A lily is not a rose
a daisy or iris knows
nothing of each other
except they are a flower.
And they have no name
other than what came
from others long before
who’ve we come to ignore.
What of this matters
to a world in tatters
except to remind us lazy
that words can be hazy.
And maybe we are not
as different as we think,
as we use words to
separate one from another.
I’m sure everyone already understands this, but I have to say it anyway. Yes, the Iran regime is evil and needs to go the way of all oppressive regimes that take freedoms and promote terrorism against others. Thus a strategy to damage their ability to oppress and to export violence would be a reasonable objective. But this doesn’t appear to be our strategy. For we achieved this objective in the first 10 days or so, we decapitated their leadership and damaged their ballistic missile and drone capability. As they were selecting their new leader, we should have offered a cease fire and pulled back. Leaving an ability to reinitiate attacks, but give them an opportunity to reconsider their position. Tactically a great first 10 days or so… but as we have no apparent strategy, we foolishly continue… because we wanted something more… something Trump would feel in his bones.
A non-existent strategy, means we are stumbling into an expanded war. Iran gains their footing and broadens the war. Making it a war on the energy markets. Attacking neighbor’s oil and gas fields, closing the Strait of Hormuz. The power shifts from the USA and Israel to Iran, for to stop them requires an escalation we are not prepared for… we don’t have minesweepers, we don’t have sufficient ground forces available in the MiddleEast or the public will to use them, we didn’t put oil reserves on ships outside of the MiddleEast that could be deployed to dampen their counterattacks.
Israel on the other hand, seems to have a strategy. Keep America involved so they have the cover to once and for all remove Hezbollah from Lebanon while also seeking regime change in Iran. I don’t think regime change will happen, but by continual decapitation they will make it difficult for them to ever negotiate an end to this war (“excursion” is an abomination of a description), and this is exactly what Netanyahu needs to stay in power and avoid trial on corruption charges.
Does this make Trump a patsy for Netanyahu? Or does Trump need the continued conflict as well, to have the emergencies he needs to keep power?
Yes, we have amazing military tactical capability, but unfortunately in the hands of strategically incapable political leaders.
As sure as the clouds rise in the sky
to paint a majestic ephemeral picture
so too the princes of the world use
wealth to form an ornamental vision
for themselves using the world as their
canvas, and sycophants to tell them
they are wonderful, where as clouds
just have poets of the heart to entertain.
And as sure as the clouds can only hold
so much blood, sweat and tears until
they must explode in thunder and
rain and drive the winds to certain
destruction, so too the princes of the
world who would demand to be kings
will reign their own destruction on the
innocent and not so innocent alike.
But neither will be anything but
temporary, a difficult and violent
passing moment in the long arc of
this world, and yet they will leave
scars upon this Earth, and scars
upon the hearts of memories that
have suffered their passing and
their violence.
And we will all say never again,
but just as new clouds will rise,
new princes will be born to a wealth
of power they could never have earned
and they will rise when memories
have faded to again bring the world
to bend the knee to them and
create new scars upon all the land.
This is the destiny of our kind,
the legacy of our hubris, and the
nature of princes, as is the nature
of clouds… and history like
summer storms will be violent
until there is violence no more
because there is nothing left
to destroy… just scars upon the land.
Then we can start over.
“War is Peace” … an Orwell statement from the book 1984 …
President Trump, yesterday:
… The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!
Regime change for you, and you, and you…
What about us?
Interesting that after wining the much-coveted 😱 FIFA peace prize… and being gifted the Nobel Peace Medal earned by Maria Corina Machado, he is still using military might to bring peace to the world. … never enough it seems!
Could this adventure in Iran workout well?… maybe… I hope so, but what a gamble, and what a wag-the-dog moment in our political landscape. Could this explode into an expanded war in the Middle East, possibly, no one can know, but “Peace through War” when, by all accounts, negotiations were working seems like, at best, a misdirection and at worse a distraction from news that might otherwise derail a presidency.
But then again, no one mentioned Epstein on the news shows over the last two days.
Wag-the-dog.
A Tragedy is when both sides are convinced they are right; a Philosophy articulated by 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The conviction of being right hardens positions, and makes for great conflict and loss.
TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING
I am righteously on this side of the divide.
Yet you claim, the righteous patriot side.
I am committed to the lesson of love they neighbor.
You committed to law enforced, if need be, by the saber.
Manifest destiny fuels your imperious nature it seems.
While I know there is room for all peoples’ dreams.
You disdain the sciences you say have oppressed and masked you.
But I know that science and reason is best for all but a few.
Right deepens the gulf between your side and mine,
between the beating of heart and the reasoned mind.
Careening towards a tragedy of conflict, violence and loss
as our prosperity, our shared history and our values get tossed.
Thus, we have a tragedy of our own making
due to such extreme positions taken,
due to our failure to imagine a better place,
our failure to see beyond this tragic race.
IMAGINE HEAVEN
The difference between me and you
Is smaller and easier to get through
than any problem that’s been observed,
that this world or the next has ever heard.
When it’s a hug that is simply needed
and all perceived differences receded
as we feel the humanity of each other
and you know me as your loving brother.
With all the faults, failures and fears
having experienced, love, hurt and tears
for a hug to make us as one
in the brilliant light of the sun.
As we shine now too with wisdom of the ages,
as we take our place with saints and sages
enjoying the harmony of life-everlasting, singing
a song that is right, loving and forgiving.
WE CHOOSE
Where art thou Diogenes?
Not on Capital Hill, not among
the powerful, not in the White House,
nor among the power brokers of business.
Only among the citizens who carry
your lantern, as a cell phone, and
are threatened and beaten and
then shot for doing so.
In the era of performative democracy,
during the rise of hypocrisy and
a fledgling, evil autocracy, there
are no reasoned leaders to be found.
Oh, Socrates, is it futile for you
who seeks truth, in an age of
alternative facts, where the powerful
trample the truth along with the people?
They will ask you to end yourself
rather than answer your questions,
and submit to reason, exiling, and
disappearing without justice.
Infamy does not worry them,
for they plan to rewrite the history of now,
more so, they do not care as they’ve
enriched themselves at our expense.
Yes, philosophy, history, truth,
reason and empathy are but constructs
of the human condition they wish to twist
and manipulated for fascist rule.
Hold on to the truth, hold on to
reason, empathy and honesty
for this is their weakness, if we continue
to believe, then they cannot win.
As with all dictators and their
henchmen and henchwomen no
children of the next generation will
be named after them.
The names Donald, Pam, Kristi
among others will not find their
way to future generations, just as
the name Adolf faded from consideration.
Oh Diogenes, we are out here
still, we are honestly seeking
a better world for our children
and the children of all people.
Oh Socrates, there is still
truth to be discovered, if we can
only continue to ask the questions
and not waver in our commitment to truth.
We the People will Overcome
We the People will Vote
We the People will Win
We the People, Believe.
to Mom and Dad, Mr. Michael Varga and Mrs. Pauline Varga
from all of us! 3 children, 7 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren, and one more here soon!
Oh my, what beauty and grace
as children you could not know
what love could create.
You could not know how life
struggles would deliver such
victories, and loving legacies.
You were so young, so in love
and now seventy years later
you are still in each others arms.
Yes, time covers much ground
but please, now look around,
see the joy of love and life created.
Know your family loves you
dearly and your legacies live
and love-on because of you.
Have a Blessed Anniversary!
Something here, something hidden.
We were the shining lights on the hill
a place of opportunity and goodwill
we were the hope of poor and huddled masses
with brilliant cities and wide-open spaces.
We are becoming a nation of brutality
no longer evolving toward equality.
No longer the beacon of freedom
we are trending toward a MAGA kingdom.
Ice surges through an this king’s veins
his morality suppressed as ICE stains
of blood are on the streets of our cities
regardless of our civil identities.
America is dying, and empathy is dead
when a young mother is shot in the head
and is called a domestic terrorist instead
of a compassionate American wrongfully dead.
When a man protects a woman under ICE attack
and for this empathy he gets 9 bullets in the back.
Then he too is called a domestic terrorist instead
of a compassionate American wrongfully dead.
The numbers are there for us to see
38 deaths in immigration custody.
But the violence can be stopped very shortly
if the voter rolls are turned over extortively.
Then the king will control an enemy city
and voting machines and suppression will readily
achieve the next ring of power so desperately needed
to feed his lion of an ego and ensure MAGA succeeded.
And in meantime the search of voter records surprisingly
in Fulton County, will find 11,780 votes miraculously
to ensure the next election will not be free
and will advantage the king as we soon should see.
Institutions bow, the media is intimidated
the features of democracy just imitated
and truth dies easy as history is put in chains
to fit the Big Lie and the emerging fascist claims.
These are not separate, nor minor things
these are part of a plan that clearly rings
like the liberty bell, calling patriots who love freedom,
who love our country, to beat back the MAGA kingdom.
America’s story need not die and empathy can be found
again, if we remember the words of enlightenment bound
to this, the patriot spirit of America, our anti-tyranny founding,
our immigrant legacy and beating heart of freedom sounding.
We must rise above this death and gloom
and overcome the pending MAGA doom
as our ancestors had been called to do, too many times before
so American freedom may again reign from shore to shore!
These words rise,
intertwine, and spin
like smoke from
a friendly campfire
as a signal to you who
read such signals.
Messages like so many
sent before, arise from
a fire-burning life-passion
for the memories,
the now, and especially
our greatest hope,
Know this passion exclaims
a love of life every day
and every moment
while thinking of you
in better times
in care of better futures.
These words I pray
signal a message you may
read now and yet know,
you’ll best understand
long after the fire,
long years hence.