Blog 3518 – 06.22.2025
When Will They Ever Learn?
Is the question asked in the song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Some even attribute to the purported Prince of Peace the pessimism prophesy that there will always be “wars and rumors of wars.”
Five years before I began this adventure in time a space we had just concluded the Second World War by dropping two atomic bombs on two civilian populations of the last enemy standing, Japan. The year that I was born we were already embroiled in another war that was a proxy war that came to a stalemate, the Korean War. In January of 1970 I began a year long tour of duty in South Vietnam where we were again involved in yet another war. Presidents get elected to stop wars and to prevent them and yet they continue.
My Uncle Joe was a Certified Public Accountant and the first person in my family to get a college degree. He told me once that economics was the root cause behind every war. I read once years ago that the Vietnam War created more millionaires in the U.S. than there had ever been before.
President Dwight David Eisenhower who had been the Commanding General of all the Allied forces for the D Day landing in Europe and through to the conclusion the war, after eight years as President in his final speech to the nation warned us about the Military Industrial Complex – those who profit most from war.
We are being dragged into yet another war by a President who promised to keep us out of war yet who is beyond a doubt the most personal profit-driven President we have ever had. Before he took office the first time, Presidential candidates were required to reveal their tax records. He never did. And to put their business interests into a blind trust upon election to office to prevent even the appearance of vested interests in his decisions while in office. He never did his first term and is even more openly participating in pursuing the enrichment of his own personal fortune while being President the second time.
When will we ever learn?
When I was nineteen years old I wrote the following poem. I hope that I have learned a few things since then. Yet, I have learned nothing to change my mind about the foolishness, hellishness, and heartbreak of war.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
Where have all the flowers gone -The kingston trio(lyrics)
theencouragingword 