For the record, I am not a pacifist, and I am not anti-grunt. What I am is anti-militarism in all it's guises.

God, that we could all have skarpi's worldview of it, but I do look forward to that day.

As to the royals, well...I'm a democrat, small 'd'. A Walt Whitman natural democrat, so to speak. Walt Whitman served during the US Civil War to end slavery. As a nurse. Loved Lincoln. Wrote 'When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd...' when he was assassinated.

I've had a hard week. First, there was is the deep irony of honoring Black History Month in a segregated urban school that is 85% African American and 92% free lunch school (ie high poverty, African American). Reading the latest Caldecott Honor Book about slavery to 1st graders, I have a little boy raise his hand and ask 'will that happen to us when we grow up' and I tell him no, we fought the civil war to end slavery in our country, and then made it against the law. His follow up to my comment? 'My dad says he'll hit me if I call the police on him when he hurts me.'

Then, our entire school went on a field trip to see a play about slavery, and believe me, the message wasn't lost on me that I was one of a handful of white faces in an audience that was a sea of black faces. Nothing hits home for kids like drama, and this play hit our kids far harder than anything our teaching and preaching about slavery has. It made it palpable for them, especially the beatings.

Then the same afternoon, one of our students disappeared after school--turns out his 'extended family' (mom lost custody of him for beating him) had taken him. So for now, he has been disappeared from us--the only people who know him and don't threaten him.

Slavery has a very human legacy, and I'm currently living in the midst of it. Militarism has a very human legacy, and I'm currently living in the midst of it too. And I hate them both. I detest them, because nothing is more undemocratic, dehumanizing, and demoralizing than slavery and militarism.

So go ahead McGrath, and gloss over the realities of all that if you want. I just find it appalling to compare the lives of some of the most privleged and pampered people on earth to the cushy lives that slaves lead.