Conservatives in the blogosphere slammed MSNBC’s Chris Hayes for saying on his show Sunday that he feels “uncomfortable” calling fallen soldiers “heroes.”….”Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’?” Hayes said. “I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”
One of the many things that concern me about how America has changed post-9.11 is our increasingly militaristic bent…and the conviction that questioning said militarism ipso facto means you’re an effete America-hating Liberal.
The latest case in point is the boatload of Conservative bile directed at Chris Hayes, who’s an unapologetic Liberal…and one of the most thoughtful, thorough, and decent people on television today. My defense of Hayes is due in part to the fact that I agree with him. We’ve become so inured to militarism and the reflexive patriotism/hero worship of American military personnel that we’ve lost the collective ability to question the dominant paradigm. Beyond my agreement with his legitimate and reasonable question is my belief that questioning authority is inherently a good and desirable thing in a democracy. Dissent truly is the highest form of patriotism. Perhaps the biggest problem in America since 9.11 is the absence of dissenting voices questioning our headlong rush to our current state of full-blown jingoistic militarism.
America isn’t the first country to rush headlong down the path of reflexive, thoughtless patriotism (Germany during the 1930s comes immediately to mind). The Far Right and those with an interest in projecting American military power have succeeded in creating an atmosphere characterized by reflexive, knee-jerk uber-patriotic groupthink. Dissenting from the cornerstone belief that the American military and those who serve in it are the righteous defenders of all that is Virtuous and Holy is tantamount to treason. There’s a small but loud and mean-spirited slice of the Far Right willing to resort to any and all manner of insult and mean-spiritedness when someone has the temerity to stray from the accepted patriotic groupthink.
Judging by the vitriolic reaction to Hayes’ honorable question, you’d think that he’d come out on-air as an Islamofascist, America-hating Communist homosexual looking to recruit our children and force the evil Gay Agenda/Sharia upon good, God-fearing American patriots.
HOW DARE HE???
Kurt Schlichter at Breitbart blasted Hayes for his comment, writing, “Memo to Chris: they are heroes, and you don’t get a vote.”
Really? So only reliably reflexive Conservatives are allowed a voice that counts? Only those who accept without question are allowed a vote? If that’s the case, then why even have a vote? So many Conservatives like Schlichter seem unable to accept the premise that America is a democracy, and that dissenting voices are part and parcel of democracy. You don’t get to suppress participation in democracy because you think your belief system is the One True Faith. Self-righteous inflexibility and intolerance do not provide license to oppress those who think and believe differently.
Those who fought and died for this country were protecting, among other things, the 1st Amendment, which guarantees ALL Americans the right to free speech and expression.
And Newsbusters’ Mark Finkelstein dubbed Hayes “the human embodiment” of the word “effete” and mocked him for what “almost seems a parody of the conflicted intellectual.”
“What does it say about the liberal chattering class, which Hayes epitomizes, that it chokes on calling America’s fallen what they rightly and surely are: heroes?” Finkelstein wrote.
And, if I were so inclined, I could call Finkelstein the human embodiment of the phrase, “thoughtless, knee-jerk Conservative” who almost seems “the human embodiment” of the overpropagandized, unthinking Fox-News-Channel-watching sheep-like creatures who unquestioningly accept what those in the Right-wing media tell them to think. I could do that, but this isn’t about name-calling, not that a bunch of Conservative pundits and bloggers got that memo….
Meanwhile, Ann Coulter took to Twitter to give her assessment of the MSNBC host’s comment. “Chris Hayes ‘Uncomfortable’ Calling Fallen Military ‘Heroes’ — Marines respond by protecting his right to menstruate,” she tweeted.
Not that Chris Hayes needs me to defend him, of course; he’s in television, so he knows the sort of Neanderthals who will invariably weight in against him given the slightest provocation, but where’s the fire? What did Hayes say that was so horribly wrong and anti-American? Why is the simple act of asking a question that isn’t asked nearly enough taken as evidence that Hayes is an effete, America-hating Liberal? And why is it that Conservatives think they’ve cornered the market on patriotism?
Here’s something that those running Hayes down seem to have forgotten about: America is a democracy, and in a democracy EVERYONE has the right to be heard. EVERYONE has the right to ask questions. NO ONE gets to define for me (or anyone else) what “acceptable” patriotism is. Most of all, NO ONE has the right to keep me (or anyone else) from speaking out. If you disagree with what I have to say and you want to speak out about it, that’s your right as an American citizen. No one possesses the right to deny me that simply because I happen not to unthinkingly and unquestioningly parrot the accept propaganda of the day.
Hayes (even though he’s apologized, something I believe was unnecessary) was spot on. Post-9.11, America has collectively and mutely acquiesced to the overt militarization of our society and culture. No longer do we ask questions about what we’re doing and why. We simply accept it as the natural order of things. We spend untold trillions on defense, and yet no one seems willing to examine what we’re doing and question whether it’s what we should be doing. We reflexively acquiesce to throwing trillions at the military-industrial complex while that money could do so much more for the greater good (education, health care, infrastructure, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum). Few politicians possess the courage to broach the subject, fearing that their detractors and opponents will brand them as “soft on defense.” The few who do are branded as crackpots and treated as laughing stocks.
The mere act of questioning the status quo is now considered ipso facto unpatriotic. America has become the province of those trading in jingoistic, knee-jerk patriotic groupthink at the expense of rational, critical thinking. At the risk of proving the accuracy of Godwin’s Law, the parallels between America today and Germany during the 1930s are as disturbing as they are unmistakable. Obedience is valued far more than critical thinking. Dissent is viewed as unpatriotic. Questioning the accepted propaganda qualifies one as an enemy of the state. Those who dare speak out are attacked personally and viciously. The only thing missing are the brown shirts, the Sam Browne belts, and the Swastika arm bands.
Conservatives have every right to their point of view. They’re free to believe that Chris Hayes (or myself and anyone who happens to identify as a “Liberal”) is horribly, irretrievably wrong. What they aren’t free to do is to define what the “acceptable” form of patriotism is. No one gets to decide that for me.
While we’re at it, I might also suggest that Conservative like the ones who so viciously and personally trashed Chris Hayes learn some manners. Mama must be SO proud of y’all….
