31 October, 2018

In A Hundred Years: An Essay


In a few days we'll celebrate Veterans' Day. It's only been “Veterans' Day” since 1954. It is still observed in other countries under its old names: Armistice or Remembrance Day. The observance began in the early 1900's – 1918 to be exact. On the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, hostilities of the major players along the Western Front in the First World War would cease. This is the beginning of observing that day for veterans; for no more war.

At the end of World War 1, the cost of the war in terms of life and destruction was so huge, most who participated in that war could not stomach the thought that the war had accomplished nothing – mind you, in its immediate aftermath, there was no way a sane person could rationalize the cost of that war, when gaining mere feet at a cost of a thousand – or many thousands of lives was too much to bear. It was called “The War To End All Wars.” Those who lived it, thought it could not be too much to ask for mankind to avoid such horrific butchery of the human species ever again.

With astonishing rapidity, a small group of madmen led the world into a second horrific war, which was to be called World War II, proving that insanity isn't solely invested in a single generation. Humans who aren't capable of engaging with other humans who do not look like them, cannot be trusted to do the right thing. They are too shallow and too fearful – for it is fear that causes a lack of engagement on the political stage – and do not have the intelligence to comprehend and appreciate plurality. In their feckless claims to power they over-promise and under-deliver because they have no substance – no matter how violent and large their army, in a generation they are gone.

We know now, without a shadow of a doubt that a similar war – with more modern weapons – is not a distant possibility. The Russians have huge stockpile of nuclear weapons as does the US and other countries a little less. But we all know that there are only a couple of buttons that can make these monsters go boom. Whether or not you think of it daily, I would believe that everyone capable of reading these words would never want to see even the smallest of those weapons unleashed.  And the truth is, even if only one is unleashed, it will be followed by many, many others and life on earth will be over. 

We cannot be the generation that acts so recklessly. I am fraught with fear over the lack of common sense in our leadership today - I am filled with fear at the rhetoric and lack of decorum and common sense. I am maddened by the name calling and the dehumanizing of people who don't quite match the white man. History shows us that all of this was done before and directly created and set the stage for WWII. We cannot go down that path once again, because the road is far too dark and the unseen is all too certain. The substance and essence of all living generations being vaporized over a dispute, and assuredly a petty dispute compared to what follows, is too much to bear. 

It will be on our watch. Veterans Day, by any name, will be worthless. All of human kind's efforts destroyed by only ego. And in this moment, consider that we have two observances ahead - two traditions – that we must consider. 

In the first, we must go to the polls and vote on November 6th - and we must vote for integrity and competence - for honest and not name calling - for truth and not for falsely concocted crises at our borders or in our heartland. We cannot listen to the money changers and the hopelessly rich. Leaving the booth, we must be able to look the old woman in the eye, the drug addicted, the homeless, the jobless and the forlorn.  We must hold our head high before greed and injustice. 

In the second, on the 11th day of the 11th month, we do not need to show up at parades or stand and salute the flag because those who march in the parade and the ones whole enough to march. There are many shadows behind those marchers. The ones who didn't come back; the ones who cannot leave their sick bed. The cost of war - ANY WAR - should be enough for us to never declare war. It is a horrid shame that a people, a democracy, should ever go to war, let alone be the aggressor. As a people, we have no quarrel with other peoples. The quarrel is created to sell more bombs and shoot more missiles and charge more dollars. A democracy should only defend it's borders, it should never be the invader. 

This is time for sobriety. To consider who we are as a people as well as who we are not. Let us give up the vice of fear, decide as a majority that fairness and hope, not profit should be our diplomacy. That clinging fiercely to the Old motto of our country, "Out of many, One." There is a light to be held in the darkness. Our lives and the lives of the children are in the balance this year as never before. 

We can be Americans - neither Republican or Democrat, neither Christian nor Hindu; neither brown nor black nor white nor in between. Honestly, between you and I and that stockpile of atomic weapons, it is our world to make better or make go away.  And it is past time to act as this is the truth.

Sorry this isn't very gardenry. I'll be back on topic in a short hitch. Meanwhile, go vote.

david




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