[lit-ideas] Re: On the Pragmatics of Peace
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:05:58 -0600
On the Pragmatics of Peace>>Did we learn anything from our colossal WW I
foreign-affairs blunders? Perhaps a little. We didn't totally disarm after
World War Two, but we were wanting to.<<
We learned that if you kick people when they're down, they'll get up and start
punching back. The Marshall Plan was "embracing Peace", Lawrence, and it made
all the difference in the world. I don't understand what could be more
obvious. Again, if you want Peace, you must embrace peace, otherwise you'll
have war.
>>Wilson as inept as he was at foreign affairs at least made commitments that
>>he thought would further peace, but his commitments were repudiated by an
>>isolationist congress. <<
And how would you have voted had you been a congressman then?
>>If you disarm a little then you can expect a 9/11. If you disarm a little
>>more, you can expect a Pearl Harbor. If you disarm more still you can expect
>>a Battle of Britain and you had better hope you have an American
>>ace-in-the-hole who can send you enough equipment to keep you going.<<
And if you disarm totally, you can expect peace. Now, you know damn good and
well that I'm not advocating we throw away all our weapons tomorrow and just
hope for the best. What I am strongly advocating is making it a priority of
the highest order that we work through the United Nations toward putting into
place international institutions with the authority to handle international
disputes and eventually to dissolve all national boundaries. That's right,
guy, I hope someday to see the eradication of the United States of America as
well as every other country. It's coming, trust me. But no need to run to
your bunker just yet. It'll take time, but we've no other choice except to
begin -- "we must love one another or die" as Auden said (but love's not very
likely -- policies and programs and institutions are very possible though). One
World! One World! One World! Come on, Lawrence, get with the program. One
World! One World! One World!
>> I have an aversion to skipping over the pragmatic steps one must take to
>> achieve the important goal Peace.<<
So do I.
>>But when we suggest that a small war might be necessary to achieve a larger
>>peace, minds around us go blank.<<
Sometimes, goddamnit, you've just got to destroy a village to save it -- right?
Pacifist punks can't handle the truth. What this world needs is real men who
won't shrink from blowing children to smithereens -- either with a bomb belt or
a B52 bomber.
>> What are your mystical steps, I ask?<<
See above.
>>If some sound were to emanate from these Peace Mystics, I would wager it
>>would in no way echo<<
I hope Lawrence numbers me among the "Peace Mystics", I've always wanted to be
a mystic. To see the invisible connections, how it all comes together. But I
get too hungry for fasting more than 6 hours, too cold in the desert night for
sleeping, and the acetic life is just too boring without regularly occurring
visions -- but I know those visions are out there, too many have seen them: the
more famous ones: Buddha and Jesus and Francis of Assisi and Rumi and Gandhi
and King and Dorothy Day and who knows? maybe even Barach Obama. Mystics are
not technicians. They don't craft policies, the technicians do, mystics give
the technicians their marching orders.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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