Moyers: The Bacevich Interview

Lou Dobbs asks the question every day: "Doesn't American deserve a government that works?" Yes we do, and we need a vibrant third party that will challenge the status quo of the two part system that is simply a "Them vs. Us" chaotic mentality.

The Rick Warren comments make me want to vomit. Unbelievable.

Be sure to watch the video as well if you get a chance, his presence here is captivating. There are a few other blogs talking about this appearance, and everyone seems to agree that it's something special. It's always cool when you stumble upon something that moves you, and then find it had a similar effect on other people.

Btw, Rod, do you have any Bloggingheads episodes coming up?

I agree with Matt about Rick Warren.
Folks gotta remember Reagan and Bush actually emboldened Saddam against Iran. Republicans armed Saddam. Bush I also turned a blind eye when he gassed his own people.
Heck, the Reagan administration financed and trained Osama bin Laden to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan.
A big problem is that corporate interests play both sides of conflicts for profit. Heck, Prescott Bush financed Nazis.
Conservatives have always been quick to point out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and government intervention. I agree with them to a degree, even on things like "LBJ's The War on Poverty".
If we want to start quoting the Bible, the Apostle Paul also says that people need to keep their own homes in order.

Our school system ranks in the 20s.

We pay more of our GDP for health care, per capita, than any other country on the planet - only to wrangle with insurance companies when something serious happens to us or a loved one.

We have more people in jail per capita than China.

Things like bridges are falling apart in our infrastructure.

Special interests have bought off most of our elected Federal Government officials.

etc. etc. etc.

We can't control the world!

I've been saying the word "Imperialism' for years now, but I'm just a regular guy unable to truly articulate what Mr. Bacevich has apparently done in his book that Bill Moyers' so adroitly brought out in his interview (as usual for Bill Moyers). I've been using a Star Wars analogy for some time now, that we as Americans like to identify with the Rebels of Luke and Leia, but really we are the Empire with the Death Star.

I was thinking about how the Woodstock Nation, which I was a member of, was trying to make love not war. But the dark forces of Big Business and the Military Industrial Complex were never going to let that happen, and now this country is bankrupt on so many levels because of this American Imperialism. Bacevich says that only Jimmy Carter tried to do something about it and was railroaded out by those dark forces, and even the Clintons were on that same train. Will my man Barack be any different should he prevail? The interview didn't seem too positive about any real change, but this opinion piece in the Boston Globe suggests Bacevich hasn't given up completely.

I am sick of this bankrupting of America to expand "Democracy" around the globe. I think Bush et al see democracy as Capitalism and don't truly care about "freedom" unless it opens markets for trade that enriches the already overly wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, who are left to fight over the crumbs of "values" issues and the like. Read this Op piece to add to Bacevich's thoughts.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/01/what_bush_hath_wrought/

Yes, I'm a liberal and was against the iraq War. Proud of it. What's it to you? Bacevich and Moyers should be required viewing for all Americans, especially the candidates and all members of Congress. Of course, you can just hear the Administration and their MSM sycophants ready and willing, as they've been doing these last 7 years or so, to discount the message. And the Dems need to put their money where their mouths are, lest we all be dragged into the Third World.

There have been a couple of times in our nation's history when we confronted serious problems and made some sacrifices to try to correct them. Slavery, the labor movement and the civil rights movement come to mind. But it took an awful lot of suffering on the part of an awful lot of people to wrestle those changes, imperfect as many of the changes were.

In the absence of something dramatic that catches our attention and galvinizes our efforts, people tend to wish to be let alone to follow their own pursuits. And we do tend to deify such pursuits as "freedom" when in fact they're just selfishness.

You can talk and talk and explain to an alcoholic about why they should change, but until they suffer that fall, "hit rock bottom" they don't care enough to change. The problem with waiting for the fall is that there's lots of damage along the way, and some people have enough resources so that they take forever to hit "the bottom". Others die before they do. I guess it could be a bit the same with societies.

"Our school system ranks in the 20s." Thanks to liberals who control it.

"We pay more of our GDP for health care, per capita, than any other country on the planet - only to wrangle with insurance companies when something serious happens to us or a loved one." Right. That's why Canadians and British patients come here for care.

"We have more people in jail per capita than China." Well, instead of incarcerating people we should just start killing "criminals" like the Communists do.

"Things like bridges are falling apart in our infrastructure." Then vote for increased income taxes in your town and state, and leave my wallet the hell alone. Pay for your own infrastructure. You want more Federal gas taxes?

"Special interests have bought off most of our elected Federal Government officials." That's horse manure, unless you are talking about the Congress--you know, the people you put in office.

"We can't control the world!" Right. We should have left the Jews and Catholic priests to rot in Nazi camps.

As I said above: "invincibly ignorant and arrogant"

In the end, the only limit to power is the will to use it.

If the tipping point wasn't the Civil War, then it was WWI, when the prig Wilson belied his campaign slogan ("He kept us out of war") and launched us into a European war and the National Security State was conceived.

Thus we plow forward wasting billions because so many--including people like me who are opposed to American Empire--have significant economic interests in the success and expansion of said Empire.

I think it was Upton Sinclair who said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

""Our school system ranks in the 20s." Thanks to liberals who control it."

Cool. So that means Red state schools should be turning out model students with high rates of achievement and low rates of teen pregnancy.

""We pay more of our GDP for health care, per capita, than any other country on the planet - only to wrangle with insurance companies when something serious happens to us or a loved one." Right. That's why Canadians and British patients come here for care."

Americans go overseas for care also as it is cheaper. Please see page 74-76 of the current Economist. No country has a perfect health care system. We have many uninsured, other countries ration care. Of interest, the citizens of many other countries claim to be happier with their health care than our citizens.

""Things like bridges are falling apart in our infrastructure." Then vote for increased income taxes in your town and state, and leave my wallet the hell alone. Pay for your own infrastructure. You want more Federal gas taxes?"

Great! Then please do not drive on the bridges and roads I pay for. I am sure you will also refrain from taking money from any company that uses said roads and bridges. I am sure crunchy cons are not freeloaders.

""Special interests have bought off most of our elected Federal Government officials." That's horse manure, unless you are talking about the Congress--you know, the people you put in office. "

OK, both sides are bought off, just by different interests. Having recently finished Grand New Party, there are certainly a lot of Republican pundits who acknowledge that the current administration has let industry write many of its own regs.

""We have more people in jail per capita than China." Well, instead of incarcerating people we should just start killing "criminals" like the Communists do."

This is an either/or proposition? How about doing away with the War on Drugs?

Steve

Thanks for this -- what integrity both Moyers and Mr Bacevitch show, describing difficult truths with such clarity.

George Soros made a point in his 2006 book ("The Age of Fallibility") that since the late 1970s, Americans preferred to be told sweet lies, rather than harsh and frightening truths. And the political consultants and administration members spoke scathingly of what Mr. Soros was saying; a sign of how alarming they found it.

We're paying for services provided by technologies that are controlled by corporate interests: much of that is related to energy production, transportation, military technologies, and communications.

We're not willing to pay for 'the human touch' and we have greatly undervalued caregiving in our tax structures, in the way that we allow homes to be constructed (in anonymous subdivisions where obtaining a gallon of milk requires a car trip).

Either we find the courage to change on our own initiative, or the planet's problems will see to it that our changes will come suddenly, unexpectedly, and not on our terms (think Katrina, or cyberwar).

We need more thoughtful discussion like the parts of the transcript that you quoted. I will certainly make it a point to view the show at some point this coming week. Personally, I'd rather have more control over the changes by being in 'the driver's seat' than have to react to any more Katrina's or 9/11s. Proactive beats reactive just about every time.

NO.

Don't read the transcript. It's much more important that you watch the entire program, which is available online where the transcript is.

It's important that you HEAR and SEE Andrew Bacevich as he delivers the words in the transcript. There's power in Bacevich's words, but there more power in how he delivers them.

Watch the entire program. Just do.

PDG Moore -- it does seem that there is little to reverse the centralization of political power that has taken place over the last century and a half. If you have not read Leopold Kohr or Kirkpatrick Sale, you should check their writings out.

Bacevich: "...if you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, then we ... need to modify that which may be peripheral, in order to preserve that which is at the center of what we value."

That's what we've been doing all along! Preserving what we value most at the center (narcissism and consumerism, a.k.a. "freedom") by "modifying" that which may be peripheral (energy independence, responsibility to future generations, constitutional government).

Without accusing Reagan and GW Bush of being Marxist, I see two men who presided over our nation during times when they both figured the people needed something to get their minds off the serious stuff. With all the lip service they paid to religion, they opted to send us shopping and to Disney World. It worked.

The August 16, 2008 5:08 PM and August 17, 2008 2:59 AM comments are mine.

It was a fantastic program, as all of Bill Moyer's programs are. Bacevich will always be seen as a negative force by most Americans, because most Americans don't want the truth. They don't want to look in the mirror or change their ways. The decay that has happened in American government at all levels, has happened at a greater level in American society. Morals, truth, honesty and the likes have been eroded by the "Empire of Consumerism" and the developed narcissism that Americans won't change. What will happen, probably not in my lifetime, is that eventually America will be dismembered by other countries into something of their own, because we are getting weaker by the decade. It is an obvious course at this moment.

Bacevich is a great voice to have on the behalf of those few Americans that do look in the mirror and are honest, caring and wanting truth and real change. I am grateful to him. And to those that say or think otherwise, I say a mantra for you.

lancelot lamar
And yet, if this truth were accepted, and we could provide for our national defense far more cheaply and simply, Fort Worth would suffer as Lockheed downsized and people lost their jobs. Closer to home, this would lower the value of my own house and neighborhood, and remove those pools from our summer activities.

Well, like I always say, if we've going to spend huge amounts of government money and time on things, let's do them on things that actually help people, either in the long term or short term.

It's why I laugh when people talk about how national health care would be 'inefficient'. Like that's suddenly become the standard on whether or not we should do something. Our road system is incredibly inefficient, our military isn't even supposed to be efficient. (What is a unit of liberty?)

We have an option: We can either have the government help drive the economy, or not. To what extent it does that is a choice. I, as a Progressive, am obviously in favor of this to some extent, but I'll admit it is, indeed, a political choice that others may decide otherwise.

When we decide to have it do that, we should pick those things that benefit us Americans the most. That's almost certainly not a military of this size. In fact, almost any activity would have a better result for us. (And get less workers killed, to boot.)

If it is the slightest bit logical to spend time and money and resources building a tank, equipping a tank, training soldiers to use the tank, shipping them overseas, and supplying them while there because this 'helps the economy', you have to admit it would make more sense to train and equip and supply a doctor here.

I know you weren't actually making this argument, but I just have to cringe every time I hear how war is supposed to be good for the economy. No, government spending is, and government spending, in addition to being good for the economy, can also, if we spend it here, help people.

I think he has a point. We are so unclear about what is ESSENTIAL to the American way of life. And we are so unwilling to actually sacrifice anything, maybe because we know in our hearts we have defined our way of life inaccurately. Part of the problem (but by no means ALL of it) is that conservatism somehow got tied up into materialism, so now far too many people consider a big truck and a big house out in suburbia and access to MacDonalds and WalMart/Target 24-7 to be ESSENTIAL to the "American Way of Life." People tend to take offense at any suggestion that perhaps our founding fathers meant something a little deeper than material possessions.

But men and women don't pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for a strip mall and parking lot. The very fact that the signatories of the Declaration of Independence pledged their fortunes should be a clue that we are not what we buy. To be sure, economic freedom is important, but there is a considerable difference between that statement and the belief that we can't do without all this STUFF we have accrued.

Our profligate ways, are, indeed contrary to many facets of our heritage of American character. America was working hard, off the land, it was producing some of what you needed, it was the true "ownership society." It was making do, and being proud of it. America was communal, people in small farming communities scattered across our land banded together to help one another at planting, at celebrations, at harvest, at barn raisings, and in crises.

What our predecessors defended most fiercely was their freedom. But don't be fooled, freedom is not an end, it is a means. It is the best means to defend that which is really worth dying for: our loved ones, our neighbors, and the integrity of our word which binds us to our community. This becomes abundantly clear to those of us in Iraq and Afghanistan. You figure out pretty quickly that you aren't willing to die for your political system, for your economy, or for patriotism. Only two things bind you - the sacred trust of the soldier to your left and right whose life depends on you being willing to die rather to falter, and the your word of honor that you will accomplish the mission, at all costs, because you said you would.

I guess what I really mean to say is that the American Way of Life IS the iconic homestead (even if it be in 21st century suburbia) with a fence and a little girl and her mother standing at the end of the drive, waiting. You do what you can to get back home to them. And it's worth defending, worth dying for. But it's not about the homestead or even the political freedom which may be its best guarantee. Take away the truck and the big house, take away the shopping mall and the parking lots and the MacDonalds, take away all but the bare essentials necessary to make ends meet, and really, you've still got the American Way of Life there waiting. Because in the end it's about the people you love and the integrity and security of your community.

If so many men and women are unwilling to serve in our military, then maybe it is because we have lost sight as a culture and as a society of the things that really matter.

" I am not sure [toll roads are]a practical soluton for smaller communities and less used but needed roads." Steve

Agreed. That's where the state should come into the picture with its share of money from the Federal gas tax plus its own gas tax revenue.

"If so many men and women are unwilling to serve in our military, then maybe it is because we have lost sight as a culture and as a society of the things that really matter." AnotherBeliever

Right on the mark, Brother!

Bacevich defines what "conservative" is, or should be.

Moyers is a detestable jerk who grows fat on federally-funded PBS money.Nonetheless Bacevich was the focus of the show, not Moyers. I happened upon it, and was duly impressed.

Bacevich's points are powerful and irrefutable. Yes, ISlam is an existential threat, but one we could manage it with some gumption while securing our borders. Many of his themes echo Ron Paul. And Paul was savaged for raising many of the same questions Bacevich raises. Both parties have a vested interest in deficit spending and an adbventurous imperial presidency. It has to stop, or our slide into decreptitude will continue.

When he asks us to look in the mirror, we could do so about oil and energy. We can drill and develop our resources, and could do so without damage to our enviroment. If drilling is so awful for the world ecology, why is America's enviroment any more worthy of preservation over that of other countries? And why should we put cash in the coffers of our enemies as opposed to paying domestic suppliers?

The 2:32 AM comment is mine.

I would almost say, rather, that we have lost the point of our freedom. It is not to gather up faster and bigger toys every year, it is not to get ahead, it is not to keep up with the Joneses. Well you could talk all day about what it is not.

The point of the poem Mr Dreher posted was simply that at the end of the day, despite all talk of capitalism and political platforms and this ambiguously defined "American Way of Life", the only temporal thing worth dying for is the freedom for your loved ones to live in peace, and for your friends and compatriots to live with honor. When pressed, even a poet will take up arms in that cause. Maybe especially a poet. I don't know, I'm not one.

At any rate, insofar as our foreign and domestic and military policy does not support and defend these precepts, there is a hollow hypocrisy to all of our words and actions on the world stage and back home as well. We need to reflect and reconsider the whole platform on which we stand. And if we truly cared about furthering freedom around the world a good place to start would be to wean ourselves off petro-dicators until such time as they could guarantee their populations their human rights and a few basic civil liberties.

Rod: "I meant simply that AnotherBeliever is a female soldier. Jeez, you've got homosocialism on the brain bigtime."

Au contraire; I said nothing about Socialism. It was simply your usual knee-jerk reaction to see "homosocialism" in anything said by Cleveland. At least you had the good sense not to imply that I was talking about AnotherBeliever, about whom I know nothing, sexually speaking.

AnotherBeliever: "The point of the poem Mr Dreher posted was simply that at the end of the day, despite all talk of capitalism and political platforms and this ambiguously defined 'American Way of Life', the only temporal thing worth dying for is the freedom for your loved ones to live in peace, and for your friends and compatriots to live with honor."

The clearly made point of the poem is that the life of a loved one is NOT worth one's liberty.

JonE: "We want freedom to live a peaceful life, 'where none dare molest or make afraid.' That life can never be gained for the price of a bullet or a life."

That's a perfect example of what's wrong with current liberalism, which, BTW, bears no resemblance to the American way of life or traditional Liberalism or rational thought.

You want poetry? Try Sir Walter Scott:

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

ANDREW BACEVICH HAS EARNED OUR EAR

Only rarely does someone surface with qualifications as well as insights and a delivery that stimulate thinking. Even more rarely does an individual stimulate the very personal mental articulation of self observation.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/08/andrew-bacevich-rare-sobering-voice.html

Bacevich deserves as broad an audience as can be exposed.

This is not directed at any one individual here:

Regardless of how you interpret the pretty poem I still maintain that liberty is only a means to an end, and that end is your family and comrades living in peace and dignity. If you start trying to tie a bunch of unnecessary stuff to the liberty - excessive materialism, unhealthy lobbyist inroads into Congress, an overweening executive branch, unbalanced individualism, cheap oil regardless of the political cost, expansionist and expanding military policy - if you start piling all these things together under a banner of "freedom" you have no right to screech UNPATRIOTIC! AMERICA HATER! COWARD! at anyone who dares suggest that most of it is not worth a war. Particularly not if the person in question has served in a war zone, or even lost a son in one. They should know better than most what is, and is not, worth fighting and dying for. We would do well to pay attention to Dr Bacevich.