A Modern McNamara?

With the death of Robert S. (for Strange! seriously) McNamara, I've seen a few online pieces comparing the Iraq War's own Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, with the infamous "architect of Vietnam". In the future, will Rumsfeld be universally reviled, as McNamara evidently was? I don't think so. Sure, there are similarities: both presided over wars that were seen as disasters of planning and of execution, both were notorious micro-managers, both had put their stamps on war plans. But whereas Kennedy and Johnson were never able to sell their quagmire (sorry, but I'm legally obligated to use that word, since this is about Vietnam) to a skeptical and eventually outraged public and press, Bush, Cheney, and the neocons did a fantastic job of duping a complacent public and a lapdog press corps.

Sure, there will be moments when Rumsfeld feels the wrath of the public [aside: explain to me what a multi-millionaire is doing riding the bus? Part of me is impressed that he's willing to take public transportation, part of me wonders if he's really just incredibly cheap]. But I think that those moments will be few, compared to the many public excoriations that McNamara faced. And while I admire that this father confronted Rumsfeld at that bus stop, I wonder how much good it does, other than making the guy feel better (after his blood pressure returned to normal). Rumsfeld was already an old man, long-bereft of any idealism or sense of justice after various roles in government, when he assumed his last government post - very different from McNamara, who was 44 when he became Secretary and was, by all accounts, broken by the War.

Age of Indifference?

These two columns, one at Wired and the other in the Baltimore Sun by columnist-activist Dan Rodricks, have recently put me in a place that I don't visit very often: deep in thought. I know, risky. But reading them made me wonder, with all the shit that's going on with our government these days, where's the widespread anger, the demand for accountability, any kind of populist response? Missing in action, apparently, but why?

First the Wired piece. The comparison with the Vietnam era is intriguing. I read an article months ago - don't recall where or I'd link to it - that discussed the idea of World War II's "Greatest Generation", and that while that was an appropriate label, and that generation deserves all the praise and honor that all the documentaries, Tom Brokaw books, and Tom Hanks-produced movies and TV series bestow upon it, don't forget about the '60s-early '70s generation either. The argument was that World War II was something that was easy to unite behind, and the conflicts of the '60s didn't necessarily have widespread popular support but they got the job done anyway, with civil rights, with getting us out of Vietnam (eventually), even with timely investigations of people at the top who were abusing their power (Watergate, Church Committee, etc.). So, back to the Wired column; are we that self-absorbed that we can't mobilize to do something about the current abuses? Are we looking to the wrong opposition leaders - i.e., most of the Democrat Party 'leadership' - to rally behind? Do we not realize how perilous a position we've put our world in, and how much our freedoms are at risk? Hopefully, it's starting to sink in for a majority of people, but I'm not quite convinced that the tide has turned.

The Rodricks column on mandatory public service goes in a somewhat different direction, but still speaks to this pervasive indifference that seems to have settled in. Is mandatory service the answer? I hope that it wouldn't have to come to that. I remember the debates, back when I was in high school, about mandatory community service for students, and whether the mandatory part of the equation violated the altruistic spirit with which one should approach community service - I believed that it did back then, and I still believe that. Community service as forced labor can easily breed resentment towards both the government that mandates it, and towards those who are being helped. Sure, it can get things done, but is that cost worth it? Maybe, but something about such an arrangement just feels wrong to me. Dan Rodricks' columns always ask tough questions though, and this one is no different. It also naturally lead to some introspection, namely my own complicity in this culture of apathy, and what I could be doing differently with my time and/or money, to break out of it. Tough questions indeed.