I have heard, as everyone has heard, “everything is different now.” Some have even gone so far as to herald the end of irony. It’s not the facts of why people say what they are saying (9-11, osama bin laden etc.) –it is the fact that I am expected to respond to a plea that things are different when the results lead to nothing more but the same.

Fact: The same god in three books.
Fact: The same economic atmosphere in three generations of world unrest.
Fact: The difference between civilians and soldiers merely a change of clothes
Fact: People dying, the same.

     The argument has always been that the common war is necessary. But taking a real punch leaves little time for devices of persuasion. That is, you take the punch on your feet and bear it, or, on your back -bear the children of your enemies. “Even babies?”. As the common war must persist, not only your babies, but your baby’s babies. Pacifist? No. I want quiet. How divisive that it is confused with peace as the common war begins within. Begins with words like security, takes on disguises, but never resurrects the dead. When I’ve mentioned it, I get quiet. I get quiet again and again.

     In a perfect world, a world literature has long since given up writing much about, it is easy to imagine many things unnecessary. The fictions that arise when the choice between two evils results in a better of the two. Black and white --- returned to use in film instead of pandering invectives focused on nostalgia for a time that never was, and festers with such imagination, that its philosophical improvisations on the world stage make it hard to see where acting stops and leadership begins. It may be too late to write about the perfect world, but it is certainly too late to live the same day twice.

     For those who consider themselves believers of a mass murdering god, presumably, the one that saves us the hassle of doing it ourselves, levity is required. It’s time to re-align your magnets. In recent months, the newest trend in electioneering is the innocuous mass production of ribbon shaped yellow magnets fashioned with “Support Our Troops.” In red, white and blue “God Bless America”. In black, “Gone, But Not Forgotten”, and, in what is decidedly an effort to milk for all its worth, pink ribbons, “Survivor”, ostensibly, for those who’ve survived the ravages of breast cancer. At first, it seems the ass end of cars these items are affixed to must not be all metal as the hand sized magnets are predominately placed side ways. But beneath the near perfect paint, another popular craze is worth mention, the Jesus fish and the “Darwin” fish car placards of the 1980's. For the uninitiated, during the 1980's, one could buy these little pieces of plastic shaped like fish and greek letters inside, an ancient symbol used in roman times by the christian "cults" to announce safe houses and meeting places. The counter trend in the 1980's? A fish with the word “Darwin” inside and with legs no less. Those placards were more of a life long commitment, affixed with adhesive instead of rare earth magnets, but yesterday’s miracles are today’s alignments. In fits of imaginative juxtaposition, people have taken to placing these magnets facing right or facing left and respective to their political persuasion, accenting their ribbon/fish facing a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker, or, a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker. How very rare it will be to find a piece of earth should some blessed confirm our inadequacies, render our fears. As the common war persist, the need to maintain gods that suit its ends will leave what prayers remain, well beneath our breath.

     As a friend who entered the army and was fortunate enough to be trained and serve in special forces once put it to me “Terrorism works.” “Terrorism works because they’re outnumbered so strategically, the only thing they can do is something for no reason that aims to undermine their aggressor’s reasoning. Terrorist choose to die, essentially, for nothing. Little is gained of their actions, but as has been seen, it works. You cannot kill an enemy that kills themselves for you. You cannot win peace from a corpse, your own dead or your enemies. Other routes are forced.” When one hears “You cannot make deals with terrorist.” it’s hard to resist. Plain, but too plain to see; there is no reason to die when there is no peace to come from it.