Timothy Patrick McCarthy | The Nation

Mitt Romney has never been a champion of the Little Guy—that much we know—but in the first Presidential debate last week the former Massachusetts governor showed his true colors: he declared war on Big Bird.

This may seem like a trivial point, but bear with me.

“Conventional wisdom” is produced almost immediately these days through social media. So if Twitter and Facebook are any indication, it’s pretty clear that President Obama “lost” last Tuesday’s debate. I’ll admit, he did seem flat, distracted, frustrated at times, and unwilling, as ever, to be “aggressive” and go on the “attack” (that most pundits and the majority of Americans don’t get why is a source of never-ending frustration to anyone who understands the history of race and racism in America). Keeping in mind the fact that Obama had everything to lose and Romney had everything to gain in this week’s debate—and putting aside pesky little things like truth, substance and consistency—I do agree that the Governor had a better night than the President. After all, optics are everything in our new political culture.

Americans have a peculiar relationship to war. It structures and shapes much of our history: the nation was forged in war (American Revolution), divided by war (Civil War), emboldened by war (World War II) and radicalized by war (Vietnam). Too often, we tend to speak of war in positive, patriotic and Manichean terms: wars for “freedom” and “liberation”; wars to “extend American democracy” and “protect our American way of life”; “good” wars versus “evil” enemies. One consequence of this is that we tend to romanticize war, especially in hindsight, as an unambiguous catalyst for “progress”: the birth of the nation, the end of slavery, the empowerment of certain marginalized peoples, the defeat of fascism, communism or terrorism. All of this involves glossing over the hellish aspects of war (the immense violence, the death toll and civilian casualties, the suffering of loved ones, the physical and psychological trauma, the devastation of land and people) and forgetting that our history is chock full of invisible wars, illegal wars and wars we choose to ignore. The most recent example of this—the war in Afghanistan—is now the longest war in American history, a modern “quagmire” if ever there was one, and yet most of us go about our daily lives as if it doesn’t even exist. Of course, this was similarly true of Iraq. Sadly, our national ADD—to say nothing of what the late historian Howard Zinn called “our addiction to massive violence”—has produced a perilous state of denial over our collective PTSD. But let us not fool ourselves: war is still hell, whether we choose to fight or forget.

I’ve spent a lot of time in recent weeks thinking about war—the history of war, the realities and consequences of war, the future of war.

Two weeks ago, on the morning of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, I got together with several of my current and former students on the steps of Memorial Church at Harvard. We were a diverse group—men and women, gay and straight, multiracial and multi-faith—precisely the kind of gathering of good souls that makes me feel blessed to be alive, even in this precarious moment in history. Over the course of an hour or so, we prayed, offered readings, shared reflections and sat in silence. It was the first time I had marked the occasion in any formal or collective way. Usually, I keep to myself on 9/11, quietly reflecting on the scope of this tragedy, not only the 3,000 innocent lives that were lost to violent lunacy but also the countless lives—American, Iraqi, Afghan and the like—that have been lost in a subsequent fog of war that has only produced more violence, misunderstanding and terror. I have long argued that 9/11 destroyed America by unleashing some of the worst angels of our nation. This is never more evident than in the toxic mix of patriotic vengeance and pathetic indifference that has accompanied the wars waged in our name since that terrible day more than a decade ago.