We Have Met the Enemy

The fact that you are reading this blog on a personal computer is evidence of the fact that the information revolution has changed the way we live. Sometimes the technology works the way its inventors intended. Other times ... well, let's just say there are unintended results.




Take the case of the barracks at the US Navy's base at Coronado, California. Four L-shaped building were constructed back in the 60s to house sailors. They've stood for four decades without raising any controversy, but thanks to on-line satellite imagery technology, people have noticed something odd about the barracks:








That's right! The genius who designed the barracks facilities laid out the buildings in the form of a swastika. Now, I realize that it has become commonplace in the West to call anyone who disagrees with you politically a "Nazi". I've always felt that the folks who resort to using that particular N-word were resorting to cheap tactics. Now I am beginning to wonder if some of the US government's critics might know more than I've given them credit for.

Of course, the US Navy denies that the barracks were designed on purpose to resemble a swastika, and I have no doubts that they are telling the truth. Intentional or not, however, they exist and offend the sensibilities of many Jewish Americans and others who suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany.

The Navy, to its credit, plans on spending over half a million dollars on architectural changes and landscaping to obscure the obscenity from the air. Which brings me to the wildest part of this story -- a group called the San Diego Tax Fighters has decried the renovations as being "wasteful". While I understand their argument that the $600,000 could be used to purchase armoured Humvees for US forces in Iraq, I think they are missing the point: symbols matter.

Symbols, especially swastikas, mattered in Nazi Germany just as symbols matter in the United States. If you don't believe me, try to burn a flag at a protest. Or place an ad with a dreadful pun on a top general's last name in a major newspaper. That will show you how much symbols matter to Americans.

I know, I know -- the swastika has an honourable history as a positive symbol that goes back several millenia. I also know it was a traditional good luck symbol. And yes, I am aware that the pre-war cloth unit insignia for the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma National Guard was a yellow swastika on a red diamond.

That is all true -- and its all irrelevant. Despite the positive images that other cultures have put on it, the swastika is not a neutral symbol. Not any more. It is a symbol of hatred and oppression and murder and imperialism.

I've complained in past posts that I fear for the America that I love. I've complained about American policies that seem arrogant and imperialistic. I worry because the American government's current world view seems to mirror the racist cultural bigotry that characterized the country's historical dealings with its native peoples (and the people of Cuba, the rest of Latin America, Hawaii, the Philippines, and so many other areas in the world). The fact that a group of "tax payers" begrudges spending money to assuage the sensibilities of people who lost millions to the legions that served the swastika seems to me to be an indication that the hubris is turning inward.

To paraphrase the cartoonist Walt Kelly, America has met the enemy -- and it is them.