Humbly report, Rande, seems to me our main, if not the only, point of disagreement is in regards to humor. Funny, isn't it?
I humbly disagree that we as single citizens could now be able to join in some way and influence the current train of events already in motion. It would take months if not years, and by then - way too late. Democracy in the US form has its faults, main of them being that it requires leaders. Once in power these leaders have a tendency to lead, no matter how idiotically. Bummer.
Other than that I agree with pretty much everything you said except the paragraph that starts with "Since I am not the one in the war, I needn't have a sense of humor about it."
Since, as you say, you are an American citizen, please allow me to share a few thoughts of my favorite American, Mark Twain, in my effort to help you understand what I mean:
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant.
What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.
Humor is the good natured side of a truth.
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.
Before I had chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.
To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation.
Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ..And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth.
An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.
War is a wanton waste of projectiles.
Cheers,
Svejk
proofsheet.com
P.S. You may have read or seen "Catch 22." It is a direct ripoff of "The Good Soldier Svejk." Perhaps that will give you a better idea of what I've been talking about. |
