All us little meteors
sliding down
among the rain drops,
streaming blues and reds
and greens, our sleds
shining off the liquid sky,
brief flashes of delight
whose soul and only mission
is to scream
"wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
and bury our heads in mother earth
to the delight of pilgrims passing by
on their annual moment of respite
from their dreary human lives,
to spend a moment staring up
at the gardens of the sky.
A Postscript for War
If we don't know by now, we ought to: There is no 'victor' in modern warfare, no winning side. How many times has it been said, Victory is pure myth, absolute bunk. Suppose instead, we replace that mythology with its reality. Instead of a so-called 'winning-side' taking what it supposes to be the "spoils of war", to serve its "national interests", we take the matter out of the hands of the warring parties altogether and place it in the hands of some neutral body (not the U.N; not some political debating club). It would need to be an extraordinary body with real enforcement powers. It would need to have the power to freeze the assets of the 'loser', freeze everything it thinks need be frozen: national institutions, military and police; every aspect of a culture and its connection with the world. In effect, this body becomes the sole architect of the conduct and future of the vanquished and the neutralizer of 'national ambition'. It's authority, like that of Gort, would need to be complete and irreversible. What, then, about the prerogatives of the conqueror?
There would be no occupation by some "victor"; no territorial gains; no oil reservoirs or resource confiscations or corporate deals for the taking. The vanquished forfeit the right to decide their own future; the conqueror forfeits the right to arrange a future for the loser to suit the victor's preferences. Indeed, if this body determines that a "winning side" was at substantial fault, it might well decide to penalize the "victor" and lend support to the defeated nation. Whatever the case, such matters would not become the spoils of war, nor would they have any loyalty to the ambitions of the combatants. The myth that there are no winners in war would thus become the primary reality.
Strange as it may seem to find peace through controlling the aftermath of conflict, rather than in its prevention, this might help to eliminate much of the motivation that makes war such an attractive option to so many countries; divorce the aims of imperialism from the aims of conquest. Might that suggest America think twice about policing the world, as it now does in its "national interest"? It might and, for that reason, such remedies are unlikely to ever happen. War-makers seem to prefer the myth and its utility. With it, they can wring their hands about the 'horrors and costs of war' and go right ahead provoking, waging and profiting from them, just as they now do.
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