I missed the war by a hair - my lottery number was 116 when they
stopped the draft. You're right about McNamara. (Sometimes
predicting is easy - in the '60s anyone could have predicted that
in the '90s computers would be ubiquitous, rock 'n roll would still
be popular, and McNamara would still be trying to figure out
Vietnam.)
Is McNamara getting religion because death is approaching? Why
wasn't he this compassionate back then? It wasn't lack of brains -
the guy has a very high IQ. Would a woman in his position have
advised the president differently? What would a woman in Johnson's
position have done? I have a tendency to try to reduce things to
brain chemistry, and the differences between men and women seems to
be a key.
A former Ecofem subscriber mentioned "The Chalice & the Blade" by
Riane Eisler. "Chalice" is probably the most important book I ever
read. She theorizes, based on archeological evidence, that
civilization was NOT run by men 5000 years ago; that power was
shared between men and women; and that war was rare or nonexistent
until barbarians overthrew them, and it's been downhill ever since.
I think the concept of moving from a dominator to a partnership
based civilization is critical for avoiding global holocaust and/or
ecological collapse (or both). I wonder if we can get there from
our competition based economy.
aVr
