We took a train out to Arlington Cemetery today to see the famous rows of headstones marking fallen American soldiers. I have visited many cemeteries and burial sites over the years – the Gallipoli Penninsula, the Catacombs under Paris, the crypts under St Paul’s in London and St Peter’s in Rome, the ossuaries in Meteora, the Jewish cemeteries in Prague, the unmarked graves outside Dachau… but there is something about this place that has really gotten to me.
Arlington is a cemetery which revels and praises and celebrates the American military tradition. It starts with the voice-over on the tour bus, which takes you through seemingly endless lines of headstones standing to attention in rows of military precision, and gives you get a sense of ‘America. How fucking awesome are we?’ in this place which ostensibly exists to honour those fallen in combat. This is a place of recognition of the ‘supreme sacrifice’ these servicemen and women made for their country, but it is somehow glorified in a manner that is quite unseemly.
We were dropped off at John F Kennedy’s final resting space and found his plaque, modest and well kept, beside that of his wife, Jaqueline Onassis Kennedy. Sadly they are accompanied with plaques for their two children as well; burning beside an eternal flame lit by Jacqueline herself. The bus driver having explained very matter of factly that ‘the other assassinated Kennedy was over thatta way’ was nonchalant about the tragedy that is a political assassination – it seems part of the American imagination, just another reality of American political life. It is almost unthinkable to an Australian that we would see a politician assassinated – we are far more likely to throw an egg at them, print something horrid about them in a newspaper or yell at them in public… but kill them for what they do, and what they believe in, and what they are attempting to achieve? It just does not exist in our national vocabulary. Thankfully.
We saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and waited around to see the Changing of the Guard. Dress Marines looking snappy, moving economically and with such utmost precision all of which gave tell of their practice and dedication. The Sargent marched out slow time and addressed us, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. The ceremony you are about to see has been carried out to honor those soldier who are known, but to God…’ but what he might have more accurately said would be ‘The show you are about to see has been carried out to remind you why America is what it is…’ for it felt the entire ritual is designed as part of a longstanding and far reaching nationalistic propaganda campaign. It is the first and probably will be the last time I will see so many Americans all in one space and remaining silent after having been told to be so. All those who witnessed the Changing of the Guard, stood with caps in hand and/or hand on heart, and solemnly contemplating the lost men and women from the various campaigns who are there represented in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.
As the ritual progressed, we could not help but gain the impression that America revels and celebrates its military history – and in a costly twist of fate, has somehow failed to learn anything from the same; for they continue to embroil themselves in wars, military conflicts and engagements around the world, causing the deaths of yet more young service men and women.
Yesterday, we walked through the hallowed halls of so many monuments built to so many great men whose ideologies is engraved deep in granite and bronze for the world to see. And it seems to us as visitors that America was formed on fine ideals, ideals that were as relevant at the formation of their country as they are now, and ideals which every American appears to hold dear (some of them a little too dear), but they have become ideals which are no longer apparently in their political system, they legal system, or their collective American conscious. They are ideals to which lip service is paid, but none appear to aspire to anymore.
Franklin D. Roosevelt –
“The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.”
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country”
Thomas Jefferson –
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”
“We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”
Abraham Lincoln –
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
These, and other fine sentiments from some of the greatest minds of their generations appear to be at the core of what Americans hold dear, but from a foreigners point of view, it is just that – an appearance. For here, it feels like not enough people care for their neighbours, not enough people care if there is quality education for all, not enough people care if everyone is able to access equal and affordable health care, not enough people care if every man gets paid a decent wage… they have developed the theory, taught the theory, bought the theory and think they are living the theory, yet they have all but failed in putting the theory into practice. Maybe it was working in Roosevelt’s time or Lincoln’s time, but it sure isn’t working anymore.
The American political system is broken, and the people here seem either not invested enough, or not educated enough, to attempt to fix it. They’ve drunk the Kool Aid and they think it tastes fine, but it’s slowly poisoning them and they don’t realise it yet, but they have have set a course that will see their own demise. This modern version of America does not govern for its people, it is not a government that serves its citizens. And what became really apparent at Arlington today is that the military might that America wields as the self proclaimed ‘Leaders of the Free World’ is complicit in oppressing the American people as much they think it is protecting them. The tour guide tells us proudly that they have a whole new Section 60 worked out for the already killed and the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars… THE VAST NUMBER OF DEAD SOLDIERS RESULTANT FROM A DECLARATION OF WAR BASED ON MISINFORMATION AND LIES IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF! Somewhere along the line, America has gone off the rails… and one day ‘we the people’ will discover that America is not all it is cracked up to be, and I for one don’t really want to be around when the ensuing ego driven tantrum thrown by the world’s formerly largest, nuclear superpower goes down.
