What do zombies and the military industrial complex have in common? Let us count the ways. In fact, let military strategy & policy professor Michael Vlahos (relation, yes!) take you down that thorny path.
Michael writes in Dark Lord, Dark Victory: America’s Dark Passage, in the latest issue of Kosmos (.pdf), that the 9/11 War has eroded America’s “redeemer” identity, and instead has made it more akin to the “Dark Lord,” or “the mythic essence of children’s nightmares.” In other words, we’ve sort of lost our way, and where in the past “our historical method to redeem humanity has been war,” the current Long War has done nothing of the sort. In our zeal to recreate the glory and alleged redemption of World War II, the US manufactured another “true evil,” or Dark Faith (Muslim extremism), making it an epoch battle in which Muslims “readily understood it to mean … eviscerating the entire edifice of Muslim life, replacing it with American consciousness.”
But this has only made us weaker, nearly alone, reviled and unsure of ourselves. This Long War is a slow kill and a buzz kill.
So what’s this have to do with zombies? We can see it in the latest AMC series, “The Walking Dead,” but more poignantly, in World War Z, a bestselling science fiction novel of “The Zombie War” by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft). After nine-years of playing a humiliating game of whack-a-mole with a “rag tag” enemy that was supposedly vanquished after 9/11 but in key areas has seemingly more support from the people we are supposed to be liberating than we ever did, Americans are now indulging in elaborate fantasies, like World War Z, in which they regain all of the pride and strength and virtue that was lost — by fighting an even more ruthless adversary, the ultimate evil – the flesh-eating undead.
Maybe, just maybe, we can win that war, and liberate ourselves!
Sounds “fantastical,” and sure, “The Walking Dead” is nothing but a slick soap opera with lots of blood and guts, but as Vlahos points out:
“…are not zombies our former selves — hence, the most terrifying and relentless enemy of all? Are not their ranks also flush with those who had lost American virtue: The passive, the narcissistic, the cynical, the uncaring? Sacred wars are about purification, revival and redemption. By indirection, Brooks is making the troubling point as well, that only zombies — or a national challenge equally existential — can renew America now.”
Brooks makes his own point, however indirectly, on his own website, below his mention of Mike’s piece. It seems U.S soldiers in Afghanistan have been buying out “zombie hunter” patches like hotcakes. He points to a summertime piece by the Global Post’s Ben Brody, where soldiers languishing on Forward Operating Bases waiting for some kind of meaning in what they are doing are increasing turning to … zombies.
Dog-eared copies of Max Brooks’ “World War Z,†a first person account of the Great Zombie War, and his definitive undead-fighting manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide,†are found wherever soldiers relax and oil their weapons.
One soldier showed me a huge, razor-sharp Nepalese Ghurka knife that weighed about seven pounds — a lot of extra weight to carry on patrol. He explained that because killing zombies required a decapitating or skull-crushing blow, there was simply no better tool for fighting the undead in close quarters.
As uniforms and body armor become more and more covered in Velcro, Zombie Hunter patches have become hot sellers for tactical suppliers. At the German Post Exchange at Kandahar Airfield, that patch is continually sold out.
The problems of war against the undead have parallels with the problems soldiers face daily in Afghanistan. A zombie needs no food, water or equipment and pursues the living with implacable determination. For soldiers trying to defend a million dollar vehicle against a malnourished, illiterate man wielding a $40 roadside bomb, the similarity must be chilling.
No, more like it’s morally degrading and humiliating and one of the few salves are heroic apocalyptic fantasies, where everything is black and white and good and evil. Indeed, maybe these fantasies do spill over to the battlefield, because it’s easier to think of the Taliban as mindless, flesh-starved creatures. One can hardly see how this helps our cause, or the people of Afghanistan for that matter. In fact, I can’t help but think when i read this, “oh well, there goes the rest of this bloody war.”
So how did it get to this point? Its a journey, but Dark Lord, Dark Victory attempts to explain it, noting that it is much of the citizenry’s fault for creating and maintaining this “warrior nation” identity encapsulated in the Defense Tribal Confederacy that is now crippled by its own myopic, misguided vision. An ambitious read that may leave you wondering just how far off these Zombie Wars really are.
Great post, Kelly. Your references to WW2 and how the US gov is always to resurrect the "good v. evil" dichotomy reminds me of Andrew Bacevich's "War is a force that gives us meaning." I thought the bit about US soldiers buying "zombie hunter" patches was hyperbole, but when I scrolled down and saw the picture I laughed. A sad laugh, yes, at truly how bizarre the American empire really has become.
"…reminds me of 'War is a force that gives us meaning'…"
This 2003 remarkable essay was written by Chris Hedges…
Damn it, you're right, that's embarassing. My bad, thanks for the correction Wulfgar
Instead of confronting the truth that our military is destroying basically unarmed people for reasons that make no sense outside of our own bubble of paranoia and greed, we have consumed every notion of "America the Good" and puked out our own "reality". A reality in which slaughter of militarily disadvantaged is noble, exterminators are "warriors", and relative cowardice is bravery.
Here in West Virginia, a group working with terribly maimed war veterans, recently hosted a group of such veterans. The activity that they hosted for them was to take them into the woods to kill deer. Going into the deer's environment to kill them as a form of therapy. Seemed sick to me.
Comment by zombie who stumbled upon the Pentagon: “Brains…I can’t smell brains.”
What do Zombies and the MIC have in common? Video games created and funded by the Pentagram video game manufacturers. These video's glorify war and are directed to young audiences to develop children soldiers, unemployed, to be employed in the future. The video games go right to the sub conscious mind, bypassing the filtering of the conscious mind which is not fully developed in adolescent/ pre-adolescent mind. It is the same process that is used to create and develop children soldiers in Africa, the difference being they are immediately employed, on the job training. These warmongering Pentagram inspired video game are brainwashing of children to be mindlessness, unable or not knowing to discern thoughts of imagined fears from facts. Mindlessness is institutionalized by the government, businesses and pretend christian[biblical harlots] which gives it legitimacy and creates peer pressure. This is child abuse, worthy of being called cult, the cult of warmongering.
Hmmmm………muslim extremism a "manufactured evil " , now that's a real play ! But yes , it is a manufactured evil , manufactured by muslims themselves and the behavior of extremists in their midst . Unless of course you're a TRUFER , who thinks "someone else " other than 19 muslims committed the acts of 9/11 , OR you think the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan was benevloent and benign , so what if the whipped people for laughing aloud , and did some sharia amputationbs at half time in soccer matches .
Evil ? You people have no idea . Not a clue .
FAIL HARD for implying that NATO is hanging around to liberate people from Taliban.
If Talibs like to implement their shitty version of Paradise on Earth by being shitty, well, what can one do?
One could start by not nurturing and cultivating the fracking fucks for years on end in the first place or possibly telling the Saudis and Pakistani to stop doing likewise unless they want to see "crippling sanctions". But wait, that would be politically inconvenient. President Klingon, Texas Cokehead and the Bombing Peace Laureate ain't gonna solve anything, they just make things worse.
Apart from that, I do like FPS with Zombies. Half-Life and Stalker? Hell yeah!
Of course, we are not zombies that is why we are acting as a real people. this would really be a big help. How to Whiten Your Teeth with Baking Soda
Walking Dead is also consider as one of the most popular game in game market and it has also a movie series, its story is similar with other their opponents is millions of zombie in a town but it has more action and thrilling.
Multiplayer zombie games
Absolutely, right. You are not Zombie.Please let me know, who is making a this type of rumors and affects the reputations.
I believe in zombies but I dont think I'm one lol…but check out my post on it!
—> ;http://oshkoshtvreviews.com/zombie-survival-guide-pdf/
"…reminds me of 'War is a force that gives us meaning'…"
This 2003 remarkable essay was written by Chris Hedges…
We cannot force other to think in a way as we do think or do things in a manner as we use to done it. We only can try to convince other to think in the way in which we think instead of forcing them as this is the basic demand and lesson of education.