"Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land."
Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
- Interview of Herman Göring by Gustave Gilbert in his cell at Nuremburg, April 18, 1946: Nürnberger Tagebuch S.270
I'm sitting here at Borders somewhere in the urban sprawl of Miami drinking coffee and translating.
Un peu de Français parmi los Cubanos Locos.. A fit exercise for our national fest, I think. We Americans owe the French nearly everything, seeing as how they bankrupted themselves (thereby bringing on their own revolution) fighting in our war for Independence.
So, here's a goutte de café for the Marquis de Layfayette and his boys. Another for the Comte de Rochambeau whose men formed half the forces at Yorktown and a third for the Comte de Grasse whose fleet beat the Royal Navy there.
Our true founding fathers, all of them French.
And now one more for France Gall, France on Gaul singing this charming paean to my home, the only patriotically themed song I will listen to today:
Quand on a rêvé depuis 17 ans d'Amérique..
When you've dreamt for 17 years of America..
J'irai voir le Texas et le Colorado, sans parler du Kansas et de San Francisco.
I will go and see Texas and Colorado, not to mention Kansas and San Francisco.
Au centième étage du plus haut des grattes-ciel pousser les nuages pour toucher le soleil..
To the the hundredth floor of the highest sky scraper pushing aside clouds to touch the sun..
On dit qu'à Broadway brillent les lumières d'Amérique, ah si je pouvais voir le nez en l'air, l'Amérique..
They say that the American lights are bright on Broadway, ah, if I could only see all the rich and famous people there..
Lécher les vitrines des grands magasins d'Amérique, acheter des jeans et des mocassins d'Amérique..
Drooling at the great shop windows, buying American jeans and moccasins..
J'ai vu tous les films et j'ai tous les disques d'Amérique, mais ça ne suffit pas il faut que je voie, l'Amérique.
I've seen all the movies and I have all the records, but that's not enough- I have to see America for myself.
Et comme ce sera trop grand pour mes yeux l'Amérique, j'irai avec toi découvrir à deux, l'Amérique..
And it will all be too great for my eyes alone to bear, I'll go with you to discover America the two of us, together..
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That's right. I'll take my patriotic mythology, nationalistic aggrandizement and gross materialism in French, thank you. Plus raffinée comme ça. Screw Toby Keith.
I'm done with American civil religion. Go wrap yourselves in the flag and make a fetish of it. Conflate love of country with love of state sanctioned violence, and pretend that you really care about "the troops." Yelp that patriotism demands celebration of whatever latest homicide our political leadership orders they commit. Do it all while stuffing your fat gob with barbecue and beer.
I say that when that violence redounds upon us - and it will, sooner than later - that we will richly deserve it.
Not that that event will be understood in those terms. No, the average American has the historical memory and moral imagination of a fruitfly. It will be cynically manipulated and used as another opportunity to incite us to more violence.
So, I have a minor quibble with that Göring quote at the head of the post:
If there's one thing people love it's war that they inflict on others but (and this is the key quibble and point) without any negative consequence to themselves. After sex and money, we're all about war. Sex without negative consequences (disease or pregnancy), money without negative consequences (drudgery), and war without negative consequences (anyone we love being hurt or killed, especially ourselves).
Anything that expresses power and sates us is what human beings want. And war is the consummate act of crushing those whom we despise. When we can't work them to death for pennies, debase them sexually them for pennies, we will blow them to viscera for pennies.
The true genius of the Anglo-Saxon power elite is that they cloak their obvious violence in a moral language that glorifies it, and them. They usually manage to extend that "them" to include "us." But not always - see Vietnam, for example.
Whenever violence can't be ignored, it becomes about virtue and freedom. The Nazis were just too obvious. Their great downfall is that they lacked imagination and were terrible propagandists. Which is merely to say that they actually told the truth about their actual motives too often. See the quote by Göring for proof of that. Neither George Bush would be caught saying that, even though that's exactly what they believe.
You can bank on that. Happy Forth of July.
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