By Rich Gibson
March 2019
The dangers of patriotic liberalism: For Rosa Brooks there is no class war, no imperialism, no profitable racism, and certainly no fascism, although she describes the current corporate/military/government state in dramatic detail--a strength that makes this book must reading for every serious liberal who should see the terrible trajectory of their own logic, and for every radical who wants to witness the dominance of that corporate state in great detail.
In her horrific conclusion, where she urges we find comfort in the military's rule, not as "the military" but as "national security." She suggests that it is in warfare that collective human talent reaches its zenith, and hence we should accept her own pernicious projection of perpetual war, and grow within it via universal service.
That would be, to her, patriotism.
To Mrs. Brooks, now married to a military officer, the US is a "do-gooder nation" arriving with good intentions.
But we cannot call her naive. Her liberal veneer, a courageous past working for Human Rights groups, masks what is in fact a bloodthirsty mission.
We should adapt to the reality of endless militant, armed, death-cult, superstitious criminal cults--rather than to counter them with "people make gods, gods don't make people, you have evil fairies dancing in your head."
We should grow accustomed to a military tyranny that has no grand strategy (but endless war) and thus no strategy, but only tactics--leaving each initiative to every imaginable enemy.
Brooks, the daughter of liberal Barbara Ehrenreich, demeans even the Second International, but does demonstrate precisely where her mother was headed.
"War, for all its horrors, has long been one of the best and only means of harnessing collective human talent to serve the group as a whole, and the military has long been the institution we use to bring talent together. If the military is becoming everything, why not use this as an opportunity to engage EVERYONE --to include millions more Americans in the project of making the nation stronger...(p360).
This, she suggests, will make the world less cruel.
She's a lawyer who believes in "human rights." Beware the law-worshipping liberals who cannot think.
Even Eisenhower would be appalled.
Rich Gibson (richgibson.com) is emeritus professor, San Diego State University and a community college lecturer. He is a co-founder of the Rouge Forum, an international organization of school workers of all kinds, students, and community people dedicated to recognizing the role of class, empire, and racism, in schools and out.