Wednesday, March 20, 2024

First Time (monologue)

What would it be like to live back then in Germany, Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur or even in the US pushing west and bringing people in chains across the ocean from the east? What were they thinking?! We would not seal people into a walled zone, rain down bombs like a metallic meteor shower and stop food from entering the zone. Because that's not who we are. Or if we did, we would have a damn good reason why... We would not destroy universities, historical archives, museums, mosques, churches, archaeological sites, the history of a people...'Sometimes you must destroy a village in order to save it.' Ha ha. They said that in Vietnam and that was wrong. But a firm hand is sometimes needed when children are not really children but merely 3 foot-tall terrorists, hating & plotting your death. Because every man who attacked was once a boy and this boy came from a mother, and she must also be killed, and her mother too, of course, it's only logical... Wait, now that sounds fanatical and deranged. And we are not fanatical and deranged. But there always had to be a first time. There had to be a first time when eliminating a people really was justified. It's sad. It's a tragedy, but this time it's true. Every other time was a lie. This time it's true. It must be.


(painting by Robert Motherwell)

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