I feel like I'm standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, "He started it!" and throwing rocks that keep taking out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody's mother to come on the scene saying, "Boys! Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt."I am somebody's mother, so I will say that now: The issue is, people are getting hurt.
[Ed.: There is much, much more, and it is simply a shame to abridge it. Kingsolver relates phoning a like-minded friend for support, and "we remind ourselves... that the last time we got to elect somebody, the majority of us, by a straight popular-vote count, did not ask for the guy who is currently telling us we will win this war and not be 'misunderestimated.' " (They certainly don't discuss the function of the Electoral College.) Kingsolver also lists several "alternatives to war," which include an end to corporate welfare and homelessness, a "humane health-care system" like Canada's, less energy consumption coupled with subsidies for renewable energy, signing the Kyoto agreement, adopting "a military budget the size of Iceland's," and building the "efficient public-transit system of Paris in my city," which for Kingsolver happens to be Tucson, Arizona.]
