ANS -- The great darkness is here, my friends. And we are the great light.

Here is something a bit positive.  I thought you might like to be uplifted a bit.  

--Kim

Shelly Strauss

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Here's an interesting tidbit...

It is very, very difficult, psychologically, for most humans to kill another human.

There are no absolutely scientifically known statistics, because how would we get that data? But it is widely understood and historically/situationally supported that about 80-90% of the population has such strong inhibitions against killing other humans that for practical purposes... they cannot, unless in self-defense or other severe situation. Another 10-20% of the population would kill another human with extreme training, extreme inducement, or extreme dehumanizing of the other. Only about 1-3% of humans will kill another human without much or any inhibition at all.

Many who return from wars claim that having killed another human was the most horrific, and the most psychologically destabilizing, thing that happened to them. Some studies indicate that soldiers often aim above the heads of the enemy because they can't bring themselves to kill, even with all their training and the duress of being under fire themselves. This latter point is a reason for a great deal of military training: To UNtrain the killing inhibition.

This inhibition against killing can be muffled by training. It can be minimized by dehumanizing those to be killed. But it is nearly impossible to snuff out entirely.

And even when it is muffled and minimized, it almost always results in severe psychological trauma to the person conducting the killing.

What I'm trying to say is that the forces that are currently relying on psychological warfare against us, are conducting even more effective psychological warfare against themselves. Minus that tiny percentage (we all know the names of people who fit that profile, the ones responsible for recent and less recent murders), the "work" of terrorizing is psychologically destructive to the very people conducting the terror campaign.

Of course we all know that genocide is a thing and that it happens periodically across history. In order for it to happen, the oppressing force first has to dehumanize the victims. Then they have convince everyone that they're not planning to hurt them, only to ... send them home; incarcerate them; put them to work... etc.

The "final solution" (Hitler's word for the gas chambers in which his regime murdered millions) was "final" because it was the last step in a very long progression of steps, each of which slowly eroded the population's inhibition against killing or allowing others to be killed.

What I'm trying to tell you is that yes, the progression you're watching is real. Yes, it's terrifying. Yes, they're pulling out the stops.

But here's the thing. When we say we are many and they are few? It's more than that. Not only are we many, we are healthy. We are humans behaving as humans. In the most human way possible: Taking care of each other. We are robust, sturdy, and fueled by our communal work, not drained by it.

The human species proliferated not because we dominate each other, but because we cooperate with each other. It is a deeply, deeply human characteristic to take care of each other, even when the systems of oppression try to convince us it's not. I'm thinking of a neighbor who went to extraordinary lengths to help an unhoused person... a neighbor I happen to know voted for Trump. The HUMANITY in that neighbor, when faced with an actual human in front of them, chose humanity, not ideology.

(I'm not asking you to overlook or excuse the voting behavior. That's not my point here. I have my thoughts on that, but it's not what I want to discuss right now.)

The point is, the forces of evil look so very scary right now. Because they are full on frontal assault against us. And they're sending more. They're pulling out even more stops. But the fly in their ointment is that the system is fragile. It's fragile because it's working against every single human instinct in the people it depends on for its sustenance.

Humans can only fool themselves for so long. Eventually, the truth comes home.

Eventually, it's their neighbor's children who are dragged out of the house and handcuffed. Eventually, it's their coworker who is shot in the face. Eventually, it's their friend who is illegally "deported" to a concentration camp. And I'm not even saying that it has to come home to them personally. It just has to become HUMAN to them.

Eventually, fascism collapses in on itself like a machine forced to feed on itself for sustenance. Because that is exactly what it is.

Eventually, the only ones left standing for fascism are the 1-3%, and 1-3% of the population can't keep the rest of the population in check forever.

And what's even more heartening, my friends, is that the fragility of the system is even more fragile when it's resisted by something real, and human, and strong.

It simply cannot stand. It can stand no easier than a pile of straw can stand against a tsunami. We are the tsunami.

This will not be forever. I promise. And the harder we fight, the faster it crumbles. Because we know what we're fighting for, and it's the most human thing in the world: Each other.

You keep your chin up. On the other side of all this is something new and wonderful, something so beautiful, abundant, nurturing and profound that we haven't even dreamed it all the way yet.

"Where there is great light, great darkness must appear to have the light shown into it." ~ Robin Youngblood

The great darkness is here, my friends. And we are the great light.

ANS -- George Marshall

This is a brief biography of George Marshall.  The beginning of it appears to be missing, but I looked up the source and it wasn't there either. The important idea in this is that peace is achieved through positive means, not negative.  Read it.  

--Kim

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That was what President Roosevelt told George Marshall when explaining why he would not be commanding D-Day, the invasion Marshall had spent years planning, the operation every general dreamed of leading.

Instead, Roosevelt gave the command to Dwight Eisenhower.

Marshall did not argue. He did not lobby. He did not sulk. He went back to his desk in Washington and kept working.

By then, George C. Marshall was the most powerful military organizer the United States had ever produced. Under his direction, the U.S. Army expanded from fewer than 200,000 soldiers to more than 8 million in just three years. Training systems. Supply chains. Command structures. Alliances. He built the machinery that made victory possible.

Winston Churchill called him "the organizer of victory."

Yet Marshall had never led troops in combat. He operated out of sight, behind the curtain, where decisions were lonely and credit was scarce. No dramatic battlefield moments. No headlines. Just an insistence that things work because failure was not an option.

Roosevelt repeatedly pressed him to express his preference about D-Day.

Marshall refused.

"I wanted him to feel free to act in whatever way he felt was in the best interests of the country," Marshall later explained. "I did not want him to consider my feelings in any way. I would cheerfully go wherever he wanted me to go."

Roosevelt chose Eisenhower.

Eisenhower became the face of Allied victory. Marshall stayed in Washington and helped win the war anyway.

Then he took on something even harder.

He tried to win the peace.

June 5, 1947. Harvard University. Marshall, now Secretary of State, stood before 15,000 people at a commencement ceremony and delivered an eleven-minute speech that would reshape the modern world.

Even Harvard's president had no idea what was coming. The State Department told reporters it would be a routine address. Nothing noteworthy.

It became the most consequential commencement speech in the university's history.

Marshall proposed what was officially called the European Recovery Program. The world would come to know it as the Marshall Plan.

The United States would spend $13 billion rebuilding Europe's shattered economies. Not just friendly nations. Former enemies too. Germany. Italy. Countries that had bombed cities, murdered civilians, sworn destruction.

"Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine," Marshall said, "but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."

He knew what desperation created. After the First World War, the victors had punished Germany into collapse. Out of that wreckage came extremism, violence, and another war. Marshall refused to repeat the mistake.

The plan faced resistance. Americans were tired of sacrifice. Some lawmakers wanted punishment, not generosity.

But Marshall's reputation carried weight. He was trusted because he had never chased power for himself. When Congress voted, the margins were overwhelming.

Over the next four years, Europe changed.

Factories reopened. Cities rose from rubble. Trade returned. Former enemies became partners. Germany and Italy integrated into democratic systems. The foundations of what would become the European Union were laid.

The Marshall Plan did more than rebuild economies. It changed the moral logic of victory. It proved that stability could come from mercy, not humiliation.

In October 1953, Marshall learned he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was confined to bed with the flu. His response was characteristically restrained. He said the honor belonged to the American people.

He remains the only professional soldier ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not everyone approved. During the ceremony in Oslo, protesters rushed the balcony, throwing leaflets and shouting accusations of murder.

Marshall looked up calmly.

The King of Norway rose to his feet. So did the entire audience. They applauded until the room shook.

In his speech, Marshall addressed the contradiction directly.

"There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier," he said. "The cost of war in human lives is constantly before me, written neatly in ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means of avoiding another calamity of war."

Afterward, he returned quietly to Leesburg, Virginia. He wrote no memoirs. He gave no victory tours. He asked for nothing more.

He died in 1959 and was buried at Arlington.

His legacy is not a statue or a battlefield.

It is a rebuilt continent. An alliance that prevented another world war. A lesson that restraint can be stronger than revenge.

At Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, the congregation at Westminster Abbey stood as Marshall walked down the aisle. He turned, confused, expecting to see some royal dignitary behind him. Then he realized they were standing for him.

That night, he was the only non-royal seated at the Queen's table.

George C. Marshall never sought glory. He built the greatest army America had ever known, then used American power to save the nations that army defeated.

True strength is not found in conquest.

It is found in choosing to repair what hatred destroys.