Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.” – Bertrand Russell

War’s hell on thought. Thinking

· diverts attention from the emergency

· validates doubt

· undermines authority

· fritters time

Commanders denounce thinkers as traitors. “If you’re not for us, you’re against us.”

Peace may be multilateral but war is bilateral, no dissent allowed. When you’re being shot at, there’s no “other hand.” The Nameless One and his goons have believed themselves embattled for decades. They readied themselves for this fight to the death and are conducting themselves accordingly. Those of us on what they call “the left” were surprised to learn we were out to get them. The left wasn’t liberals in the old sense but anyone who didn’t endorse their authoritarian designs.

It took “the left” what I used to call a dog’s age (pre-Henry) to wake to this state of war. We had principles, sure, we decried the Nameless One’s politics and practices, but we meant to set our opponents straight, not rub them out. The left included much of the press and academia, who advocated discussion, equal time, and reasoning with folks who sought our extinction. We were Neville Chamberlain at Munich, duped dopes who couldn’t or wouldn’t see what was happening.

Now we’re in for it – either our second civil war or World War Three. Expect casualties and consternation no less calamitous. The America of old, which we believed durable, is as gone as the White House’s East Wing, crash, just like that, with worse to come. If you doubt it, glance at any day’s headlines, that daily mind-numbingly repetitive recital of defeats for the flat-footed “left.” Is there hope for our side? It behooves us to think so, we’re still alive. But just now we’re taking it on the chin and the goons are gloating.

So goodbye thought. For one whose living is thinking – and whose reason to live – this is sad. My brain likes to play hooky and ramble footloose. Now when I wake in the night I’ve got one subject on my mind, one flabby flaunting face floating like a parade balloon, blocking my view. I’m impatient with fault-finders eager to debate “how we got here.” Who cares how we got here, friend – we’re here – and we’re not going back. We’ve got one job now – to fight and win. Otherwise we’re slaves.

I sigh for all the pleasant ways I won’t be spending my time from here to lights-out. I’d been planning for a genial old age among my books. Now my purpose is propaganda, to discern direction and prop our spirits in the blur of war. Communications are more crucial in war than in peace, to feel ourselves united in our common cause, but communicators have less license. To discuss unrelated subjects feels deaf, daft, disloyal. “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

From here to whenever, the war will array our thoughts like a magnet beneath iron filings. We can discuss literature, art, beauty, but always in the context of our crisis. We can frolic, but our frolic, as in Boccaccio’s Decameron, can never forget the horror of our hour. We must beware criticizing comrades-in-arms till the fighting stops. Whoever leads our team – and we’re still feeling for that paragon – I intend to extol until I can’t.

Renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War drew a just distinction between yesteryear and today. We are at war, not defending our old ways but scrambling to save our skins. My job is to sing songs by the campfire during the long cold night while the drones whir.