Jiu-Jitsu idea?
Political insiders and now bloggers paying attention like to think up ways to use an opponents strengths (or ideologies) against them. This strategy, referred to as "jiu-jitsu" after the martial art that utilizes this concept wholly, is attractive mainly because it usually involves little risk but promises huge rewards, as the politicos at the head of a movement struggle to maintain control not only of their adherents, but also the message that they alone hold the key to future success.
A real world example of political jiu-jitsu occurred when Richard Nixon (and Ronald Reagan even more completely) convinced the working classes that they, and not the Democratic Party traditionally thought to be in their corner, had their best interests at heart. Republicans discovered that Americans near the bottom of the economic ladder voted according to their social values rather than their fiscal self-interests (or if the latter, according to their hopeful dream of one day belonging to a higher class). Nixon captured the mythical "Silent Majority", while Reagan and the rest of the far right ever since have pandered--which I think is the right word, since they rarely follow through on promises made to this constituency--to the "Moral Majority."
While taking my daily walk with TBO last night I had a moment of inspiration along these lines (but directed against the Republicans and/or the far right, of course). One of the long-standing bulwarks of Republican ideology has been the unwavering support of a strong military, to the extent that they simply don't even care if it gets used properly. Our armed forces are filled to the brim with many men and women who serve their country honestly and faithfully; asking for any reduction in their numbers has never been looked upon too fondly by our electorate, and those in favor of a strong military have always successfully destroyed any candidate seeking to curb the defense budget openly.
What our military men and women do, on the other hand, has rarely been addressed as a political question unless we are embroiled in hostile action. I have never heard a major candidate running for office suggest that our troops stationed around the world on permanent bases might be more usefully employed doing something else, even on a short-term basis. Since questioning the very existence of our bloated military or the presence of these foreign bases is a sure-fire recipe for political suicide, what if we instead proposed using the troops in a different manner?
My idea is a simple one: we employ the men and women in uniform as workers on public works projects, helping to maintain/rebuild our national infrastructure. We don't call for a reduction in budget, military effectiveness, force numbers, or even the number of foreign bases, we simply rotate the troops home on a regular schedule to rebuild our interstate freeways, bridges, streets, dams, power plants etc., build new mass transit lines, and any other projects we can think of. These days, we can fly anyone anywhere within 24 hours (at most), so this can't be seen as a "weakening" of our forces at all, and reducing the number of wo/men actively on duty in other countries would reduce, if not eliminate the friction we cause by their presence. At the same time, we boost our own economy, strengthen our communication, power, and transportation systems (at least). And the beauty of this idea is that the only people who can argue against it fully are those who a) don't think the government should be used to improve our lives at all; b) don't understand the resentment we provoke anywhere we have a military base; c) don't think the troops would like being used as construction workers; or d) think that private enterprise will take care of all of these problems.
The first group, composed mainly of severely right-wing near anarchists or hard-core libertarians, number so few as to be politically inconsequential. The second group is composed of men and women who need to be educated about how our country is really seen by others.
The third group would have a legitimate point--it is likely that a significant portion of our current armed wo/men don't want to pour concrete or string fiber optic lines for a living. If we find out that this number is too high to provide for a reasonable accommodation--which could be something as simple as allowing those people the opportunity to be permanently stationed elsewhere, which is what they do now anyway--we could simply discharge the hard-liners and recruit wo/men willing to serve their country in this new manner. I imagine there are a great number of people who would be more willing to volunteer for stints in the military if they knew that they would be paid to improve our country instead of merely representing a loaded gun pointed at someone's head. The fourth group is also quite few in number, and falling out of favor rapidly (witness Smirky's disastrous attempt to repeal, er, "privatize", Social Security).
One thing all 4 groups have in common is that they are all presently residing in the Republican Party, for the most part, and it is here that the jiu-jitsu portion of my proposal comes in to play. Supporters of "a strong military" in the abstract have no solid ideological basis on which to ground an argument against this idea (making them the natural Republicans that would offer at least minimal resistance and possibly even support), imho, but members of these 4 groups that have successfully hidden their true agendas behind that abstraction are faced with a real problem. It's a pretty safe bet that not all people in all 4 groups can be persuaded that this is a good idea, but I would wager that at least some of them would be, thereby hiving off even more Republican factions and splintering their base.
What do you all think?
A real world example of political jiu-jitsu occurred when Richard Nixon (and Ronald Reagan even more completely) convinced the working classes that they, and not the Democratic Party traditionally thought to be in their corner, had their best interests at heart. Republicans discovered that Americans near the bottom of the economic ladder voted according to their social values rather than their fiscal self-interests (or if the latter, according to their hopeful dream of one day belonging to a higher class). Nixon captured the mythical "Silent Majority", while Reagan and the rest of the far right ever since have pandered--which I think is the right word, since they rarely follow through on promises made to this constituency--to the "Moral Majority."
While taking my daily walk with TBO last night I had a moment of inspiration along these lines (but directed against the Republicans and/or the far right, of course). One of the long-standing bulwarks of Republican ideology has been the unwavering support of a strong military, to the extent that they simply don't even care if it gets used properly. Our armed forces are filled to the brim with many men and women who serve their country honestly and faithfully; asking for any reduction in their numbers has never been looked upon too fondly by our electorate, and those in favor of a strong military have always successfully destroyed any candidate seeking to curb the defense budget openly.
What our military men and women do, on the other hand, has rarely been addressed as a political question unless we are embroiled in hostile action. I have never heard a major candidate running for office suggest that our troops stationed around the world on permanent bases might be more usefully employed doing something else, even on a short-term basis. Since questioning the very existence of our bloated military or the presence of these foreign bases is a sure-fire recipe for political suicide, what if we instead proposed using the troops in a different manner?
My idea is a simple one: we employ the men and women in uniform as workers on public works projects, helping to maintain/rebuild our national infrastructure. We don't call for a reduction in budget, military effectiveness, force numbers, or even the number of foreign bases, we simply rotate the troops home on a regular schedule to rebuild our interstate freeways, bridges, streets, dams, power plants etc., build new mass transit lines, and any other projects we can think of. These days, we can fly anyone anywhere within 24 hours (at most), so this can't be seen as a "weakening" of our forces at all, and reducing the number of wo/men actively on duty in other countries would reduce, if not eliminate the friction we cause by their presence. At the same time, we boost our own economy, strengthen our communication, power, and transportation systems (at least). And the beauty of this idea is that the only people who can argue against it fully are those who a) don't think the government should be used to improve our lives at all; b) don't understand the resentment we provoke anywhere we have a military base; c) don't think the troops would like being used as construction workers; or d) think that private enterprise will take care of all of these problems.
The first group, composed mainly of severely right-wing near anarchists or hard-core libertarians, number so few as to be politically inconsequential. The second group is composed of men and women who need to be educated about how our country is really seen by others.
The third group would have a legitimate point--it is likely that a significant portion of our current armed wo/men don't want to pour concrete or string fiber optic lines for a living. If we find out that this number is too high to provide for a reasonable accommodation--which could be something as simple as allowing those people the opportunity to be permanently stationed elsewhere, which is what they do now anyway--we could simply discharge the hard-liners and recruit wo/men willing to serve their country in this new manner. I imagine there are a great number of people who would be more willing to volunteer for stints in the military if they knew that they would be paid to improve our country instead of merely representing a loaded gun pointed at someone's head. The fourth group is also quite few in number, and falling out of favor rapidly (witness Smirky's disastrous attempt to repeal, er, "privatize", Social Security).
One thing all 4 groups have in common is that they are all presently residing in the Republican Party, for the most part, and it is here that the jiu-jitsu portion of my proposal comes in to play. Supporters of "a strong military" in the abstract have no solid ideological basis on which to ground an argument against this idea (making them the natural Republicans that would offer at least minimal resistance and possibly even support), imho, but members of these 4 groups that have successfully hidden their true agendas behind that abstraction are faced with a real problem. It's a pretty safe bet that not all people in all 4 groups can be persuaded that this is a good idea, but I would wager that at least some of them would be, thereby hiving off even more Republican factions and splintering their base.
What do you all think?
Labels: domestic uses for military personnel, Political jiu-jitsu, Republican Party
posted by bryduck at 8:38 AM
3 Comments:
Sounds good to me. It almost makes too much sense. There could be objections from some unions, which might affect Democratic support.
Could be, but the unions are getting killed now anyway in our political climate, so what's the difference, really? Perhaps the relevant union members could be employed as trainers and crew chiefs of the military workers, which would probably stimulate recruitment in the unions also, and maybe even reinvigorate the movement entirely thereby . . .
I've been saying ever since Katrina that bringing the troops home from that quagmire in the middle east to get our own quagmire straightened out was a good idea. Think how many Habitat for Humanity houses we could have built. Think how those levees just might be made more stable. Think of the good that they can do. Don't tell me the unions don't want to hear this. How many houses have those fat cats built? Oh, that's right - none. How many people are still without a place to live? Thousands? Yeah, sure balances out, doesn't it?
GOM
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