A sincere reply to the dread of Compromise

I feel I must reply to a recent thread regarding the terrible compromises being made in Washington, and expressly to the many replies I read in that thread.

Please pardon my impudence, and lack of decorum in choosing to reply to a thread with the construction of a new one: I understand that is the evil which aches the heads of researchers and posters alike.

I'm not a frequent poster. I didn't read the whole thread, but I read the first page. And what I saw disturbed me - and not, mind you, the distrust of intentions, or of the media circus, no - what bothered me was the short-sightedness and choreographed (not by design, but by habit) nature of the indignation. And not, again, the indignation itself - or even that I suspected the motives of the repliers (specters of g-men, anyone?) but simply this: Their reasoning is wrong.

Praising the extreme while chastising the compromise has a certain uncommon sense, the likes of which I can appreciate, and the genuine fear of passing unsustainable systems, institutions, and debts onto the shoulders of our descendants I can like-wise empathize with and even admire, but again: It misses the point.

It misses it not like an arrow misses the target but quite really like a lifeguard misses the drowning swimmer with the preserver when he happens to throw it into the wrong pool.

The United States' debt is non unsustainable, precisely because it is blackmail. Blackmail of the citizens, of the foreign exporters, and of the world's security.

Does it not occur to anyone that the reason Defense spending is a sacred cow is precisely because it is the cow that provides the village with its milk? That it is the truck that brings home the bacon? And I don't mean in the sense of oil, or resources, or opium - though I'm sure that plays a part - I mean in the simple value it adds to the currency, and to the fear it inspires in other nations, and even international bodies, and especially in individuals; that by necessity it directs their actions towards accommodation of the great beast...

And I don't mean that in the biblical sense, as I'm sure some of you avid conspirators assumed, no, I mean it precisely descriptively: A great hungry beast - old, already, though it should still be young, and cursed with all the decadence, recklessness, and forgetfulness of ancient and aging Rome - though, I might add, with few of its virtues to boast.

We are not passing unsustainable debts onto our children - we are passing them both the rifle and the skin of life giving water. They will fight for their future, as our ancestors fought for ours; and that we might see the folly - or, more truly, the evil - in such a cycle, and though we rail against it and gnash our teeth, it does us nothing - nothing! - if we will not admit that what we pass our children is not the debt but the rifle; not the burden, but the blade.

We have given our children war - and war there will be.

We will not fight the next war, well, maybe some of us, but by and large it will be our children. They won't fight for freedom. They won't fight for justice - no, they'll fight for the old, sacred, and truly honest reasons of wealth and survival.

And I don't mean to glorify it! BY no means! May they be damned for what they will do! And however damned (in this life or the next, choose your hell) they will be - we will be the greater devils. We gave this to them.

Do not go to sleep once and forget it.

"Old men declare war, but it is the youth that must fight and die."

We do not declare war with our decrees, or even with our lips - we declare war with our actions.

Every time we enjoy or consume a luxury that 90% of humanity could never even hope for, we declare war.
Every time we condemn the immigrant leech without pausing a second to ponder the leeches that already cover our skin, we declare war.

And I don't, by any means, mean the poor.

Every time we go but a fathom when we could go the day's march, we declare war.

We declare it in the names of our children, because we dare not declare it for ourselves. We cowards! Yet we force the world into a shape that cannot avoid it: That cannot avoid war and its consequences.

The debt ceiling will be raised, and the buck will be passed.

The burden, when it comes to be bared, will be borne in blood - not bullion. We will pay for our greed with our children's' lives - not with their college tuition.

And when the war is won (which it certainly will be - for have we not amply prepared?) our sons and daughters will become strange and wonderful heroes to their own children - as our ancestors were to us.

But we will not be there to cry: "Fool!"

We will not be there to remember or to remind.


No, we will not be there at all. We will be dead.

And the future will be beyond our grasp forever.

-RedBird

Your style of writing does not fit well in this medium as it distracts heavily from the point you are trying to make. I'm sure you've been taught to "write to your audience" and what you are putting out is far beyond what is needed.

Good post but it makes for a hard read to those who want quick information as there are alot of threads to look over.

reply to post by kro32


I don't pander, I appreciate metaphor and analogy, and - most of all - I trust my audience.

But thank you for you feedback.

Many regards,

-RedBird

P.S. - You should try reading a book written before 1930 - or, perhaps you have, in which case you should appreciate what I am trying to do. Though you might urge it out of practicality, realize that the truly practical man must begin improving the debate, the discourse, and the diatribe - by improving the dialogue. Let us move away from the trite and easily understandable - men should have to think before they are forced to react, not, perhaps, in life; but in the forum of all places.

All respect.

-R

reply to post by RedBird


Yes I will try that but gosh I sure hope they have pictures in it for stupid people like me. And if your wondering why you are getting no responses to your thread you may want to reread what I posted.

Well, you want there to be posts, or you would not have bothered to reply.

What you want is for me to change my tactics - to make my message more digestible, or, to sprinkle some salt on the meat.

I will not. Not this time, anyways. Let the voice of reason be drowned in the sea of consensus vocabulary - what does it matter? Am I not but one man?

Perhaps I chose the wrong forum, but I doubt it.

The cry for expedient presentation is loud and long, but it is fruitless, and yeilds nothing.

Real dialogue requires words - not six dollar words, but ten-cent words - and a lot of them. And if my words seem expensive, I should point you only towards the 'lingo' of modern political discourse with its vagaries and un-understandable meanings: What does it benefit us to use the words that were created to bewilder?

Use the old words: They express more meaning, and there is more succinctness in repeating a point three times, and explaining it in four analogies, than there is in using the oft-desired words that mean nothing, while somehow managing to sound profound., and still confusing everybody to the point of rage.

It should occur to you that the problem of modern political discourse is not at all a difference of ideology - it is not even a difference of opinion - it is a difference in terminology.

I refuse to submit to the arrogant oligarchy of word-smiths and their manufactured crises.

If I seem wordy, that is a fault of your contemporaries and their oh-so-un-exact language. In-exact in that it is oblivious to reality.

Even the Tea Party, which (and bless their hearts) has seen far enough to see the debt, and some of it causes (though by no means all, or event intelligently) has STILL failed entirely to see the inevitable consequences of the debt which already exists, and which cannot be undone. War.

Many of them secretly hope for this.

Get a conservative drunk, and he'll confess his desire for a a great all-cleansing war, or, he'll confess his desire for the everlasting peace of the Catholic Church, or some more modern substitute like the moralist state.

Or, he might simply pray for hearth and home: The man and woman, and all their traditions, unimpeded.

But of course there are two types of conservatives.

But so it goes across the so-called spectrum. The only voice of reason is the voice that cries for the hand to grasp the plow, and not the sword. Rail against it all you want: The wisdom of peaceable domesticity does not waver, because it is founded on the family, and the family is the fulcrum.

I sincerely await your reply.

-R

May I say that I for one appreciate not only the abstract you have put accross but your method and style. It is a little startling but satisfying to be pulled aside from the chasing round the boards throwing off the cuff political rhetoric indiscrimanently, and be forced to reflect upon the consequences of policy.

Sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum.

EDIT*** Here is the original thread I was responding to:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Regards,

R.