Are Humans Warlike?

It has been suggested that humans are inherently warlike and that our future as a species will always include war. Some agree with me by saying "Yes, there will always be evil in the world that we will need to fight." But is war ever an answer to any evil? Or is it just a counter-evil? Are there other options? Are there always other options? Do we seek hard enough for options?

I listen to popular music and look around at society and what we do with our time and what we value and how we motivate ourselves and what we care about, and I am left agreeing that yes, humans have an insatiable desire for conflict that will always lead to war somewhere and at some time. I don't like that answer, but I can find nothing to justify any other opinion.

We love to rally ourselves together into a larger force and that rallying usually, in order to be FOR something, needs to be AGAINST something else. We are not just FOR a cleaner environment, we are AGAINST big oil and cancer causing chemicals and litter and suburban sprawl. We are not just FOR better health, we are AGAINST cancer and influenza and mental illness. We cheer on sports teams even more energetically if they are battling a long time rival that we can be clearly against. The more succinctly we can put a label and a cause on the thing we are against, the happier we are and the more 'good' we think we have done against it ant its 'evil'.

We love to have heroes and heroes have to have a foe and that foe has to come from within an enemy camp. Sure we can have a teacher as a hero, but often even that hero is most known for fighting AGAINST something like gangs in the school or a certain learning disability as opposed to just teaching more and better.

We tried team building in corporations but if the team was FOR a better product, the concept did little to motivate. If the team was placed in opposition to come competitor outside company, or if internal teams could be challenged to excel in come metric against internal teams, the concept lead to harder work and better quality. The 'enemy' had to be in place for the team to rally!

We love to insist that there is a 'force' of 'evil', but often the things we describe as evil are just the same things we do or reward in others. The Muslim terror bomber is giving their life for their God that wants them to act out against what they perceive is an evil of a world gone too materialistic, i.e. US, and yet, we see THEM as evil. At the same time, we revere the 'good' saints who give their lives literally as martyrs for their god or give their lives over to the service to their god. Maybe there is not evil at all, but just an exaggeration and perversion of normal human desires to accumulate goods, to accumulate territory, to protect turf, to protect family. The desire for power in the business world or in a service organization is called ambition and drive and is regarded as a good thing, but the desire for power in some sort of anti-government group is given other labels. But when the same mechanism is at work for something we do not agree with, how can it be called evil when it is admired in another context?

It is easy to think of a world divided by good and evil, but it is more difficult to accept that maybe the person we label evil is doing the same things we are but due to different motivations. It is easy to bomb and shoot, but it is more difficult to find ways that we can peacefully coexist over mutually desired outcomes. Can we find ways to convince the 'enemy' to disengage in behaviors we don't like by finding motivations for other behaviors?

When you get right down to it, most forces we call 'evil' are doing what they are doing for reasons that look and sound a lot like ours, to improve a situation for their people, their families, to glorify or defend their god. In fact, sometimes, they see us as the force of 'evil'. It hardly seems like violence is the answer in that case and it hardly seems like there will or even should be a clear 'winner'. Perhaps tolerance and conversation and more tolerance and more conversation would lead to a discovery of more in common with each other and less judging and labelling?


We somehow think our bombing and shooting is 'good' but can it ever really be?


Peace is hard work and I am frankly not sure we as humans really want it. We love a cause, we love our heroes, we love to have an enemy, we love to have things we can label 'evil' in contrast to the 'good' that we believe we possess and which possesses us.

Maybe if we ADMIT we love our war, then we can work harder to not use it? If we keep insisting we hate war, will we just keep allowing ourselves to justify using it in yet another 'exceptional' case, this one last time.

Do we indeed love war, and at what cost? Young lives lost, young bodies mutilated, young minds scarred. What will it take to make our love of the cause, the hero, the glory of victory, be outweighed by the love of our own individual people? What will make us give up our warring human ways?

Having Things In Common

We are Americans, those soldiers on the TV screen and I. Yet, we have so little in common. I would no sooner volunteer to join an effort that might ask me to kill a person than I would cut off my own hand with a utility knife. I would no sooner dress in the uniform and subjugate myself to absolutely obey orders than I would steal a car. We do not share in the idea of what freedom means or in the best ways to achieve it.
Those soldiers and I are supposed to be on the same side, yet we have so very little in common.
Soldiers on one side of a conflict just might have more in common with their peers on the other side. At least they signed up, trained in certain ways, live a certain lifestyle, and probably share a lot of the same tastes and interests. In fact, I bet the average solider has more in common with the enemy soldiers than they do with their own commanding officers, and those officers share more in common with the enemy officers than with their own men they command.
What if mothers like me got together with mothers on the enemy side, artists like me got together with artists on the enemy side, and the soldiers on both sides got together to play cards and drink beer and the officers got together to smoke cigars and talk history of military strategy? Let's stop the fighting and form clubs based on shared interests. It might work better than the war thing.

Living It

While some people were marching in marches and sitting in sit-ins and writing protest letters and working for civil rights organisations in big and obvious ways, others were doing the same thing just by living it. I know a man who was an officer in the army. He was preparing to serve in the Korean War, at a training camp in the south in some town I should know the name of, for I have heard the story a few times, but the town does not matter. He had been off the army base for some entertainment and was riding the bus back at the end of the day. The bus was full, every seat taken. A black woman got on, looking tired to him. So he did the natural thing, the right thing for a man on a recreational jaunt to do for a woman who had been working all day. He got up and offered her his seat. I bet she paused for just a fraction of a second before she gratefully took it. The bus driver saw what happened, and stopped the bus. He bellowed that she could not sit there, that she had to move to the back of the bus. The man said there were no seats back there and that she was tired and that she could have his. The bus driver said that people of her color did not sit in the front of the bus, seats or no seats, and she would have to get up and move back. He used a word I will not use even to tell the story. The man moved ahead a step or two, putting himself between the bus driver and the woman and said "You are going to have to fight me if you are going to come back here and try to make her move." The bus driver grunted and probably spat in the aisle, but he drove on.

Two More Days

We were such a modern family, living in our new ranch house with trendy curved shelves at the end of our sleek new blond wood cabinets. One of those shelves held the black plastic radio, which is where I heard most of my news. There was morning news and noon news and late afternoon news on the radio, and the late night news might be on the black and white television, but that was past my bedtime. I would play on the kitchen floor in front of the radio or work on art projects at the end of the kitchen table while the radio played in the background. I guess that is where the first appeals to my born-liberal mind were made, because I remember thinking sympathetic things about Civil Rights workers and equal rights for black people. My values were 'Christian' values back then, formally verbalized in Sunday School class. My Jesus was a loving kind fair person, and of course, black people were people too and would not Jesus want them to have equal rights? Seemed obvious to me. Until I heard sentiments all around from grown ups, how that King was 'stirring things up' and why couldn't those marchers 'leave good enough alone'. It was my first brush with the idea that grown ups could be wrong, because I knew in my heart and soul that the fight for equality was a good one.
And it pissed me off that my friends who were boys and my cousin who was a boy were allowed to ride with their dads on tractors and in trucks while we girls stayed home and watched our mothers do laundry and make meals. It irked me that our friends who were boys had toy trains and toy tractors and toy trucks. I was apparently born not only a liberal, but a liberal feminist.
I heard the news coverage of the Vietnam War and hated it. By then we had a color TV and tame as the images were then, I hated the war, and as coverage of anti-war protesters increased, I was on their side. The liberal feminist was now also a pacifist.
So today, two days before the election of the next president of our country, I worry. On a par with the worry of when ones own child has a cold or is having trouble in a class at school.
There is one right answer for peace, for equality, for opportunity in the coming presidential election.
It is not because one candidate is 'black'. But it is partly because we see him as black. He is half. Half white. Half black. Why do we label him 'black? Why do we label him at all? Because we are still more racist than we should be. But I have hope. Many in my sons' generation do not see it the way we see it. To them, Obama is just a person, and his skin color is irrelevant. They have friends of many shades of skin color and it is irrelevant. They categorize their friends not on basis of skin color, but on basis of shared interests. They have Scouting friends and climbing friends and chess friends and music friends and those interests are the things that friendships are based on, not race lines. So they look at this race and see a man who is for the war and old ways of doing things yet claims to be a 'maverick' against the current powers. They see the hypocricy in that. They look at this race and see another man who has goals and questions and ideas much more like their own. They see a man who does not have all the concrete answers now but is intelligent and eager to gather information and ask questions and try new things. They want new answers to old questions and they want new questions to be discovered. They want the war to end before they have to fight it and they want a clean environment so they can hike and climb and camp in it and they want equal and fair access to jobs and they want our country to be respected again outside our borders, for they have studied history and know how we were once seen to the world. They see the one campaign based on ideas and looking ahead to solving problems. They see the other campaign do nothing but trash the opponent and spread fear of terrorism and fear of socialism and fear of Muslims and they don't like that negativity.
I read the polls and look at the numbers and I see the forward looking candidate ahead by 4 percentage points or 6 points or up to 7 points. I am a little sickened that so few people see the tragedy of the war and the threat to the environment. He should be far far ahead, not just a little ahead! Then I hear that in past elections, the candidate 'of color' has lost some 6 or 7 percentage points from the opinion polls to the voting polls because of their race. Because the people who declared undecided actually intended to vote for the white guy. Because people who felt they 'should' vote for the minority really did not intend to. This scares me. It scares me that this nation could still be that racist. And so, for two more days, I will worry.

Do We Owe John McCain a Vote?

I have heard it a number of times, from rational reasonable people: "I want to find a reason to vote for John McCain because of his war record." As if we owe him for his service to the country, for his suffering for 5 years as a prisoner of war. Are we that guilt ridden about war that we would make a desicion about who we elect as president of our country for such a reason? McCain, near as I can figure, spent 5 years as a prisoner of war, was beaten several times and tortured several times, and spent most of the time confined in a cell alone. Details are sketchy since he refuses to say much and since he as successfully pushed for legislation to keep all records sealed. So he apparently did endure pain and suffering. Does that mean we owe him the presidency? No. I means we owe him adequate medical coverage. Both physical and psychological. It means we owe him the ability to make a living if the war experience rendered him unable. That appears not to be the case. However, we owe those things to all the other hundreds of thousands of those injured as a result of all wars, then and up to and including the current one. Who endured more suffering? John McCain as a POW or today's soldier who had half a leg and a hand blown off by a roadside bomb and is in a hospital or rehb center today? Can we give that young man or woman a turn at the presidency as well? Sorry folks, I feel some sadness that John McCain had to suffer, and some gratitude that he was willing to serve in the armed forces to 'defend and protect' our country, but no one owes him a vote for it.

True Patriotism?

Patriotism is defined as the expression of loyalty, support, and defense of ones country.

Sometimes, antiwar protesters are accused of being unpatriotic. Are we? Does one have to support all that ones nation is and is doing NOW in order to be patriotic? Is patriotism about blindly loving all things about ones nation at every moment in time? I do not think so.

I believe that what a nation is is the sum and substance of what is represents historically and culturally, and if that nation veers from that, it is ones patriotic duty to criticize the current actions and help steer the nation back on track for what it really was and what it should be again. When a nation is engaged in a wrong war or a wrong embargo or a wrong environmental practice or a wrong alliance or even a misguided and ineffective aid effort, it is the duty of the patriotic to recognize the damage being done to the long term overall culture and bring the actions of the nation back in line with that.

Simple patriotism is blindly loving and defending whatever a nation is now. True patriotism, the kind that requires constant vigilance, constant thinking, constant awareness of what is happening in and being done by ones nation, is loving your country for what it should be and making sure it keeps on track and remains as close to that as possible. Sometimes that requires criticizing ones nation and making a stink to get it redirected back to its true path. That kind of patriotism is more complicated and is more work. True patriotism is pride in the achievements and culture of ones nation, the desire to preserve the character and the basis of the culture of ones nation, for the long haul, and the willingness to recognize when those things are being compromised, and demanding that mistakes be fixed and errors remedied. Sometimes, protesting a bad war is the truest form of patriotism.

Signs of the Times

Which entry in the Independence Day parade got the most applause this morning?

Was it the firefighters in their death defying aerial acrobatics on tall ladders held aloft by opposing tension of ropes held by other firefighters on the ground, as they balanced in the blue sunny sky to unfurl their brilliant red, white, and blue flags to the cool breeze? Well, yes, okay, it was. They were their usual annual amazing show of daring, skill, and patriotism, and the crowd loved them.

But what drew the second largest applause from the audience lining each side of the street? It was the man carrying a sign that read "This war is not the answer." Everyone, store owners, business owners, office workers, construction workers, farmers, ranchers, students, retired people, all were united in their frustration with this too-long war and the ever-changing morphing slip-sliding reasons we have been given for getting into it and still being in it. Some years on 4th of July as we watch our parades and eat our barbeque chicken and corn and watch our softball games and our fireworks, we are proud of our nation. We used to be proud to be the nation who came to the aid of others in need, who found better means than war to get things done, who was too proud and ethical to use torture, who valued our constitution and the rights of our own people. Now we hang our heads in shame a little as a war we started drags on, as our privacy and other rights have been eroded in the name of preventing 'terror', as we are too distracted and war-impoverished to notice the starving and thirsty around the world.

The mass of those dissatisfied with this war grows, and that will be expressed in how we vote, and that perhaps can get our nation back on track so that what unites us in future patriotic gatherings is again pride and optimism.

Five Years Ago

It's been five years.
These little essays have all been pretty soft and fluffy so far, but I am about to break angry. Five years ago today something happened. It pissed me off. And I am still pissed.
On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush announced that we would invade Iraq. Five years ago.
On March 19, 2003, the first attack by the United States of a target in Iraq occurred. Five years ago. We all hoped we would be in and out fast. Five years ago.
We all know the reasons that we were given: To find the weapons of mass destruction – that were never there. To find Saddam Hussein – who has been long found and dead of execution. To make Iraq a better place – though civilian deaths number many tens of thousands and continue at higher than pre-invasion rates today. To fight terrorism – Even though the actual terrorists of September 11, 2001 were from other countries and even though several studies show there have been more terrorism threats since the invasion than before.
9-11 and Iraq never had anything to do with each other, yet our president and his government used the ‘war on terror’ as the excuse to start this war, to continue this war, to ‘surge’ this war, preying on fear wrought on us by that day, erroneously linking the events in our collective mind, justifying an unjustifiable war that has gone on for five years.
On September 11, 2001 in attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and on the Pentagon and involving an airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania, 2998 Americans were killed. 6291 Americans were injured.
Since March 19, 2003, with the addition of two more deaths just today, 3990 American service people have been killed in Iraq. Since that date, 29,395 American service people have been injured.
Because the United States declared war on a nation, a nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. In fact, it was in December of 2006 that the number of US service people dead equaled the number killed in the 9/11 attacks. We have now caused many more of our own to be killed by sending them into this five year old unjustified unjustifiable war than the infamous 9/11 attack killed. Shame on us. Shame on us. I felt betrayed by the 9/11 attack. Now I feel just as betrayed by my own country.