This 4th of July weekend The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are at home playing the Baltimore Orioles. As part of the festivities, which the Angels' ownership has dubbed "Patriotic Week," this weekend's games will feature "flyovers" by a Blackhawk helicopter and C17 fighter jet. As a lifelong Angels fan (my grandfather took me to my first game when I was five-years old), I feel I must protest this coupling of U.S. military might and our national Independence day celebrations in such an exclusive manner.
A military is a necessary evil in this world today and the people who serve in this country's armed forces should be honored for their sacrifices. However, the coupling of the national past time with such deadly weapons of war reveals the worst aspects of our country, not the best.
Since the end of the second World War the United States has gone from being a flawed, yet highly honorable republic, which featured a moderate degree of democracy (for those whose skin was "white") to the most powerful nation earth. Along the way we have become at least a defacto empire; thru our many military bases scattered across the globe and our staggering wealth we at least indirectly control important aspects of the lives of much of the world's people.
Not surprisingly this situation has created much resentment around the world (how many people in the country with be comfortable with, say, Saudi or Japanese military bases in their hometowns?). As with empires throughout history, the maintaining of this power has become a given for us; we spend more money on military matters than the rest of the world's nations combined and to question this is to be labeled un-American, or at best a naive peacenik who doesn't understand real world power relationships.
What is seldom acknowledged by proponents of this permanent war state is how badly it has hollowed out this nation. It is not an accident that there never seems to be any money anymore to do things like fix roads, pay for education and health care, or any of the other things that are traditionally associated with a modern society--the military industrial complex sucks up everything in its path, which is almost everything.
It's of course not that simple. The rise of the military industrial complex has been accompanied by the development of a strangely American kind of crony capitalism (that is far too involved to go into in this little blog post), thru which the wealth of the nation is continually funneled up to the already wealthy under the guise of so-called free markets and patriotism (somewhere along the line the American right discovered that "Communism" and community have the root and therefore anything that is public based must be not only bad, but un-American).
All of this is my long-winded way of saying that the display of militarism that will occur at Anaheim Stadium this weekend is not only wrong-headed, but in its own small way adds fuel to the imperialist fires that are destroying not only this country, but the world at large.
So as an alternative I suggest ditching the Blackhawk and the C17 and instead have a giveaway, such as those for which baseball franchises are already famous. But instead of handing out souvenir bats or hats or t-shirts, how about celebrating the 4th of July with a giveaway that cuts to the heart of what's truly great about this country. Such as? Well, how about simply printed, inexpensive versions of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. Or better yet, laminated copies of the Bill of Rights. If these items are a bit too heavy for a summer holiday, how about something like a Martin Luther King bobblehead doll?
OK, I'm kidding with these suggestions--but just a little. The military protects the United States, but it does not, or should not, represent who we are. This country is in in trouble. This world is in trouble. Among the first steps needed to take it back from the horrible powers that currently be is to keep the military hardware where it belongs--on standby in case of an emergency. It should be a symbol of what we do when we have no other choice, not who we are as a country.
Happy 4th and play ball!
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