The Game's afoot, let us proceed, Sherlock Holmes used to say to his friend and chronicler, Dr. John Watson.
War is in the air. War has been in the air my entire life. America is overpopulated with veterans of foreign war. At the risk of seeming anti-semitic if she doesn't, America drops her bombs from Israeli jets on Gazans in an ethnic cleansing exercise certain to bring not peace but long-term needs for Israeli vigilance and major defense contract work. I watch Israelis celebrate Palestinian deaths on al-Jazeira and can't help but think of 9/11 when several Israelis were seen celebrating on the rooftop of a van in New Jersey, as the Twin Towers came down in Manhattan. Celebrating, it was later revealed, the likelihood that the US would help Israel fight Arabs now. This most recent memory of 9/11 came about because Netanyahu was allowed to address the US Congress and equate the events of October 7 with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. I was offended. 52 standing ovations for this bond-triggering bloviation, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen counted. It's a game, these infamies.
Recently, we, the world's people, have been deluged with news that war games were underway around the world -- the two most significant being NATO's war dance for Ukraine (Steadfast Defender), and in the East the Chinese exercise off Taiwan, which I watched unfold on CGI TV. All this for BRICS? All this to protect the threat to American hegemony backed by its control of the global reserve currency? It was at this point that Sherlock inquired of his good friend if he remembered to bring along the seven percent solution. No, was the unwanted answer, but I did bring along your Stradivarius, in case you feel high-strung, he said.
Last week, I spent a lot of time thinking about the violence in America. The violence that's been, the violence that is, and the violence that is to come. 400 million guns or more. More militias than ever. More restlessness and resistance to the status quo. And now, the sense that another Civil War is inevitable, one not to end slavery but to end chaos by enacting it. Real Dada sh*t. Giraffes on fire everywhere. Hollywood is stoking the spirit with a film called Civil War. Breakdown of civilization stuff. MAGA versus BLM. Grudge match.
Last week, I also watched a new documentary titled, War Game. The official selection of 2024 Sundance Film Festival was sponsored by the Vets Voice Foundation, a non-profit group looking to empower ex-soldiers in the democratic process. Essentially, what the film documents is a game scenario: "US officials simulate a coup post a disputed election. Insurgents take capitals, questioning the president's military control. Countering disinformation is vital, highlighting bipartisan defense of democracy" [IMDB]. The insurgency needs responding to and the sitting president, in the game, must decide whether to invoke The Insurrection Act of 1807. The Act would allow the president to call in federal troops to quell mobs and riots and insurrection. What the president decides is the film's key moment, which comes at the end as time is running out.
The Act has been used effectively in the past for progressive purposes. For instance, it has been invoked many times throughout American history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was invoked during labor conflicts. Later in the 20th century, it was used to enforce federally mandated desegregation,with Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy invoking the Act in opposition to the affected states' political leaders to enforce court-ordered desegregation. More recently, governors have requested and received support following looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and during the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King beating. [source: Wikipedia]
While War Game doesn't dwell on the recent past much, it does allude to President Donald Trump and the urging by some of his aides and confidantes to use the Act on Jan 6. It was urged on him by the Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who told his followers, according to Rolling Stone magazine, "We want him to declare an insurrection, and to call us up as the militia." But Trump did not go that route, then.
There is worry that Trump will use the Act to subdue protesters angry that he is once again elevated by deceit and subterfuge into the highest office of the land, the civilian government CEO and the commander in chief of the armed forces. It is a close race now, and the fear of unrest and violence is deep. The MAGA movement waxes sentimental for the past, forgetting the humorous social commentator Will Rogers who wryly told us, Nothing is the way it used to be -- and never was. And as Greg Palast shows in his latest documentary, Vigilantes, Inc., Trump represents old boy racism and the indifferent rationalizing of Black disenfranchisement. It is easy to imagine how being beaten by a thin margin at the polls by a Black woman could bring out the worst in Trump and alt-right Americans.
War Game plays to real fears. Economic and political. And it is being acknowledged in some mainstream media. One recent observation at psychiatrist dot com tells the reader: "With just a few weeks from election day - Nov. 5 this year - a growing number of Americans are wrestling with anxiety, stress, and even fear. And it appears that women and younger generations are suffering the most." The inheritors of the mess their forebears have made.
The greater worry about the Act, only hinted at in War Game, is that it could be used by someone like Trump even if he wins and the masses don't muster much panic or concern. Back in 2019, United States Army General Mark Milley, who served as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, commissioned a study on Climate Change and the Army's readiness to deal with it. The Report subtly implied that Climate Change would divert the Army's mission of defense and be used for emergency situations that became more frequent as things got worse -- essentially envisioning a military take-over. "Rising seas will displace tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people, creating massive, enduring instability," the Report acknowledges, and adds, "More frequent extreme weather events will also increase demand for military humanitarian assistance." There's a sense of desperation to the Report, as the authors admit that coming to grips with Climate Change is difficult in the rigidly composed services with hierarchies of dictated orders. Plus, seemingly out of nowhere, the Report has an Appendix that features how and why Cloud-Seeding will be introduced to cool the Earth. It worked in Nam, the Report says, to create artificial monsoons.
Trump hated Milley and talked of the possibility of having him executed, according to a 2023 article in The Atlantic. This is absurd, of course, until one realizes that the US Supreme Court recently gave a president the right to kill enemies with immunity. See "The Supreme Court Wants a Dictator" by James Risen.
Of course, it could get crazier. Joe Biden has such immunity now. If he does in the next few months, them Kamala becomes president, even if she loses to Trump at the polls on November, and maybe she might want to settle some scores and refuse to give up the office and invoke the Insurrection Act to put down Trump and his MAGA barking mad dogmatists. Wouldn't that be a hoot. Hollywood already seems to have anticipated that scenario with the aptly named film, Civil War (2024), which has the IMDB blurb line, "A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House."
War Game is watchable and important to the degree it is cautionary. But in its feint to be politically neutral it comes across as somewhat insipid. The inclusion in the film of retired officer Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman tips the hand that the film is biased, and probably would do better to just come out and declare it. Vindman, on Trump's National Security Council. was one of the few who testified against Trump at his impeachment trials. Vindman, who has roots in Ukraine, told Congress of Trump's inappropriate and "illegal" attempt to extort President Zelensky in return for providing dirt on the Bidens and their relationship with Burisma Gas Holdings. Probably Trump would have him shot, too.
