A Time to Fight - A call to battle from Jim Webb

The novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote vividly about war and peace, showing us the drawing rooms and idiosyncrasies of Russia's elite.  But in reality, he was telling us that great societal changes are most often pushed along by tsunami-deep impulses that cause elites to react far more than they inspire them to lead.  And this, in my view, is the greatest lesson of political history.  Entrenched aristocracies, however we may want to define them, do not want change;  their desire instead is to manage dissent in a way that does not disrupt their control.  But over time, under the right system of government, a free, thinking people has the energy and ultimately the power to effect that change.

Those are the words of a man who believes deeply in this country, who recognizes the multiple crises in which we now find ourselves, and which he urges us, the ordinary citizens,to confront.   That man is Senator Jim Webb.
Yesterday, May 19th, saw the formal release of Webb's newest book, entitled A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America. A selection from it, entitled What It Means To Be a Leader, was the lead story in Sunday's Parade Magazine, and many who now read this perhaps saw Webb on Meet The Press, where the book was discussed at least in passing.  

Jim Webb is a complex man.   The book is also complex, operating simultaneously on many levels.   It is in part biographical, not only for Webb himself, but also for his family.  Many know parts of his story, his Scots-Irish background, the father who was a career Air Force officer who participated in the Berlin Airlift (about which we heard in Webb's response to a State of the Union message shortly after being sworn in), of his mother's father who lived with an unhealed broken hip and continued in pain to work until he simply lay down one day and died.  We might have heard of the hard-scrabble life of his mother, who when his father first met her he described as having the shoulder of a boxer.  But we learn more, of uncles, of cousins who died young.  And of his mother's mother finally able to make some money by working on assembling bombers - and yes, that is a parallel with Obama's Kansas grandmother.  

But the biography, including the multiple references to his own careers - as a Marine, a Committee Counsel on the Hill, high Defense Department positions, winning an Emmy, his writing and his screenplays - are offered to provide a broader context to the insights of a man who has thought deeply about many issues, and come to his current public service out of a passion to help right the economic inequity he sees around us.  

Growing up, Webb experienced both academic success, moving ahead rapidly while studying in England while his father was stationed there, and academic failure, finding himself in "dummy" English and Math classes after having to repeat a grade because he was two years ahead of his age cohort.  An indifferent student in high school, it was a Naval ROTC scholarship that got him beginning to develop his skills, not only as a leader, but as a thinker.

Many know the Jim Webb who has written insightfully about the military and strategy, in novels and in op eds.  While many know of the October 2002 Washington Post piece opposing an invasion of Iraq, I had not previously known that he was asked by the Wall Street Journal to write something in response to September 11 (and he was in the Pentagon visiting Marine Commandant James Jones when the planes hit in New York - although he had returned to his writing office, from which he could see the Pentagon, when that building was struck).  The Wall Street Journal asked him to write an op ed, which turned out to be the only one he penned for them which they did not run, perhaps because he argued strenuously then, in September of 2001, against what we wound up doing:

Do not occupy territory.

From the book you will learn how deep and thorough Webb's study of strategy and tactics has been, how he has walked the fields of previous conflicts, notably from WWII, and how he has at times been prescient in recommending changes in how we structure our military, how we position it.  All of these are the things that often make people think he would make a wonderful Secretary of Defense.  And given that this book went to print some months ago, it is interesting to see how sharp his insight is - in a section discussing how many retired officers now work in the military-industrial complex, we find him noting not only how the interconnection with those still on active duty provides a conflict between the social contacts retired maintain with those still serving and the work they do for the companies that employ them, he pens this:

In the same vein, should he be able to use this kind of information to inform his television analysis? If he does, is it not possible that an implicit cooperation tends to develop between him and the Pentagon, so that if he were to criticize policy too strongly he would lose access to inside information that allows him to remain valuable as a commentator or as a business consultant?

But as I said, Jim Webb is a complex man.  He has not only read history and walked battlefields, he has visited and studied the Japanese prison system, which gives him insight to one real injustice in our nation, our high rate of incarceration, and what it means for our future as a democracy.  In a chapter entitled "A Criminal Injustice" Webb raises serious question about our approach to crime and the implications, at times racial, of how that approach is implemented.  Since this is an area less well known, allow me to quote the challenge he raises about the tendency to permanently brand ex-felons, often barring them from even voting:

Should there not be a point where we can all agree than an ex-offender has truly paid his or her debt to society and thus deserves a return to full citizenship as well as assistance in making a readjustment to  better life?

It is in this context that he visited Japan's prison system, where

Every guard in the Japanese system had to pass a competitive, nationally standardized entrance examination.  He then received a minimum of a year's training that taught him counseling, martial arts, and discipline, and also instilled in him the notion that he would treat the inmates firmly but with the utmost respect.  This compared to an American system where the "recommended standard" was only one week of on-the-job training to qualify someone to become a turnkey in U. S. prisons.

the Japanese were bringing 72% of their crimes to conviction; America was bringing about 19 percent of its crimes to arrest.

Webb raises challenges that should concern us all in light of this - and previous - administrations.  On national security:

Incrementally over the years since World War II, incident by incident and undeclared war by undeclared war, the relationship between the presidency and the Congress has tilted so far toward the executive that our system is in serious imbalance.  And again, it is up to the country's elected leaders to address such issues.

But what if there came a time when the country was divided so deeply along class lines that the very notions we have come to accept as premises for our society were in jeopardy?  For instance, what if there came a time when corporate profits and executive compensation were at all-time highs, and yet wages and salaries for America's workers were at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth?  What if there came a time when a majority of the stocks in the country were owned by only 1 percent of the people?  What if those conditions existed and Congress, just as in Andrew Jackson's time, would not take action to redress the balance, but unlike in Andrew Jackson's time, the party of the President was dedicated to continuing the imbalance as well?  Where should the people go to find fairness?  How could the system be retried from the inequality that had overcome it?

I cannot hope to cover the entire scope of the book.  There are things with which I do not agree.  Jim Webb still thinks Vietnam was a cause worth fighting, although even while on active duty he came to believe that the way it was being fought made it a pointless waste of lives on both sides.  I can remember the fundraiser at which Mark Warner appeared with him before the primary, in the same building in which from his writing office he saw the Pentagon on fire, Webb making the point about the cause even as he acknowledged that many of those supporting him disagreed.  He also made a point of singling out a Vietnamese man who had fought as an ally.  

And there will certainly be analyses with which many want to quarrel.  Given his service as a Senator, that should not surprise anyone.  But if you take the time to read I think you will find that Jim Webb does not come to positions without serious thought.  Oh, as a younger man, he certainly carried around anger, and having been trained as a boxer and having admired an uncle Tommy who never backed down, it was part of his approach to the world, and it still on occasion takes precedence.

The book is as challenging as is its author. While it is well written - and Webb knows how to use language - it does not leave the reader comfortable.  I suspect that was the author's intent.  He discusses quite candidly the problem he and other military had with the attitude of many in the Democratic party of the 1970s and later about the military.  He worries that it lead to an overt politicization of the active duty officer corps in the direction of the Republican party.  And he warns that there are still some in the Democratic party who do not understand the military.

But then he pivots, acknowledging that since 9-11 one sees something different, a majority of veterans running in 2006 doing so as Democrats, perhaps because

It is now the Republican Party that populated the Defense Department with a cast of unseemly true believers who propelled America into an unnecessary and strategically unsound war; the Republican Party that persisted in distorting the integrity of the military's officer corps by rewarding sycophancy and punishing honesty; the Republican Party that has most glaringly violated the stewardship of those in uniform, and the Republican Party that continually seeks to politicize military service for its own ends even as it uses their sacrifices as a political shield against criticism for its failed policies.  And in that sense, it is now the Republican Party that most glaringly does not understand the true nature of military service.

This review is already lengthy.  Let me offer a few additional quotes, to give you a sense of what you will encounter should you decide to read this book (which I hope you will).

Here's a reminder for those at the very pinnacle of power, wealth, and influence in our society:  Life as we know it in this country is more fragile than we might want to think.  Without the people who do the hard work of our society, those who are at the top couldn't even buy their food, or get rid of their trash, or fix the pothole in the road they drive to work on.  In other words, you depend on them and you cannot succeed without them.  And without a true sense of societal fairness, the America we have created would in a short time unravel and disappear.

... it would be challenging to find another time in our history - including the Civil War - when the country has been so filled with uncertainty about the very principles that define it.

In short, economic fairness is a function of the daily workings of our elected officials, and whether these official focus on such issues depends, quite obviously, on whom the American people choose to represent them.  This reality, simple as it sounds, is often ignored.

Contrary to the bellicosity of the right-wing talk-show mavens, it not class warfare or envy to point out that economic inequities persist in our society.  In fact, the reverse is true: It is class warfare from the top down to pretend that such inequities don't matter.

About Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" remarks:  

Eisenhower was not only speaking about politics.  He was hinting at another cultural issue, rarely addressed by public officials today: the symbiotic interplay between high-level military leaders and the gargantuan defense industry.  And his warnings have played out in spades.

What does it say about the United Staes of America, which was proudly founded on the notion of citizen-soldiers, that it now must rely on mercenaries to fill out its ranks when it fights its wars?

If the laws against drug use were uniformly enforced, just for starters half of Hollywood would be in jail instead of half of Harlem.

From his final chapter, this:

The cynical manipulation of people's emotions is as old as politics itself.  For generations it was believed that the American South was divided purely along racial lines. In truth, the long history of the American South was that of a small veneer at the top, deliberately keeping less fortunate whites and blacks at each other's throats to the point that neither group could fully comprehend what was happening above them.  And that is precisely what is happening on a larger scale in American politics today.

In his penultimate paragraph Webb tells the American people to

Be just as shrewd and ruthless in your demands on our leaders as the political wizards who are running these campaigns are in their strategies to get your vote.  Do your part to sent to Washington people who truly want to solve the problems of this country, from the bottom up.

Having read the book, I remain as proud as I was before of whatever small part I played in getting Jim Webb elected to the United States Senate.  If he stays there, I look forward to how he will apply his acute intelligence and fierce determination to fight on behalf of those our society has been leaving behind.  Remember, this is a man who walked a picket line in the Right To Work state in the midst of a tight Senate contest.

I think if you read this book, you will get to know the man Jim Webb far more than current public portrayal offers.  This is the man I experienced during the campaign.  It is also the man whom I believe could serve wonderfully as a running mate and then partner for Barack Obama.   Should the nominee choose someone else, however, I won't be disappointed, because then I will still have him as my Senator.

Read the book.  Decide for yourself what you think of this complex man.

Peace.

Comments