I Didn't Sign Up For This
The war rages on
Like many of you, I didn’t volunteer to fight in this war. I was drafted. And like most people who fight in other people’s wars, I’m just cannon fodder.
The people who start these wars rarely get bloodied themselves. They have the soldiers get blown up for their own purposes. The bombs don’t usually fall on the perpetrators. I’m hoping this war is different. I hope it ends as badly for them as it always does for everyone else.
The war we are now caught up in is the culture war. And like all wars the people who suffer and lose the most are the civilians. The non-combatants, in this case mostly children, are those who end up as collateral damage. Those who started the war don’t give a fig about the children even though they claim that they are fighting the war for them.
And so we fight this civil war. Civil wars are the bloodiest. This one is being fought for the same reason as all the others. The ultimate goal is power and those who wage it think they will gain it.
The old skirmishes worked fine for a long time. Left vs right, rich vs poor, women vs men, the faithful vs the faithless, patriots vs traitors. It served the generals well in a culture war that was mostly cold.
But now the war has escalated, as all wars do. And the new weapons have gone nuclear. Racists vs the virtuous, selfish vaccine deniers vs the “science” believers, freedom fanatics vs societal saviors, and the police vs everyone else. Now everyone on every side is good and everyone else is not merely wrong, but bad.
The difference this time is that the cold culture war is threatening to go hot. And it’s a world war.
All across the globe there are huge and sometimes violent protests (this is not reported on most media) against the governments that have decided that now is the time to fight the biggest battle. That one big battle that every tyrant in history dreams will cement the victory and end the war.
In a growing number of western countries people are being rounded up and put into camps for non-compliance. Proof of compliance is being required as a condition for regaining some of those civil rights and the happiness that goes with them. East vs west has now become those in power vs powerless citizens.
Winning would forever end those pesky civil rights that stand in the way of the power the tyrants seek. No longer would you have those rights naturally. Instead you will be granted them only if you obey the government mandates. It will be a return to the time when kings and queens ruled the world.
The odd thing about this is that the soldiers, you and I, have not yet noticed that there is no vast army of cultural warriors who hate each other. Of course there are notable and numerous exceptions, but fundamentally, most people do not hate each other. Black people and white people don’t hate each other. Gays and straight people don’t hate each other. Democrats and Republicans don’t hate each other. People who don’t take the shots don’t hate those who do.
There seems to be a consensus that hate is the default condition of humanity. It’s easy to see why. People on social media remind everyone of it endlessly.
But if there is so much hate in the world why would they have to work so hard to foment it?
It might be the time in history to finally drop the weapons we have aimed at each other and decide who the enemy really is. Those who set us against each other so they can gain total control over us look like the enemy to me. They are easy to spot. You can tell them by what they say. We can’t win the war by fighting each other at their behest.
Who will win the war? This time I hope the losers will be those who started it and civilization itself will be the victor. We should know fairly soon.
Hi, Grant. You wrote: 'In a growing number of western countries people are being rounded up and put into camps for non-compliance.’ This is well-documented in China, but China’s not considered a western country. I know that, at least in the UK, USA and Australia, asylum seekers and immigrants are held in what could be described as camps. But you write about 'regaining some… civil rights’. The implication is that western countries are detaining their own citizens in camps like the United States did to Japanese Americans during WWII. Is that what you are saying? If so, I would be grateful if you could point me in the direction of news coverage or documentation of this. I’ve heard nothing about this. Thanks.
As always, an insightful commentary. This is more disturbing than most, because the new world order is frightening!