It was George Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher, who famously said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This has always been a sore point with me, in my profession I’ve sat through countless safety briefings reflecting on the findings of failure by unfortunate flight crews who made bad choices, yet the ability of future flight crews to make those same bad choices never seems to abate. The mistakes of Air Force aircrews in the 2000s weren’t that much different than those of aircrews in the 1970s, and probably not much different than those made in the 1930s. The equipment improved, but our brains didn’t seem to keep pace, they carry all the baggage of our species. Including the arrogance and hubris of pride and superiority over others.
We see those qualities proudly displayed on the nightly opinion shows. Where the opinion of world events has replaced the simple reporting of those events. It really doesn’t matter what your personal political view may be, you can choose a news network to feed your views of the events and shape how you should view them. One of the terms I hear thrown about a lot these days, especially by the left when calling the right “Fascist.” Lately, it has become the condemnation du jour for all things Republican. Apparently, “Racist” has lost its appeal as a defensive repartee when the right attacks Joe Biden and his political failures/policies.
As Mark Anthony famously said in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I’ve come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” It will little matter[1] what I say about politics or world events. They will go on, led by the political entities who now squabble over the votes of those who have little say in their own lives. What has struck me though is how similar we are to the events of the 1930s when actual fascism arose, flourished, and died, taking millions with it. A time when communism arose, flourished, and survived, taking millions of lives as it went on, and a time when a man paralyzed by polio, but with extreme ambition and a famous name rose to rule the nation as an American Caesar, and led us into the world of American Empire. Unfortunately for us all, we were never quite able to establish a modern PAX AMERICANA. In fact, one could ask, were we better or worse as a globe after WW2?
On the one hand, we invented a bomb that could destroy everyone on earth, and we haven’t used it. On the other, the UN has failed miserably in its primary role of stopping wars of aggression and conquest. I doubt we can name a single year since its founding when we didn’t have a war somewhere. So I guess you could say the American Empire hasn’t been much different than the English one, or the Holy Roman one. As of today, we’ve not yet blown ourselves into history, although there seems to be an increasing number of groups seeking to.
The question I can’t seem to find a good answer to is “Does a surrogate war between Ukraine and Russia actually meet our national goals and does it keep the world safer from whatever boogie man we think is out to destroy us?”
Please let me know if you have an answer. I’d appreciate it.
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