The Calm before the Storm

Dontcha think that's just a tad overdramatic and fatalistic? "[W]e may be ending what will be the best years of our lives"? I'm sorry; maybe I'm not informed or maybe I'm too confident in how things are going to go, but I just don't see this as being the beginning of the end or anything like that.

There will be killing. There will be destruction. There will be tragedies. There will undoubtedly be things like "friendly fire" injuries and deaths. It will not be fun. It will not be pretty. Don't misunderstand me - I know that all of that is true. And I'm also well aware that there are "powder kegs" around the world, but that's always been the case. At the same time I just don't see this as being the start of some universal horror.

I also have not purchased plastic sheeting and own only enough duct tape to actually use for taping ducts.

I was thinking of my grandmother. She told me once of a period in her life when she thought life was wonderful. Up to that time, life had been harder, but she was 30, a mother of four, a homeowner, married to a good man with a steady job.

It was the late summer of 1939 and she and her family had just returned from a trip to the World's Fair. The future was going to be simply incredible and she couldn't be happier.

Barely a month later, Germany invaded Poland. Thirty months later, her two younger brothers were dead. My grandfather had lost his job and was making half his salary as a records clerk. They had to sell their home and move into a two bedroom apartment. Soon, my grandfather turned to drinking and gambling to forget and recover his past.

My grandmother never saw it coming. And she was rarely, if ever, happy again.

I vacillate between these two positions. After reading the morning NYT, especially, I have often been feeling as muerte does, and wondering if I am doing enough, what can be done, if I will look back at this time and regret that I did not do more.

Then after a while, I try to get some perspective, think I am being too reactionary, that this stuff sells papers, that there are worst-case scenarios but the truth is likely to be far more mundane.

My husband and I are used to bouncing things off of each other, being each other's reality check, and both of us are swinging between these extremes. It's not that bad. Wait, it is. Wait, it's not.

I'm just trying to stay as informed as I can without going absolutely insane (which is somewhat difficult), and doing whatever I can.

Like you Sozobe I am back and forth with my feelings. Mostly I feel lost as Bush pursues this war regardless. For a couple of weeks now and especially after Saturday when Turkey voted not to let the US use there bases and those 62,000 men and women are just sitting out there on those Amphib ships and the Nimitz is deploying with it's battle group to the Gulf, that will put five air craft carrier combat groups in the area. It suddenly dawned on me that every thing that could go wrong is going wrong and in my experience when stuff goes wrong over and over no matter what the initiative it will not be successful

My foreboding increased to some degree when I heard last night on BBC America that Bush has confided to his inner circle that he really believes god is behind him and that he is doing god's work. The next thing is the discovery that the NSA has been listening in on our allies in Europe even the ones stationed in the US. That NSA has been recording telephone calls, retrieving e-mails, etc., of the French and Germans especially. This is a violation of federal and international law.

Finally today on NPR I heard Bush's speech to the AMA and he was talking about the first war of the 21st century. The scary part for me was that he stumbled over his Medicare proposal but when it came to talking about the war he seemed to really brighten up. I am sincerely worried. And it is not just the war - things are getting a little Nixonish in my opinion.

As long as Bush has the White House there is plenty of reason to worry. His successor will have to spend his entire term(s) cleaning up the mess.

I have thought for months that Dubya is readying the country for his own "holy war," just as Osama bin Laden has been fighting his.

Soon, approximately 300,000 American troops will be in place near Iraq.
I always wish for peace on earth, and those thoughts are probably a holdover from my activist days against the war in Vietnam.

Our own nation is faltering before our eyes, yet Dubya is hell-bent and determined to fight this faraway war.

The Best Years of Our Lives is the title of a movie which won the Oscar for best picture in 1946. It is about the post-war return to the United States of our WWII warriors.

Yes, the best years of our lives are those we have not yet lived. War always robs those who fight it of their best years. There is no victory in death.

Peace.

From today's NYTimes:

France, Russia Vow to Stop War Approval;
Powell Pledges Iraq Action Without U.N.

At Least 15 Die as Suicide Bomb Shreds Bus in Israel
The attack coincides with an Israeli military offensive against Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip in which dozens of Palestinians have been killed.

U.S. Sending 2 Dozen Bombers in Easy Range of North Koreans
President Bush said that if diplomacy failed, he might use force to prevent North Korea from making nuclear weapons.

U.S. Deficit Seen as Rising Fast
Congressional analysts have raised their estimate of this year's shortfall 15 percent beyond a forecast from five weeks ago.

Smells like a convergence to me.

I'd write more but I'm going out to smell the flowers.

I'm with you Muerte, but I've felt this way since September 2001. That was not a movie, it was the smell of fear and it was right here. Enjoy those flowers. I assume from your name that this isn't the first time you've thought so.

Smell of fear, indeed. I was in Manhattan last week and that scent was all around me. There are people there who are living day by day waiting for the next plane to fall, wondering if their next subway car will be their last.

They can sense doom in the offing.

Really? I visited last fall and it wasn't nearly so bad. There was a horrible smell, I heard (seems funny to say I heard a smell!), in the weeks following that awful morning.


I found a quote for you:

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroad. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
-- Woody Allen

Great quote, indeed. Allen certainly knows his way around Death. Thank you.

piff - where did you get that Woody quote from, do you remember?

War with Iraq
I still believe that for the United States to engage Iraq in war is unjustified at this time. What do you think?

Hiya Larry,

I found the Allen quote while I was looking up the exact wording of a quote by Margaret Mead ("It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly").

This is a good quote website, I think:

http://students.vassar.edu/jobrown/quotes.html

williamhenry3- I am torn up the middle. I do think that Bush has his own agenda, that to him, the war with Iraq IS a holy war, which can be very very dangerous. On the other hand, I do think that there is a real threat from a number of the Islamic nations to the western way of civilization.

My problem is trying to separate all of this out, and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater!

thanks piffka, added to The Collection.

Phoenix we all have problems with Bush along those lines, in fact so does the entire world so it seems. And that is what really bothers me I fear WWIV might come of this. Especially with the continued justification that Iraq might be a threat in the future while we ignore North Korea and Iran. It seems so hard headed and ignorant.

That about says it for me too, Phoenix. The "Holy" aspects of the situation scare me to death. So does Saddam Hussein. Boys like that do not willingly give up their toys, and sooner or later, they want to play with them, if only to find out if they work as well as advertised.

How could be get from where we were at the end of Bill Clinton's 8 years in office to where we are now?

The economy; our standing in the international community; our direction; our domestic upheaval!

It just doesn't seem possible.

How very sad!