Protocol for 4/5/11 "Why We Fight"

Brittany entered the classroom with Ahmed around 11:01pm. Upon entering the classroom she noticed that Hongfa and Mariana were already sitting at desks along the walls of the classroom. Brittany and Ahmed moved the extra chairs from the center of the room to the corner of space by the window. Then they sat down at their respective desks waiting for class to begin. Heidi then entered the room and greeted everyone with a cheerful "hi". Shortly thereafter Ben entered and spoke his usual "mornin'" to the classroom as went to plug his laptop into the teacher table. His voice momentarily sounded like he was gargling rocks. He then muttered to himself that his calendar was reminding him that he had to teach class in ten minutes. Then Sophie entered. Ben asks how everyone is doing and Heidi responds with with a bright "good, how are you?". By now Ben has pulled down the white screen and has started playing a black and white video called Why We Fight. The video was produced by the War Department. (The War Department was the equivalent of the Department of Defense before the National Security Act of 1947.) Ben tells the class that the War Department produced the video to acquaint members of the Army with "factual information" about regarding World War II. The video starts with some credits and then launches into some fact about the flag and how it is the symbol of freedom and overwhelming power. It then states that "Democracy can only be complete with the utter defeat of the enemy.". The video then cuts to a scene of lots of soldiers marching, then cuts to bombs exploding, and mentions Pearl Harbor. More explosions are seen and heard as the narrator mentions first Britain and then France. This is followed by more explosions and the mention of China. Ben saluted Elissa and Kate as they enter the classroom, perhaps in a mockery of the militaristic video we are watching. The video is now showing planes being shot down and more explosions. In a new twist it shows dead bodies laying on the ground in a row before cutting back to the now familiar exploding bomb scenes while the narrator calls out various foreign countries. The narrator then asks the "audience" what put America in uniform ready to engage every enemy on every continent. The volume in the room increases as the class is chattering amongst themselves. Mandi says that she was forced to grab free food from the second floor "It All Adds Up" group. The video is now showing the Constitution while the narrator speaks in his "serious" voice and says that all men are created equal. It then shifts to showing "important people in American history" who have been turned into bronze sculptures while the narrator drones on with "...government of the people, by the people, for the people...". The Liberty Bell is then shown and its ringing can be heard as it fades and "important monuments in American history" are shown behind it. The video then switches to a map of the "central powers" such as Germany, Japan, and Italy being covered in red while "dangerous/scary" music plays in the background. It then shows the "enemy" marching while "evil marching" music plays behind them. After that it switches to the "common people" and "sad" music as the narrator states that "...they let someone else solve their problems for them. Almost everyone is seated in class and Ben began taking attendance and then stood up and moved to the center of the room with a smirk on his face as he announced to the class that we would be watching the video for two more minutes. The map is shown again of the “red” countries, except this time they are turning into symbols. Japan turned into a dragon, Germany turned into a swastika, and Italy turned into the fascist symbol. Ben then stopped the video. Ben mimicked the video by shaking his fist and laughingly saying “stop thinking and follow me”. The video was produced by Walt Disney. Brittany asked Ben why Disney would produce an anti-Hitler video, since he was anti-Semitic. He responded that it was a good question. Hallie responded that Hitler was also against “America”. Ben then said that the exoteric reason for going to war against the Nazis was because they were allied with Japan who had bombed Pearl Harbor, and that it was our interpretation to go to war because of the Jews. Which he said would never be in a history book. “The international good guy” approach. He said that the esoteric reason is deeply debated and that Gore Vidal would say it is because it was good for the economy. An interesting historiography debate Ben mentions is the Great Depression. The Stock Market crash, Roosevelt being elected President, and government-run programs that helped create “big government” were some of the key pieces to the debate. Ben said that his stand is that Roosevelt may or may not have hurt the economy, but he agrees that with the “right” that war boosted the economy. “War was great for the economy”. He said that the Esoteric reason for keeping the military industrial complex was to keep the economy running. Ben then writes a book title on the board by Robert Stinnett called Day of Deceit, which says that Roosevelt provoked Japan into bombing Pearl Harbor so that he could use the atomic bomb. Ben then tells everyone to take a look at page 221 of Lowen. (American Colossus) Ben mentions that we have to talk about the pronoun “we” and that The U.S. has to protect its own interests, which is where Realpolitick and American Colossus go together. Ben loved that Lowen quoted Kissinger. He mentions to the class that Kissinger cannot set foot in Europe because he will be charged for war crimes. The class then begins discussing the Rockefeller Oil Company that basically controlled 93% of American oil. Hallie mentions that Dayton used to be married to a Rockefeller. (Dayton divorced Rockefeller in 1990. Dayton was a Minnesota governor.) Ben also mentions that Kissinger was basically in the pocket of oil companies. Ben then talks with his hands as he tells the class that Historical Representation and the events themselves – (The two levels we talked about today) will be explained. Ben then asks who knew about the 1973 Chilean event and only 5 students raised their hand. Ben explains what happened to everyone else. Someone is elected through democracy, a Leftist socialist. ITT didn’t want him. However, he was not a communist. CIA went in and overthrew him and put a ruthless military dictator instead. He is put in power on Sept. 11, 1973. (Called the Little 9/11/73, but more people died during the Little one then the “big” one.) Ben said there is not much more complication than that. Mandi didn’t believe it could be so simple. “ITT called the CIA and said remove him?” Hallie couldn’t remember the title of the book that is good that talks about the event from the view of right wing priest. Ben mentioned a book too, called Dark Green, Bright Red by Gore Vidal. (The United Fruit event Lowen mentioned that happened in Guatemala.) Ben tried to retrace how the classroom got onto the fruit event. Elissa was curious to know if “we really knew” what was going on for the Holocaust. Ben responds with the question, “who is we”? Ben mentioned listening to NPR say that the U.S. media was really reluctant to broadcast the Holocaust. The BBC documentary in the 1970s titled Holocaust really brought the Holocaust to the “we”. Ben then shows the class another 5 five minutes of a documentary also called “Why We Fight” (2005?). An old guy was shown saying that kids are dying, billions are being spent, and there is animosity. He then asks “what happened here? Is there something else going on here? What went wrong here?”. Old timey begins playing while the video shows scenes of typical America. Another old guy begins saying that “We live here in the United States of Amnesia. We don’t remember Monday. Everything is a mystery.” Then black and white “military scenes” are shown. Presidents and military shots follow as well as pictures of meetings while the narrator says that these are the “real reasons besides freedom and common values”. More shots of officials are shown and then a male voice says that we are expanding American imperialism and building a new Rome. Sad music is played and close face shots of old people are shown. Ben then asks everyone what they saw. Hallie responds by saying that it was an extremely partisan video of a particular political party putting all of the blame on the Republicans. Ben said that it was probably made by Democrats. He asked her why that was important. She responded that was dividing more people in the country to suggest that a Democrat should be in power. It tried to put the blame on one party versus Lowen saying that it was the entire government. Sophie suggested that it may be accurate to say that it was mostly the Republicans. Mandi added that with Libya and Obama that we are not all standing behind him like we did with Bush and 9/11. Ben wanted to hear what others thought. He asked Paige what it made her feel. She said nothing and then said it was kind of emotional. He asks in what way and she said that she did not know. Elissa said it was “really frustrating to see that guy who talked about his son, because violence doesn’t solve violence”. Heidi said it made her feel helpless and oblivious. She personally felt like there was little that she has done to help. Then she said she felt oblivious because her friends and family were not in the center of it. Ben told the class to keep that thought in mind. Rachel said she saw Control Room and how it showed how the people don’t want us in there, but the news says that they do. Karrie said that it is embarrassing. Ben asked how Lowen helps everyone to understand. He then mentioned that he was thinking about what Mandi had said earlier. “Take a step back and think about what Bush said”. He said. “Why is it important that he said that this is not just an act of terror, but an act of war?” Liz said that the act of terror is them attacking us, and the act of war is us fighting back. Lindsey said that an act of war means you respond. Jordan thought that 9/11 affected so many people that America had to respond. Karrie said that if you retaliate to terror you are also terrorizing. But responding to war is just war. Hallie said that war is just terrorism with a bigger budget and that war is historically between states while terror is more of a fringe element. Ben said that the class was building something really important and he was going to try to bring it all together. Marika said that she felt dis-attached because she is black. She said that black people aren’t really interested in white issues. Ben says that terrorism is a crime; there are laws. “If you commit a crime you are investigated and brought to justice and punished. If you are innocent you go free. War is not a crime. War is an action between states. There is no legal provision. Bush used the rhetoric of war even though they didn’t have an exact state to go to war with. Individuals are not enemies. Terrorists are the enemy.” (Mitch Rapp reference) “There are various criminals over the world that are being looked for. (Osama bin laden) Instead, we are going to fight countries that side with terrorism.” He then says that he is going to momentarily put on his Leftist anti-Bush hat. He then says that “without war we can’t keep the state of exception.” Hallie said if we had chosen to just search for Bin Laden, Americans would still be mad. Ben asked again “who is this “we”?” Marika then said that she doesn’t feel animosity, she just doesn’t feel that it hit home. “Let’s get into Lowen. Turn to the person next to you and find the constitution of this “we”.” Ben said. Everyone then began discussing the answer to the question. The room suddenly became like a bubble of relaxed noise. Eventually the volume lulled and Ben the class back to attention. Marika and Kate started the class off. The class was told to look at page 230, halfway down. Marika commented that the Congo conflict still going on. Ben says that the Exoteric reason is to fight communism. Someone brought up the fact one of the leaders was assassinated. Ben giggled as he said the “passive voice. Was assassinated.” Lack of knowledge? Or lies? Lowen – a pattern?” Brittany said that the pattern might be that we are the good guys and there is always some “positive reason” for us to leave as the good guys. Ben responded with the phrase a “happily ever after”. Liz said that she hears a Disney voice in her head saying it has to be a certain way. In the 10th grade Kate and Heidi were devastated when they found out Anastasia the movie wasn’t true and that she died. Ben said that when Iraq is added to the history books it would be something about terrorism being the new threat and that although there were no weapons the Iraqi people were liberated by the Americans. Ben said that imperialism and the state of exception go together. Hallie mentions the G.I. coffee places that were on the edge of bases and how this guy said that during torture that they would put people in a black box, with music, naked and tied up, and the music so loud they would go crazy. The only evidence of their transgression against America is what their neighbor would say. The torture made them so crazy that they would admit to what they did even if they didn’t do it. “I am going to go Socratic on you. American pride, conservative argument is that you keep it out of the text book to keep the pride in youth of America. That is not the whole story. You have the politics of textbook adoption boards. If they don’t like the book they won’t buy it. Textbook publishing companies are going to write to the boards that buy their books. This is an important economic piece of this; A cultural system of knowledge production.” Then the class brought up the fact that other countries are not quite the same in the way they make their textbooks. The Germans are almost obsessive in how they discuss German “bad stuff”. “I want to make sure everyone understands what is going on. Philosophically: Hegel, Argumentatively: evidence, position, and Politically: position. Two other quick points, bring the Marquise of O and other stories.” Ben also mentioned that tomorrow he is “going against exams” so there will only be office minutes.