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.
In turn, Benedict's view recalls Augustine: "What are nations without justice but large bands of thieves?" http://www.
Increasingly "the victor belongs to his spoils." http://
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.
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.
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://
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.
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.