The bombing of civilian infrastructure, bridges, power plants is a "war crime."
Pythons in Florida swamps and Norwegian maple trees in New Hampshire are "invasive species."
Colonizing the moon and Mars are an expression of the human spirit of exploration and represents a grand vision for the future of humanity which visionaries like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will bring us.
We want workplaces, universities and clubs to "look like America."
Mad Dog hears these things and it makes his head spin, his stomach growl and his fingers itch. These are articles of faith, such deeply engrained conventional podcast wisdom nobody even questions them any more, or, well, not "nobody" but too few people question them. We don't groan or cry out--we just let these things sail by as not worth challenging because so many people just nod and say, "Yeah, we know all that."
WAR CRIMES
The "war crime" thing is usually followed by some mention of the "Geneva Convention." As Mad Dog understands it, after World War II, a number of nations signed a treaty to prevent behavior by nations such as bombing civilian populations, destroying water supplies, torturing prisoners, exacting collective punishment for the crimes of a few terrorists--things for which the Allies executed Hitler's minions and generals, what Goering called, "victors justice," meaning none of these things would be considered immoral or criminal if the Nazis had won the war by doing these things.
Of course, the Americans had fire bombed Japanese cities relentlessly, targeting civilians, setting afire people, homes, factories, everything, even before Hiroshima. That was justified as a way of winning the war. But now, all that, which was once called "total war," is called immoral and "illegal." In reaction to that, in 1949 diplomats traipsed off to Geneva and promised their countries would never do any of that again. They signed papers with ink. But, of course, by 1965, none of that mattered, as the United States tried to bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age, mined harbors and set even small villages afire with napalm.
If there is nobody to enforce a law, is there a law?
If a tree falls in a forest and no ear to hear it, is there a sound?
But nobody ever called any of this Vietnam behavior "war crimes," because these acts were committed by Americans, and even the My Lai massacre of infants and mothers, where photos were undeniable in the age before AI, none of the soldiers or officers who shot infants in the head were convicted--save the infamous Lt. Calley, who served three years of house arrest and then released.
The fact is, when you unleash the dogs of war, they are going to go for the jugular, as the good citizens of Minneapolis discovered. Put guns in the hands of low grade psychopaths and sadists and bad things are going to happen, but that's not a "war crime."
Renee Good
"Crime" means there is some authority to enforce transgressions, but when it's the authorities who are transgressing, there can be no crime. "If the President does it, it's legal." Who said that?
A/ Nixon?
B/ Trump?
C/ The Supreme Court?
D/ All of the above?
No such thing as a war crime, because war itself is a crime against humanity. And we got no international police force, no international courts which are not a joke or which have any power to enforce their decisions. Hell, we barely have a Supreme Court in the United States any more, just a bought and paid for rubber stamp for President Trump.
INVASIVE SPECIES
Then there is the concept of "invasive species." Trump would have you believe dark skinned immigrants are an invasive species, and when Mad Dog tried to buy a maroon leafed Norwegian maple, he was told they are illegal in New Hampshire because they are an "invasive species." Wrong leaf color. No matter that you never see these trees growing wild in any wooded area in New Hampshire, but only as ornamental trees planted outside schools, parks or homes.
If you've taken introductory biology, you know that every species which has ever existed on the planet is an invasive species, seeking out a niche to occupy, out competing other plants or animals for resources, establishing its tenuous foothold in the great competition which is life on earth.
So when human beings say a tree or a fish is not "native" to some place, they mean they do not like that particular tree or fish, and it is crowding out other trees or fish they do like. It's a value judgment. It's true, some fish can be so successful, they obliterate other fish in the lake and so the lake has fewer varieties of fish, so if that successful fish, which is now the only species, ever succumbs to a virus or a change in temperature, the ecosystem is less diverse and a particular lake may find itself devoid of fish, until a new one arrives to occupy that niche.
Feral pigs are causing widespread destruction in Texas, and clearly are invasive, as they are the descendants of pigs left off by Spanish explorers, and we do not like them one bit, so they are invasive. And don't get Mad Dog started on lampreys in the Great Lakes.
When the Charlotteville Unite the Right MAGA's chanted, "You Will Not Replace US," they were expressing this very sentiment--we are the good [White] species, and a new, invasive species with Brown or Black skin speaking Spanish or Haitian will not replace us, because they are the invasive species and we are the natives.
But, as George Carlin observed, every human being is an invader, is not native, except, perhaps for a few living in the Rift Valley of Africa, where homo sapiens may have emerged from apes, but everyone else spread out from there, walked or boated across Asia and the Bering Strait or down the West Coast of North America all the way to Patagonia. So "Native Americans" are not actually natives, no more "native" than the Europeans who exterminated them, pushed them off the continent using more advanced technology and a determination to end the nomadic hunter/gatherer way of live on the Great Plains, and replaced it with industrialized agriculture.
So "Native Americans" is a misnomer and, in fact, if Carlin is correct, "Indians" were not named by mistake because Columbus thought he had reached India, but because he thought them "Indus Deus," that is people of God, and so there is nothing disparaging about calling people "Indians."
Of course, Native Americans may prefer "Native Americans" because it sounds more entitled, but that's another story.
Indians were outcompeted by an invasive species, namely the Europeans.
COLONIZING SPACE FOR HOMO SAPIENS
Then there is the idea of needing to colonize Mars or distant solar systems to ensure humankind survives the coming Armageddon. Truth is, there is nothing within reach--not just within our own lifetimes, but for millions of years, even if we could use nuclear fusion to power our spacecraft and travel at nearly the speed of light (and you cannot go faster).
But we do it because we are human beings and human beings are explorers and adventurers.
By the time we reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star in another galaxy 100,000 earth years would have elapsed. To put that in perspective, dinosaurs roamed the earth until 66,000 years ago, so any earthling to reach this new solar system would wake up on his spacecraft and the people who sent him (us) would have gone the way of the dinosaurs back home. Certainly, your girlfriend back on earth would not remember you.
And nobody is going to farm potatoes on Mars, not now, not ever. And if they did, they'd have no market for them either on Mars or back on earth. Love Matt Damon, but really, "The Martian" is actually just a fun movie, not a visionary manifesto.
LOOKING LIKE AMERICA
And finally, there is the idea that our colleges and work places should "look like America." Corporate CEO's say such stuff. So do deans of medical school admissions. As if looking like America, if we could even agree what that means, would be a desirable thing in a medical school class or in an architectural firm or in at a Ford dealership.
Really, why are looks so important? Aren't colleges, just to take one example, supposed to be about stuff which is not connected to visual characteristics? Whatever happened to admitting homely girls who were good at differential calculus to college? Or nerds who taught themselves to program and used that to publish a photo book of the girls in the freshman class so guys could know who they wanted to date and now they had the phone numbers to call up their weekend fantasies.
Does she look like America?
But she's cute, so let her in
Even if we did decide to look like America: What would that even mean? That might mean that we'd have people with different skin colors, and maybe they'd even speak different languages at home--Spanish, French, Zulu, Swahili, Dutch, Africans, German, Russian--but, truth be told, even if theses folks had parents who spoke those languages, if they were American raised, likely they'd speak only one language.
If you speak two languages, you are bilingual. If you speak only one language, you are American.
Now, on Starship Enterprise, it was lovely to see people of all different races, and even some folks with pointed ear pinnae who might not even be homo sapiens, working harmoniously without a trace of racial prejudice. It's a vision of a better world, a better future. But if we learned that Dr. Spock was selected for the crew because he filled the Vulcan quota, would that not diminish the joy?
So, these are some of the unexamined articles of faith we hear and so uncritically accept, and Mad Dog feels ever so much better getting this all off his half Klingon half Hobbit chest.
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