comics and what if i was born an american

*i originally wrote this about a month ago, after a trip to the library. i wrote it to get it out and haven't returned to it until today. after reading it, i guess i just decided i'd post it here. if nothing else, it's just me wanting to say how i feel, to get it down somewhere.


I oppose this war. But how is that enough, just to say it? I am still a part of this country, this system, this culture and my mere presence supports the war in many ways. I pay income taxes; I purchase goods, a small amount by this culture’s standards but goods nonetheless, that regardless of ethical considerations still support the capitalist economic system; what little money I have is in a bank and is used as investments by the bank for profit (of course being invested in companies that are currently financially successful, for example, war profiteers). I still wake up everyday and go about the business of living my personal life. This personal life is not hampered by snipers, helicopters, planes dropping bombs, and occupation armies. I go about things pretty much the way I usually do, without constant fear of safety, without watching loved ones killed, without my life being overcome by violence, fear, and death. And things just go on.

So, how am I really opposing anything? How much do I really care about what happens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and to U.S. and other soldiers fighting for the right of an imperial/corporate government to extend its fingers into another market and geopolitical prize? Life is a struggle to reconcile your actions with your values and beliefs, to ensure that they compliment and reflect each other. The truth is I care deeply about compassion, love, and humanity. I care about the Iraqis that are being killed and forced to live under a violent occupation. I care that the country in which I was born is a violent imperialist nation, acting out of the greed of predatory capitalism. I care that the citizens of this nation, and increasingly the world, are subjected to powerful indoctrinations of consumption and desire; that the values of both community and personal awareness and growth are being sidelined by the values of the accumulation of stuff and the determination of success based on expressions of material “wealth.” And while we contract our realm of concerns, concentrically focusing on material wealth and representation, we inevitably continue to broaden our ignorance in regard to global politics and other human beings in general, while our feelings of helplessness and isolation grow. This increasing emphasis on material consumption effortlessly condemns human beings to ever-narrowing realms of concern, leading to a capitalist induced paradigm of money and success that has resulted in a population that can’t see beyond their own fingertips, beyond their own bank accounts.

So, I oppose this war. But what else am I bound to do because of my own values and perceptions? I know I must minimize my involvement in the capitalist system of profit over humanity. I must be continually vigilant in questioning my own actions and motivations. I cannot give my political support to a government based on greed, violence, and imperialism. But these do not amount to much; I need not necessarily challenge my own privileges or make much in the way of personal sacrifices. We are often faced with the question “what would you have done if you were a German in Nazi Germany?” or “what would you have done had you been born during slavery in America?” Maybe we can see that one question now is “what would you do if you lived today in Israel?” But just as important, more important because it is reality, is the question “what do I do as an American today living in this country?”

The other day I read some recent comic books from a mainstream publisher. These comics all revolved around a central story in this particular comic book’s fictional universe: all mutants and superheroes must register with the U.S. federal government and become security agents. Anyone not willing to register and divulge their identity becomes a hunted criminal and, when captured, is placed in a prison camp indefinitely with no access to representation in a judicial system. In other words, the comics play heavily on current affairs and ask questions concerning personal liberties, security over rights, and unjust imprisonment. The comics’ main characters face the decision of whether or not to support this federal program of secret prisons within the context of a population motivated by fear. One by one, for various personal reasons and as the truth and extent of the operation is revealed, the superheroes begin to defect, some joining an underground resistance, one becoming an ex-patriot in another country, some leaving their spouses and families out of an unwillingness to participate in a program that runs so contrarily to their deeply held values.

As I read these comics, I couldn’t help but feel motivated to action. In the fantasy realm of a comic universe, individuals can make huge personal statements of resistance. They can take superhero action in a group of underground rebels. Their mere presence or lack-there-of can make a national statement and, it seemed to me as I sat in the library, almost vindicate the individual from the malignant actions of her or his nation. What I mean is it seemed that, in the context of the superhero world, an individual could simply state opposition and thereby do enough. Or maybe, on a slightly different level, could refuse to participate in the program and therefore go underground, immediately becoming an agent of change and resistance.

While reading these comics was in a way inspirational and I was seriously happy to see something so political conveyed through very mainstream mass media, the comics also depressed me. It seemed so easy for the superheroes to enact meaningful opposition and change. It is true that many of the actions taken by the characters would not be in any way simple or easy in real life; leaving your loved spouse because of his involvement in an oppressive program, realizing that friends may not be willing to question their own privileges and actions that aid oppression, endangering personal safety and even the safety of family in the opposition of power. However, the reader knows that the comic story will last seven issues. At the end of seven issues, the conflict will be resolved. The actions of the characters have such immediacy; opposition results in monumental consequences.

After closing the last of this handful of comics, I felt confused. Reading them left me feeling moved to align action with value but also with a feeling of hollow impotency. I strive to oppose systems of power and oppression; this is a reflection of my deeply held beliefs, beliefs that I have arrived at through sustained questioning and struggle for critical awareness. And, while I realize changes at the core of oppression and violence requires sustained effort over a lifetime, I often feel my actions are inadequate, not sufficient in relation to my own privilege, and simply not enough to evoke any meaningful change. This war is in its fourth year of outright occupation. Nothing seems to have changed. And the really horrible part is that, in many ways, nothing has changed in the couple of hundred years of this country’s history, not to mention the five hundred years of European violence and colonial, imperial ambitions in this hemisphere. We still impose our economic system of control and intimidation, conduct imperialistic wars of unimaginable violence, maintain systems of oppression locally and globally even while preaching democracy and freedom, support governments that, like our own, are guilty of incredible humanitarian violations, and maintain systems of classism, racism, sexism, and all other forms of hierarchy and oppression in every institution of our society. Yes, symptoms of the problem have changed. For example, slavery, an extreme expression of capitalism that requires the denial of the recognition of a human being, is no longer practiced outright in the U.S. Other forms of domination and hierarchy have been challenged and sometimes diminished to more subtle expressions. Sexism is still one of the most dominant features of our society, although it has morphed to some degree in reaction to critical opposition. While it makes me very happy to see positive change within our culture, it is primarily changes in the expression of some of the core elements that constitute our general world view. In other words, although we talk about sexism or racism, for example, and many of us do take action in changing our own understanding and environment, the underlying root causes of these inequalities, these exploitations and oppression, remain intact and unchallenged. Hierarchical systems of power remain and, so, we as a nation still participate in wars (and there is nothing more dehumanizing and fundamentally violent and oppressive than war). We still participate in a global system of predatory capitalism. We still allow our country to place the acquisition of resources over the lives of human beings. Women are still, and increasingly so, sexually objectified; lives and bodies are commodified. Our society is still class-based and access to resources (healthy food, education, fulfilling work, etc.) restricted.

It becomes easy for me to think about this lack of fundamental change and spiral into a dark hole of hopelessness, submit to feelings of isolation and the pointlessness of struggle. I know that the rope offered is that of consumption, of the entanglements of participating in the encouraged distractions of our culturally created system of meaning (non-critical absorption of “information,” celebrity, material success, pro-sports, television, 40 hour work weeks). The emphasis on personal gain and opulence is a direct means of suppressing perhaps the most useful tool of cultural and political change: the community. This isolation works in perfect harmony with the paradigms of oppression, profit, consumerism, and consumption. We isolate ourselves in private universes of concern and in front of screens depicting illusionary lives and promoting an endless dogma of consumption to fix our cosmetic imperfections and to cure the meaninglessness and emptiness of our lives. This isolation is at the expense of community, the very thing that has the ability to meaningfully confront oppression, profit at all costs, consumerism, and consumption.

After reading those comic books, I wanted to be able to do make some action that expressed my total opposition to this war and this system of imperialism that, in a sense, vindicated me, that separated me from this country’s actions. I wanted to make a statement that was enough, take action that resulted in visible change. I wanted things to be better in seven issues. And while I still want those things to happen, the process of writing this little essay has reinforced the realization that community and long term goals of change are a reality that I can work towards. It has made me realize the importance of direct action and civil disobedience. It has also made me realize that I do need to ask those questions of “what if I was born in….” and to constantly ask myself if, when looking back, I can be satisfied that I have acted in accordance with my beliefs, that I have not simply fallen back on my privilege and consented to atrocities in my silence.


I have arrived at a crossroads of sorts in my life, not so much a crossroads as an intersection of unsigned, innumerable paths. Truthfully, we are always at a crossroads in life, always capable of making decisions that will impact the intimate world of self as well as the world around us. It becomes almost a debilitating obsession with me, this internal debate over decisions of which path to take, what to pursue. So that, while I ruminate over possibilities, compare and contrast possible outcomes, and, mostly, worry about canceling out one possibility by pursuing another, I don’t take any of the paths I consider. This over-generalization is not entirely true; I recognize paths that I am currently on, many by some sort of choice, and I have been happy with past decisions and actions. However, when it comes to the future, to making choices that will to some degree chart certain aspects of my life, I begin to fall into this pattern of endlessly worrying about what I might not be able to do if I make a certain decision and focus on a particular path.

With this is mind, I am excited by some of the personal realizations at which I have arrived. I know what I value, I know what I believe to be important. This can serve as a guide as I move through life. As I make decisions and actions, I must correlate these with my values and view of the world.

I began this essay asking how simply stating that I oppose this war is enough and the answer is that, to me, it is not enough. If I were able to have a bird’s eye view of history and I looked down on my own life, I would be ashamed if all I did in regards to the present was to say “I oppose this.” I understand the ways in which isolation, capitalism, and our culture’s value of materialism contribute to the degradation of humanity that we see in the forms of war, violence, and all the oppressive hierarchies of power that are manifested in our society. I see the need for sustained critical awareness, both of my culture and my own personal life. The unity of action and belief is vital to both self- awareness and growth and I recognize the necessity of community in opposition, resistance, and, importantly, in change.
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After reading through this about a month after I originally wrote it, I feel that I must add something about personal destiny and transformation. I have become increasingly aware that only by creating immediate alternatives to the oppressive systems of hierarchy currently in place can we hope for something different. It is through this kind of revolution that we can transform the specifics of our reality. Important to this transformation is the realization that only I have the ability to transform my own life, in all of its complexities—relationships to and with other people, actions, thought, and simply the way in which I choose to exist in this world. To borrow a couple of phrases: “The personal is political” and “Means create ends.” All of these realizations and the subsequent effort to transform the nature of my existence and help create alternatives to hierarchical structures are ways to oppose not only this current war but also what created all the wars before and those that are coming. And war is but one manifestation of hierarchy; to get at the core, these transformations have the ability to oppose power and domination in all its guises while, at the same instant, creating what can be.