Notes from around the Human Experience…
MORE WAR! YAY!: President Trump – President Trump! – announced Monday that the United States will increase the number of troops we are sending to this nation’s longest war, the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We said this every hour on the hour while campaigning for the United States Senate (2014) and House of Representatives (2016):
We are not going to have a peaceful world without a peaceful America.
It’s difficult to argue with this statement. The only dividend an America constantly at war has produced is more war because if war produced peace it would already have done so. We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for 16 years without result and we can spend another 16 years there doing nothing more than wasting American lives.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Continuing to meddle in other nation’s affairs will not bring peace, it will only continue to produce more violence. Our meddling in the Middle East is why 9/11 happened and why ISIS exists. Had America been at peace instead of war every day since 1989 the Twin Towers would still be standing and ISIS would be a comic book hero.
USA! USA! During his speech, Trump said we are killing terrorists. Yeah, well, maybe we are. We are also killing innocent civilians but few seem to care about that right now. We are also creating more terrorists because all American interference does is annoy people, inspiring them to do whatever they can to destroy us. It’s what caused 9/11.
Fly In The Ointment: Not only does an America at war produce a violent world, it produces a violent America, too. We don’t think it is reasonable to dismiss the proposition that an America at war every day since 1989 has produced a violent country. It’s all we know. An entire generation of Americans has some zero clue what an America at peace is. It is no different than violent homes producing violent children because all violence begets is more violence, both abroad and at home.
The Bottom Line: Perpetual war is not sustainable and, eventually, it will tag team with our mindless debt and utterly fractured social fabric to bring about the collapse of our once-proud nation. There will come a time when we will run out of people willing to fight our wars and when we will no longer be able to afford to fight them.
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE! Several counties in western North Carolina declare themselves the independent state of Franklin on this date in 1784. The eight counties had originally been offered to the United States government as payment for Revolutionary War debts, however, the Continental Congress declined this offer, leading to the counties secession.
Franklin’s application to become the 14th state in the Union was approved by only seven states in the Continental Congress, two less than required for statehood and the counties now form eastern Tennessee.
Great Moments In Executing Italians: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder in Massachusetts on this date in 1927. They had been convicted in 1921 of murdering two people during an April 1920 armed robbery of a shoe company.
Sacco and Vanzetti biggest crimes were being Italian immigrants and anarchists and they were convicted despite the utter lack of evidence. Protests against their conviction were held around the world, though all appeals and clemency requests would be denied. The pair declared their innocence to the very end.
Whoops, Our Bad: In 1977, on the 50th anniversary of the executions, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation declaring Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted.
More Hot On This Date Action: What History refers to as the Salad Bowl Strike begins in California’s Central Valley on this date in 1970.
The strike was as much against the Teamsters as it was against any particular grower, as the UFW and the Teamsters had been bickering about who had the right to organize farm workers for months. The strike would involve upwards of 8,000 farm workers and remains the largest strike by farm workers in American history. The strike was bitter and violent and ended the following March.
Great Moments In Downloading Porn: The World Wide Web opens to the public on this date in 1991, with the release of the first web page. The first web page had actually been released earlier in the month, but it had only been available to those working on the project.
The Internet was the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee, who had been working towards establishing an Internet-based information system since the mid-1980’s. The first web page, which is still active if you know where to look, contains information and instructions on exactly what the hell was going on, plus pics of Berners-Lee’s cat.
Quotebook: Either the people would overthrow the government or, more likely, the government would overthrow the people. – Gore Vidal, Empire
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: There wasn’t a trivia question last time, silly!
Today’s Stumper: How many American have died in the war in Afghanistan? – Answer next time!
