Now and Then

Now and Then

a modern miracle

 

Though two are here and two are gone

The quartet sings their melody

Mechanic’s math will sound their song

Alive in timeless harmony. 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW55J2zE3N4

 

On the Laws of War

On the Laws of War

 

 

War does not have the same norms of good and evil as peace; and without good and evil, there is no law, no moral choice, and no free will. I note with astonishment an agreement: the “no choice” trope. Hamas “had no choice” but to pogrom; and in response Netanyahu “had no choice” but to bomb. It is as if they were robot boxers hammering at each other, and lacking the free will to get out of the ring.

 

Fortunately even war has laws, and therefore good and evil, moral choice, and free will. But war’s laws are not the laws of peace; nor are they the “laws of war” so solemnly proclaimed from on high, but more honored in the breach than in the observation. (Such as “no baby-killing”.)

 

The real laws of war are colder, crueler and more pragmatic than the laws of peace. They include:

 

“Expect chaos and grief.”

“Obey necessity.”

“Only victory justifies.”

“Competence or death.”

 

The aim of the laws of peace is to lengthen the peace. The aim of the laws of war is to shorten the war.    

 

 

Notes on Terminology

 

“Terrorists”:

 

Any definition of that word, when honestly applied, also describes the routine behavior of States at war. I see a continuity of violence, from crime, through terrorism, up to the State; the protection rackets that they run differ in size but not in essence.

 

The real crime of the terrorist is making that continuity annoyingly obvious. The terrorist is too big to be a gangster and too small to be a statesman. To promote himself to statesman, he must upset the status quo, which means trouble.

 

“Anti-Semites”:

 

That term is from the 19th-century pseudoscience of “race science”. It is a pseudoscience because humankind is one. Homo Sapiens is a single race; the skin-tint differences are skin deep. Race pseudoscience was invented by imperialists for self-justification.

 

The word “anti-Semite” ostensibly means “against Semites”, a group that includes Arabs as well as Jews; but in practice the term is a euphemism for “anti-Jewish”.

 

I say down with euphemisms. We should retire the term “anti-Semitic”, unless it means against Arabs as well, and replace it with the more direct and honest term “anti-Jewish”. Why parrot some dead imperialist's pseudoscientific euphemism?

 

If you take “anti-Semitic” to mean “against Arabs and Jews”, then Netanyahu and Hamas are both anti-Semitic.