'W. E. B. DuBois – Biography of a Race'
closes in 1919 with DuBois touring Europe in the aftermath of its
Civil War of 1914-1918. He is hopeful that Europe will cast off its
African Colonies and allow them to become self-governing, and in so
doing, light the way for America to reduce, and ultimately eliminate
its own suppression of the Negro in its midst.
What interestingly escapes DuBois until
much later in his life is that wars are fought not to free secondary
or oppressed people: Wars are fought between the powerful to
consolidate or expand the power, territory, and citizenry under their
control. Just as territorial control was a driver in Europe's Civil
War, so was land and territorial control a major driver in America's
Civil War 65 years earlier. Sure, both wars were dressed up in
ideology at the time and in our kinder remembrances of them, but the
expansion of power was at the root of both.
Reading history is an interesting
exercise: One continually has to confront the truth of the
observation that things now are in many ways, and almost completely
in the ways that matter, little different from what has gone before.
I read with heavy heart of the high cost of war, the destruction of
property, technology, agriculture (and the ability to feed a
populace), and the tragic loss of life. The book is closed, I surface
in the now, and hear the drumbeats leading to another war, this one
potentially modern. Sure, the pundits claim that the loss of life
will be minimal, the damage contained, etc.
But, it will be war. Our folks will be
killing their folks, our boys (and girls) killing their boys and
girls, and being killed in turn. Our resources and energy will be
diverted from educating our young, building our commons, researching
for cures to the diseases that ail (and sometimes plague) us to
building weapons, creating means of destruction rather than means of
construction, and strengthening the warrior hierarchy of our society.
We just fought two wars under the
mistaken notion that we could do so without cost, that the benefits
would overcome them: Instead, we've plunged our country deeper into
debt, increasing our vulnerability to economic sabotage by those who
might wish to do so, weakened our children's future and neglected
items we formerly took great pride in. Now, we worry that we cannot
afford to provide for our elderly, either in money to live on or
health care to live by; we decree that higher education must be put
further out of reach, and standard education must be crippled; that
maintaining the previous standards of our society must be forsaken,
and we must all accept the gradual diminishing of our way of life.
So, for those who believe that we need
to engage Iran, I have but a single question: What will you
personally relinquish so that we can do so? Will you pay more in
taxes to support the war effort in the hopes that the investment in
containing Iran will accrue to you in future years? (Taxes you
currently do not pay and could not escape through any loophole, but a
new tax that you will bear above your current tax load.) Will you
accept a loss of income increases at your job for the duration of the
war, and perhaps for several years after until America regains her
feet and pays down her wartime debt? Or, will you personally put your
life or the lives of your sons or daughters on the line by going to
the front and fighting in Iran to remove whatever threat our leaders
believe is there?
For if you are not willing to, in the
same breath that you advocate war with Iran, explain how you will
share in the burden, then your thoughts are the specious thoughts of
a coward. There is one other constant of history that is always
present: People are ever willing to advise and admonish others to do
some thing, especially when doing that thing will result in a good
outcome to the adviser and the cost will settle on the advisee.
Think we need to go to war with Iran?
If you are willing to pay some of the cost directly, then, and only
then, will I listen to your argument. Otherwise, you can talk to the
hand – the hand making the sign of peace.
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