It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Urban noise pollution may impact cardiovascular risk prediction and prognosis after a heart attack
European Society of Cardiology
London, United Kingdom – 27 August 2024: Research from two studies in different European cities1,2 highlights that urban noise pollution has a significant negative impact on heart health, according to data presented at ESC Congress 2024.
“The DECIBEL-MI study shows that young patients aged 50 years or less who had a myocardial infarction (MI) had been exposed to higher levels of noise than the general population. The study demonstrates that urban noise could significantly increase the risk of early-onset MI in young people with low traditional risk factors. Including noise exposure in risk prediction models helps accurately identify at-risk individuals, leading to better-targeted prevention.
The DECIBEL-MI study included 430 consecutive patients living in Bremen, Germany, aged 50 years or younger with acute MI who were admitted to a local heart centre. When levels of residential noise exposure were calculated, the researchers observed a higher incidence of noise exposure compared to the general population in the same region. Patients with MI and a low LIFE-CVD score (≤2.5%), indicating a low level of traditional risk factors, such as smoking or diabetes, exhibited significantly higher noise exposure compared to those with a high LIFE-CVD score. This is crucial because traditional risk assessment models might underestimate the cardiovascular risk in young individuals who are otherwise considered low risk. By incorporating noise exposure into these models, it is possible to more accurately identify those at elevated risk for MI, allowing for better-targeted preventive measures and interventions.
A separate study in France assessed the impact of environmental noise exposure on prognosis after a first MI. “In the ENVI-MI study, we found a strong association between urban noise exposure, particularly at night, and worse prognosis at 1 year after a first MI,” explained study investigator, Professor Marianne Zeller from the University of Burgundy and Hospital of Dijon, France.
Data from the French observatory database (RICO) were collected for 864 patients hospitalised for an acute MI who survived at least 28 days after the MI. At 1-year follow-up, 19% presented with a major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE; cardiac death, rehospitalisation for heart failure, recurrent MI, emergency revascularisation, stroke, angina and/or unstable angina). The daily noise exposure levels measured at each patient’s home address (average noise level in A-weighted decibels [dB(A)]: 56.0 over 24 hours and 49.0 at night) were considered as moderate and representative of a large part of the European population. Of note, there was a 25% increased risk of MACE for each 10 dB(A) increase in noise during the night (hazard ratio 1.25; 95% confidence interval 1.09–1.43), independent of air pollution, socio-economic levels and other confounding factors.
“These data provide some of the first insights that noise exposure can affect prognosis. If confirmed by larger prospective studies, our analysis could help to identify new opportunities for environment-based secondary-prevention strategies, including noise barriers for high-risk MI patients,” added Professor Zeller.
ENDS
Notes to editor
Funding: The DECIBEL-MI study was supported by the Bremer Institut für Herz- und Kreislaufforschung, Bremen. The ENVI MI study was supported by a grant from Fondation Coeur et Recherche. RICO survey is supported by the University Hospital of Dijon, the Association de Cardiologie de Bourgogne, Fédération Française de Cardiologie, and by grants from the Conseil Régional de Bourgogne Franche-Comté.
Disclosures: Hatim Kerniss has no conflicts of interest to declare. Marianne Zeller reports research grants from Amarin Corp and lecture fees from Amgen, Pfizer and Organon.
References and notes
The ESC recognises noise pollution as an important factor contributing to the burden of cardiovascular disease3 and is advocating for European and national cardiovascular health plans4 to be created, which include strategies to address environmental issues including lowering noise exposure. The health benefits of reducing pollution are being increasingly realised, as detailed in the World Heart Report 2024 from the World Heart Federation.5 Population-level approaches to prevent cardiovascular disease occurring, such as tackling pollution, are a key way to reverse the impact of the world’s biggest killer.
1‘Influence of urban noise exposure on early-onset myocardial infarction risk prediction’ will be presented at the session ‘Cardiovascular risk factors and risk prediction’ on Friday 30 August 2024 at 13.00 to 13.50 BST at Station 4.
2‘Environmental noise exposure is associated with one-year survival after a first myocardial infarction’ will be presented at the session ‘Assessment of residual risk in cardiovascular conditions’ on Friday 30 August 2024 at 17.00 to 17.50 BST at Station 4.
3Knuuti J, Wijns W, Saraste A, et al. 2019 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of chronic coronary syndromes: The Task Force for the diagnosis and management of chronic coronary syndromes of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Eur Heart J. 2020;41:407–477.
It is the world’s largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals, disseminating ground-breaking science both onsite in London and online – from 30 August to 2 September. Explore the scientific programme. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.
The ESC brings together healthcare professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people to live longer, healthier lives.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Video: Russian Kerch Strait Ferry Destroyed by Fire After Ukrainian Attack
Conro Trader engulfed in fire believed to be the result of an attack by Ukraine (Telegram)
Social media is widely showing pictures of a blazing inferno on a strategic Russian railway Ro-Ro ferry while docked today in Kavkaz port in Crimea. Russian media quickly blamed Ukraine which has frequently attacked the port and damaged the same ferry about 12 weeks ago.
The ferry Conro Trader (4,500 dwt) was built in 1978 by HDW Kiel in Germany and provides a key service moving rail cars with freight into Crimea. The vessel was reportedly loaded with up to 30 fuel tanks today when the explosion and fires began. The vessel was 358 feet (109 meters) in length.
Black smoking was billowing over the region and government officials on Telegram reported the vessel later sank at its pier. They were working to limit environmental damage.
Reuters is saying there were 17 crewmembers while Russian media is saying there were five crewmembers. Between two and three crewmembers are believed to be missing but the media is saying that the port had been safely evacuated and all port workers were safe. Special fire teams were fighting the fire. The Russian news outlet Tass is saying that the fire was contained to the ship and did not damage other parts of the port.
The port which is located on the eastern side of the Kerch Strait has been a frequent target of attacks due to its strategic location and role in cargo shipments. It lies between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea. On May 30, Ukraine reportedly struck the same ferry causing minor damage. Unconfirmed reports said Ukraine used a ballistic missile in the prior attack.
A month ago, on July 28, Ukraine damaged another critical ferry in the same port. The vessel, the Slavyanin, a 500-foot freight ferry, at the time was said to be the last large railcar-capable cargo vessel in the region. It was recognized as a key component of the Russian munitions supply chain for the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
After today’s attacks, there were reports that Russian officials closed the port and suspended traffic on the Crimean Bridge over fears of more attacks.
Ukraine
Why we are closing our center for displaced women in Lviv
In this month of August, we are celebrating exactly two and a half years since our Feminist Workshop opened its first shelter for internally displaced women. At the start of the invasion, we opened three shelters. Two of them stayed open for six months. Today, we would like to announce some important news for us: our largest center, which has been operating since June 2022, is closing its doors.
In this publication, we’d like to summarise our work, tell you more about our experiences that we may not always have covered. And to answer the question of what we plan to do next.
Why is the refuge closing?
To be honest, the closure of the refuge is a great sadness, not only for the crisis team that opened the refuge, but also for all the teams in our organisation. Visitors to our events will have realised that for two years, our organisation’s office was a small room in the large refuge building. That’s why, very often, lunches at the office took place in the communal kitchen with the refuge residents, over conversation and coffee. Our community events were held in the attic, where the children who lived in the shelter played at other times, outside of the events. So it’s a very important place for our whole organisation. And it is very dear to us. We believe that the shelter has fulfilled its original function as a temporary ’home’.
We have also maintained this shelter entirely thanks to international donors, and it has now become impossible for the crisis team to raise the funds needed to continue its work.
It is important to stress that the issues of funding and the feasibility of continuing activities have come together to form the same situation: it has become more difficult for associations to find money for shelters, whereas municipal shelters have free space and the capacity to accommodate more people.
What can we say about our work with refugees?
First of all, it certainly came at the right time! We opened such a large shelter when the temporary shelters set up in the kindergartens and schools of Lviv closed their doors. We received a lot of criticism about the fact that six months of large-scale war had already passed and the associations had only just started to do something about it. We didn’t have the same resources as the state to launch a large-scale reception and shelter people in one day. We had no premises and no staff. We needed time to find funding, to plan and, finally, to carry out work that we had never done before. But we managed to meet the needs of the situation very quickly.
In particular, in June 2022, when a large number of temporary shelters were closed in schools and kindergartens. This is where the story of our shelter begins. We sent out announcements to various groups of displaced people. When the refuge opened on 1er June, just one family, the Kiselyovs, whom you have probably heard about in our articles, came to visit us. They liked the place and chose a room. Within half an hour, everyone started coming: the refuge was full from day one!
We think the same applies to the closure of the refuge. At the moment, the situation in the Lviv region, with the influx of people, with the number of people who intend to stay here, is fairly predictable, but not chaotic. Many people have been living here for years, there is a small influx of new people, and people always choose to stay, or to move to places close to home, so that they can at least get there.
That’s why temporary shelters like ours are no longer an urgent need for the city at this time. We have fulfilled our function and the time has come to abandon the provision of accommodation services. However, if you are looking for somewhere to stay in Lviv and the surrounding area, please contact the Displaced Persons Assistance Center on +380505554461.
According to the national rules for social services, a social service such as a refuge has certain requirements for the organisation of space. For example, it specifies what a bed must look like and how many square metres must be available per person. The new Resolution 930 also clearly describes the requirements relating to the rules of residence and the behaviour of employees and residents. This means that there are general rules: no drinking, no smoking, no fighting, and so on. In fact, social work requires a much greater involvement of one person in the life of another. And that has its advantages and disadvantages. The main question we have been thinking about throughout our work is to what extent our help should have limits and to what extent these limits are objective in the current situation.
Let me give you an example that struck me during a conversation with another colleague. She was telling me about a family of elderly men and women that she had taken into her accommodation center. They arrived with no papers, just a bag of belongings: everything had been burnt. My colleagues welcomed them, gave them clothes and food, and helped them find their papers. Then the question arose as to whether they should find work. They helped the man in this family find a job on a building site. On his first day working on the site, he had an accident and died. The same social workers, employees and volunteers from the shelter helped to raise funds for the funeral ceremony. And they buried the man. This case often makes me think about these boundaries: do they need to exist in today’s situation? These days, social assistance has already gone beyond any possible classification of social services, even in cases like this.
What did we do while the refuge was in operation that we didn’t think of?
We investigated the disappearance of Black Pearl cream from a bedroom, helped a 60-year-old woman learn to literally say "no" and stand up for her boundaries. We’ve helped her look for food, we’ve raised funds for her rehabilitation after a kidney transplant. We carried out repairs to a house where the residents of our refuge were about to move. We organised songs, parties and picnics. And we tried to figure out: how many kilos of food do you need for a picnic for 50 people?
We put an end to fights. We have developed methods to help people accept the help of a psychologist. For example, we asked two people at odds to cook borscht together. Together we produced a magazine about the lives of the residents of our home. We helped them find jobs, we listened to them... We placed a mentally handicapped person in supported housing, we helped her overcome an eating disorder, we tried to get someone out of a suicide attempt, we played with children, we taught a disabled woman how to write, we organised film clubs, we talked to support them... We didn’t manage many things. Maybe we didn’t know how to do it properly, maybe we were too busy with our own affairs to think about it. We’re very proud of the crisis team who took responsibility for this work. Speaking of these people, I’d like to recall a quote from a cartoon where one character says to another, "Yeah, I like people who don’t do stupid things": "Yes, what I like most are people who don’t worry about things like reality". We had to find solutions on the fly. In some situations, there was no solution and the whole team got together for a glass of wine and a pizza. We attended many supervision meetings during which we cried like crazy and said "no, we’ll never go back to that refuge".
And there were moments when we got together, hugged each other and told each other how cool we were, that we’d done an incredible job. That’s why working in a refuge wasn’t about living your own life or that of your family and friends. It was about living the lives of 20 people who lived in our refuge every day: with their problems, their joys. We rejoiced at their successes, we mourned their failures and we were angry when new restrictions appeared. To sum up, I would like to say that, given the fact that we met these people in such a situation, this work was marked by a great deal of tenderness and care.
If I had the opportunity to say something to all the people who lived with us during that period, I would say that it was very important to me. During the first two difficult years of the full-scale invasion, when I was separated from my family, who are now living under occupation, I wasn’t able to help my family. It was very important for me to be able to help and be useful. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. We helped you as much as we could to keep going, and you helped us. I think we all needed each other to be able to survive this war and try to get on with life.
The shelter is closing, but we are continuing to help women in crisis. We plan to continue our digital literacy courses and recruit for the ’Moving On’ retraining programme. The difficult but invaluable experience we have gained at the shelter will certainly lead to new social projects. We’re working towards victory!
The text was prepared by Katya, crisis coordinator. With a lot of love!
International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
My mother and father in front of a mural she painted for the Stage Door Canteen.
Almost three-quarters of a century ago, my mother placed a message in a bottle and tossed it out beyond the waves. It bobbed along through tides, storms, and squalls until just recently, almost four decades after her death, it washed ashore at my feet. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. Still, what happened, even stripped of the metaphors, does astonish me. So here, on the day after my 71st birthday, is a little story about a bottle, a message, time, war (American-style), my mom, and me.
Recently, based on a Google search, a woman emailed me at the website I run, TomDispatch, about a 1942 sketch by Irma Selz that she had purchased at an estate sale in Seattle. Did it, she wanted to know, have any value?
Now, Irma Selz was my mother and I answered that, to the best of my knowledge, the drawing she had purchased didn’t have much monetary value, but that in her moment in New York City — we’re talking the 1940s — my mom was a figure. She was known in the gossip columns of the time as “New York’s girl caricaturist.” Professionally, she kept her maiden name, Selz, not the most common gesture in that long-gone era and a world of cartoonists and illustrators that was stunningly male.
From the 1930s through the 1940s, she drew theatrical caricatures for just about every paper in town: the Herald Tribune, the New York Times, the Journal-American,PM, the Daily News, the Brooklyn Eagle, not to speak of King Features Syndicate. She did regular “profile” illustrations for the New Yorker and her work appeared in magazines like Cue, Glamour, Town & Country, and the American Mercury. In the 1950s, she drew political caricatures for the New York Post when it was a liberal rag, not a Murdoch-owned right-wing one.
Faces were her thing; in truth, her obsession. By the time I made it to the breakfast table most mornings, she would have taken pencil or pen to the photos of newsmakers on the front page of the New York Times and retouched the faces. In restaurants, other diners would remind her of stock characters — butlers, maids, vamps, detectives — in the Broadway plays she had once drawn professionally. Extracting a pen from her purse, she would promptly begin sketching those faces on the tablecloth (and in those days, restaurants you took kids to didn’t have paper tablecloths and plenty of crayons). I remember this, of course, not for the remarkable mini-caricatures that resulted, but for the embarrassment it caused the young Tom Engelhardt. Today, I would give my right arm to possess those sketches-on-cloth. In her old age, walking on the beach, my mother would pick up stones, see in their discolorations and indentations the same set of faces, and ink them in, leaving me all these years later with boxes of fading stone butlers.
She lived in a hard-drinking, hard-smoking world of cartoonists, publicists, journalists, and theatrical types (which is why when “Mad Men” first appeared on TV and no character ever seemed to lack a drink or cigarette, it felt so familiar to me). I can still remember the parties at our house, the liquor consumed, and at perhaps the age of seven or eight, having Irwin Hasen, the creator of Dondi, a now-largely-forgotten comic strip about a World War II-era Italian orphan, sit by my bedside just before lights-out. There, he drew his character for me on tracing paper, while a party revved up downstairs. This was just the way life was for me. It was, as far as I knew, how everyone grew up. And so my mother’s occupation and her preoccupations weren’t something I spent much time thinking about.
I would arrive home, schoolbag in hand, and find her at her easel — where else did mothers stay? — sketching under the skylight that was a unique attribute of the New York apartment we rented all those years. As a result, to my eternal regret I doubt that, even as an adult, I ever asked her anything about her world or how she got there, or why she left her birth city of Chicago and came to New York, or what drove her, or how she ever became who and what she was. As I’m afraid is often true with parents, it’s only after their deaths, only after the answers are long gone, that the questions begin to pile up.
She was clearly driven to draw from her earliest years. I still have her childhood souvenir album, including what must be her first professionally published cartoon. She was 16 and it was part of an April 1924 strip called “Harold Teen” in the Chicago Daily Tribune, evidently about a young flapper and her boyfriend. Its central panel displayed possible hairdos (“bobs”) for the flapper, including “the mop,” “the pineapple bob,” and the “Buster Brown bob.” A little note under it says, “from sketches by Irma Madelon Selz.” (“Madelon” was not the way her middle name was spelled, but it was the spelling she always loved.) She would later go on to do theatrical sketches and cartoons for the Tribune before heading for New York.
I still have her accounts book, too, and it’s sad to see what she got paid, freelance job by freelance job, in the war years and beyond by major publications. This helps explain why, in what for so many Americans were the Golden Fifties — a period when my father was sometimes unemployed — the arguments after I was officially “asleep” (but of course listening closely) were so fierce, even violent, over the bills, the debts, and how to pay for what “Tommy” needed. But other than such memories and the random things my mother told me, I know so much less than I would like to about her.
“A Lady Drew It for Me”
As I turn 71 — two years older than my mother when she died — I can’t tell you how moved I was to have a small vestige of her life from the wartime moments before my birth wash ashore. What my correspondent had bought in that estate sale — she later sent me a photo of it — was a quick portrait my mother did of a young man in uniform evidently being trained at the U.S. Coast Guard Machine School on Ellis Island (then occupied by that service). On it, my mother had written, “Stage Door Canteen” and signed it, as she did all her work, “Selz.” It was April 1942, the month of the Bataan Death March and Doolittle’s Raid on Tokyo. And perhaps that Coast Guardsman was soon to head to war. He signed my mother’s sketch “To Jean with all my love, Les” and sent it to his sweetheart or wife.
“Les” sketched by my mother at the Stage Door Canteen on April 20, 1942. Click to enlarge
Later that April night in the midst of a great global war, Les wrote a letter to Jean in distant Seattle — the framed sketch from that estate sale contained the letter — filled with longing, homesickness, and desire. (“Well, I see it is time for the ferry, so I will have to close and dream about you, and can I dream. Oh boy.”) And here’s how he briefly described the encounter with my mother: “Well, I said I would send you a picture. Well, here it is. I was up to the Stage Door Canteen, a place for servicemen and a lady drew it for me.”
That institution, run by the American Theater Wing, first opened in the basement of a Broadway theater in New York City in March 1942. It was a cafeteria, dance hall, and nightclub all rolled into one, where servicemen could eat, listen to bands, and relax — for free — and be served or entertained by theatrical types, including celebrities of the era. It was a hit and similar canteens would soon open in other U.S. cities (and finally in Paris and London as well). It was just one of so many ways in which home-front Americans from every walk of life tried to support the war effort. In that sense, World War II in the United States was distinctly a people’s war and experienced as such.
My father, who volunteered for the military right after Pearl Harbor, at age 35, became a major in the Army Air Corps. (There was no separate U.S. Air Force in those years.) In 1943, he went overseas as operations officer for the First Air Commandos in Burma. In Terry and the Pirates, a popular comic strip — cartoonists of every sort “mobilized” for the war — his unit’s co-commander, Phil Cochran, became the character “Flip Corkin.” Strip creator Milton Caniff even put my father jokingly into a May 1944 strip using his nickname, “Englewillie,” and in 1967 gave him the original artwork. It was inscribed: “For Major ENGLEWILLIE himself… with a nostalgic backward nod toward the Big Adventure.”
My mother did her part. I’m sure it never occurred to her to do otherwise. It was the time of Rosie the Riveter and so Irma the Caricaturist lent a hand.
Here’s a description from her publisher — she wrote and illustrated children’s books years later — about her role at the Stage Door Canteen. “During the war, she was chairman of the Artist’s Committee of the American Theatre Wing. She helped plan the murals, which decorate the Stage Door Canteen and the Merchant Seaman’s Canteen. Miss Selz remembers setting up her easel and turning out caricatures of servicemen. Some nights she did well over a hundred of these skillful, quick line drawings and many servicemen still treasure their ‘portraits’ by Selz.”
Imagine then that, on the April night when she drew Les, that “lady” might also have sketched another 100 or more soldiers and sailors, mementos to be sent home to family or sweethearts. These were, of course, portraits of men on their way to war. Some of those sketched were undoubtedly killed. Many of the drawings must be long gone, but a few perhaps still cherished and others heading for estate sales as the last of the World War II generation, that mobilized citizenry of wartime America, finally dies off.
From photos I have, it’s clear that my mom also sketched various servicemen and celebrities on the set of The Stage Door Canteen, the 1943 home-front propaganda flick Hollywood made about the institution. (If you watch it, you can glimpse a mural of hers at the moment Katharine Hepburn suddenly makes a cameo appearance.) In those years, my mother also seems to have regularly volunteered to draw people eager to support the war effort by buying war bonds. Here, for instance, is the text from a Bonwit Teller department store ad of November 16, 1944, announcing such an upcoming event: “Irma Selz, well-known newspaper caricaturist of stage and screen stars, will do a caricature of those who purchase a $500 War Bond or more.”
While my father was overseas, she also mobilized in the most personal of ways. Every month, she sent him a little hand-made album of her own making (“Willie’s Scrap-Book, The Magazine for Smart Young Commandos”). Each of them was a remarkably intricate mix of news, theatrical gossip, movie ads, pop quizzes, cheesecake, and cartoons, as well as often elaborate caricatures and sketches she did especially for him. In the “March 1944 Annual Easter Issue,” she included a photo of herself sketching under the label “The Working Class.”
I still have four of those “scrap-books.” To my mind, they are small classics of mobilized wartime effort at the most personal level imaginable. One, for instance, included — since she was pregnant at the time — a double-page spread she illustrated of the future “me.” The first page was labeled “My daughter” and showed a little blond girl in a t-shirt and slacks with a baseball bat over her shoulder. (My mother had indeed broken her nose playing catcher in a youthful softball game.) The other is labeled “Your daughter” and shows a pink-cheeked blond girl with a giant pink bow in her curly hair, a frilly pink dress, and pink ballet slippers.
Inside one of those little magazines, there was even a tiny slip-out booklet on tracing paper labeled “A Pocket Guild to SELZ.” (“For use of military personnel only. Prepared by Special Service Division, Eastern Representative, Special Project 9, Washington, D.C.”) It began: “If you start worrying about what goes with Selz, here is your reference and pocket guide for any time of the day or night.” Each tiny page was a quick sketch, the first showing her unhappily asleep (“9. A.M.”), dreaming of enemy planes, one of which, in the second sketch (“10 A.M.”), goes down in flames as she smiles in her sleep. The micro-booklet ended with a sketch of her drawing a sailor at the Merchant Seaman’s Club and then, in front of the door of the Stage Door Canteen, heading for home (“11:30 P.M.”). “And so to bed” is the last line.
The cover of one of my mother’s “scrap-books” sent to my father at war. Click to enlarge
I know that my father wrote back fervently, since I have a letter my mother sent him that begins: “Now to answer your three letters I received yest[erday]. No. 284, 285 & 289, written Apr. 26, 27, and 29th. It was such a relief to read a letter saying you’d had a pile of mail from me, at last, & also that the 1st of the Scrap-Books finally reached you, & better yet, that you enjoyed it.”
For both of them, World War II was their moment of volunteerism. From 1946 on, I doubt my parents ever again volunteered for anything.
People-less Wars
Here’s the strange thing: the wars never ended, but the voluntarism did. Think of it this way: there were two forces of note on the home front in World War II, an early version of what, in future years, would become the national security state and the American people. The militarized state that produced a global triumph in 1945 emerged from that war emboldened and empowered. From that moment to the present — whether you’re talking about the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence services, private contractors, special operations forces, or the Department of Homeland Security and the homeland-industrial complex that grew up around it post-9/11 — it’s been good times all the way.
In those seven decades, the national security state never stopped expanding, its power on the rise, its budgets ever larger, and democratic oversight weakening by the decade. In that same period, the American people, demobilized after World War II, never truly mobilized again despite the endless wars to come. The only exceptions might be in the Vietnam years and again in the brief period before the 2003 invasion of Iraq when massive numbers of Americans did mobilize, going voluntarily into opposition to yet one more conflict in a distant land.
And yet if its “victory weapon” robbed the planet of the ability to fight World War III and emerge intact, war and military action seemed never to cease on “the peripheries.” It was there, in the Cold War years, that the U.S. confronted the Soviet Union or insurgencies and independence movements of many sorts in covert as well as open war. (Korea, Tibet, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Libya, to name just the obvious ones.) After the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, the wars, conflicts, and military actions only seemed to increase — Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, Iraq (and Iraq again and yet again), Afghanistan (again), Pakistan, Libya (again), Yemen, and so on. And that doesn’t even cover covert semi-war operations against Nicaragua in the 1980s and Iran since 1979, to name just two countries.
In the wake of World War II, wartime — whether as a “cold war” or a “war on terror” — became the only time in Washington. And yet, as the American military and the CIA were loosed in a bevy of ways, there was ever less for Americans to do and just about nothing for American civilians to volunteer for (except, of course, in the post-9/11 years, the ritualistic thanking of the troops). After Vietnam, there wouldn’t even be a citizens’ army that it was your duty to serve in.
In those decades, war, ever more “covert” and “elite,” became the property of the national security state, not Congress or the American people. It would be privatized, corporatized, and turned over to the experts. (Make what you will of the fact that, without an element of popular voluntarism and left to those experts, the country would never win another significant war, suffering instead one stalemate or defeat after another.)
My mother draws a soldier on the set of the movie The Stage Door Canteen. Click to enlarge
In other words, when it comes to war, American-style, the 73 years since Irma Selz sketched that jaunty young Coast Guardsman at the Stage Door Canteen might as well be a millennium. Naturally enough, I’m nostalgic when it comes to my mother’s life. There is, however, no reason to be nostalgic about the war she and my father mobilized for. It was cataclysmic beyond imagining. It destroyed significant parts of the planet. It involved cruelty on all sides and on an industrial scale — from genocide to the mass firebombing of cities — that was and undoubtedly will remain unmatched in history. Given the war’s final weapon that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such a war could never be fought again, not at least without destroying humanity and a habitable planet.
My mother welcomes me into a world still at war, July 20, 1944. My birth announcement drawn by “Selz.” Click to enlarge
Nonetheless, something was lost when that war effort evaporated, when war became the property of the imperial state.
My mother died in 1977, my father on Pearl Harbor Day 1983. They and their urge to volunteer no longer have a place in the world of 2015. When I try to imagine Irma Selz today, in the context of America’s new wartime and its endless wars, conflicts, raids, and air assassination campaigns, I think of her drawing drones (or their operators) or having to visit a Special Operations version of a Stage Door Canteen so secret that no normal American could even know it existed. I imagine her sketching soldiers in units so “elite” that they probably wouldn’t even be allowed to send their portraits home to lovers or wives.
In these decades, we’ve gone from an American version of people’s war and national mobilization to people-less wars and a demobilized populace. War has remained a constant, but we have not and in our new 1% democracy, that’s a loss. Given that, I want to offer one small cheer, however belatedly, for Irma the Caricaturist. She mattered and she’s missed.
[Note: I’d also like to offer a final salute to Henry Drewry, one of the last of the World War II generation in my life and one of the great ones. He died on November 21, 2014.]
