THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: WARRIOR-HERO WITH A VIETNAM COMPLEX AND ALCHEMIST WITH A FATHER COMPLEX

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 16 Oct 2008

Ramon Lopez-Reyes, Lt.Col. (ret), Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION:

The United States’ Presidential Election of 2008 is heralded as having the possibility of ushering in a new era. Such anticipation is a not uncommon among the living who tend to regard their particular span of history epochal.  But besides such notion of collective self-importance certain circumstances suggest that these are “special historic times.” The United States has become the world’s most dominant nation economically and militarily but there are Indications that it has overreached itself; that it is operating beyond its assets and resources; that it has lost its way, that is, lost the connection with the original intent of its “manifest destiny.”

Two unlikely candidates have obtained the nominations of their respective political parties.

Barack Obama, the Afro-American candidate of the Democratic Party, preaches the optimism of change, although the details of change remain vague. Meanwhile the Republican Party candidate, John McCain, presents himself as the tried and vetted military hero who places honesty and straight talk above all and promises to sweep out the decay from his Party and bring forth a new era of decency. He also swears to fight and defeat foes.  Obama projects the archetype of “alchemist:” the vehicle to transform society by realizing the basic “dream” of an egalitarian “we-the-people” which is the core of the Constitution. McCain projects the warrior archetype who will protect the nation and lead it toward victory over its  “enemies.”

THE BACKGROUND:

This presidential election is framed by the sense that the nation has lost its bearing since its “defeat” in Vietnam (1976). In a manner of speaking, the US is still in search of a way to re-define itself in the post-Vietnam era. As Vietnam faded the quest turn toward finding the nation’s direction for the 21st Century. Between 1776, when a new nation proclaimed its independence and advanced the idea of an egalitarian form of the social contract between the governed and government, and 1976, when the United States for the first time halted the western expansion of its ‘frontier’, the nation crossed the North American continent and Pacific Ocean. While committed to peaceful practices, the new nation kept the metaphoric Eagle’s view (depicted in the Great Seal) on the arrows as much as on the olive branch.

Punitive armed expeditions against native Americans opened the western frontier for occupation while a victorious war against Mexico expanded the nation’s boundaries to the Pacific Ocean.

The United States entered the Pacific Ocean when it “invaded” Hawaii in 1893 and a few years later occupied and annexed it. With victory in the Spanish American war, the United States successfully occupied Guam and the Philippine Archipelago.

Shortly before the United States sent its Great White Fleet into the high seas in 1907, Japan’s navy had routed the Russian fleet in 1905 at the battle of Tsushima. It was somewhat clear, even before World War I, that the Japanese and United States fleets would contest the Pacific Ocean. And so they did with the United States coming out victorious in 1945 and transforming the Pacific Ocean into a U.S. “lake.” The maritime victory brought the United States to Asia’s eastern shores. There the United States confronted the two continental communist powers: Soviet Union and China.

In 1950 a communist protege, North Korea attacked South Korea which caused the United States to dispatch ground forces on Asian soil to defend its South Korean ally. After China entered the war in defense of North Korea a stalemate occurred in 1953:  neither victory nor defeat. War on the Korean Peninsula highlighted the fact of direct conflict (called Cold War) between the maritime United States and the continental Communist Powers. A year later, in 1954, the French armed forces were dealt a sever defeat by Vietnamese communist forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The defeat caused  France to withdraw from Vietnam. The United States replaced France and accepted responsibility for the defense the newly created Republic of South Vietnam.

Within decade the United States deployed military advisors to organize and train the South Vietnamese armed forces. In 1965, United States marines landed in South Vietnam to take up an armed battle against a communist insurgency in South Vietnam. United States armed forces remained in South Vietnam until 1976 when its last troops departed Vietnam by helicopters from the roof the besieged United States embassy. And with this withdrawal and defeat, the seemingly unending  western momentum of the United States came to a halt. The United States took a step backward. Finally the “western frontier” had closed; the United States had run its first expression of  manifest destiny into the ground.

Opposition to the war was widespread. The question kept arising: What are we doing in Vietnam? Young men defied the draft into military service. Government lost respect and people felt deceived by its leaders. This situation got worse when President Nixon had to resign the presidency because of his duplicity (Nixon’s Vice President had resigned earlier because of corruption charges.)

Along side the war in Vietnam another conflict was waged within the United States, namely, that of civil rights. Contrary to the violence of the Vietnam War, the civil rights ‘war’ was waged nonviolently by the civil rights activists although reactionaries used violent means to intimidate the civil rights activists to include the assassination of the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. In the late 1960s the nation was struggling, so to say,  to find its “soul.” But which part of the United States reflected its soul: the side willing to employ violence in order to absorb the west or the nonviolent side ever willing to expand the “who”of  “we-the-people.”

As awkward as it may sound,  the US had to lose the war it lost (Vietnam) if it were to win the war it had to win (civil rights conflict). Had the United States in Vietnam won it would have come about  because the older form of nationalism dominated, namely, “my country right or wrong.” Vietnam gave birth to a new form of nationalism even though it meant losing: “my country right when right and wrong when wrong.” It is a nationalism that holds government accountable when wrong. This nationalism calls upon the government to take action to correct the contradictions that emerge when government is in the wrong. In fact, this sort of nationalism is necessary for a nation that wields vast armed power. By way of contrast, a nationalism rooted in “my country right or wrong” is highly dangerous in that there is little willingness to question the government’s war policy and use of its vast power. Clearly, when “country” possesses weapons of mass destruction policy flowing from existing contradictions can lead to grave events.

In my opinion, the nation is paying a great price with a return to the older form of nationalism during President Bush’s (the younger) tenure. A good number of citizens no longer trust government; the government is being forced to earn the trust. This questioning  also weighs on the population to consider whether the nation is moving in the direction of its founders’ intentions. Defeat in Vietnam and victory in civil rights provided citizens the opportunity to debate how the nation should evolve during the subsequent two hundred years.

But the debate has been meager. Rather both sides rant rather than hear each other. Nonetheless, the nation since defeat in Vietnam, has been searching to calibrate its direction and meaning. During this period of drift, the United States experienced euphoria when the Soviet Empire disintegrated nonviolently. It beamed with new pride in its arms when it conducted a lightning assault in the Arabian desert to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait. Government was seduced by the reality that it was the sole superpower.

When the United States was attacked on September 11 by an enemy that the nation had been fighting in an undeclared war, it already  was developing a strategy to discharge its unrivaled power for the purpose of advancing democracy via arms. The attack provided the government the opportunity to retaliate against the enemy (euphoniously called “terrorists”) and unleash power to do good. It used deceptive measures, however, to convince the majority of the population that it was both noble and necessary to attack Iraq. In such a guise, how could the people object to it? In this climate the older form of nationalism (‘my country right or wrong’) resurrected, The hard fought gains of the 1960s took umbrage to a return to this narrower form of nationalism”.

With the Government still able to incite fears of future horrendous attacks, some citizen harken to a belief that government knows what it is doing. But others decry the abuse of power that the Government employs. Some argue that Government has discredited the nation’s honor for example, with its treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base; that the nation has broken with its manifest destiny exemplified by the motto inscribed on the Great Seal: “novus ordo seclorum,” that is, a new order of the world. The intention was not a new order based on armed power but on reason and democracy; not on one-sided reasoning, but full-measured reasoning. (Metaphorically, the kind of reasoning that is enjoyed on the peak of the pyramid were the view provides a full 360 degree perspective. Going up only the one side that is seen in the pyramid of the Great Seal would result only in one-sided reasoning.) 

The debate whether the nation is proceeding off course lurks in the recesses of the current presidential elections: whether the country is moving in the right  direction to establish a “novus ordo seclorum;” whether the Eagle (on the Great Seal) should place its primary gaze on “arrows” or on  the “olive branch.” In short, the election provides opportunity for the nation to re-define itself in order to advance its next two hundred years or to stay with the policies that governed the nation for its first two hundred years, namely, a continuous western expansion. Today the expansion no longer is to Asia’s eastern shores but even more westward: to the center of Eurasia (Afghanistan and Iraq) .

As is true of any individual or institution, flaws creep into the behavioral system. During the two hundred years between 1776 and 1976, the nation developed various contradictions. Racial intolerance being one. Suppression of the contradictions generally precludes society’s further development. Eventually, if the contradictions are not corrected the nation falls. The Soviet Union is a perfect example of a nation that suppressed its contradictions, failed to correct them and suffered the “fall.” Now, although unthought off a few years ago, the United States recognizes that severe contradiction exists; it is seriously weaken with its militarily over extended and economically greatly in debt. (Regretfully the exact situation Rome found itself prior to its demise.)

This background frames the 2008 presidential election. On the one hand, the nation is in need of a leader who can set the nation for the next two hundred years on a “right” course; a path that enables the nation  to express its  manifest destiny in a manner that is more inclusive of who constitutes “we-the-people.” On the other hand, nearly half the nation cherishes its status as sole superpower and is apt to continue with this role regardless of the consequences. Naval captain McCain offers to keep the nation mighty and victorious; this is the Warrior-Hero. Professor Obama would try to realize Martin Luther King’s rendition of the dream of the US Constitution; this is the Alchemist.

MC CAIN THE WARRIOR AND VIETNAM COMPLEX

The Warrior-Hero archetype is firmly rooted in John McCain. He is devoted to protect  the nation and defend the Constitution. McCain’s warrior-hero credentials were tested in Vietnam as combat pilot and during years of imprisonment. The Warrior-Hero was highly audible in his acceptance speech as presidential candidate of the Republican Party. In the latter part of that speech McCain spoke of his 23rd combat mission over North Vietnam which led to his captivity. He also admitted that he “broke” under torture. I spent three years in the Vietnam Conflict. My great fear was that of being captured. McCain was captured and survived the horror that we combat soldiers dreaded. He stated that he came to love his country only during his captivity. He also said that his country “saved” him. So strong was the experience that he added “I was never the same again.  I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country”

If I were tortured I have no doubt that I too would have been broken. Leaving aside his heroism of enduring captivity, a question still needs to be asked, What was he doing over North Vietnam? Clearly, the reply would be: ‘I was there in compliance with orders from my country.’ It is not the norm for military personnel to question whether the orders are constitutional or moral. We assume that they are and follow out the orders. But what if the war policy was wrong? There is evidence to suggest that the Tonkin Gulf incident,  which caused Congress to give war powers to the President, was misconstrued to the nation. In short, McCain was bombing North Vietnam because of the war powers that President Johnson received from Congress. But there is sufficient evidence that the Administration used the Tonkin incident as a ruse in order to gain constitutional “legality” for bombing North Vietnam. It is painful to accept that service to the nation may have been called forth by wrong or immoral policy. As events have turned, It can be questioned today whether the United States, in the first place, should  have fought in Vietnam. It should be noted that the United States refused to support nation-wide elections in 1956 as stipulated by the 1954 Paris Peace Agreement to which the United States was a signatory.

No doubt that McCain has given up most of the ghosts of the Vietnamese War. But he experienced great  humiliation not only in being broken under torture but also by the fact that the nation was a loser in Vietnam. Interestingly, McCain has repeatedly called Obama a “loser.” McCain has also repeatedly stated that he knows how to win wars. In his acceptance speech he claimed “I know how the world works.” The world consists of winners and losers and he aligns himself with “winners;” under his watch the United States would always be “winner.”

Here then is McCain’s Vietnam Complex and the quandary that it produces: the need for wars to win and overcome  the loser malaise. Combining a Warrior-Hero Archetype to the Vietnam Complex only increases the intensity for winning. An example of this phenomena can be detected in Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and  a military career officer. Before being elected president, he attempted a military coup to “free” Venezuela from poor governance that has kept the people impoverished. He would have us believe that he is a warrior-hero completely dedicated to serve his country. He views himself a Hero on a White Horse who is committed to fulfill the unmet Latin American dream set forth by General Simon Bolivar. Chavez is able to gain popular support by opposing the “evil” enemy, in this case, the United States. If it is easy to spot duplicity in Chavez but such is not the case with John McCain who is driven by service to the nation rather than self-aggrandizement.

There is no doubt that McCain will fight to make the United States a winner. The danger here is that the Vietnam Complex may cause McCain to perceive an enemy who threatens the United States when there really is no enemy. Will his desire to be “winner” cause him to prop an enemy in order to produce victory? The Vietnam Complex is all about not repeating the defeat of 1976; it is about insuring that service to the country is not wasted. As Warrior-Hero, he will do everything in his power to prevent another Vietnam. This commitment was evident in his speech: “We face many dangerous threats in this dangerous world, but I’m not afraid of them. I’m prepared for them.”  In short, the Vietnam Complex suggests that McCain perceives a world of enemies through which he can “redeem” the losers of Vietnam. He stated that  “I’m not running for president because that I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.” But it is this very savior feature that may lay hidden in the Vietnam Complex. He would save the nation from defeat, from being a “loser.” He would validate his twenty-three combat missions against  North Vietnam as well as the torment in captivity which caused him to break under torture.

The Warrior-Hero Archetype manifested itself in the closing sentences of his speech where he repeatedly pledged to fight. He called upon the nation to join with him to fight: “My country saved me and I will fight for her as long as I draw breath, so help me God….. I am going to fight for my cause every day as your president. I am going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God as I thank him that I am an American. Fight with me, fight with me. Fight for what’s right for the country fight for the ideals and character of a free people. Fight for our children’s future and opportunity for all. Stand up and defend our country from our enemies. Stand up for each other, for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, Stand up, stand up and fight…”

McCain’s Vietnam Complex bound up with  the Warrior-Hero Archetype would keep the nation tied to those patterns of behavior that guided the United States during its first two hundred years, except that overcoming the frontier now becomes overcoming the “enemies.” Similar to the Bush the Younger  Presidency, McCain would keep the Eagle’s focus on the arrows rather than on the olive branch. But in doing so, he forfeits the ability to arrive at full-measured reasoning and remains content to endorse one-sided reasoning. In needing enemies, McCain will be drawn into viewing Iran an enemy but forfeits the ability to understand that current relations between both countries flow from the prior behaviors of the United States and European nations mostly United Kingdom and Russia. It prevents him from perceiving that he too, were he an Iranian, would have good cause to resent US policy. At bottom McCain sponsors a nationalism of “my country right or wrong.” Yes, the United States remains my country even when wrong, but there is also great need to call the wrong when the nation is wrong. And not just call the wrong but have government take action to correct the wrong.

The Warrior-Hero Archetype operating in McCain does not make him a war-monger nor  imperialistic in the fashion of Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt. Rather he is simply committed to the defense of the nation from its enemies. The vulnerable point here is the role that McCain might play in the naming and formation of enemies, and the degree to which he believes that what  he says is “right for the country” is actually right for the people. His strong commitment to and total identity with country, and his conviction that he “knows how the world works,” may cause him to believe that how John McCain thinks the world works “is actually how” the world works, or in other words, ‘because I serve the country so faithfully trust me to know how make the country a winner.’

OBAMA THE ALCHEMIST AND FATHER COMPLEX

Barack Obama is the creation of hope who would give life to the “American Promise.” After months on the electoral trail, how hope is to be translated into national policy remain vague. There is a mystique, some might call it ‘smoke rings’ (something like the ‘vodoo’ economics label given to President. Reagan’s policies). This mystique perhaps is best revealed in Obama’s cryptic message: “It’s not about me, it’s about you.” And the “YOU?” The many young people who have yet to leave their imprint on the country but want the opportunity to do so; those who seek a new direction for the nation’s “manifest destiny;” those who stress the commonality of humans rather than their differences. It is this “YOU” who sustains Obama’s presidential banner.

In a manner of speaking, both Obama and the “YOU” are somehow to join and fashion the American Promise. But what framework will be needed to foment policy formation. How are the “YOU” and Obama to accomplish the American Promise? There is the rub: there is no blueprint for the making of the American Promise. It will boil down to whether Obama has the capacity  to lead the nation forward and create the American Promise.?

This mystique is shadowed by what can be called the alchemist archetype: converting raw matter into the philosopher stone (some took it to mean literal gold). Obama, the alchemist, will take the raw material of the nation (the raw energy and idealism of its diverse peoples) and through a series of processes produce the American Promise. Obama’s alchemical mentor was the preacher to whom he alluded in his acceptance speech. Obama spoke on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s talk at the Lincoln Memorial where King outlined his “dream” for the United States, a dream of one people united sharing a common purpose. Obama, the alchemist, would transform that dream into the American Promise. In referring to King’s stirring speech, Obama said: “our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one.” He then implored the nation: “We can not walk alone…We cannot turn back…We must pledge once more to march into the future.”

In a singular manner, Barack Obama represents what may be the quintessential future US American. He is both Black and White and he neither Black nor White. He is the true son of the post-racial society. Martin Luther King contributions to social justice and Obama’s nomination as party candidate for president reflect the great change wrought in the United States during the last half century. It may be that the most dynamic qualities of the nation may now be vested in the Afro-American base; that Afro-Americans will lift the nation towards it greatest day. It was only a short time ago when Collin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were viewed as outstanding presidential material (that is before they were swept down with the duplicities of the Bush Presidency). Indeed victory in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s  lifted the nation although it suffered military defeat in Vietnam. The question for today is whether this lifting up of the nation can take another stride and whether this next surge will come with being a loser in Iraq and Afghanistan? And if so, whether it will rest on Afro-American leadership.

Barack Obama walks the fine edge of a precipice. He may be nothing but a pipe piper, a visionary without the wherewithal to effect policy. He may end up a snake oil charmer, an empty golden voice lacking sufficient grounding and competence. At the same time, Obama has been working  through a Father Complex derived from a complicated relationship with his biological father. This working through seems to have mobilized “the caring father.”  His entry into politics may stem from this working through. It is as though by conjuring the “good father” Obama has sought to heal the painful aspects of the Father Complex.

Obama’s unfolding occurs at a time in US history when a great vacuum of leadership exists at the nation’s helm. In a manner of speaking, the helm awaiting “the man.” In many ways, John McCain fits the role of “the man” more so that Barack Obama. But were Obama to display a caring father figure he would fit better as the “new-‘the’-man” in contrast to McCain, the “old-‘the’ man.”

In his speech Obama highlighted his concern for the individual in a manner in which a caring father would. regarding his children. He repeated that McCain “does not know;” that “he does not get it” concerning to the travails of the common citizen. Obama spoke of a Washington, to include McCain, that is not concerned with problems of the common individuals whether they live on the farm or in cities: “Out of work? Tough luck, you’re on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You’re on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, even if you don’t have boots.”

Regardless of his rhetoric, can Obama, at such a young age,  fit the role of Father of the Nation? No matter what he does, is he not just too darn young and inexperienced to be accepted as a father figure? While such may be the case, it appears that Obama has set his life to become the father that he found missing in his life. His work as a community organizer among the lower economic rungs of society is appropriate for a young man. Such experience, although coming from a caring spirit, does not automatically transform him into a father figure. At the same time, he may argue that his time has come to move onto a collective Fatherhood. If McCain would serve as Father of the Nation to insure that it wins its wars, Obama would serve as Father of the Nation to insure that the daily needs are addressed and met. He voiced this focus during the closing lines of his acceptance speech: “We cannot turn back with so much work to be done, not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild and farms to save, not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.” Here Obama voiced the worries of the caring Father. (In comparison, the final lines of McCain speech gave witness to his Warrior-Hero character.) But were Obama not to be sufficiently steeped in fatherhood, it is doubtful that he would be competent alchemist to transform the “DREAM,” hinted by the Constitution and re-framed by Martin Luther King, into the American Promise.

CONCLUSION

The 2008 Presidential Election is between two individuals offering two different versions of what is good-for-the-nation. The nation, many citizens would agree, needs new direction. Above, when discussing the background to the election, I advanced the thesis that the United States since 1976, when the United States finally halted its westward (frontier) expansion, has been in search of a new direction to re-define the nation’s manifest destiny. Barack Obama suggests that he is the man to forge the new direction; he would transform the Dream that permeated the nation’s first two hundred years into the American Promise which would, in turn,  guide the nation for its next two hundred years. If elected he would need the skills of alchemist, that is, know how distill the processes [governance] so that the philosopher stone [right policy] will emerge rather than empty nostrums.   

The election finds the nation divided and the outcome will probably keep the nation divided. This reality makes the alchemist role all the more difficult if not impossible. This division may well cause anger if not hatred to emerge. Such hostility places Obama, more so that McCain, in danger to physical harm. Obama undoubtedly realizes the danger into which he has placed himself and family. But it is this period of history that the nation must pass through. But even if  Obama were to win the election, he would not complete the alchemical process. At best he could only set it in motion.

McCain, by all criteria, indicates the person to lead the nation in these troubled times. But his leadership would be basically a continuation of past policies. Were McCain to win the election, the nation would have to wait another opportunity for change to occur and correction of the nation’s contradictions made. In McCain’s frame of reference the nation must choose whether or not it wants to remain a loser (in Iraq and Afghanistan). Obama offers another option, something of a repeat of the 1970s when military defeat is not taken as loser but forms the background for the nation’s advance in social justice. With the current economic downturn there is grave concern that if change does not occur soon the fabric of society may suffer great tears; that the war debt will hamper the nation economically. There is reason to believe that continuation of past policy will weaken the nation politically. There is concern that the imperial tendency, launched in the closing years of the 19th Century (the Teddy Roosevelt era), may well continue although a hundred years later (in Iraq) it has shown signs of bankruptcy.

Clearly an argument can be made not to change policy now that the world is turning toward a multi-power system which may gang up against the United States. It may be argued that it is not the time to experiment with “socialist” governance; that no matter how the United States got into the mess in which it finds itself, the nation has to face directly its many enemies and threats. It is exactly this argument that McCain has made. And the nation may vote because of its fears rather than pin any trust on Obama’s sketchy hope to transform the dream of what the United States can be into its realization and thus usher in the century of the American Promise.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Oct 2008.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: WARRIOR-HERO WITH A VIETNAM COMPLEX AND ALCHEMIST WITH A FATHER COMPLEX, is included. Thank you.

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