Memorial Day, Humanity, & The World Order
We’re officially into summer now, heralded by yesterday’s bookend-of-a-holiday — Memorial Day. Of course every year, there are folks who appropriately remind us that it’s not supposed to be a holiday for camp-outs and barbecues and mattress sales. It’s supposed to be about “honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces” (via Wikipedia).
With that, it seems like we tend to focus on how US military personnel who gave everything to bring us these United States, with all that brings for us — US persons. It is true, and powerful beyond words. We should focus heavily on that.
There’s something else that the sacrifice of US military personnel have given us, though, and it’s the protection of vulnerable people all over the world in so many ways.
It’s the protection of democracies. It’s the protection against some tyrants. It’s backing the United Nations. It’s helping with catastrophes. It’s helping other nation-state militaries to learn and grow and evolve so they can better defend themselves against tyrants and aggressor nations.
For all the mistakes we’ve made with our military messing with other countries (and there are a lot), there are also millions of humans we have protected with that great strength and capability.
Hundreds of millions of lives have been made better by what the US military brings and has brought to the world. Over decades.
I think we often miss and overlook what the service and sacrifice of our military service members has brought and continues to bring to the world and to its people. It seems to have fallen off our radar in politics and in our narratives; in how we talk about what the military does.
That benefit to and protection of humanity is important. Our democracy and the world as a whole would benefit from us talking more about what the powerful US military and military personnel bring to the entire world.
Right now we’re a critical part of holding back Russia from it’s brutal expansion — even despite not being on the ground in the war in Ukraine. US might and capabilities brought by the sacrifice of our military personnel over decades contribute to the wall of strength that is helping hold together a coalition backing Ukraine and containing Russia.
The very existence of US might through our military keeps other would-be aggressors in check around the world. That’s invaluable. And that, too, comes from the sacrifice and service of US military personnel. Yes, it also comes from an astronomical defense budget, the best military technology in the world, and a sprawling defense industrial base… but none of that works or would have worked without US military personnel on the ground and on the sea.
It’s important to talk about this also because one of the narratives on the far-right in the US right now is that we should pull back from supporting so many other countries — and in fact, from upholding the current world order.
It’s not surprising, as the far-right would prefer that the most violent and aggressive people (and countries) hold all the power. One of the huge benefits to democracy is that democratic governments are intended to protect and serve all of their citizens; not just the strongest, or those with the most guns, or those with the most money. Democratic government are generally better for humans and humanity than authoritarian governments of all kinds. And while democratic governments may not meet their ideal perfectly, they are (mostly) evolving to work on becoming better democracies.
In a post yesterday, historian Heather Cox Richardson noted that in 1943, the US War Department worked to educate some US military personnel about fascism with a series of pamphlets. One pamphlet noted that fascists “would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. ‘In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations’… The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, ‘is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.’”
Making our democracy work.
Our democracy has to work for our country and our country’s military personnel to help uphold the world order. To help uphold the relative stability of the post-World War II world order. That world order is unlikely to hold if US democracy fails. And what of the service and sacrifice of so many US military personnel, who have helped uphold this world order?
People speak casually about US decline and the potential for US collapse… often indicating nothing in their insouciance of the giant cascading effects that would occur worldwide if the world’s democratic superpower were to fail — in the US, but also in country after country. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of human lives would be affected.
US military personnel are part of the force that currently holds back such an apocalyptic hellscape worldwide.
US voters need to take a bigger part in having their back; in honoring their sacrifices up to now over decades and centuries.
We need to take a bigger part by getting more involved in upholding this democracy.
We need to take a bigger part in advocating for it and for what it means — both for Americans, and for humanity worldwide. It’s deadly serious; as the threats to democracy up in this country are intensifying daily. This isn’t hyperbole.
Are we going to step up and put our own lives into some kind of civic service to help hold this country together… in time? I don’t know. We could, though.
There are a zillion opportunities to step it up. Fascism takes hold when the social fabric is a threadbare mess; when people back off of civic life, hide out, and disengage due to fear, overwhelm, and shock.
We can counter that with civic engagement through action that pushes the hateful, bigoted, fascists back into their dark corners and hidey-holes. We can counter it by lighting up the darkness. By finding our own ways to serve and to uphold and to honor the sacrifices made by so many before us.
Shift the Country is a new organization offering space and options to help people amp up civic engagement in communities everywhere in this country. We can counter fascists. We can counter domestic terrorists. We can counter racists.
Join us. We’re at the very, very beginning of this work.
It starts by getting people together to talk about the possibilities, and then to make those possibilities happen. Our next big national holiday is the Fourth of July. What could we pull off between now and then in the spirit of service and democracy?
Join us and let’s figure it out.
Join the brand-new Facebook group where we’ll be talking about ideas and rallying support.
Join a Zoom call June 8 about how we can bring “Widespread Pressure.”
Join any of our other online events for brainstorming, big ideas, and coordination to get this shift going.
Thank you. What this country will be in the future depends on what we collectively choose to do in this long moment.
We can do a lot.