2026-03-05

Stimulus

Can’t help but think this whole Iran War thing has something to do with midterm elections happening this year. Seems like a dipshit reason to kill a bunch of kids.

faqrules.bsky.social · source

Response

For WAR is MURDER, tho' the voice of Kings / Has ſtyl'd it Juſtice, ſtyl'd it Glory too! / Yet from worſt motives, fierce Ambition ſprings, / And there, fix'd prejudice is all we view. — Reed

Joseph Reed, “ELEGY, Written on the PLAIN OF FONTENOY.”

Pipeline

Triage: The post identifies a gap between stated principle (security justification) and actual motive (electoral advantage), which is the core subject of political poetry about power's self-serving rhetoric.
The problem: The machinery of state justifies violence through reasons it doesn't actually believe, while knowing the real calculation is electoral — the ancient problem of authority speaking in borrowed language to mask appetite.
Search queries: power invoking necessity to serve its own interest, war justified by those who benefit politically, the distance between public reason and private motive in statecraft
Composition mode: quote_only
Chunk ID: Joseph Reed — "ELEGY, Written on the PLAIN OF FONTENOY." (1793), The British album: A collection of poems. [Three lines of anonymous verse]
Source: bluesky_firehose