"There is no such thing as the State..."

Copyright Bootlegcircus@Blogspot.com

spent the fourth day of july outside
and also the third and the fifth
did some reading and writing and
listening and looking
 swatting at some bugs
and welcoming others

thought about what some people
call
serving their country
and the different ways folks do that

read this article on
w w one
what they call the great war
and how some historians view it today

"It may be that no one can write military history
 without the language of mandarin euphemism;
when Shelby Foote writes of 'hard fighting' on
Stonewall Jacksons flank, or Strachan of  a
'sanguinary engagement', it requires a determined
mental act to recall that what happened was not an
entry on a tally sheet but a violent death of a human
being, loved and cared for by a mother and a father,
and full of hope and possibility, torn apart by lead
balls or shreds of sharp metal, his intestines hanging
open, or his mouth coughing blood, in a last paroxysm
 of pain and fear. And then to recall that any justification
 for a war has to be justification for this reality. Any other
 calculation about German militarism or the possible fate
 of French colonies has to incorporate this image into its
 nucleus and accept it as justified."
        Adam Gopnik  "The Big One"  New Yorker -8/23/04

i thought it was a pretty vivid
account of considerations which are
seldom thought about when someone says
we support our troops

i guess you can support troops
but not support war

or can you

"There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die."
  Wystan Hugh Auden


got to go,
mr cayetano