With thanks to ©Michael Gold for permission to use this photo.
All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.
-Aldous Huxley
I'm trying to hang on to the "moon joy" I felt as the astronauts on the Artemis II sent back photographs and words of contemplation and exaltation as they witnessed Planet Earth from outer space. Can the glow from this 10-day journey be sustained, Lynn Sherr asks in an article for The Atlantic. It's an act of hope and desperation to pose this question. Are the wars raging in Myanmar, Sudan, Gaza (and again and again), Ukraine, Iran—and have I missed any?—visible from space? Were they edited out by NASA to present an at peace no climate change planet? As I write, the Hudson Valley is cooking at 85 degrees with violent lightning and thunderstorms at night shaking our windows and disturbing our rest. And it is just April, everyone laments. And it is just April.
In his 1936 between two world wars novel, Eyeless in Gaza, Huxley challenges the use of violent, unjust means to achieve peace. How are we—21st century humans—meant to challenge the powerful, heavily armed, fanatical, corrupt nation-states expanding their borders in search of minerals and spheres of influence, eviscerating the landscape and its innocent inhabitants?
We will march, we will vote, and the disruptions--domestic and international—will continue apace. Even the moon is endangered by greed and colonization despite the best of humane intentions expressed as far back as A. D. July, 1969 when Americans first set foot on the moon and left the text: "We came in peace for all mankind." LBJ signed the "Outer Space Treaty" in 1967 agreeing that no nation could claim sovereignty in space. Who else signed this treaty and where does it reside?
Over the years, I have sung the mantra of sustained political engagement: "Think Global, Act Local." Does this still work? Is anyone reading my modest deeply concerned screed? Does anyone agree with me, or is everyone in dissent, or planting tulip bulbs? Is it the right time of year for tulip bulb planting?
And now for some good news :
1. I am teaching another "Witness to History" workshop for Consequence Forum: https://consequenceforum.org/writing-classes/
Soldiers past and present, humanitarian workers, 9/11 survivors, children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, social workers, journalists, ordinary citizens who have experienced war from all over our beleaguered world attend these workshops where they discuss and write about the personal consequences of war. The Forum also has a literary magazine. Email me if you are interested in joining the workshop as registration is limited.
2. My American History reading project is proceeding well:
First up was Stacy Schiff's , A Great Improvisation; Franklin, France and the Birth of America. My review: Well written, fascinating, evocative. Much I did not know including the European disdain for the revolutionaries—France, the revolutionary's ally—was a monarchy, after all, one of many paradoxes.
I'm not quite finished with Northwestern professor Daniel Immerwahr's, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. It's a page turner, filled with incident and detail, and very well written. A quote from the book to think about: Since 1945, U.S. armed forces have been deployed abroad for conflicts or potential conflicts 211 times in 67 countries. Call it peacekeeping if you want, or call it imperialism. But clearly this is not a country that has kept its hands to itself.
On the TBR stack, Schiff's bio of Samuel Adams and Chernow's bio of Mark Twain, a 1,000 page tome. Wish me the muscle power to lift the book as I bought a hard copy.