Tomgram: Kramer and Hellman, The Washington Creation

That Ate Your Lunch! To Tom Dispatch Readers: I know I'm starting to sound like the proverbial broken record, but once again, many thanks for the surge of recent $100 donations, in return for signed copies of Nick Turse's new book, Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. It's great to get this sort of help, defraying the unexpected costs of fixing and strengthening this site for the future, after its recent crash, when it simply couldn't handle a rise in traffic and popularity. The second appearance of Nick's book on the New York Times extended bestseller list has been a genuine surprise, and no less surprising, it's been a runaway "bestseller" at Tom Dispatch as well. In fact, there have been so many requests for copies, that we've once again run out. Be patient. We've ordered more, and anyone who still wants to take us up on the offer, be sure to check out the Tom Dispatch donation page. Once upon a time, "homeland" was a word of little significance in the American context. What American before 9/11 would have called the United States, his or her "homeland" rather than "country"? Who sang "My homeland, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty"? Between my birth in 1944, as World War II was drawing to a close, and September 11, 2001, I doubt I ever heard the word in reference to the US. There was a reason: "homeland" had a certain ring to it, and anyone would have known at once, just what that ring, that resonance, was. Not to put too fine a point on it, we're talking about the ring of evil. It sounded like the sort of word the Nazis or perhaps Stalin, would have used as the terrible totalitarians of the previous century mobilized their people for horrific wars and heinous crimes. It's true that, in the run up to September 11th, somewhere in the corridors of Washington, there were right wingers already pushing to homeland-ize this country. The word, along with the idea of creating a future Office of Homeland Security, was then gestating like the monster baby in the movie Alien, awaiting its moment to burst forth. Today, there's nothing alien about that most un-American of terms. It has slipped so smoothly into our lives, that "Homeland" is the name of a popular TV show, and college students looking for a good livelyhood, can now get a BA or an MA coast to coast in, yep, homeland security.