I gave up being overly political about 5 years ago and to that end I resigned myself to listening more than speaking on the subject. Recently I’ve been recouping from a second ankle surgery to remove some bone spurs that were getting to be a physical hinderance. In this downtime I’ve been revisiting a few things that I’ve put on the mental back burner.

The anniversary of my 48th year on this planet will be here in the next couple weeks and for my 49th spin around the sun I have come to the extremely stark reality is that— I really couldn’t give two shits how people feel vs. facts. This goes down to a very base level and it’s not meant to demean others or say they are “wrong” to spite them. This goes on my own personal hubris as well. I write this blog because sometimes I feel certain things about my life and I want to be accountable to that perspective. One day I will be gone and somewhere on a server, hopefully this will go on and perhaps someone will see it and commiserate/celebrate the words I have scribed here. That being said. The harsh reality that some of the things I write here go against the facts of everyday life. That causes me a fair amount of depression, over analyzation and downright loathing for the real world. But, Facts are facts- and as desperate as many of us are to see a better world– the reality is that we have been doing the same thing since humans first felt the concept of need. So I present to you– The Lost Tribes of Conquest.

War is not waged by the dead.

War is waged by those who, by greater numbers or technology, remove their opponent from existence. And when I say opponent, outside of a surrender, means every man, woman and child in their entirety. They are removed from history.

That is a brutal and visceral truth. But let me explain it without adding feelings. I know in todays day and time we are extremely polarized over the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel/Palestine. I know some of you reading this may have very deep feelings toward this subject and I respect your stance on it. It is not my intention to try to change minds or sway feelings. Matter of fact I’ve found attempting to hardens people to any conversation on the whole and further polarizes.

You would think that in a few thousand years of semi-modern society we could elevate ourselves to a point were we could do away with war. Or at least find some way to resolve conflict with more of a focus on peace. I will tell you right now- and I’m sorry if this hits hard–it will never happen. We could go down the rabbit hole of the Military industrial complex or the concept of faith and religion– but not of that matters. What does matter is that there is some basic fact that has been hardwired into the depths of our lizard brain— kill the enemy.

If you want an example- 2 words. Genghis-fucking Khan. And I use him and the Mongol empire because there is prime example of “fuck around and find out” in terms of the Khwarasmian Empire , which covered the majority of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and modern day Iran. The Great Khan sent a delegation in the form of a Muslim caravan to the Governor of Otrar to engage in trade. The governor had the caravan executed.

The Khan took this as a personal insult.

One would think that he would raise the city of Otara to the ground. But the Khan now saw the Khwarasmian Empire as the enemy. And yes, he did lay the city of Otara to waste…. by killing every man, woman and child. And then he went to the next city–and told the people to surrender or die— and even when they surrendered he instructed his armies to kill every man, woman and child. Historians debate whether or not it was tens of thousands or perhaps millions of people that lost their life. Genghis Khan erased the Khwarasmian Empire from the face of the earth–removed them from history.

This is not the only tribe that Genghis Khan erased from the world in conquest. There have been others by different names. And what was….is… and will be again. Because the truth is that we live in a closed system on this planet and we don’t really live long enough to truly learn from our mistakes. We keep doing this 150 year repeat…. just with better headphones and footwear. Better ways to annihilate each other because that’s the enemy.

I don’t give a fuck about Israel, nor do I give a shit about Palestine. It’s the same thing that Genghis Khan was doing in the 1200’s.

Ukraine and Russia are doing the same shit they’ve done since Ivan III claimed Ukraine to be Russian all the way back in 1476. The wheel spins and somedays you are on the upside of the revolution….or on the downside of being conquered.

I don’t know. Seems for what it is, maybe the United States could just say fuck it and focus on things at home for a bit. That’s my only opinion in this. We are hurting here in the U.S… on way to many levels. You can have you own opinion and I will respect it, but I dont have to like it.

For me, I feel fortunate to have been born in America. You will never change my mind on that.