World War III might be coming soon. (I mean, probably not, but who can say? Who’s to say what CheetoFace the Kleptocrat will do next?)

But the meme war has already begun.

I had a class ask about the war yesterday, and about the draft, and about everything they worry about or are confused by regarding the whole mess. I helped them as much as I could, which wasn’t enough — because I can’t stop the war. One of my students made a nice point, though: someone said that memes would be turned to propaganda for one side or the other, and another student said, “All propaganda is memes.”

That’s the truth. And the corollary is probably also true: all memes are propaganda.

I have a troubled relationship with memes. I think they’re funny a lot of the time, and I’m impressed by the creativity behind them; but I loathe when they are used as arguments. Memes are inherently reductive, and more often than not, flat out wrong. I used to make it a thing to argue with anyone who used a meme to establish a position, especially a political position, especially on a genuine controversial issue.

Like this bullshit:

Nothing on this meme is true. The U.S. isn’t third in murder rate; we are 77th. Washington isn’t even in the “top” 30 cities in the US with the highest murder rates, and the other three are not the cities with the highest murder rates; in 2018 the total number of homicides in the U.S. was 16,214, and if we take away the 765 murders in Chicago, the 174 in New Orleans, the 304 in Detroit, and the 160 in Washington D.C., (Admittedly, this is a hell of a lot of murders) the number drops to 14,811. My math gives us a murder rate of 4.49 per 100,000 residents; lower than the U.S. rate of 5.0 murders per 100,000 population, according to the FBI, but according to this chart, that would move us down — exactly nine spaces. To between Niger and Lithuania. I’m not even going to talk about whether those four cities do in fact have the “toughest” gun laws in the United States, though I will note that the states  with the most restrictive gun laws according to this article are Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, California, Illinois, and New York. Soooo…. I guess Chicago might be in there. Right?

And is that woman really the Second Amendment? She seems too young.

Anyway, I’ve argued against a lot of memes over the years. It’s slowed down a bit: I stopped trying to argue with everyone and everything I disagree with, and the memes have increased exponentially in number, and increased (though not exponentially) in amusement.

But now we get to the current meme war.

Currently, the memes are showing up (from what I have seen, though my experience is certainly not comprehensive)  in two main forms: World War III is coming, and that’s fucked up and I’m scared, and therefore I’m going to use black humor to deflect from my fear. That looks like this:

I don’t have anything to say about those memes other than: I’m sorry. I’m sorry that my generation and the ones before mine sunk this country, and this world, into this nightmare of eternal war, and now the current generations have to pay for it. I’m sorry for all that my country has done to harm other countries. I do recognize that there have been some good outcomes of American military intervention; but those outcomes do not come anywhere close to making up for the damage we have done. Not even close.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about here. I’m a pacifist, I’m anti-war; my position on American wars is not surprising.

No: what I wanted to talk about is the other class of memes. Memes like this:

And this:

And this lil beauty:

So look. People can be in favor of war with Iran. I don’t agree, but they have the right to believe that it is the right thing; there’s at least some kind of argument in support of that, so it’s not insane to think it. Iran certainly does and has done terrible things, and maybe war would stop that.

But first, we here in this country need to not act as though we have the moral high ground: we do not.

The truth is that Soleimani was not all that different from any of about five dozen current and former American politicians and bureaucrats — if anything, he was considerably more restrained about the use of force. Yes, he was involved in a lot of bloody wars — but so was every American president since 2000, and besides half the wars he fought in were started or fueled by the United States. It’s just another instance of America’s gigantic hypocrisy when it comes to war.

— America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing

Second, whether you are for war with Iran (or war in general) or not, your position does not in any way have any implications about your citizenship, your rights, or how you feel about this country. You can love America and hate the war; you can hate America and love the war; and everything else in between — and the one does not at all imply the other.

I’m not sure how to explain or argue for that idea other than just to state it. To state clearly that one of the foundations of this country is freedom of thought and opinion, and the freedom of speech that allows us to express those opinions in a public forum. There is not any requirement to support the government, the war effort, or even the troops; there are reasons not to support all of those institutions, and therefore someone could reasonably have that opinion, and still think the U.S. is a good country and want to be a part of it. And of course, an American can think that the U.S. is a terrible country, and hate every little thing about it — and still be an American citizen. No less of an American citizen than the most flag-kissin’, woo-hootin’, ‘Murrican-chaps-wearin’ yahoo out there. And if you don’t understand that, the problem is you, not the person who disagrees with the rising tensions in the Middle East. Not someone who sympathizes with Soleimani: because you can think a man is a bad man, and still not want him dead, or be sad that he died — and again, even if you think Iran is a fine country and Soleimani was an Iranian patriot hero, you will still be an American citizen. Because citizenship, moral or legal, is not predicated on one’s opinions. Ever. Actions can change one’s legal or moral right to citizenship; if you try to harm America, one can argue that you lose some right to call yourself an American (Though personally I would say you need to actively alter your legal status, intentionally [And thus President Obama’s killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki was murder and not an act of war] ; and to me, morality has nothing whatsoever to do with citizenship: good Americans and bad Americans are Americans alike.), but saying you want to harm America is only words, only an opinion. It would be far more harmful to America to try to strip someone’s citizenship for an opinion or a statement thereof, because that is a violation of that foundational freedom of opinion and of speech.

And refusing to support a war, a war that will most certainly harm America — and thus should be opposed by those who want to do what is right for this country — is in no way something that changes one’s right to be an American. Doesn’t even make you a bad American. Though I guess someone could have the right to flip me off for that opinion, so I shouldn’t put that last meme into my display of objectionable memes. (Though also, isn’t that desecration of the flag? Just sayin’.)

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with jingoist nationalists trying to murder people around the world. Please don’t also make me have to defend my right to inclusion in my own native country. Please understand the country you claim to love, at least as well as it’s understood by those you say don’t love it enough.

Try to understand the war as well as this guy: (The first Tweet makes the point, but go read the whole thread.)

For those of you who didn’t live through the invasion of Iraq, here is what is about to happen:

1. There will be a MASSIVE propaganda push (by Republicans) to frame this act of war as a moral necessity and to act like anyone who opposes it is working for “the enemy.”

— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) January 3, 2020

I do love my country. I do. I hate war. And so I refuse to allow those two things to be seen as the same thing. Even by my countrymen: whose right to be wrong I will defend to my last breath. So please do the same for me.

Understand that we can disagree, but when we fight each other over our disagreements, when our different opinions make you consider me inhuman, or undeserving of inclusion in your group, then we become divided in a way that is incredibly difficult to put back together. And that division hurts us. Not the difference in our opinions: if I think stopping the war is best for America, and you think fighting the war is best for America, then we disagree, but we are not divided: we want the same thing. We stand on common ground. We can discuss it, because we can both start our arguments with, “I want what’s best for our country, just like you do, but…”

But if you think I am not deserving of the title “American” because I don’t share your opinion, then we can’t even talk: I say, “I want what’s best for America,” and you say, “No you don’t, you’re not even a real American.” Now we are arguing about me, not about our country and how to help it.

That is what benefits the enemies of this country, and what harms this country: if we cannot see each other as equals, who happen to disagree.

There’s been far too much of that lately. We should stop doing it. All of us. Right now. Especially as we consider going to war, again. Because if we have to fight each other, we can’t also fight our enemies — and please understand that, although I do not want war, and I do not want violence, I do want to fight my country’s enemies. Enemies like ignorance, and bigotry, and dehumanizing hatred. That is what I will fight. That is what I do my utmost to protect my country, and my countrymen, from.

Because I love my country, and I want what’s best for us all. All of us. That’s what matters to me.

Remember what matters most to you.

Remember: united we stand.