OT A poem from the Days of the Vietnam War..just as relevant todaygreenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
These days,like you,I am an expert in disbelief.War in Vietnam and peace in America
have imbued us with a God-like detachment.
a perpetual handicap which interdicts most lies,
For us,
neither the president,nor the emperor wears clothes.
It begins with simply this:that each man goes to his war
as he goes to his love,alone.
And from neither does he return as before.
For love and war exist at the edges of the human experience
and either way,man grapples with his universe
at the very limits of social restraint.
His cultural upbringing too weak to govern
in the provinces of the darkness
and the dawn.
To survive in combat
a man must turn
from the teachings of other men
and come face to face with himself.
For some it is a joy
to come to know such a man as he is.
For others,it is a nightmare
which recurs as long as he may live.
Steve Mason
-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), December 30, 1999
I know first hand the pay-off of all the wars in which Americans have served since WWII . War is man against man, a mirror, conflict without substance.Pain without gain. The "war" with AI, the child of humanity's intellect, is the quintessential mirror:Y2K is the result of our own carelessness and callousness. It will be interesting to see how we deal with the payback. Do you think we'll learn?
-- Charlie (cml@wkmail.com), December 30, 1999.