This is a blog of random thought, book & movie reviews, poems, stories, cartoons and short essays. It is probably the closest thing I'll ever have to a journal or dairy. The idea of recording everything I do, every day would make for pretty dull reading. My hope is that it will be a useful way of developing and holding onto my thoughts about what's going on in the world.
While there are signs that the Republican Party is backing away from its plan to eliminate Medicare by substituting vouchers, starting with people who are now 54 and under, I couldn't resist posting this cartoon. The idea that you would try to assuage the concerns of seniors -- in effect, buy their support -- by exempting them from the effects of their proposed changes, smacks too much of how Washington works: playing one side off against the other, rather than persuading everyone to come together to solve national problems. In short, I find such "divide and conquer" strategies offensive.
Does something need to be done? Sure. But it has to start with addressing the costs of medical care, not by handing over even more of our financial resources to for-profit insurance companies. The Affordable Care Act is just getting off the ground. Yes, there's room for improvement. We need to move away from fee for service towards a more rational and affordable system of best practices and prevention. To repeal the Affordable Care Act now and then turn around and dump seniors into an unregulated system, one that would allows insurance companies to deny coverage and call all the shots, just like the good ol' days, is madness.
Are we misreading what going on in the Mideast? Or, to put it another way, are we missing its broader implications? Is what we're seeing there a precursor of what we're likely to see here and in other countries in the future? Are the spread of Wisconsin-inspired demonstrations related to the unrest we’re seeing elsewhere? Are these revolutions the natural consequence of the mal-distribution of wealth?
We're a country caught between two virtues, the virtue of Personal Responsibility –the idea that each person should make his own way in the world and control his own fortunes – and the virtue of Social Responsibility – the notion that we are all in this together and the wealth of the nation should devolve to the benefit of all, that we'd all be better off (even the wealthiest among us) if the wealth were distributed more equitably.
The challenge is to reconcile these two seemingly opposing virtues.
I believe that the fundamental problem is that there just isn't enough work and that this will only get worse. As the use of technology expands, jobs slowly disappear; work gradually becomes obsolete.[1] Today, most workers are At-Will employees, with the employer holding all the cards. Purchase new technology to displace personnel? Great—Fewer people to feed and the government will pick up the tab. Contrast this with the 1950s, when 28% of our workforce belonged to unions,[2] virtually all employed in the private sector. But, such is the wealth of the nation that even the poorest will survive, somehow. Look at Egypt where the majority live on two dollars a day. Even they get by.
As the divide between the rich and the poor grows, and it becomes harder for the rich to hide their fortunes, the unemployed and poor get angry. They feel cheated. Sometimes, as in Saudi Arabia, the government tries to buy off its people, but usually, by the time anger has boiled over, it’s too late. You can put a lid on it, but it only boils all the harder. As long as there have been revolutions, it has ever been so.[3]
Our system requires that we work or accept being poor. But in the USA, there are five applicants for every job opening, and this is not likely to improve soon, if at all. A college education is no longer a guarantee of employment.[4] Time will tell whether today’s high unemployment is cyclical. Evidence suggests it’s not.
The prevailing fiction is that the wealthy earn their money by the sweat of their brow and deserve to keep every penny. However they gained their advantage, they're now in a position to leverage their power and resources to acquire even more of both without much personal effort, at a cost to our nation’s well-being. The trend of the past ten years is indisputable; the rich have become much richer – 50% richer – while the rest of the population has lost ground; many, are far worse off. Most would agree that, whatever the cause, for the good of the nation, this trend must be reversed. But how?
The challenge is to get our leaders, most of whom are part of the privileged classes, to talk honestly about our problems without being drowned out by the chattering classes and a well-financed opposition. Corporate influence in Washington and its ownership of the media ensures that the ideology that favors wealth is in ascendance. This must change. We need to achieve a balance.
Our political leaders hide behind the popular illusion of American Exceptionalism, a fiction they contradict at their peril. But what if it turns out that we’re not exceptional; that we’re just the same as everyone else, and what we're witnessing is a worldwide phenomenon, a quake with its epicenter at a fruit-stand in a small village in northern Tunisia that set off a tsunami that just hasn't reached our shores yet? What then?
The only thing that prevents us from talking about these things is ideological stasis, and the fear of being wrong. Stipulated: Democrats are wrong 80% of the time … and so are Republicans. Now, let’s talk.
[1]See my previous blog post: In the Shrinking of a PieFurther evidence: Census figures show that from April 1, 2000 to April 1, 2010 US population grew from 281,422,000 to 308,745,000, an increase of 27,323,000. In contrast, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that from April, 2000 to April, 2010 non-farm payrolls decreased from 131,660,000 to 130,162,000. (No, everyone didn't suddenly decide to go into farming...)
[2] In 2003, 11.5% of workers are union members, three-fourths working in the public sector. In 1954, virtually no public workers were union members.
It was one year ago this January that the Supreme Court decided the case known as Citizens United v FEC.By now, most Americans have forgotten about what I believe to be one of the worst Supreme Court decisions since Dred Scott (the name commonly given to the 1857 decision affirming the Fugitive Slave Recover Act), Plessey v Ferguson (the 1896 “Separate but Equal” decision) and, least we forget, the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision.Only time will tell whether this characterization is justified.Some feel that it will not make any difference – it’s “no big deal” – but this may be only because corporations so dominate public discourse and government policy already that this decision is just a continuation down the slippery slope of corporate dominance of government affairs.There’s only one more step to the bottom; direct corporation contributions to campaigns.
At the heart of the Court’s (5-4) decision extending First Amendment rights to corporations is the belief that our legislators and leaders are somehow immune from corruption.I’m relieved to discover that the Court’s majority finds “quid pro quo corruption” – in other words, verifiable, out-and-out bribery – objectionable.However, apparently, everything else is just an exercise of free speech—the free, uninhibited flow of ideas.Donations to campaigns (wink, wink) that result in favorable treatment later on, is “access,” not corruption.A junket to attend, say, a pharmaceutical sponsored event at Hilton Head, dine with corporate leaders, and play lots of golf is OK.If this looks and smells like corruption, well, that’s just a misperception the public will have to get over. After all, free speech is absolute—NO exceptions.(More about that later.)
Stanley Fish, law professor and New York Times columnist provides an excellent analysis of the conflicting views of the majority and minority Court.Fish points out that the word that best describes the majority view is “chill”, as in, any restriction of corporate speech has a “chilling” effect.The word that best describes the concerns of the minority is “corrupt”, reflecting a belief that corporate speech and money have a corrupting effect.Therein lies the irreconcilable divide of the First Amendment “absolutists,” on the one hand, and “consequentialists” on the other.[1]I recommend reading Professor Fish’s article and many of the almost six hundred online comments logged in response to it.[Note that you can select the “Highlights” tab or sort them by clicking the “Reader’s recommendations” tab to read a sampling of comments.]Many are extraordinarily insightful.
As for the Supreme Court decision itself, the most persuasive argument comes not from the majority opinion, but from the minority opinion written by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.This ninety-page dissent is both clear and persuasive reasoning, and brilliant writing.When I read it, the first question I asked myself is, “why did he put so much effort into this?”After all, the vote has been taken; it was 5 to 4.He’s arguing for the minority.At eighty-nine and ready to retire, it seemed a Herculean effort.I’ve come up with three possible explanations: he thought his dissent itself might persuade one of those who had voted with the majority to change sides (unlikely, since the only likely swing vote, Justice Kennedy, wrote for the majority); that this was his last decision and he wanted it to be memorable (it is); and/or, he felt that he was laying the groundwork for a reversal, at some future date.His dissent provides all the fuel a future Court would need to override this decision; one that disregards over one hundred years of precedent.[2]
While I don’t intend to address each of the Courts arguments (Justice Stevens does that best,) here’s a summary of the most important points.
The assault on common sense and the Constitution: Corporations are not people.(For the benefit of strict Constitutional constructionists, the word “corporation” does not appear even once in the Constitution or its Amendments.Do a word search.Go ahead.)
The “money equals speech” argument.Again, most Americans find this an assault on common sense and fairness.The ability of one class of people to so dominate the “bandwidth” as to drown out all other voices suppresses rather than advances free speech.Reasonable limits on campaign contributions should be retained to ensure all voices are heard.
Erosion of prohibitions on corporate influence.This is just the latest in a series of decisions expanding corporate political rights.
The myopia of the court as evidenced by the majority statements on corruption. “What planet are they from?”Or, what boardroom.
The “Well, newspapers are corporations aren’t they?” argument.Yes, but as a class, they are granted an explicit protection in the first amendment.They are the essential fourth branch of government.
The “Free speech is absolute and should be unrestrained” argument.No one is suggesting individuals be muzzled – that includes corporate leaders; they should just do it on their own dime.
The Court blithely ignored the international makeup and allegiance of corporate officers.
The Court ignored precedents and case law.The text of the decision and the dissent are the best place for this level of analysis.I’m not a lawyer, but a few landmarks are worth noting (below).
Chief Justice John Roberts made numerous statements regarding “stare decisis” (the importance of precedents in law) during his confirmation hearings.I won’t go into this aspect of the case other than to note here that during the Robert’s hearings, he emphasized this belief to “stare decisis” many, many times.
The Court ignored the inevitable consequences of 1) its decision and 2) the effects of the expansion of corporate influence.In doing so, it also ignored clear evidence that Congress unearthed during many long hours of hearings—evidence that informed the legislation it passed.
Will restricting the speech of Exxon-Mobil, Coke or GE have a “chilling effect” on the free exchange of ideas?
Remedies: Just for fun, what would a Constitutional Amendment look like?
I won’t be addressing all of these here, but I have included this list as food for thought.Let’s just examine a few of them.
The Supposed Incorruptibility of Congress
As I mentioned at the outset, at its heart, stripped of all other pretense, the majority decision rests on these two highly questionable assertions: 1) “… this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.” and, 2) “The hallmark of corruption is the financial quid pro quo: dollars for political favors.” (italics are mine.)
The first “don’t worry, be happy” statement flies in the face of centuries of evidence to the contrary.Take the clause “That speakers may have influence over…” What is corruption if not inappropriate “influence over” a government official?I agree, “access” does not mean that corruption is afoot.But, financial contributions certainly raise the “appearance of corruption.”One must ask, why would corporations donate funds if not to influence or corrupt?
(c) New Yorker September 31, 2011
Did the Court hold hearings before reaching these conclusions?Is the Courts assertion that “expenditures … do not give rise to corruption” based on evidence or academic research?Did it base it on any evidence? Is it based on historical precedent?No and No… it is simply based on five Justices’ opinion.Maybe they conducted a private poll of legislators: “Have you ever been swayed by corporate contributions, or the threat of a corporation withholding a contribution?” “No sir.Certainly not!”At the least, you would think that the Court could site studies or evidence to support their opinion… but nothing.Have the justices not noticed what’s been going on in Washington?Have they never heard of K Street?
Faced with criticism of this decision, Clarence Thomas responded that the NY Times and Washington Post are corporations.Assuming that this was a serious response, what does that mean?That the decision was a swipe at these two papers?Certainly this statement reflects the antagonism some members of the Court feel towards the two publications, but it flies in the face of the Constitution and the First Amendment, which extends freedom of speech to the Press, not to Exxon-Mobil, Walmart, GE or Wendy’s.(The decision to allow GE or Disney or whoever to buy media organizations is worth revisiting.)
The notion that limiting the speech of corporations somehow limits the free flow of information is absurd – no one is limiting the speech of the individuals who make up corporations.Within the constraints of the law, they are free to speak.So.One has to ask, from what oxygen-deprived bubble did these five Supreme Court Justices emerge?We can read about the pernicious effects of corruption and the “appearance” of corruption practically every day[3].Are they so ill informed?Maybe they should spend more time reading the Times or the Post.
The Court’s Assault in Common Sense and the Constitution
The majority of Americans[4] find the notions that “corporations are people” and that “money equals free speech” offensive.As corporations gain a stranglehold on the popular culture and government policy through advertising, PACs and their lobbyists, common sense suggests something is seriously amiss.The courts decision seems to fly in the face of the widely held perception that corporate influence needs to be restrained, not expanded.As Justice Stevens says in his final paragraph, “While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”
Occasionally, a decision or action violates a universal and deeply held sense of right and wrong.This decision appears to have crossed that line.Polls indicate that 80% of the population thinks this decision was wrong—a majority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.While I tend to believe common sense is just another ay of saying “lowest common denominated”, in the case of Citizens United, it is backed up by lots of supporting not-so-common evidence.
First, as I noted earlier, the word “corporation” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or its Amendments. Not once.Second, corporations are defined by state statutes and operate under the laws of the various states in which they are registered. They are legal persons, not natural persons. (More about that distinction later.) Third, the Federal role regulating corporations is derived almost exclusively from the “Commerce Clause” of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8).Since most corporations operate across national and/or state boundaries, most are subject to federal laws and regulations.
While a very few corporations existed in the late 18th Century, corporations grew rapidly in the mid-19th century, spurred on by the Civil War and Reconstruction.Naturally, laws governing their influence lagged behind and corruption became commonplace.For decades, Robber Barons called the shots.Corporations bought and sold legislators.Since legislators were beholden to people like JP Morgan, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, to name a few, they were reluctant to pass any laws that would upset these oligarchs.Sound familiar?It took Teddy Roosevelt’s stubborn, aggressive leadership and the trust-busting legislation he championed to curtail their influence and establish a modicum of control.
Corporations are established by law to fulfill some commercial purpose.The law allows people to join together under a legal framework that subjects the corporation to legal requirements and holds the corporation itself accountable and liable, while shielding the corporate officers from personal liability, except, in rare instances, for gross, personal misconduct.[5]Unlike people, corporations are immortal; they can exist in perpetuity.
Over time, the corporate governance model was extended to labor unions, non-profit organizations such as charities, and to special interest groups organized to promote a political point of view.While a case can be made for protecting the speech rights of some of these groups, especially those established for a political purpose, in my view, there is room for treating them as separate classes and legislating rules to govern each.(Nonsensically, some are required to disclose their sources of financing while others are not.)
For more than one hundred years, the courts seem to have agreed there should be limits.The first crack in the dam appeared in the 1976 decision Buckley vs. Valeo.While it allowed limits on political contributions to stand, for the first time, the Court removed limits on expenditures, allowing an individual candidate to spend as much of his or her own money as he or she wanted[6].Another case that same year was “Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc.”This decision extended First Amendment protection to commercial speech.Other decisions that expanded corporate influence followed.(Again, I refer you to Justice Steven’s dissent for a thorough legal analysis.)
Since the word “Corporation” does not appear in the Constitution, you would think that the Congress would then have the power to define rules concerning corporations, as McCain-Feingold gingerly attempts to do.An “activist judge” might think otherwise.
Unrestrained Speech
The “absolutist” interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights subscribes to the notion that there should be no constraints on speech; to do so would have a “chilling” effect.Here are some exceptions few would find objectionable:
Yelling Fire in a crowded theatre
Divulging troop positions to the enemy
Outlawing bribery
Criminalizing the solicitation for sex
Conspiracy, such as planning a bank heist
Communications with terrorist organizations
Prohibitions against obscenity, child pornography
Laws against slander
Privacy protections
Copyright and patent law
Ordinances against Noise
Non-profit 501(c)3 organizations are prohibited from participating in political activities.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few more.
Oh, Yes.Don’t even think of joking about having a bomb in your briefcase at the airport.
The fact is the Court has recognized many restraints on speech and most of us accept these as being in the public interest.There is no such thing as absolute free speech.That the Court failed to recognize that unrestrained corporate speech is equally pernicious and deserving of restraint is where, in my opinion, justice has come off the rails.When it comes to a closer examination of free speech, the founders punted, and, tragically, the team that picked up the ball ran the wrong way.
Certainly, laws that limit speech need to be debated and viewed with suspicion.But, the unrestrained speech of entities created by the states solely for commercial purposes has no place in our polity, whereas individuals who make up corporations have every right to speak and do so freely.Viewed from that vantage point, one has to wonder if this is even a legitimate First Amendment issue.
International Nature of Corporations Ignored by the Court
The largest and most powerful corporations are multinational.For example, GE, one of the largest, derives sixty percent of its revenue from overseas.There is no prohibition in the current law, or mention in the Courts decision, against non-citizens owning or controlling an American corporation.No government entity is charged with determining the “nationality” of a corporation.It’s not possible.Many corporations have interests that do not align with our national interests; witness the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs or their pursuit of markets in China.Multinational or not, a corporation’s goal is maximize profits, period.Granting corporations the ability to sway elections or influence the electorate on critical national issues extends their political influence beyond what is reasonable.Yet, except for Samuel Alito’s mouthing of “That’s Not True” at the 2010 State of the Union address, the Court does not address this concern or suggest a remedy that would limit the influence of foreign-owned or controlled corporations.If you are a free speech absolutist, your response might be, “So what?We don’t care from where the free flow of ideas emanates – an idea is an idea, right?Chill-out!”Stanley Fish’s “consequentialist” might disagree, especially in light of the Courts prevailing view that money is speech.Corporate money tilts the playing field; it buys elections.
I also find this troubling: If the logic of the court prevails – that a corporation is a person – then this decision grants the corporation and the people running it each the right to speak, magnifying the voices of its officers who, incidentally, presume to speak for its stockholders.Does “one man, one vote” extend to “one man, one voice”?Does a corporation officer now have one voice or two?
A final thought on corporations.If I own stock in corporations (as I do through mutual funds,) I own part of that corporation.When it expresses an opinion in the political arena, does it speak for me?What gives the board or CEO of a company that right?No one asked me.As for the notion, as some have suggested, that I can always sell my shares (have you ever waded through a mutual fund report?) that reflects the never-never land in a galaxy far-far away from which this decision came.
Does Muzzling Corporations Muzzle People?
No.There are no constraints on people who run corporations.I just don’t want to give them unlimited license to influence the outcome of elections or dominate public discourse to the extent that they do.The individual members of corporations enjoy unrestrained free speech.One respondent to Stanley Fish’s NY Times article said it best: referring to corporations, “…to imply that this necessary and useful entity’s role can and should be extended to the political realm is both ridiculous and injurious.Shareholders who wish to take political stands on issues can and should be able to donate their own money to politicians and political causes.Suggesting that removing the corporate vehicle from the equation somehow infringes on their rights verges on the ludicrous.” (Comment from “Zorro” in Riverside, CA.)
So, to those who would argue that freedom of speech is absolute, I would argue that denying a corporation’s rights does nothing to infringe on freedom of speech, since any individual can exercise his or her free speech rights at any time.
The Court
The Supreme Courts role is to say what the law is, not to make laws.In the absence of Constitutional language governing corporate speech, laws passed by the Congress should prevail.Otherwise, it’s the Court making policy, not the U.S. Congress. The law in question in this case was the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act[7].This is the law that should have governed this decision.The irony is that, were it not for the composition of the present Court, dominated as it is by lawyers more sympathetic to corporate interests than to the public’s, the prohibitions in the law against corporate meddling in political speech would have been even stronger.
What Can Be Done?
Other than initiation impeachment proceedings or waiting for the composition of the Court to change and rearguing the case, there are few realistic remedies available.But two possibilities – admittedly remote – are 1) an act of judicial nullification[8] by the Congress and the President, or 2) a Constitutional Amendment.Good luck.There are dozens of Constitutional Amendments submitted every year that never see the light of day, including at least one on this subject submitted by former Representative Paul Hodes (D-NH). Nevertheless, it’s fun to contemplate what one might look like; so here goes:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Sates of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), that the following article, which may be cited as the “Governance of Corporate Speech Amendment” is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
Article
Section 1.a) Corporations in any form or variant are legal persons, not natural persons[Corporations are not people] and; b) The Free Speech clause of the First Amendment applies exclusively to natural persons.
Section 2.The U.S. Congress is hereby empowered to regulate the activities of legal persons, including proscribing and regulating their financial activities and their political and commercial speech.
Section 3.a) The rights of groups of natural persons forming a corporation for the sole purpose of disseminating political opinion or endorsements shall not be abridged, in so far as b) its membership consists exclusively of natural persons; c) its members approve pronouncements by majority vote and d) a individual member be permitted to withhold his or her financial support freely, without prejudice, and; e) its source of funding be published at intervals to be established by Congress.
[2] This decision including J.P. Steven’s dissent can be read by going to this webpage -- Supreme Court 2009-10 Decisions and downloading the .pdf of the “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Comm’n” decision (number 19 in the list).
[3] One brief example: Ten years ago, private for-profit colleges were minor players.Today, organizations like the University of Phoenix (owned by the Apollo Group) and the Kaplan College Company (owned by the Washington Post Company) garner 91.5% of the sixty-five billion dollars ($65 Billion) of all moneys allocated by the Federal Government to higher education.These companies prey on the least qualified applicants and returning vets. They use deceptive practices to recruit and retain students. How did this come about?One of those organizations (and not the only one), Kaplan Colleges, has increased their political donations and lobbying dramatically over the same period.Coincidence? An oversight?This is just one not-so-small example of how corporate special interests dominate the legislative process and profit from it.Their foot is firmly in the door; don’t expect them to go away.This is just one example of hundreds of similarly well-financed industries writing the rules in their favor. [To read a series of articles on For-profit Colleges, click here NY Times For-profits College articles]Quid pro quo corruption?You decide.As we witness the debate to bring our National budget in balance, this is something to keep in mind.
[5] The most oft-sited phrase with respect to the relationship of individual officers to their corporation is “corporate officers should not pierce the corporate veil.”For example, if the corporation purchased a car that was then used by a corporate officer’s spouse for personal transportation, that would be a violation.While it is obvious that this rule is routinely ignored, especially at large corporations, it is a standard that most of us would recognize as ethically and legally sound and one that a court would enforce, if challenged to do so.
[6] While not debated here, I have seen the effects of a financial imbalance during a gubernatorial race here in New Hampshire.One candidate, Craig Benson (R), spent twelve million dollars or so of his own money.His opponent, Mark Fernald (D) spent less than ten percent of that.Not only did this result in a one-sided media blitz in Benson’s favor, but the media, itself the recipient of all this campaign cash, went easy on Benson, lobbing softball questions his way, while sending the hard questions Fernald’s way, or ignoring him completely. When there’s a resource imbalance, media complicity is a hidden hazard.They are the silent opponents to campaign finance reform.
[7] The role of the Court is also to decide “cases” and “controversies” brought before it.In this case, the Supreme Court went way beyond the controversy that was at issue.A reasonable person might question if that overreaching itself is Constitutional.
[8] While I’m sure this idea is controversial in the extreme – a snowball’s chance in hell – might not Congress, relying on its powers as defined in Article III, Section 2 paragraph 2 of the Constitution, declare campaign finance or corporate governance out of judicial bounds?“…with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”Hasn’t Congress done something like this in declaring certain terrorist decisions by the Executive out of bounds?I suppose someone with a contempt for the rule of law, like Dick Cheney, would have no trouble arguing this point, but would the Court then be able to declare the nullification itself unconstitutional?
remiering in 1972, M*A*S*H, the TV series about an emergency medical unit in the Korean War, was viewed by many as veiled commentary on the Vietnam War. By focusing on an earlier war, the show rounded off the edges of controversy, avoiding the inevitable criticism – even censure – had the subject been Vietnam. But at the same time, by stripping it of the emotion of now, it was easier to see clearly the futility of the war we were fighting. Ironically, MASH, the movie, was not nearly as affective as the TV series. The movie struck me as a much more naked display of rage – an unvarnished reflection of the national mood in 1968. There was no question of it being a transparent indictment of the Vietnam War. The movie captured the frustration and rage that characterized the 60s, not the post-WW II 1950s. For me, the movie was less affective because it was too much in the moment.
What’s my point? I wonder if we can view the war in Afghanistan more clearly by imagining a time twenty years hence; I wonder if an imagined distance in time can lend clarity to what often seems like confusing and contradictory messages, fraught with the dire predictions and forebodings that fog our vision.
While reading the book “MATTERHORN: A Novel of the Vietnam War” (reviewed here earlier) and Tim O’Brien’s now classic “The Things They Carried,” it occurred to me that a thoughtful reexamination of an earlier war provides an opportunity to more deeply contemplate the cost of the two wars we are fighting now; especially the Afghanistan War. It’s not that the strategies employed are the same as earlier wars, nor are the rationale and objection to fighting it the same, but reading these two books vividly spotlights the profound cost in human lives – those fighting on either side and those caught in the middle – and provide a powerful antidote for Americans’ tendency towards a cavalier attitude towards wars, particularly the Afghanistan War.
The only responsible examination must start on the ground, with this question: What is the cost of war in lives? Everything else is an abstraction, providing a vague and often theoretical basis for war that may or may not have any basis in fact and, at any rate, is pure speculation. Only history can validate a war and even then, it’s debatable.
Here’s an example. One could argue that the Korea War prevented the entire Korean peninsula from becoming a despotic dictatorship dominated by North Korea. But we can only guess that that would have been the consequence. History might have turned out differently had North Korea succeeded in defeating the US and SK forces. One could argue that the continued presence of 25,000 or more US soldiers in the DMZ for almost fifty years and the existence of a hostile regime to the south provided North Korea with just the enemies it needed to sustain itself and wall itself off from the world, enabling it to successfully enslave its people and distract them from the dismal conditions there. Had Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il, been denied those convenient facts, history might have turned out differently. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that thousands of allied soldiers, thousands of Korean soldiers, and a million or more of civilians died. Everything else is conjecture.
In Vietnam the story has played itself out and the consequences are nothing like those imagined at the time. As I pointed out in my review of “MATTERHORN,” dominos didn’t fall; China and the USSR were not the beneficiaries of our defeat. Vietnam realized their decades-long determination to be free of colonial powers and, today, Vietnam his become one of our trading partners in SE Asia. For most Vietnamese, the war is a distant memory. For most of the American who fought there, it is a painful memory.
What would have happened if we had never escalated the Vietnamese War? Who can say? The only thing we can say with certainty is that many thousands US and allied soldiers died, thousands of North and South Vietnamese soldiers died, and a million or more of Vietnamese civilians died. Add to this accounting the chaos and deaths in Laos and Cambodia, and the collateral damage that occurred in our own country during this time. How many deaths might have been avoided? No serious reexamination of that war could draw a conclusion other than that it was folly. People died in vain. History has pulled the rug out from under the empty platitudes that served as cover for our being there.
Thoughts like these led me to read “The Things They Carried,” a much studied and discussed novel derived from Tim O’Brien’s experiences in Vietnam, but pared in the intervening years to their essence – made-up stories refracted through a long lens of time to more perfectly reflect the truth of what he experienced; a powerful and paradoxical refutation of the assertion that truth is more powerful that fiction.
Or, in O’Brien’s own words:
“I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.”
Most of “The Things They Carried” is presented as Tim O’Brien’s fictional wartime memoir. Tim O’Brien is the protagonist and the book is dedicated to his own fictional characters. It’s deeply personal and, in some instances, painfully confessional in tone.
It starts simply. He introduces his characters by describing, literally, the things each member of his platoon carried; calculating the weight of each item of standard issue – the M-16, the M-79, the M-60, the canteen, the radio, the star scope – the weight of personal items that each soldier carried, and the weight of memories and dreams they bore – welcome diversions against the tedium of war or, in a flash of inattention, as lethal distractions in the line of sight of a sniper or in the startling, terrifying moments of combat. As O’Brien puts it:
“In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever.”
In this book, O’Brien tells just a half dozen stories, but he circles back to them time and again, as if haunted by them decades later. For example, in a later chapter, as a writer reflecting on the war twenty years later, he returns to the image of the death of his friend Kiowa in a shit-filled, swampy field, and reflects on this pivotal moment of profound change he experienced in himself.
“[It] was hard to find any real emotion. It simply wasn’t there. After that long night in the rain, I’d seemed to grow cold inside, all the illusions gone, all the old ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud. … For twenty years this field had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam, all the vulgarity and horror.”
Embedded in his stories of Vietnam is a story of how he got there, when he received his draft notice and of his own aborted flight to Canada. As he tells it, for him, submitting to the draft was an act of cowardice – he made it all the way to the Canadian border; he just had to exit a small boat and go ashore. But he was not brave enough to turn his back on his town, his family, his school, and all things familiar and escape into an unimagined life of exile. While he is convinced that the war is unjust, he can’t bring himself to abandon his familiar life and be branded a draft-dodger. So he’s drawn into the war he believes to be wrong, and experiences the death of his platoon mates and friends, of young men whose promise, conveyed sympathetically, even lovingly, is extinguished in random acts of combat and cruel acts of chance.
Page by page, O’Brien absorbs the reader into his stories, so much so that, gradually, you refuse to believe the book is a work of fiction. I found myself wondering if O’Brien’s stories were really truth masquerading as fiction in order to provide cover for his candor and avoid hurting those with whom he fought; of blurring the lines between invention and truth, consequently, having the effect of amplifying the sense of reality. As a reader, when you will the stories to be true, they become so.
O’Brien serves up fragments of memories, at one point saying, “What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning or end.” But these fragments of memory form a mosaic of detail that breaths life into his characters.
And he serves up passages like this that are both generous, loving description and damning commentary:
“Henry Dobbins was a good man, and a superb soldier, but sophistication was not his strong suit. The ironies went beyond him. In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot and always plodding along, always there when you need him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor. Like his country, too, Dobbins was drawn towards sentimentality.”
Many readers may be confused, finding this book too fragmentary, with no clear beginning, middle or end; and there’s truth in that. But taken together, it hits you like a fragmentary grenade; full of vivid imagery that are, like scars, impossible to erase. In that you will share something of the lives of those who fought in Vietnam, unable to shake free of the experience no matter how much time has gone by. And you will remember lines like these:
“If it had been possible, which it wasn’t, [Norman Bowker] would have explained how his friend Kiowa slipped away that night beneath the dark swampy field. He was folded in with the war; he was part of the waste.”
The final pronoun, intentionally ambiguous, could describe Kiowa or Norman Bowker, who is haunted by Vietnam and his friend’s death, so much so that he ends his own live ten years later.
“The Things They Carried” was published in 1990. Tim O’Brien was interviewed recently on the PBS NewsHour[1] on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the end of the war and the 20th anniversary of the publication of his book. What struck me during the interview is that today O’Brien’s memory of the war is as vivid and painful as ever. When reexamining the Vietnam War, or trying to clear the fog of the war in Afghanistan, it’s worth remembering Amos Oz’s prophetic statement.
“No idea has ever been defeated by force.”
The only question that remains is this: whose idea is more potent? That is the surest predictor of the outcome of any conflict.
Thomas Friedman, the writer and NY Times columnist recently said it best, when discussing the recent change in US military leadership in Afghanistan (NY Times 6/22/2010):
“The president can bring Ulysses S. Grant back from the dead to run the Afghan war. But when you can’t answer the simplest questions, it is a sign that you’re somewhere you don’t want to be and your only real choices are lose early, lose late, lose big or lose small.” [Italics are mine.]
Now, imagine that it is 2030 and you are looking back on this period of our history, writing the epilogue to the war. If you favored our continued involvement, how does that look to you now? Would your rationale be best characterized as empty platitudes or sound reasoning? And, if you could, what would you say to the thousands of people who died? Would they agree it was worth it?
To help clear your head of the fog of war, add “The Things they Carried” to your list of truly important books to read.
At its heart, stripped of its brutal detail and long list of characters, Matterhorn is a story of how one young Marine Corps Lieutenant, Waino Mellas, a platoon leader, is transformed by his experience in Vietnam and gradually absorbed into the permanent fabric of the Marine Corps. Taking place during just a few short months at the beginning of his deployment, Matterhorn is a story of transformation. Success is survival. You play the game or die.
What emerges is a brilliant and unforgettable account of the Vietnam war and the men who fought it – a cross-section of Americans, compressed and thrown together into the most traumatic conditions imaginable to fight people they knew nothing about, in an alien, Asian jungle far from home.
As a green officer, fresh out of Quantico and assigned to lead an infantry platoon, Mellas scrambles from a helicopter under machine gun fire onto the landing zone of Matterhorn, the name the Marines call a mountain outpost in northwest Vietnam, near the DMZ and Laos border. A Princeton graduate, clever, resourceful and savvy enough to downplay his ivy league education, Mellas slowly wins the respect of his platoon and fellow officers. Like many officers, Mellas harbors an ambition that surfaces from time to time, but he recognizes that an overt display of ambition would be futile. But it’s complicated. As an officer, an instinct for survival serves ambition; the higher you rise, the further from the front you are likely to be. And, in war, all too frequently, promotion derives from attrition, or put more plainly, the death of one’s superiors, not to be celebrated, but on the field of battle, if one is honest, secretly welcome. Yes, it’s complicated.
The list of characters is long. There is a helpful diagram of the chain of command in the front of the book to help keep things straight. But not everyone is listed there; we’re only invited to get to know well the original cast, the men Mellas gets to know best. In the early chapters of the book, the character development is thorough. When someone dies you will feel loss. As the book progresses, Marlantes intentionally retreats from developing fully the characters he throws into the fray. No longer are they richly drawn, with names, backgrounds, and distinct voices. Gradually the replacements deployed almost become faceless. Marlantes wants you, the reader, to feel firsthand the dehumanizing effect of war, just as Lt. Mellas or any soldier[1] would have experienced it. And, just as Mellas felt distress and guilt after his first enemy kill and, of necessity, recovers to kill again, so too does he gradually become immune to the deaths of those fighting beside him – not indifferent; their deaths just become less painful, less personal. Eventually, the loss of a soldier becomes a tactical loss. The natural consequence is that Mellas gradually becomes less inclined to want to get to know the green replacements beyond what is necessary to use them affectively. This is the inhuman transformation dictated by battle. For most, there is a profound loss of innocence; eventually replaced by a sort of euphoria of battle, as epitomized by Lt. Hawke, who can’t stand being away from the action and breaks regulations to return to Matterhorn. This dehumanizing process can go so far as to nullify the value of ones own life – what else explains the sudden urge to stand up and run at the enemy, screaming on full-automatic, Marine and M16 both, racing head-on to a certain death? Some celebrate it and call it valor. I’d call it the endgame in a natural process, where life, even one’s own, ceases to have any value at all.
At first, Mellas’ platoon patrolled the jungle surrounding Matterhorn, occasionally engaging the enemy, and reinforcing a defensive perimeter, stringing barbed wire and building up bunkers with sandbags. But Lt. Mellas also had to work at maintaining peace inside his platoon, especially between black and white Marines. The men brought with them all of the prejudices and anger, certainty and doubts of the population at large, along with an expanding list of grievances. This was 1969. How could they not be affected by the chaos at home? The doubts, the peace marches, the assassinations, the dissembling, the music and, certainly, the drugs. To be sure, when faced with a determined enemy, there emerged a truce and a semblance of cohesion. But between patrols and battles grievances bubbled to the surface, as certain as the ever present fog, rain and leaches that fall from the trees.
Unlike today’s all-volunteer armed forces, in Vietnam the average age of the men (boy really) was 19. The “old man”, Colonel Simpson, a Korean War veteran, was all of 39! All are convincingly represented here -- black (splibs), white (chucks), navy medics (squids), short-timers, red-necks, officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), gung-ho enlistees, hapless draftees, lifers, literate and illiterate, men from ivy league schools (a few), others from undistinguished state colleges, laidback farmers, hardened city boys, alcoholics, drug addicts, larcenists, the addled and the sane, the humane and the murderous (“fraggers”.) It would be amazing to think you could form a cohesive team with such men, much less fight a war. Certainly, the goal of boot camp is to erase all vestiges of the individual, but soldiers revert quickly, given half a chance. For most – draftees – it was count-the-days (and, for the short-timers, the hours too). Others – lifers, NCOs, career officers – sought recognition – combat metals, promotions, a bigger command, the respect and admiration of fellow Marines. The successful leaders, those who rise through the ranks, learn quickly that lives you command are commodities. If you don’t push your men, you’re soft – a slacker. Void of a credible justification, Vietnam devolved into a numbers game. When the nightly news on TV leads with body counts, day after day, it doesn’t take long for the men on the front lines to conclude that that is the measure of success. As body counts were reported up the chain of command, estimates of “confirmed and probables” grew with every retelling. Everyone looked good. Body count was king. When Colonel Simpson “grimly” issued an order to attack without knowing the strength of the North Vietnam Army units they was up against, Major Blakely, his executive officer, thought to himself, “If the NVA reinforced during the night, an assault by Bravo Company would surely go badly, but those were the breaks. They were there to kill gooks.”
As quickly as Mellas and Bravo Company took possession of Matterhorn, blasted away its top to make way for a landing zone, and constructed a perimeter, Bravo Company is ordered to abandon Matterhorn and nearby Helicopter Hill to relieve a depleted and nearly starved Charlie Company and sweep the valley and jungles to the south to interdict North Vietnamese supply lines, and destroy a suspected enemy ammo cache. A miscalculation and bad communications back at headquarters – covered up by the officer responsible – results in days without food, water and ammunition; an error compounded further by Colonel Simpson’s insistence that Bravo Company and its commander, Lt. Fitch, were slacking off. He stubbornly refused relief flights, resulting in the near starvation of an entire company and several deaths. Finally, the company, or what’s left of it, is airlifted back to headquarters, where it is assigned to the “Bald Eagle-Sparrow Hawk Company” – a stand-by designation for the company sent to backup or rescue another unit at a moments notice.
Inevitable, trouble finds them. A six-man reconnaissance team, code name “Sweet Alice”, has run into a NVA division or company (no one is quite sure) in the vicinity of Matterhorn. Bravo Company is sent in, first to rescue them, then – in zealous pursuit of numbers and disregard for his men –ordered by Colonel Simpson to attack and reoccupy the now well-defended Matterhorn (thanks to Bravo Company’s earlier efforts).
This book includes characters at all levels of the chain of command, from privates to generals. It is this, along with stunning dialogue and rich details that could only have come from personal experience, that lends it its authenticity. In the officer ranks, there are officers with widely different experiences, from WWII and Korea to desk jobs at the Pentagon. Without a clear objective, their understanding of what their mission is varies wildly and, naturally, conflicts arose. Colonel Mulvaney, the division commander, has the most concern for the well-being of the combat Marines and little patience for Colonel Simpson and his executive officer, Major Blakely, who are prone to misuse the men under their command, caring only that a company reaches assigned checkpoints on schedule, regardless of terrain, obstacles, deprivation or hostility encountered along the way.
During the final push to retake Matterhorn, Mellas is injured by a grenade and almost loses an eye. He is evacuated to a hospital ship where he recovers, and then, just five days later, is sent back into battle.
Throughout the book, as the war progresses, we see how the war affects Mellas, as though he’s passing through predictable stages. Mellas starts out as a green officer, eager to engage personally with his men and win their acceptance, then passes through stages of incomprehension, reflection, frustration, rage – at one point ready to frag the battalion commander – and on to a phase of “inert, sick weariness”, knowing “with utter certainty, that the North Vietnamese would never quit”, and finally, with the simple act of assimilation that a promotion confers, arrives at a state, not of rejection, not even resignation, but of acceptance. He is transformed into a career officer. The most revealing dialogue comes near the end of the book, after Mellas is promoted to company executive officer. Lt. Hawke asks,
“You still feel like killing Simpson up there”? [As he did on Matterhorn.]
“Naw. You know I went crazy up there. He was just doing his job.”
Only after reading Matterhorn will you realize what an incredibly jarring statement that is. It’s as though Mellas has passed through a wormhole, witnesses unspeakable horrors, and emerges, his blood pooled forever with the blood of his fellow soldiers. The two officers who pose this question, Fitch and Hawke, passed through the wormhole months earlier. In a surreal beer-stoked atmosphere of a fraternity initiation, it’s as though they are serving as the Marine Corps’ surrogate midwives, welcoming Mellas into another state of being, the fraternity of career officers.
Experienced through Lt. Mellas, Matterhorn emerges as a darkly complex story of the corrupting effects of ambition in war, and its essential role in building a military command hierarchy. It is about how armies depend on acceptance of the legitimacy of death, by undermining its moral foundation – expelling the personal and bestowing a license to kill. Soldiers are trained to become anonymous and interchangeable, to be used anonymously to kill an anonymous enemy. Sentimentality is an impediment. War is utterly destructive of those who are recruited to fight it, whether they survive or not, and some even welcome this destruction. Can they ever regain the values that they must abandon to succeed? Only the dead have fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters. Without a doubt, there are those who would vigorously protest this interpretation, even find it offensive. But it’s impossible to reconcile the brutality of war otherwise. Knowing just how morally destructive wars are, we must avoid them at all cost, and only fight when we must, with the sober acknowledgement that our own men and women are its first victims.
Why another novel about Vietnam? We, as a nation, are still trying to come to grips with the national trauma we experienced. And many, like Karl Marlantes, who experienced it first hand, will have to live with their memories forever. Americans are still trying to bridge the schism it produced; those diverging historical narratives that seem harder and harder to reconcile.
As a Marine officer himself, Karl Marlantes lived it, and for 30 the years he spent writing and rewriting this book (at one stage 1600 pages), he struggled to convey that reality with military precision. It seared his consciousness and few have written more convincingly about the lives of those who experienced Vietnam first hand. His efforts deserve a careful reading.
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Additional thoughts on our Vietnam experience
It is over thirty-five years since images were broadcast on TVs around the world of helicopters evacuating American personnel from our embassy in Saigon and of helicopters being pushed off the decks of carriers into the sea, yet we still haven’t come to terms with the war.
Near the end of Scott Turow’s latest novel, Innocent, its protagonist, Rusty Sabich, says, “Accepting the truth is often the hardest task human beings face.”
Turow’s quote aptly describes a nation that refused to face the many contradictions of our Vietnam misadventure. It’s the answer to why most Americans resist facing up to the truth of Vietnam even today – that there was just no good reason for our being there. Many who were alive back then would dispute this. Sides were drawn; sides remain.
Things can be said about wars:
1.The rationale and strategies that a nation employs when going to war more aptly apply to the last war, not the one its fighting. Vietnam was not WWII; Vietnam wasn’t even a remote theater of the cold war, although we thought so at the time.
2.The rationale for protesting a war is predicated on perceptions of the last war rather than the war we’re in. While there might be similarities, Afghanistan is not Vietnam. (That doesn’t mean we should be there or that it is a just war – that’s another question entirely.)
3.Military leaders will always speak confidently about chances for success and will skew the facts to support the war, as General Westmoreland did, and the majority of public will believe them.
4.When emotions run high, restraining a nation from fighting is nearly impossible. Consider the overwhelming push for going to war after 9/11 and how quickly Iraq was made part of the conflict. Imagine the storm of recrimination, had President Obama rejected General McChrystal’s plan for Afghanistan and withdrawn our troops last year.
5.Nations enjoy the spectacle of war as sport.
When reflecting on the Vietnam War these many decades later, the truth, clear to me now, was hardly clear to me then. It’s hard not to express it as an indictment, but I don’t know of a gentler way to say this – It was a stupid war waged by an ignorant people too lazy to think beyond the two-word justification offered by our leaders and accepted almost universally at home: “Domino Theory.” And, the lives of the men and woman who died were wasted or, put another way, “they died in vain.”
Let’s be honest. Dominos didn’t fall. Russia and China were not the beneficiaries of our defeat. The Vietnamese would have fought as fiercely to eject them as it did to eject the French and the US. The Vietnamese were determined to rid themselves of decades of colonial rule, period. That was their only objective. In retrospect, the truth seems simple. How could we – the overwhelming majority of Americans – have missed it? “Domino Theory” clouded our thoughts. Easy answers always do.
The most disturbing thing was that most Americans bought it, especially those who had lived through WWII and Korea. The famous “generation gap” of the 60’s was between those whose memories were of WWII, and those who were too young. And, among those under 30, even among those harboring doubts, most accepted their parents’ generation’s attitude and trusted their leaders.
Inevitably, confusion reigns in the fog of war. Dissent grows slowly, as reality set in, first by a few courageous leaders such as Senators Eugene McCarty and J. William Fulbright, then spreads, primarily among those asked to fight, especially on college campuses. Adults (those over 30) were angered at having their worldview questioned; the youth were frustrated by the paucity of the justification for having to fight in the first place and by the increasingly empty assurances that it was going well.
What William Fulbright said, in retrospect, of President Johnson could have applied to most Americans:
“I'm sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.”
Amen to that.
American’s experience of Vietnam ensures that the nation remains divided. This divide is evident even today, played out every few years during congressional and presidential campaigns. It casts a long, dark shadow; it remains the third-rail of dinner conversations. Summon Scot Turow. It’s really hard to admit you were wrong.
But, our confusion back then is forgivable. Why? Consider this: WWII, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the prospect of another world war more devastating than the last were as fresh in the minds of American’s in the early 1960s as 9/11 was in 2002 when we sent troops to Afghanistan. Much more than al Qaeda is today, the Soviet Union with their nuclear arsenal was universally perceived to be an existential threat (as our arsenal was to the USSR.) Was there any force that might have prevented our response to 9/11?
Before Vietnam, conditioned by the shared sacrifice and certainty of the rightness of WWII, Americans trusted their government. The Vietnam War did great damage to the country; it broke that trust and bred a nation of cynics. While a degree of skepticism is healthy, the degree of cynicism and rancor it unleashed may well be our undoing.
Quoting William Fulbright once more –
“The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust our own government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on them.”
The selling of the Iraq war to the American public rekindled America’s distrust. But nations run on emotions, not analysis and intellect. Facing the truth squarely is what we expect of our leaders, but, more often than not, they are driven by the emotions of an electorate, and therein lies the danger.
Is Afghanistan this generations Vietnam? Will it take 30 years for us to find out?
For a print copy of this review, go here>> Print version
[1] While some Marines may object, I use the word "soldier" rather than Marine when I am speaking generally, referring collectively to Marine, Army and Naval personnel.
