Why We Fight

"Band of Brothers,"  the excellent TV series about the 101st Airborne's Easy Company has an episode called "Why We Fight," which comes as the penultimate episode, 9 of 10, in the series.

It's a strikingly misnamed episode, and that fact, its misnaming, has always struck me.

It's misnamed because Band of Brothers has nothing to with the why question, only the what question.  The show depicts the mechanics by which a disparate group of men are forged into a working unit of soldiers. You are never shown and never hear anything about why these men have decided to go to war. That decision was made by each of them long before you see them on screen. There is some mention, in the interviews with the real soldiers which precede each episode, where one or two mention they joined the Airborne because they didn't want to be in a foxhole with a draftee who didn't want to be there, or because the pay was better in the Airborne. 

The men themselves never actually discuss why they are fighting. 

In fact, there is only one brief bit where one of the soldiers is reading "Stars and Stripes" as his platoon bounces along in a truck and he says, "It says here the Germans are BAD," and the others react with mock incredulity, "Really? The Germans are bad?" There is considerable mirth among the soldiers, who make exaggerated faces of astonishment: Imagine that! The Germans are bad!

William Loeb

But in the episode "Why We Fight," the company stumbles across a concentration camp and they learn the Germans really WERE bad, or at least they were fighting for a bad cause. The writers set this discovery up by a conversation between a veteran, who has seen relentless action who explains to a new replacement why he fights: to stay alive and to sometimes sleep indoors and to have actual toilet paper to use. Simple luxuries like toilet paper is enough reason to fight for him. He is later among the scouting party which discovers the concentration camp.

So, of course, liberating concentration camps from the evil system they are fighting is not the reason why these men went to war; it becomes a justification for why they have been fighting but it did not motivate them because they had no idea concentration camps even existed.

I thought of that episode yesterday during the state convention of New Hampshire Democratic party. This convention was virtual and it was a far cry from in person actual conventions I've attended where Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren had the crowd on its feet, screaming throats hoarse and even crying tears of joy. 

This convention was all about the mechanics of how the party planned to mobilize, with organization charts and pre recorded videos from elected officials urging us all to "work hard" to elect Democrats.

But there was precious little about why we might want to elect Democrats.

There were statements from people representing different identities: Two Native Americans started things off banging on drums and singing songs in those voices we have all heard from movies, which sounded like a war dance, followed by a gay person saying Democrats fight for gays, and a speaker who introduced himself by telling us which pronouns he uses, ("Him, he") and another who, from her wheelchair, told us if we were going to throw a house party for a candidate be sure to rent a ramp for wheel chairs, and to renovate a ground floor bathroom to accommodate wheelchairs, and there were women who insisted that Democrats were all about women controlling their own bodies and that abortion is simply healthcare, and there were one of two people "of color" saying we needed more people of color in office in New Hampshire, and there was a Hispanic guy from the North Country saying, yes, there actually are Hispanic guys living in the White Mountains.  I may have missed the Greek guy from Manchester pumping a fist for New Hampshire Greeks, or a Polish guy shouting out to New Hampshire Poles.

I eventually caught on that Democrats were all about representing people who think of themselves as having special identities which set them apart from other Americans, identities which presumably Republicans defile because Republicans are BAD.

Not once did a see a guy who the guy who sits behind the counter at Hampton Hardware would identify with. This guy wears plaid flannel shirts and pants held up with both a belt and a suspenders, and every time I visit to buy batteries or light bulbs or nuts and bolts, he tells me about his time in the Navy during the Vietnam war. 

There was nothing I could tell my barber about from the convention's organizational charts. 

Nor was there much for the Thai owners of the Thai restaurant or the Korean folks who own the laundry in town. They are too busy worrying about keeping their businesses afloat to waste much time chatting about Democrats with me.

And I thought about Trump rallies I've seen on TV and thought, well, they certainly seem to inspire his crowds. They are the modern day version of those old Nuremberg rallies which were staged with thousands of flags and strutting soldiers and Swastikas everywhere and stiff arm salutes.

And then I thought about our own local Democratic club meetings, which are almost exclusively about the mechanics of organizing efforts to reach voters with our "message" and how best to do it, door knocking or on line.

I tried to think about when, as a group, we have ever debated just what our message should be.

We once had an exchange, in Zoom, about abortion, where I said I was for abortion but not for infanticide, and another Dem, a very bright lady, said she was for allowing "abortion" right up to the time of delivery because as far as she was concerned that fetus was part of the mother, or at least that's what I think she was saying, but she quickly added that was something we could talk about later, privately.

And I thought: Privately? Is that not exactly the sort of thing we should be talking about in public, as Democrats, exploring what our stance, our "message" should be?

Every time I have brought up an issue of values of "message," whether it's a question of whether the town of Hampton should be writing a check to support the local Catholic Church or whether we should be pushing for the teaching of how racism has functioned in American history, that gets deferred to some other forum.

                                       

During World War Two, soldiers and sailors were not allowed to discuss religion or politics on board ship and it was understood why: These hot topics would only foment dissension in the ranks. Going to war was not about discussing the why, only the what, only how we were going to kill Germans, not why.

                                      

That seems to be pretty much where we are now in our Democratic Party meetings and conventions: we are gathered together to discuss what we are about, not why we are about it or even the why of the what should be.