Dreams again...

I was born in 1963 and was troubled in my early adulthood by regular dreams of Global Thermonuclear War, specifically, places that I know and love well being destroyed by incoming MIRVs whose approach it was impossible to predict or prevent. 1989 came along and everyone seemed ready to abandon MAD approaches to international relations and the dreams stopped.

In the aftermath of the 9-11 + invasion of Afghanistan + invasion of Iraq + bombing in Spain, they've started again, as of last night.

Oh Yay! Just what I needed.

The symptoms of the age are obvious to everyone. The causes seem equally obvious to me, but obviously they don't appear so obvious to our Glorious Leaders -- and I don't even live in a country that sent troops to Iraq!

As Londo Mollari once said: "Blood cries out for blood. There is no other way." (Yes, I'm a Babylon 5 fan -- and whatever I'm a fan of, I tend to "know" too much about it for anyone else's comfort) The blood that we, the West have shed in all parts of the globe (including our own but majoring on other parts) have been an investment with a certain though not fixed maturity date. This, just as truly as the crimes of "Monseigneur" in France (as logged in "A Tale of Two Cities") were a "reciting of the Lord's Prayer backwards", whether we knew it or not. When the demon of horrific terrorism aimed at our civillian populations, which we have systematically and thoroughly invoked, is visited upon us, we ought not to be surprised.

Rather the only hope that all our children and grandchildren will not play out lives threatened or shortened by terrorism is for us to acknowledge, turn away from and make restitution for our wrongs.
All our wrongs.
It's called repentance, not just as individuals for individual wrongs, but as societies for societal wrongs that have been perpetrated and allowed to be perpetrated for far too long. I know better than to hope for it barring other, just as impossible looking events. But I have other, even more fantastic hopes than this so that hope isn't too much of a stretch.

Book read this week: 9-11 by Noam Chomsky, Seven Stories Press, New York. ISBN = 1-58322-489-0, LOC# HV6432.7 .C48 2002