War is nothing new, humans have used violent conflict to settle differences since the advent of bludgeons made from rocks and sticks. War, it's what we are, it's what we do. How much more evidence needs to be provided to prove that point? Stating mankind as civilized has been proven, time and time again, to be empty rhetoric. Are we really that far removed from the animal kingdom? Evidently not.

Has there ever been peace without first fighting a war? The concept of peace would be an abstract without the concept of war.

Peace works until cooperation breaks down and a tribe covets something that a neighboring tribe possesses. For early man it was arable land, now it's mostly for resources. That is the essence of empire and conquest.

It's a sad testament to our species, but there it is.

...but I heard this interview with an economist discussing the basic incompetence of the administration. The administration has made huge policy choices with absolutely no idea of their costs or alleged benefits. I'll post it below. It reminded me of my encounter with at a relatively young age with Lawrence Korb. Basically, an economist who had been an assistant Defense Secretary or something like that. He was the guest speaker in a classroom setting.

This was my escape from the war narrative. Working on it on and off in between chores entirely for entertainment purposes.

1.

Middle East Wrestlemania!

Blinking my pretty damned cynical eyes at the brazen bull shit coming out of the Federal Government with contradictions galore and absurdity for dessert. It is as if it just never occurs to them that the obvious question from anybody hearing the bragging about how we are stomping the crap put of Iran is, "Then why ain't it over?"

I begin this lamentation by pointing out that America has given its populace and the world at large many positive things. Relations between the various ethnicities and between the genders have been reformed dramatically over the last 70 years, giving many the false impression that reform is the natural order of human progress.

I've written before about how Israel's genocidal war will destroy their economy. While it hasn't happened yet, the trend is indeed happening.

Ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has begun

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 7:43 PM PST, November 26, 2024

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants has begun as a region on edge wonders whether it will hold.

The history of mankind is basically a timeline of war, from the first empires to the present. Many great civilizations, cultures, histories and knowledge down through the centuries have been lost to war. There are many examples of the victors erasing a peoples existence and replacing it with their concept of national identity. For example, The Old Testament is full of war, genocide and slaughter. History books are chronicles of war with intermittent smatterings of peace and prosperity. How much knowledge has been lost to the scourge of war? We will never know what the world has missed or how different it may have been because of the antiquities that were conquered and lost forever.

If the victor rewrites history in its favor, how can we trust anything that has been handed down to us, considering the possibility that the other side of the story may have been lost or altered for all of posterity? How much knowledge has been lost due to war, and the rewriting of history. The Library of Alexandria is just one example of ancient histories and knowledge lost to conflict. What knowledge and wisdom was lost forever in that fire of conflict? We'll never know.