Soldier Boys

With cover art of small boys playing with Army toys, perhaps against a background of genuine wartime carnage.

Count me as pre-ordering this book, Glenn. The cult of uber-masculine chickenhawks is one of the driving forces behind the crassification & destruction of this country. Basically a gang of scared little boys, telling each other how tough they are, unable to convince even themselves ...

The neocons are distinguished by two overriding traits: fear & anger. The depth of that fear & anger is matched only by the shallowness of their self-understanding & insight. They dare not EVER look within to see the source of their wretched worldview. No, it's always THEM OTHERS, somewhere outside, evil & slavering & ruthless & dominating -- as you so rightly note, Glenn, the essence of S&M porn fantasies, dressed up in rags of politics & religion. God, how I loathe this cult of manly manhood, especially when it's all about terrified little boys trying so desperately to prove how big 'n' bad they are, damn right, kick your ass (but please please please don't make me actually fight).

Remember "Red Dawn?" How the communists were going to drive up to Texas from Central America? Survivalists? "Amerika?"

Here's the weird flipside of neocon fear & anger -- as much as they live in terror of some enemy takeover, they hunger for it just as surely.

Why?

Because it does away with the inconvenience of civilization & culture, with its bothersome laws, complexities, nuances, and people of every stripe having to live & work together. Oh, they'll parade a few conservative writers & "thinkers" around, boasting of their love for traditional culture, for education -- but they don't want it.

No, better to have a Mad Max fantasy world in which you're free to kill anyone without fear of consequences, where hatred is only common sense, where fear is the greatest rush, where they don't have to stop & think & actually consider themselves, much less the world. A great cleansing orgy of blood & death, that's their secret fantasy.

Except that if such a scenario ever came to pass, most of them would shrivel & die within the first few days.

Podhoretz on the Beats:

"There is a suppressed cry in those books [of Kerouac]: Kill the intellectuals who can talk coherently, kill the people who can sit still for five minutes at a time." "The Bohemianism of the 1950s" is "hostile to civilization; it worships primitivism, instinct, energy, 'blood.'"

Projecting much, Norm?

For the neocon mind, it's always The Other. God knows just how deep & twisted the mire of their own cramped & blackened little souls must be, but they're obviously desperate to cast it all out & attach it to the handiest scapegoat.

Does anyone doubt that if they did gain total control of the planet & eliminate everyone they regard as enemies, they'd be turning on one another by the next day?

Yes, I can easily envision the purges & heresy trials, the factions vying for power, all of it.

It's appalling to realize just how many people live inside such a miserable, life-denying worldview. The boot stamping on a human face forever -- that's their God. And they can't even admit that they'd secretly like to be the face being stamped just as much as wearing the boot that does the stamping. If they weren't so dangeorus to the rest of us, I'd have a lot more pity for them.

The late Lew Welch wrote a short, succinct poem that applies to this discussion:

The Basic Con

Those who can't find anything to live for,

always invent something to die for.

Then they want the rest of us to

die for it, too.

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Pretty much says it all.

Even when I disagree with your answers, Cary, they often provide plenty of food for thought. But this time you're as wrong as you could be.

Why should the father lie to his daughter? Why should he play along & pretend? Seems to me the best example he could set her would be to calmly affirm his own beliefs & live by them. He doesn't have to demand that she go along or accept them. He doesn't have to attack her beliefs.

But he can make it clear that he doesn't accept them himself.

And he can make it clear that an intelligent, mature human being has a mind & a free will & an individual experience, and that each of us must be as true to ourselves as possible.

And that's exactly what he should do. If she wants to argue or question his position, let her do so. That's part of growing up.

How many of the world's problems are perpetuated because too many people want to make nice & play along, don't rock the boat, don't offend the majority opinion?

I don't recall writing that the father should attack his daughter's beliefs, simply that he should calmly affirm his own. Being honest with her, rather than hypocritical, seems an important part of being a parent. What's so terrible about explaining that he understands her feelings & beliefs, but that he doesn't necessarily share those beliefs himself? And that it doesn't make him any less a decent, loving, caring father & human being? And that people can have many different beliefs & still be good people? 13 is old enough to hear & understand that.