Malala
Yousafzai
***
Dear
Fred,
Thanks
for your email about "women in politics."
Given
men's fondness for belligerence - and women's primary concern for family and
children - I favor more women in Congress.
If Uncle
Sam had fought just one "good war" since World War II, I
might cut males more slack.
I
have argued before that "The Revelation" has begun
and that cockstrutters are being revealed for the bullies they are,
hell-bent on counter-productive, self-destructive wehrmacht. (Given homo
"sapiens" remarkable inability to evaluate danger-and-risk,
we ignore a large body of evidence that the world is becoming a significantly
less violent place in direct relationship to planetary
"feminization."
In
any event, no one "wins" wars any more. We all lose.
Even Pope Benedict considers the collateral damage of modern
warfare a condition of certain injustice. http://www. freerepublic.com/focus/f- religion/1388183/posts
In turn,
Benedict's view recalls Augustine: "What are nations without justice
but large bands of thieves?" http://www. newadvent.org/library/docs_ jo23pt.htm
Increasingly "the victor belongs to his spoils." http:// paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/ 2011/10/war-peace-and- political-manipulation.html
Has it occurred to our fellow "chest-thumpers" that
Gaza could be pacified with decent jobs for 80,000 pater familias currently
ghettoized and unemployed?
Here's
the math...
The
population of Gaza is 1.67 million and the unemployment rate about 32%. With an
average household of 6.5 people, the annual payroll would be piss-dribble -
$1.23 billion a year. Furthermore, whether purchased or not, peace builds on
itself. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Maquiladora
The
"unexpected hero" in Robert Redford's "Milagro Beanfield
War" advises his wealthy overlord: "If you pay 'em, they
ain't gonna slit your throat."
Not
far from this same tree, Lincoln noted: "The best way to destroy an enemy
is to make him your friend."
Notably,
General Petraeus did not vanquish his enemies militarily but "bought them
off," bribed Sunni insurgents with
"good jobs." http://transcripts.cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/15/acd. 02.html
Lamentably,
"men" have never learned from their craven carnage more than they've learned from dunderheaded sexual passion.
For
many males, it only matters that phallic objects be hard, hot
and explosive.
There
is "something" about the phallus -- whether
literally construed, or in the metaform of guns, bullets, drones and missiles
-- which makes "The Male Political Project" fundamentally
suspect.
At
bottom, most men are "spoiling for a fight." Deep in their
testy testes, they are determined to "duke it out," to fight to the
death, to meet on "the plains of Megiddo," to wage a war that will
end all wars.
In
related vein, conservative columnist, Kathleen Parker, has written an
insightful article about fellow pundits slagging Hillary. http:// paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/ 2013/01/hillary-clintons- character.html
Pax on
both houses
Alan
PS
Strengths and weaknesses are often flip sides of the same coin. And so many
women -- when their families come under (real or imaginary) threat -- are prone
to "hysterical" reaction, combating menace by cheer-leading
"strong" men. Under il
Duce's "umbrella"
of promised protection, post-9/11 "soccer moms" became the bedrock of
Dubyah's political "Base."
PPS The
historical status of women is largely ignored or forgotten. New Zealand was the
first nation to "give" women the vote - just 116 years ago. The
United States followed suit in 1920 when my Dad was 8 years old. Swiss women
did not vote until 1971, preceded by Afghan women in 1965. Women in
Leichtenstein did not vote until 1984. And women in The Vatican still do not
vote for their temporal ruler. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Women%27s_rights
To contextualize the modern history of women, consider their role in ancient
Israel. http:// paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/ 2013/01/womens-roles-in-bible. html
Surge
Datum: "Controversially, Petraeus even started putting some Sunni
groups – including some that had previously fought the U.S. – on the American
payroll. The “Anbar Awakening” of Sunni groups willing to cooperate with the
Americans had begun in 2005, but at a smaller scale. Petraeus recognized that
the groups had real community influence and ability to bring security, whether
he liked them or not, and brought them on board. At the program’s peak in 2008,
the U.S. had “contracted” 103,000 fighters who were now ostensibly paid to
assist an American-dominated peace rather than the disrupt it. That same year,
according to Ricks, the U.S. signed ceasefire deals with 779 separate Iraqi
militias." http://www. washingtonpost.com/blogs/ worldviews/wp/2012/11/09/the- iraq-success-story-that- propelled-david-petraeus-to- the-top/
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