“A nation is only at peace even if we have to fight for it,” said Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“I want peace and I’m willing to fight for it,” said Harry S. Truman.
“We make war that we may live in peace,” said Aristotle.
“All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means,” said Zhou Enlai (1954).
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” said Albert Einstein.
“In fact, every war has been preceded by a peace conference. That’s what always starts the next war,” said Will Rogers.
“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his,” said Gen. George S. Patton.
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” said Mao Tse-tung.
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it,” said George Orwell.
“War! It’s too serious a matter to leave to the military,” said Georges Clemenceau.
At $1 million a minute since 1948, the United States has spent $15 trillion to build up its military might; $400 billion for 2004. Let’s face it, there is no way to peace; peace is the way.
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Oppressive Tendencies
I’m thinking of the following people while writing this letter: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John McCain, and Hillary and Bill Clinton.
Carol Tavris, social psychologist and author, states in Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, “Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless martial quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell?”
Dr. Tavris takes a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification and confabulation. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral and wrong.
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (and translated by Thomas Cleary) states that there are some basic principles that hurt the people:
-Officials who use public office for personal benefit, taking improper advantage of their authority, holding weapons in one hand and peoples’ livelihood in the other, corrupting their offices and bleeding the people. There are cases where serious offenses are given light penalties. There is inequality before the law, and the innocent are subjected to punishment, even execution. Sometimes, serious crimes are pardoned, the strong are supported, and the weak are oppressed. Harsh penalties are applied, unjustly torturing people to get at facts.
-Sometimes there are officials who condone crime and vice, punishing those who protest against these, cutting off the avenues of appeal and hiding the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary.
-Sometimes there are senior officials who repeatedly change department heads so as to monopolize the government administration, favoring their friends and relatives, while treating those they dislike with unjust harshness, oppressive in their actions, prejudiced and unruly.
These things are harmful to the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed from office.
All this reminds me of Lawrence W. Britt’s research of the early warning signs of fascism: powerful and continuing nationalism, disdain for human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, supremacy of the military, rampant sexism, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined, corporate power protected, labor power suppressed, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, obsession with crime and punishment, rampant cronyism and corruption, and fraudulent elections.
It sure seems that Edward Abbey was correct when he wrote, “A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government.”
Solipsism and pandering seem to reflect our present political culture. It’s a scientific fact: scum always rises to the top.
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GOODNESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS
I thought that I would change the topic from education to politics. I did some enlightening research on political oxymoronica and discovered Mardy Grothe’s book Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History’s Greatest Wordsmiths.
Paul Valery, the great French writer and critic, once wrote, “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” As with many wry comments, there’s a great deal of truth embedded in his words.
According to Dr. Grothe, politicians throughout history, once in positions of power, have often been inclined to keep citizens away from the affairs of state. This is especially true when citizens are disgruntled and critical of the way things are being done. Sound familiar?
Let’s take a look at and think about some other oxymoronica. “It is characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack” (Voltaire).
In Benjamin Disraeli’s 1844 book Coningsby, he states, “No government can be long secure without formidable opposition.” The weakest governments silence their opposition and, in so doing, have no adversaries to keep them on their toes. The strongest governments give their opposition a voice and, in theory at least, are willing to make changes necessary to govern more effectively, according to Dr. Grothe.
In 1790, the English statesman Edmund Burke said, “A state without some means of change is without the means of its conservation.” The notion that governments must change to endure is at the heart of all great democracies.
In his 1954 book Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, the American historian Henry Steel Commager said, “If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function, it must have dissent.” Like the Vietnam War and Iraq?
Sen. J. William Fulbright, of Arkansas, became one of the most vocal critics of American policy. In a 1966 speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, he gave an insight/view/perspective as to how he felt about loyal dissent: “The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.”
One of the best examples was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” Dr. King was describing the time-honored concept of civil disobedience.
Our founding fathers recognized the potential for harm from those attempting to do good. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams wrote, “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service, when it is violating all his laws.”
Even when people are right in trying to do good, they can fail by overreaching, by attempting too much. The midterm elections of ’06 sure seem to reflect some oxymoronica!
David A. Hancock
Chester
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
IRAQ “EXPERTS” EXPOSED
Who said the war would pay for itself? They did!
The following quotes were compiled by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky in the capacity of chief executive officer and president of the Institute of Expertology, which has just issued a report on the experts who were wrong about Iraq—before, during, and after the invasion—under the title Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak (Simon and Schuster). Here, the “experts” speak about the costs of war.
“Iraq is a very wealt
hy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will” (Richard Perle, chairman, the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, July 11, 2002).
“The likely economic effects [of a war, in Iraq] would be relatively small … Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits” (Lawrence Lindsey, White House economic adviser, Sept. 16, 2002).
“It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars” (Kenneth Pollack, former director for Persian Gulf affairs, National Security Council, September 2002).
“The costs of any intervention would be very small” (Glenn Hubbard, White House economic adviser, Oct. 4, 2002).
“Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction” (Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary, Feb. 18, 2003).
“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community” (Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, March 27, 2003).
“There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon” (Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, testifying before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, March 27, 2003).
“The United States is very committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid” (Mitchell Daniels, director, White House Office of Management and Budget, April 21, 2003).
“The allies [have contributed] $14 billion in direct aid” (Dick Cheney, vice presidential debate with Democratic candidate John Edwards, Oct. 5, 2004). Actually, only $13 billion was pledged, and on the date Mr. Cheney spoke, only $1 billion had arrived. As of October 28, 2007, the National Priorities Project estimated that the share of Iraq War costs that had been borne by American taxpayers exceeded $463 billion.
And of course, let us not forget the inveterate, confabulating verisimilitudes and malapropisms of Dick Cheney: “So?”, “Go —— yourself,” and “I had other priorities than the military.”
David A. Hancock
Chester
Common Sense on Hiatus
Wow! The RNC in CLE! GOP (Greedy Old Party), OMG, WTF?
This reminds me of a cartoon poster on the office door of a political science colleague. On it was a picture of an elephant and a donkey. The caption defined bipartisanship: “I’ll hug your elephant is you kiss my a——.”
Fact: The states that the Republican National Committee chooses to have its convention votes Democratic 90 percent of the time. It’s unfortunate that stupidity isn’t painful. Oh well, Voltaire said, “Common sense is not so common.”
Which reminds me that Sen. Sherrod Brown proposed legislation requiring that all American flags be made in the United States. Maybe we should also attach the following quote from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and The Historic Unfulfilled Promise, “No flag is large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
David A. Hancock
Chester
Political Priorities
One of the gold medals of hubris should be presented to George W. Bush, who said, “I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”
However, I’ll explain.
Some diabolical, didactic, pensive musings in reference to the letter “Dumbfounding Language” by Rory Althans (Aug. 7–8), which was in response to the letter “Common Sense on Hiatus” by David A. Hancock (July 24–25). Cartoons and political satire / sarcasm / parody and caricature are examples of expressions and opinions about attitudes, values, and philosophy. A blend of David Letterman, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Maureen Dowd are indelible representatives when it comes to commentaries on cultural mores and folkways.
I participated in army ROTC at Kent State University (1964–66). I decided not to be commissioned as a second lieutenant. Maybe my thinking was similar to George “Warmonger” Bush (“I’m the decider,” or “A dictatorship would be a lot easier”) and Dick “Shotgun Duckhunter” Cheney (“I have other priorities than the military”). Quack, quack!
Writer and critic Paul Valery wrote, “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” As with many wry oxymoronica comments, there’s a great deal of truth embedded in Mr. Valery’s thinking. Politicians, once in power, have often been inclined to keep citizens from the affairs of state. This is especially true when citizens are disgruntled and critical of the way things are being done. What to do with opponents and dissenters? How to silence critics? From censorship to assassination, etc.
However, such methods always prove to be ineffective in the long term. “It is characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack” (Voltaire). “No government can be long secure without formidable opposition” (Disraeli, 1844). And “A patriot must always be ready to defend his/her country against its government” (Edward Abbey).
(Acrimonious)
At Loggerheads Again
To Rory Althans: I do not hate our country. Although I do recall Mitt Romney (“Romnesia”) say something about “self-deport.” I visited Austria and Switzerland in July. As a first-year baby boomer, I have to admit that I really like Switzerland’s politics and culture. However, I do not have a copious amount of money to deposit in their banks. WTF (wow, that’s funny!)?
To all fellow denizens, read The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf.
Never forget that the most powerful weapon an oppressor has is the mind of the oppressed. For enlightenment, view The Unknown Known about Don Rumsfeld, where his brain is in a black hole. I would remind Rory Althans that Howard Zinn (1922–2010), author of many books including A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, saw combat duty as an air force bombardier in World War II.
David A. Hancock
Chester
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
VOTING IS JUST A GAME
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not stacked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right but I am not vitally concerned that the right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to wo(man) feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise wo(man) will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
There is but little virtue in the action of masses of wo(men). When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. (Henry David Thoreau, 1849, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: Resistance to Civil Government)
Today we may think of the following:
“Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody” (Franklin P. Adams, 1944).
“Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against” (W. C. Fields).
; “If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it” (Ken Livingstone, 1987).
Matt Lynch’s maxim: “More jobs—less government.” Advice to Matt Lynch: find a new job, new career, and do us all a favor and get out of government.
It’s that time of year again. When I think of taxes, I think of the following perspicacity:
“I want to be sure that he is a ruthless SOB, that he will do what he is told, that every income-tax return I want to see, I see. That he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends. Now it’s as simple as that. If he isn’t, he doesn’t get the job” (Richard Nixon on the kind of person he wanted to head the Internal Revenue Service).
“Read my lips: No new taxes” (George H. W. Bush).
“Only the little people pay taxes” (Leona Helmsley).
“Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf” (Will Rogers).
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people” (The Wealth of Nations [1776], Adam Smith).
“The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third” (Voltaire, 1694–1778, attributed to Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution [1867]).
David A. Hancock
Chester
Thoughts About Destiny
Novelist Dorothy Allison said, “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth.”
I thought about this and started to ruminate on human venal, sordid, narcissistic, and megalomaniacal behavior and attitudes, which then reminded me of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Mark Antony’s speech that goes, “Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.” Now replace Caesar with some names that you can think of (e.g., dead dictators and living also).
The Diary of a Mad Public School Teacher Page 9