April 19th, 2010

On this date in 1775, American farmers and villagers confronted British troops (well, for the most part from behind trees and stone walls) and fired the shot heard round the world. If we ever expect to go beyond war within the human race, we’re going to have to go beyond the glorification of those moments in history when our glorious ancestors won, because of course that means somebody else’s ancestors lost, but even worse, among those dead are those who would have been the ancestors of people who do not, in fact, exist. The phantom descendants of men who died too young. However, war and violence is an integral part of human history, the prequel to the movie we are now in. History is what you need to know when people tell you that you just don’t understand, there’s a lot going on that you don’t know about. And most people don’t know shit about history. There is the old saying, of course, that “if you don’t know history, you are condemned to repeat it.” I have always felt that it’s very tragic that even if you do know history, you are still condemned to repeat it because of all of those stupid fuckers out there who don’t. The first lesson we need to learn from history is that wars are almost never good things. A case could be made for the American revolution, but…Canada got their independence without firing a shot and have a much safer, less violent society today. Certainly a case could be made for the Civil War, but on the other hand, what if we had just let the South go and tried to solve the whole slavery thing just by not participating in it and helping refugees and stuff? Yes, slavery in the South may have lasted another generation, but hundreds of thousands would have lived who died and, as bad as slavery is, death rather limits one’s freedom as well. And, we wouldn’t be continuously be electing retarded southerners to the presidency. The war of 1812, the Mexican-American wars and the Spanish-American wars were all just blatant attempts to steal land and extend our power (1812 being not so terribly successful). WWI was a bloody mess that nobody understands. WWII was probably inevitable by the time we got to it, but that’s just because we didn’t learn from WWI. The beginning of one was more or less 20 years, depending on how you count, after the end of the other. People have memories like fucking goldfish.