Where are the Doves?

image borrowed from ibankcoin.com

Where are the Doves?

“The 20th Century was the most murderous in recorded history.

The total number of deaths associated with wars exceed

187 million people.”--Eric Hobsbaun.

As Miss Kentucky replied to the judge’s inquiries for the Miss 

America crown, “I just wish for world peace & brotherhood.”

     As John Lennon & the Beatles sang, “Just give Peace a

     chance--all we need is love.”

           As the stoned rebellious hippies used to chant, “Make

           Love, not War”, flashing the peace sign.

                  As Gandhi used to say, “There is a sufficiency in

                  the world for man’s need, but not his greed.”

                      As Christians preach, “Love thy enemy”.

                             As poets write Poetry for Peace”,

I look at the unassailable data, the sad & hard truths, 

that human nature proves to be more bellicose than

it is peaceful--& this creates strife between siblings,

spouses, sports teams, neighborhood street gangs,

state & federal legislators & paralyzingly partisan 

politicians--& when scrutinized we find, to our dismay,

that there is no actual down time without conflict, chaos,

& cataclysmic events.

Yes, facts do lie, misrepresent & distort the truth,

                depending on which part is taken out of

                           context, before it becomes perverted,

                                   or re-channeled to better fit the selfish

                           needs of the pollsters & politicians 

                                   & professional manipulators--but I tell

you that rock hard data exists relative

                           to wars & their deadly consequences,

                staining the pale pages of history

                           with the blood of both the warriors

                 & the innocents caught up in the warfare.

1900    the Boxer Rebellion  (35,000)

1904    Germany vs. Nambia  (65,000)   

1904-05  Japan vs. Russia  (150,000)

1910-1920  Mexican Revolution (250,000)

1911  Chinese Revolution (2.4 million)

1903-1923  Ottoman Empire vs Italy, Armenia, & Greece (3 million)

1914-1918  World War I  (20 million)

1917-1921  Russian Revolution (5 million)

1918-1920   Russian Civil War  (1 million)

1928-1932   Chinese Civil War  (2 million)

1931  Japan vs. Manchuria  (1.1 million)

1932-1933  Soviet Union vs. Ukraine (10 million)

1936-1937  Stalin’s purges  (13 million)

1936-1945  Spanish Civil War (1 million)

1939-1945  World War II  (55 million)

1950-1953  Korean War  (3 million)

1964-1973  Vietnam War  (3 million)

1966-1969  Chinese Cultural Revolution (11 million)

1975-1979  Khmer Rouge, Cambodia  (2 million)

1977-1988  Soviet Union in Afghanistan  (1.3 million)

1991  Gulf War (85,000)

1996  War in the Congo (4 million)

2003-2011  Second Iraq War (160,000)

2011-2015  Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars (700,000).

Today Presidential candidates posture & squabble with each

other a full year before we elect a new President--but who is 

talking about making plans for peace?  Fear is the daily 

companion, & terror is the watch word & reality. Politicians

are panicking, playing right into the lethal radical Islamic 

plotting--the Holy War is upon us, another World War looms.

Innocent blood is just beginning to flow.

The beautiful doves are being slaughtered by the hawks.

The peaceniks are being battered & shouted down.

Where in the murderous midst of the bloodshed & carnage

is the hope, even a faint whiff of Peace? If it is there, I cannot

find it. I think it will have to just appear, materialize out of the

abysmal darkness like a magnificent white unicorn accompanied

by divine trumpetry & edict. On that triumphant day, I swear,

I will whole-heartedly embrace it. 

Why must War precede

Peace? Why is Peace so fleeting?

God only knows, not I.

  

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub "Poetics"