I have listened, as everyone has likely heard, “everything is different now.” Some have even gone so far as to herald the end of irony. It’s not the fact of why people say---what they are saying; be it 9-11, Osama Bin Laden etc.–it is the fact that I am expected to respond to a plea that things are different than what has come before.

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. Taking a real punch leaves little time for persuasion. You take the punch on your feet and bear it, or, on your back and then bear the children of your enemies. “Even babies?”, a refrain from the Vietnam War. Yes, even babies. Even, your baby’s babies. Am I a pacifist? No. I want quiet. How divisive that quiet is confused with peace ---is evidence for the common war that begins with security and ends with "they". When I’ve mentioned it, I get quiet---again and again.

     In a perfect world, a world that literature has long since given up writing much about, it is easy to imagine many things unnecessary. For example, the fictions that arise when the choice between two evils will result in a better of the two. As if there were only two. Black and white is the brand and color scheme of the common war. Reel to reel film pandering invectives focused on nostalgia for a time that never was, festers the lack of imagination and the need to fully confront human capacity to commit heinous acts. Such anachronistic improvisation during this time, make it hard to see where acting stops and leadership begins. It may be too soon or, too late to write about the perfect world, but it is most certainly, too late to live the same day twice. Nostalgia cannot solve the problems we have.

     For those who consider themselves believers of a mass murdering god, presumably, the one that saves us the hassle of doing it ourselves, some levity. 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 and not right side up. IN similar vein, another popular craze is worth mentioning; the "Jesus" and the “Darwin Fish" placards of the 1980's. For the uninitiated, during the 1980's, one could buy little pieces of plastic, shaped like fish with greek letters inside, conversely, a fish with feet (of all things) with the word "Darwin". The fish with gnostic text, a variation on an anceitn Christian symbol used during the Romna times to signal members of the then "cult" of hospitality or meeting places. Those placards were more of a life long commitment than today's magnets, as they were affixed with adhesive instead of magnets. Alas, trhe miracle of glue has been replaced with the invisble force of magnets.
n a fit of imaginative juxtaposition, when placing the placards on their vehicles, people have taken to placing these placards facing right or facing left---respective to their political persuasion. For this election, a fish facing a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker, or, a Darwin facing a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker. You cannot, not communicate in the common war. Should there be some ineffible god beneath all this, the validation you get, may be, because car ahead you, compromised their brake lights stating their position, but not their intentions. No leading, no way to follow. Silent signals littering rush hour with the confused, and the enraptured; no escape.

     As a friend who trained in special forces in the Army once, laid out the idea of terrorism like this. “Terrorism works....tererrorism works because the enemy is outnumbered...strategically, the only thing they can do is something for no reason... something 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, either your own dead or your enemies."

When one hears “You cannot make deals with terrorist.” it’s hard to resist. It is also plain, there is no reason to die when there is no peace to come from it. We need another way.