Antiwar Voices - 5

After visiting the two websites, The American Conservative and Antiwar.com, I was somewhat torn between my reactions. Personally, I believe in antiwar sentiments and have been raised in a community that generally shared those beliefs, so when I explored both of these websites, their content did not stand out to me as opinions I had never heard before. I was somewhat surprised to see a website so directly stating themselves as conservative also containing rhetoric against the war, but the top headline when I opened their home page was "Trump Victory Against the #MeToo Movement", so I imagine it draws a mixed crowd. I enjoyed Antiwar.com and especially their Mission Statement, which stated the importance of questioning your surroundings. They quote Randolph Borne who said,"it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution [the State]. " At its core, that nature includes an ever increasing threat to individual liberty and the centralization of political power.  I think that this is something that could identify with both conservatives and liberals, and I think they do a good job of keeping their website non-partisan in that way. I do however, notice that these opinions, these types of websites, are almost never advertised or shown in the media. In theory they are no more or less legitimate than the other political websites that are more often broadcasted and/or legitimized by their respective parties. 

I think that a huge reason that we do not hear many antiwar rhetoric or head about these types of sites is because the military is such a self-affirming entity. The larger it gets, the more it is able to influence in our society and government in order to continue sustaining itself. There does not appear to be a cost/benefit analysis in terms of how much harm they instill on the American people vs. how much "protecting" they actually do for us. One particular article from The American Conservative stood out to me for speaking about exactly this issue. Tim Bakken, an instructor at West Point Military academy and also recent receiver of Federal whistleblower status wrote a book about why he believes "America hasn't won a war in 75 years", and it boils down to this issue. He argues that the Military has become so large and separate from society, due to an astronomical budget attained through corruption, that they could not possibly function effectively for the people outside of it. This argument coming from someone with such a long history in the Military is quite surprising especially due to this argument; that the longer and larger it gets the more impossible it seems to dissent such an entity. 

Overall, I strongly agree with his opinion and I hope that his book, as well as these websites begin to gain more attention as political ideology is currently being questioned in America. I think its important to see sources that don't represent cookie-cutter images of our "two-party system" that have reached into our social and personal realms, and hopefully seeing more complex opinions will inspire people to have more of their own. 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/west-point-prof-pens-blistering-takedown-of-u-s-military-academies/

https://www.antiwar.com/who.php