstrating the rightness of your cause and the wrongness of your opponent's.  It means punishment and vengeance.  There should be no doubt that if he, or someone with his same fascist inclinations, like Ron DeSantis, regains governmental power, we Lefties are in deep trouble.  It will kindle thoughts of 1933 Germany.  

Another sentence in the article caught my attention: " . . . Israeli political scientist Yoram Hazony, who has suggested that American nationalists should draw inspiration from the example of Israel, which conceives of itself as “the national state of a particular people.”  The ultraorthodox and ultranationalists who control the current Israeli government under Netanyahu care more about Israel's Jewish identity than its status as a democracy, much like the American Christian Nationalists care more about America's 'Christian heritage' than they do about democracy.  Both countries are coming apart at the seams over identity.

Marine Bank Plaza/Chase Tower is undergoing renovation to attract more tenants.  One of the oldest office buildings in downtown Milwaukee, it was built in 1962, when I was a Marquette undergrad.  After I was discharged from the Marine Corps and before I started at MULS, I took a job there on the night maintenance crew.  I was 'the interior glass man,' cleaning all the accessible glass surfaces in the interior of the building.  I wanted to earn some money and thought I could work until school started around Labor Day.  I only lasted a few weeks.  My crew mates were a talkative fellow named Freddie, whose mother brought him his lunch every night, and another I think of as Lurch, from the Addams Family. who rarely said anything.  Freddie spent our breaks talking to me.  Whatever I would say, Freddie would repeat verbatim and precede it with "In other words, . . ." After a few weeks of this, he drove me a little crazy and I quit.  Four years as a Marine Corps officer had rendered me unfit for menial labor.  I was abashed that I didn't hold on to that job until the start of the school year, but not abashed enough to spend more hours with Freddie and Lurch.

Casualties of War by Daniel Lang is my Throne Room reading.  Its opening sentence: "Like their predecessors in all wars, American veterans of the Vietnam campaign who are coming home to civilian life have their heads filled with memories that may last the rest of their days, for, no matter how far from the front a man may have spent his time as a soldier, he will remember it as a special time, when, fleetingly, his daily existence appeared to approach the heroic." [ The book originally appeared as a feature article in the October 18, 1969  The New Yorker.]  I certainly agree that my time in Vietnam was "a special time" in my life and that, once returned from Vietnam, my head was filled with memories that have indeed lasted for the rest of my days, not so much memories anymore, though I have many, but impressions, senses, feelings.  I can't say that I recall ever having the sense that my 'daily existence [there] appeared to approach the heroic.' I arrived 'in country' on 9 July 1965, and left on 28 February 1966, 234 days later.  I was never a combatant; I was what came to be called a REMF, a rear echelon mother fucker.  I was part of the Wing headquarters operation in the early days of the American invasion.  The air base was shelled with rockets only once while I was there and I remember little of it.  It happened after nightfall and I had a snootful of booze from the officers club.  All I remember is putting on my helmet and my.45 Cold pistol and running in the dark from the tent I lived in to my 'battle station' at the Tactical Air Control Center, fearful that I would be shot by another Marine.  I remember that fear of a trigger-happy teenage Marine seeing a figure running in the dark and BANG!  Fortunately, no one shot me and I didn't shoot anyone else.  I believe I also had a sense of futility, especially after learning that the number of 'hostiles' around the airbase had doubled since we got there in numbers, despite all the patrols, all the 'H&I' and targeted artillery barrages, and despite all the strafing, napalm, and bombing runs.  In any event, I can't recall anything feeling 'my existence approach[ing] the heroic' during my time in Vietnam.  What I do recall is a sense of absurdity, a sense of not being welcome, of not belonging there, perhaps a sense of being there under false pretenses, i.e., of being there to help the Vietnamese and not to help ourselves.

But back to Daniel Lang's article/book.  It is a horror story.  It drives home to me every nightmare fear I've ever had about what we did in Vietnam.  It is a story of a preplanned, cold-blooded, gang-rape and murder of an innocent young Vietnamese girl by American soldiers. I do not believe that the conduct of the 4 soldiers who engaged in the conduct was typical of all the soldiers and Marines in Vietnam nor do I know that it was common.  I don't think it was.  But military training and combat turn men into killers.  It brutalizes them. And for the vast majority of Americans in Vietnam, the Vietnamese people were not our friends.  There was always the question of where their loyalty lay.  Even if the Vietnamese were nots hostile, they were the reason the Americans were there and the Americans didn't want to be there, certainly didn't want to be in danger of losing their young lives or limbs on behalf of the 'slopes', the 'gooks', the 'zipperheads.' War ruins people.