Standing In

Once more, and forever: Allow me to preach my perennial theme, peace. In the past, I have often made what may have been some fairly reasonable suggestions for how to end our tragic decade of wars. Not today.

Instead, I am making an entirely unreasonable, unworkable suggestion that in the end may turn out to be our only salvation. Make our commander-in-chief issue an order, to be heard by the whole world, declaring our participation in armed wars to be terminated and ordering our soldiers, wherever they are, to pack up and come home.

Can we do that? Yes, we can. Shall we do it? No, we wonÕt. Innumerable objections, all rational, all practical, all self-deceptive, would immediately rush to the surface.

Traffic would be too difficult to bring all troops home simultaneously. We would have to maintain them and their families until they find a job, although it would be a small fraction of what it costs to keep them in danger. We would have to guard the costly weapons while waiting for the next war. Above all, the world would see us as cowards, an easy aim for future aggressions, and so forth.

The real reason that keeps us from declaring victory and going home is that we confuse failure with defeat. Failure is human, defeat is un-American.

We still have the most powerful army in the world. We can still beat any armed opponent. Yet we fail, as we must, to win a tribal war that can start or interrupt or finish any time, change partners, change friends or enemies, fight with modern weapons or bows and arrows, appear or disappear.

Those people just donÕt know how to fight a Òreal war,Ó they are too disorganized. We must change our definitions, yet we hate change in all its aspects.

I learned that from a personal experience when I suggested some time ago to change our national anthem with all its bombs bursting in air to a more peaceful and melodious song such as, for instance, ÒAmerica the BeautifulÓ or ÒMy Country Õtis of Thee.Ó

As soon as this nefarious thought appeared in print, I had to duck under the table to avoid the arrows that came flying from all directions. The patriots came first, telling me that if I was too cowardly to fight, I should look for a different country. Historians reminded me that the history of our sweet land of liberty contained slavery. Immigrants complained that this was not the country where their fathers died.

We hate change. We are aggressive. That is simply being part of Homo sapiens. Give us another few million years and maybe another and more peaceful species will evolve. Homo pacificus would be a good name.

In the meantime, let us live a joyful life for which we need at least three components. We need a purpose so that when we are waking up we know what we are waking up for. We need somebody to love who can return it, and we need more humor in this grim world.

Therefore, what may be my last admonition: Keep living! Keep loving! And, perhaps most importantly, keep laughing!

Ñ Herb Bauer, often referred to as the Conscience of Davis, celebrated his 100th birthday last January.

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