[Peace-discuss] Response to Kristin Hoganson

[David Green]

 Versions of this response have been sent to the Daily Illini, the News-Gazette, and the Public I, all in accordance with their concision requirements. Kristin Hoganson has been copied on this message.
University ofIllinois History Professor justifies a century of American aggressionDavid Green
This letter is provoked by the disgust and sadness that Ifelt upon reading a commentary in the local News-Gazetteon February 19th by Professor of History Kristin Hoganson, titled“Requiem for the American Century.”This letter is not to be construed as a personal attack on amember of a department which includes several individuals whom I have beenprivileged to call friends over the 18 years I have lived here. During these yearsI have written and spoken regularly in local media regarding militarism,economic inequality, racism, and Israel/Palestine. My professional backgroundis as an educator, social researcher, and policy analyst. My political identityis as an antiwar activist and socialist.
Hoganson laments the passing of an American Centurycharacterized by “freedom of conscience and of speech, freedom from want andfear. Freedom of movement. The free world.” This transparent falsehood isconsistent with her general support for U.S. warmaking and subversion sinceWorld War 1, while admitting in passing that our wars against Korea and Vietnam“burned to hot.” This is an unfortunate description of our government’s murderof millions of innocent people, in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the MiddleEast, for what the record clearly shows to be the goals of global economic andmilitary domination, ongoing.
For the past four decades, these aggressive(neoconservative) policies have been joined with neoliberal policies promotingradically increased economic inequality, at home and abroad. Hoganson supportscorporate-driven and rapacious “free trade” agreements which are central to aneoliberal agenda that has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.In sum, Hoganson offers an innocent narrative of Americanexceptionalism that is false, implicitly racist, and explicitly elitist. Whileshe aligns her views with general disdain for President Trump, she tellingly criticizeshis most reasonable policies: his opposition to war with Russia, and to theTrans-Pacific Partnership.
That all of this is argued within liberal and feminist frameworksis revealing of our current ideological impasse, within academia and beyond. Studentsand other community members deserve the self-critical historical facts andanalyses that will move us beyond long-term nightmarish realities and triumphalistdogmatism.
Ironically, Hoganson’s “requiem” augurs and implicitlysupports continued destruction, of our species and our planet.
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