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The column attacking Pat Tillman was undeniably insensitive
and painstakingly illiterate. The bulk of it consisted
mostly of cheap jeers and even cheaper observations,
culminating in a sort of all encompassing prediction
that in “the years to come, we will recognize
the irrationality of the war on terror and the American
reaction to September 11?” Will we? And, by the
way, Rene, who is this “we” on whose behalf
you write?
But something else very noticeable about Mr. Gonzalez’s
column was that it didn’t contain anything smacking
of a socio-cultural critique of the American Empire
and those who choose to serve it, as oppose to those
who are chosen — at least by objective conditions
— to serve it.
Rather, he seemed to be attacking a very expensive
man to make a very cheap point. Namely, that Tillman
deserved to die because he was a testosterone tipsy
brute determined to out-machismo Rambo in the battle
against the towel-heads (though as Gonzales correctly
alluded, Rambo actually fought alongside the towel-heads).
Furthermore his “prose” betrayed a sort
of lazy anti-Americanism that has become the flakey
standard of intellectual competency in some circles,
where the population at large is blamed for the crimes
of the ruling class, thus promoting the line that the
state and its subjects are one and the same, and that
it is impossible to oppose one without opposing the
other. This is not only what a pragmatist would call
counter-productive, but is also utterly reactionary.
For it lends legitimacy to the lie that when the ruling
class acts it does so on behalf of what is called “the
public interest” — something that incidentally
exists only in so far as it looks after the interests
of a private few, what Arthur Koestler in a different
context called “grammatical fiction — and
not on account of what is in its own interest. The sooner
this distinction becomes common currency, the better.
To some the above distinction is a quotidian one. To
others, it is anti-American inspired class warfare.
America, you see, is the first capitalist country in
history that is classless. You don’t believe me?
Just ask the ruling class.
Now Tillman was not your average Tommy Atkins-type
soldier. Although the American army is formally a volunteer
army, it is comprised mostly of economic draftees —
people whom nowadays one might even call slum soldiers,
as a description of both where they’re born and
where they are sent, far away from home, to be killed.
This was not “Pat” Tillman; therefore he’s
a safe sell.
I’d be more impressed if the media would devote
the same amount of attention to telling the stories
of the less well endowed soldiers as it has to telling
the story of pat Tillman. Of course we were served up
the almost mythically awe inspiring tale of how Jessica
Lynch managed to survive a Jeep accident (with the aid
of the Red Crescent I might add) but then the moment
she mentioned that she enlisted in Operation Iraqi Freedom
because the job pickings at the trailer park were looking
slim, the political class quietly but swiftly helped
her find her way back to the social oblivion from whence
she came, never to be heard from again.
And by the way, where is all the indignant outrage
over the Wall Street Journal’s gloating celebration
of Rachel Corrie’s murder? Is not the Wall Street
Journal a more widely read rag than the Daily Collegian?
No, it’s high time that we hear from and about
the underprivileged soldiers who have fallen in the
service of the Empire. (Yes, I’m talking about
Afghanistan as well.) This would serve a common good
much more noble (but one admittedly much less comforting)
than hearing reports about the agility Mr. Tillman displayed
on the playing field.
His death was tragic, no doubt. But this tragedy has
claimed a multitude of men and women. Just because this
multitude of unknown soldiers is unable to afford the
post-mortem glory of heroism, is no reason why the public
should be kept from hearing their stories as well. Or
maybe it is…
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