Listening to various members of Congress argue in favor of recent legislation declaring the United States a battleground in the open ended war against an enemy – a concept, really – that cannot be defeated, I am stunned to realize that in the past decade American politicians have failed to discover just how goddamn creepy it is when they refer to this country as "the Homeland."
That term, popularized by George W. Bush in the immediate wake of 9-11, always stands out like a sore thumb in my mind. It is like an air horn going off in the middle of a piano recital. I do not think this is because I am overly sensitive to choices people make in the use of language; I think it is because "Homeland" sounds dissonant, clumsy, and totally unrepresentative of any concept one might reasonably associate with the political culture of the United States. It sounds more like the kind of language used in fiction and nonfiction alike to mark unmistakably those who stand in opposition to the American Way: Japanese and their Home Islands, godless Communists and their Motherland, evil Nazis and their Fatherland, and so on.
OK, so aside from facile observations about how a word sounds like other creepy words, what's the problem here? Isn't this sufficiently interchangeable with generic terms like "nation" or more common specific phrases like "American soil" or simply the United States? No. Look no further than the basic definition to see some of the problems:
Dictionary.com:
1.one's native land.
2.a region created or considered as a state by or for a people of a particular ethnic origin: the Palestinian homeland.
3.any of the thirteen racially and ethnically based regions created in South Africa by the South African government as nominally independent tribal ministates to which blacks are assigned.Merriam-Webster:
1 native land
2 a state or area set aside to be a state for a people of a particular national, cultural, or racial origin
Hmm. "Homeland" has to do with the idea of being "native".
Well, the last time I checked there is no common ethnic, cultural, or racial origin in the U.
S., and to say that our country is "an area set aside for people of a particular national origin" is at once head-slappingly obvious and incorrect.
After all, national "origin" implies membership at birth, which of course is only one aspect of American citizenship.
Calling this The Homeland makes no practical or rhetorical sense, unless of course one's conception of America is as a land of a single cultural (European) and racial (white) identity.
Some people think that way – hell, throw in our single religion (Christianity) and you've pretty much summed up the Tea Party and Christian conservatism. But here in reality American culture and citizenship are defined by shared ideals and values.
Ideals and values are about as far away from the idea of identity based on soil – that America is the patch of dirt on which it is situated – as you can get.
There is a very simple reason that no American citizen or resident calls this country The Homeland. We don't call it a homeland because it is more than that. Other nations might be crass enough, in the American chauvinist's way of thinking, to define themselves by history, borders, and patches of land, but not us. Until now, that is. What we're seeing is a symptom of a political class relying increasingly on jingoistic appeals and language and a population learning how to define itself, its nation, and its citizenship in the basest terms – you are One of Us or One of Them. You Belong or you are The Other. It's the mindset of a populace that is warming up to the idea of arbitrary arrest and detention of its own members in the name of order, security, and preservation of the social order.
J. Dryden says:
I've been teaching a course on Evil In Popular Culture this semester, and one of the texts is EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM. I've stressed the point, following Arendt's lead, that the worst thing we can do in examining the history of the Third Reich and the Holocaust is to demonize the Nazis. "Not because they don't deserve it," I explain, "but because it makes it too comfortable for us to pat ourselves on the back for not being 'as bad.' If we forget their humanity, we lose the ability to recognize those impulses in ourselves, and reject them when they tempt us."
Godwin's Law isn't universally applicable. As a national movement, the embrace of Nazism began and grew by increments, small movements of encouraging thoughts and feelings and behaviors that only became codified late in the game. If we see ourselves making one of those small movements, and point out that, um, guys, starting to sound like late Weimar Germany here?–we get called out for violating Godwin, because the assumption is that the comparison is to the Reich engaged in full-bore genocide. But that's bullshit. An essential element of the Hitlerian phenomenon will always be missing in any point of comparison, but that doesn't make all comparison inapt.
The point's been made here on G&T that our country and culture is fertile ground for totalitarianism. The debate in the Senate over the "Fuck The Fourth Amendment" provision reveals this potential. (Jesus, when Rand Paul is the sane one, what the hell, people?) We are a giant in the midst of a depression, reminded by our leaders that we are beset on all sides by enemies of another faith/race, and the impotence of our legislative body to get anything accomplished serves as a daily reminder of the down-side to democracy and free-market capitalism. The fact that this legislation is moving towards Obama's signature without much of a blip–this, even as we downsize our foreign occupation, when we haven't experienced another traumatic attack in over a decade, when the Arab Spring appears to be flourishing and at a minimum appears to have drawn the attention of the Arab world well away from us–when, in short, we're actually increasingly safe and secure–when we're willing, not in a time of fear, but in a time of increasing peace and safety, to shrug away our rights–that needs to draw our attention to the parallels between us and the rise of the totalitarian states of the 20th century.
"Homeland" is a small thing. But it's a small move in the worst possible direction. Because it's on the short list of "must haves" for a dictator.
mclaren says:
Was sagen Sie, bitte? Wir leben die Heimat, kamaraden!
Major Kong says:
Sounds better in the original German.
canuckistani says:
Another way to think about this is that this word is (at least initially) directly linked to the concept of security, and specifically as institutionalized in the Dept of Homeland Security. But then there are American interests abroad as well, and these must be secured too (that's the military's job). This goes along with the Bush Doctrine and the attempt to broaden and coordinate a wide range of coercive capabilities in the name of security. When this term pops up in Bush's first National Security Strategy in 2002 it's only real meaning is linked to security:
"To defeat this threat we must make use of every tool in our arsenal — military power, better homeland defenses, law enforcement, intelligence, and vigorous efforts to cut off terrorist financing" (first page of the exec sum/intro).
"This broad portfolio of military capabilities must also include the ability to defend the homeland, conduct information operations, ensure U.S. access to distant theaters, and protect critical U.S. infrastructure and assets in outer space" (p 30).
"We must strengthen intelligence warning and analysis to provide integrated threat assessments for national and homeland security" (p 30).
That last one is the kicker. National security is global, homeland security is domestic and part of this bigger national/global view. Any other use of the term homeland there is lacking in the kind of cultural/ethnic reference point that usually goes with that term. The homeland is simply where domestic life happens because that is where most Americans live and where the warm cocoon of prosperity keeps us insulated from all the terrible shit that goes on elsewhere. So use of the term homeland, though it doesn't very easily slip off the tongue for Americans, is not first and foremost an attempt to get Americans to think of themselves in this kind of tribal or ethnic way (since that only works for a handful anyway). Really it seems like a security analyst's or strategist's term that got mainstreamed in justifying and pushing the beefing up of security in the US as part of a global view of national security that was shaken up by 9/11, since the illusion of not being part of that terribly shitty world beyond the US border was shattered.
wetcasements says:
I guess it rolls off the tongue better than "Das Reich"
Arslan says:
So when will the Heimat be secure? Oh right, when we defeat all terrorists.
sarah says:
i, too, have always found "homeland" to sound creepy as shit.
Ben says:
Small quibble.
"But here in reality American culture and citizenship are defined by shared ideals and values."
No. American culture is. American citizenship is a legal status granted through different means to different people and has fuckall to do with shared ideals or values.
Talking about citizenship in that way has a creepy Starship Troopers-ish quality to it ("Someone once asked me the difference between a citizen and a civilian . . . ") and triggers some of the same bad things you talk about with "homeland".
c u n d gulag says:
The term "Homeland" is part of the propaganda war that's been launched by Conservatives over the last decades.
And propaganda is one of the greatest tools ever invented to misguide people into doing things against their own better interests.
The reality is that we are rapidly morphing into a Dominionist Christian Fascist state.
Read this fairly brief description of Fascism:
http://www.ellensplace.net/fascism.html
Now, out of those 14 defining characteristics of Fascism, how many do not describe the USA today?
Name them.
NAME ONE!
Scary, no?
'Nuff said!
Middle Seaman says:
As clearly stated above Homeland is equivalent to the "Japanese and their Home Islands, godless Communists and their Motherland, evil Nazis and their Fatherland." The equivalence doesn't imply equivalence of regimes, but it does equate motivation and use.
This use is not an exception. Recently we saw the birth of "job creators" as in Bernie Madoff is a job creator. Reinvention of "socialist" as in the best friend of the rich, Obama, is a socialist. In 2008 we saw the resurrection of "hope and change" as in we lost all hope and everything has changed for the worse.
5000 years ago people already excelled in the art of sloganeering that blinds the masses.
Arslan says:
I think that the focus on Nazi Germany as the pinnacle of fascist regimes makes it easier for fascism or fascist policies to come to fruition in the US(and other countries for that matter). I think the logic goes- "Well Nazi Germany was openly racist and anti-Semitic, and the US/Tea Partiers/whatever isn't(at least not intentionally), so maybe some people are playing chicken little. "
Had these people studied more fascist regimes(and there were many), they would learn that the racial ideology of Nazi Germany was rather distinct from other fascist regimes. Many of them were inclusive of national minority groups, so long as they defered to the majority and obeyed their will. The NDH(Independent State of Croatia), to take one example, created the Croatian Orthodox Church in a vain attempt to get Bosnian and Croatian Serbs(the NDH included most of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina) to identify themselves simply as Croats of the Orthodox faith. They tried a similar approach with the Muslims of Bosnia.
Now let's compare that then to America today, particularly the conservative movement that sees white, heterosexual, usually protestant culture as the standard for America. You cannot say that they aren't fascists just because they support Israel(in fact they have no love for Jews despite their claims to the contrary), or because they don't say they want to ship black Americans out of the country. In other words, they may not resemble Nazis, but they can and do sure as hell resemble the fascists of Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and other European countries in that era.
Hawes says:
Department of Domestic Security would have been my choice. "Domestic" means pets or housecleaning. We could tidy up that terrorist problem in a jiffy.
anotherbozo says:
"Homeland" as a sentimentalized, idealized us-vs.-them construct reminds me of another sentimentalized, sacrosanct entity I first encountered in the job market. As a college instructor entering the lists I was confronted by salary negotiations in which my colleagues could one-up me by invoking the concept of "family," as in "I need a higher salary because I have a family to support." Who, I thought, told him he had to get married? And immediately procreate? How is this especially sacred or deserving of special consideration, or make his contributions to academia more valuable?
Since then I've heard "families" been used as a substitute for "citizens" or "people," not always to argue for special status or consideration, though. Sometimes it's to humanize otherwise colder and distant terms. But even though I have a wife now, and thus technically a "family," I still am suspicious that the responsibilities freely and voluntarily undertaken by individuals to join in marital unions and/or breed are accorded automatic superiority over single people, bachelors and divorcees and spinsters and widowers and other assorted singles.
The unthinkingly sacred aura accorded "family" seems similar to me to "homeland." "My country" implicitly suggests that others have their own countries (as in Patton's famous directive to "make the other son-of-a-bitch die for HIS country"), whereas "homeland" has no obvious corollary. (unless it be "alien land.")
Perhaps "homeland" is invoked now that nation-states are in the grip of international corporations as never before, just as politicians invoke "family" now that divorce is so routine and generational connections so commonly sundered. But how can multinationals profit from xenophobic nationalism? Certainly the latter greases the wheels of the huge munitions industry, and that may be just the tip of the iceberg.
With Lily Tomlin, I try to maintain a sense of irony, but it's so hard to keep up.
Sarah says:
I watched "Downfall" recently, and I was interested in the monologue that Trudl Junge gave at the end. Apparently she, as an ordinary person, had no idea of the depths of the horrors that were being committed by the government of her country, and that for her the war was all about preserving her country, her people, national pride, et cetera. After the war, when all of the reality was coming to light, she assuaged her feelings by telling herself that she didn't know what was going on, and that she was acting as an innocent who was in the dark about what her country's leaders were really doing. Until one day she passed a memorial to Sophie Scholl (and her story was also made into a very good movie). She and Ms. Junge were born the same year, and the only difference between them was that Sophie was actively working against what was happening and got executed for her trouble. I thought what Ms. Junge said about realizing that ignorance is not a valid excuse, and that she could have found things out if she'd bothered to make the effort, was very telling.
Sarah says:
Oh, and regarding the "controlled mass media" bit on that list of 14 points of fascism posted by c u n d gulag? A judge in Oregon has just ruled that a blogger is not a journalist.
Lecturer says:
Arslan, I often think that Japanese militarism is a better (but not completely right) template for the dangers America might face. After all, you have an alliance of right-wing military officers and the business community that proclaims that urban populations are decadent and un-Japanese while exalting the virtue of rural people and the security forces. Throw in demagoguery on communism (labor unions also being communism) and the defense budget, and you may as well call the Black Dragon Society the Project for a New Japanese Century.
Major Kong says:
The "urban populations are decadent, rural people are virtuous" meme was also part of Nazi propaganda and some flavors of Communism as well. The Khmer Rouge were really big on it.
bb in GA says:
As a libertarian/conservatard, 'Homeland' has always been repugnant to me as it does conjure up the parallel "Fatherland" of the Nazis. I grew up on all those 1940s and 50s war movies that projected that creepiness associated with 'Fatherland', 'Homeland' etc.
Here's an off topic warning for you Ed (if you haven't seen this already) I think this is part of the Fascist takeover.
Federal judge: Montana blogger is not journalist
"U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez found last week that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets."
So I guess the court gets to decide…You think that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine would have been approved 'journalists' ?
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BLOGGER_DEFAMATION_SUIT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-12-07-20-39-18
//bb
markg says:
Just as creepy is the term "heartland," commonly used to imply a purer, more virtuous section of the country, uncontaminated by the ethnic and cultural impurities of the coasts, large cities etc. I've lived my entire six decade life in this alleged "heartland" (Indiana and Wisconsin) and have only heard that term used in the media by agenda driven propagandists-never once in ordinary discourse.
Tim H. says:
The funny part is, the people pushing for a greater America are weakening it through their pursuit of short-term profit. Military power cannot exist in the absence of economic prosperity. A vote for the GOP seems little different than a vote for foreign domination.
Nan says:
Homeland struck me as creepy the first time I heard it used, but I didn't think then of the Third Reich. What came to my mind was the USSR and Stalin. I've long believed that one reason the right wing got so worked up about Communism and Communists was pure envy.
HoosierPoli says:
Fun fact: The German National Anthem uses the term "Fatherland", Hitler never used the term.He always called it the "Motherland".
Major Kong says:
@markg – "Just as creepy is the term heartland"
In the midwest we call it the heart-land because the brain isn't here.
A Babe of the Boom says:
Homeland Security, indeed! Joe Stalin is still spinning in his grave for not coming up with that one!
Do Moose says:
I find the uproar about this "Battlefield" bill to be quite curious. This outrage is like a citizen calling 911 to get help because the police have shown up to arrest him. All that this bill does is explicitly codify what has been a reality for some time.
http://www.northcom.mil/
Do Moose says:
BTW, check out this timeline. The willful ignorance of most Americans is quite astonishing at times.
http://www.northcom.mil/About/history_education/USNC%20Key%20Event%20Chron%202002-2008.pdf
Major Kong says:
Well, if it's already been going on, and there's nothing wrong with it, then why do they need legislation to make it legal?
bb in GA says:
Major:
From the buzz I hear, that is a reason our Prez allows he will veto said bill.
//bb
PWL says:
Well, you hit on something I'd always thought: That the use of the term "Homeland" always had a very 1930s Teutonic ring to it. But it does seem appropriate for a country who's political culture does seem to have an ever more 1930s Teutonic ring to it….
Major Kong says:
@bb
Not defending the current administration here, but it's a lot easier (politically) to start this sort of thing than it is to roll it back once it gets going.
It's like a large boulder rolling downhill and picking up momentum as it goes.
It's just too easy to open yourself up to charges of "Soft on terrorism!" in today's political climate.
Bernard says:
the use of "Homeland" is pure Nazism in my book.
we have our "Good Germans" here in America today.
until the right wing Archie Bunker types die off, we are screwed. and we are screwed anyway. as it is too late to stop the Fascism that Obama/Bush and the Republican/Democrat takeover by Business has created, i wonder how we will get through this "Empire" without a total crash.
and sometimes i think a total crash is the only way out.
Weimar Germany is what we are experiencing today in America. Hence the name "Homeland" is perfect for the "Amerika" we live in, thanks to our "Good Americans" who choose to vote for the Republican/Democratic Party.
Obama is just the Front Man, the Manchurian Candidate, running the "Plantation". A black man running a "Plantation" for the Owners.
Irony of ironies. i'll even vote against Obama come next election, as if my vote mattered, lol.
the Crash will be spectacular, and violent as all get out.
Xynzee says:
@Arslan: I see your Central/Southern Euro Fascist states and raise you an Iberian Penninsula. I'm guessing Franco remained the last fascist standing because he hadn't tried rolling tanks into anyone else's country.
The moment I heard Bush make the Homeland references I became convinced that the US had truly jumped the shark.
merl says:
That term has creeped me out from the beginning. For some reason, it always puts me in mind of goose-stepping in jackboot.s
Margarita says:
The "Homeland" is creepy for all the reasons stated. But the most striking aspect for me was that it seemed to come right out and say what had always been reflexively denied — that the United States really is an imperial power. We needed "homeland" to distinguish from our colonies and protectorates, client states, and puppet regimes.
I don't think the term ever would have been used unironically during the Cold War, when imperialism was the crime that each side accused the other of committing. But in the age of World's Sole Superpower, the charge of imperialism from a piss-ant like Al Qaeda was essentially met with, "Now that you mention it, you're goddam right, and you're about to find out just how much."
Sammy says:
I never gave the word itself much thought. Until today. Fucker.
Ellie says:
J. Dryden does a much better job of explaing what I've been trying to say to people for years. No, we are NOT heading towards Nazism – we're just already most of the way to fascism.
Xynzee says:
I'm curious: can one be national socialist (ie nazi) w/o the gas chambers or are they a requisit?
Arslan says:
"I see your Central/Southern Euro Fascist states and raise you an Iberian Penninsula. I'm guessing Franco remained the last fascist standing because he hadn't tried rolling tanks into anyone else's country. "
Franco is another good example because contrary to common belief, he was not a member or leader of any fascist party. He was simply a very traditional conservative who wanted to preserve the status quo. He had to mediate some conflicts between the fascists(Falange) and the Carlists, so after winning the war he made the two parties merge into the "FET y de las JONS."
Arslan says:
I should have added, however, that Franco was far from the last. Pinochet outlasted him, and then there's Putin. Many Baathist dictators could be classed as fascist, or social fascist.
CMS says:
First thing I said was "Too German." It makes me cringe too. It should be "Civil Defense" and the insignia already exist.
sex filmy says:
I am very positively surprised by this blog. A multitude of information clearly stated that I would make a regular guest here. Keep it up