Saturday, September 7, 2013

Letter to the president -- notes

Letter to the president
"...It is okay to tell your mother she is doing something wrong, you can do it in a story, you can do it in a song....

...and sometimes when grownups get mad they try to start a war. It's okay to tell your president that war is never right."

I promised Ruth I would send some of the words. She asked on her radio show, "Halfway Down The Stairs," for her audience to send this song to the president.

That she wished that he had a quiet spot in The White House in which to think. That he might listen and think of not sending pain and death in to Syria.

They have plenty of that already.

I think the song title is "It's OK To Tell Your Mother." The song has verses with examples of when and how to tell the power figure that their behavior isn't right.

The NY Times had an interesting OpEd piece on Thursday, by Alex de Waal and Bridget Conley. In it, they succinctly cite history and its dearth of examples of interventional successes. especially in the absence of administrative structure and a determined and persistent ground presence.

de Waal, et al, cite Belgrade 1999, Iraq 1991, Rwanda 1994, and more, featuring Sir William Harcourt, who in 1862 had to talk down a ravenous, blood-thirsty British public, clammoring for intervention in our civil war, then ongoing.

Excerpts: "...intervention never has bee, never will be, never can be short, simple or peaceable."

"...and act of desperation with incalculable consequences."

and, "We are asked to go we know not whither, in order to do we know not what."




Letter to the president

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