There were times in my life, whether enabled by illness, drugs or a moment of clarity, when I wondered about the worst question I’ve ever asked.

I asked myself, or I asked my God, or the empty space around me. Didn’t matter. The question was always there.

The question is, why has humanity not learned the one thing that would save it?

I have no answer. Yet in even simple forms I have asked the question from an early age. I did not intend an attempt at being a sophist. I would never have had or understood the depth of knowledge required to do so. Survival was my main concern. I lived each day under threats and the memories of threats — some so terrible that I could never see them for what they were. Threats of worse violence than I had experienced so far in my life, of abandonment, and, by association, death. A child does not handle the concept of death well. But abandonment, that fear is even worse. My father made me get out of the car one day on Hutzler’s parking lot. Devastated and in what I now realize was shock, I walked to a sidewalk to sit down and begin my life of having no family, no home, no world.

Death? Could that be any worse than being left without anything? I could not know.

So I would, a bit later, perhaps at age 10, ask why people were so exceptionally cruel, why they revelled in the power to inflict pain. Bullies who did not know I was beaten-down saw me as a docile, frightened punching bag. My father had the idea that he would make me tough. It never occurred to him that he was instead doing the opposite. Over the years his disappointment grew. His criticism carried on long after the beatings stopped.

Why did he not see, why could he not realize, what he had done? Why didn’t he see and learn that he had been wrong?

Why do people never learn that violence and terrorism are counter to the subjugation they so desperately crave?

The question, I’ve determined, is not rhetorical. It needs an answer. It demands one.

We can be, as a species, brilliant. We can accomplish great things. In a time so far in the past that I am constantly in wonder of it, humans had civilizations which were keen planners and builders. The pyramids were not built by aliens, but by people. In Babylon, ziggurats stood tall and majestic. All after hunter-gatherers had learned agriculture and husbandry. In all that time, thousands of years, one thing remained constant. History tells the tale: we consistently feel driven to slaughter each other.

It can be a war over property, usually rich in resources. It can be one of provocation, being attacked. Or perhaps brought on by desperation following famine or a plague. The rise of ISIS was the direct result of a drought. That the group used religion to fuel their cause is hardly surprising.

In every war ever recorded by written form or archaeological evidence, we know for a fact that many people died. That is, after all, the goal: taking enough lives to get the other side to capitulate. The casualties have always included women and children, a thing we claim today constitutes war crimes. But we still do it. Why haven’t we learned?

Are humans, by nature, evil and warlike, homicidal and power-hungry? Are we thieves, taking by force that which we do not possess?

Are we so lazy that we steal instead of earning?

Do we need to feel power so much that beating children is fulfilling?

Does most of humanity, as many believe, consist of good people who allow evil to happen because they feel helpless to stop it? Do protests mean as little to those in power that there is no quarter, and never anything learned, but some things, mostly begrudgingly, conceded only in extreme cases?

Why in the world would people be moved to fight so quickly over religion? The one thing that gods seem to want the most for worshippers is prosperity. But does belief in one or more higher power dictate violence?

If a man is a Christian, why does he not follow the teachings of Christ? All people sin, but that doesn’t account for genocide, wars, oppression, exclusivity and bigotry over extended periods of time.

If humans could build pyramids, they also had sufficient knowledge to build war chariots, manufacture weapons and engage in terrible battles. In every war, the field of combat left the ground strewn with bodies, both whole and in parts, and enough blood to sicken all but the most hardened of generals. A sight, surely, to learn from. And yet it never has stopped.

Israel is at war. Right now. Today. I know that reports don’t say that. But when lobbing mortar shells and firing missiles begins, it is a war. Women, children, the elderly all die in numbers that grow daily until they lose their impact: death means nothing. Bodies in the streets…mean nothing. Perhaps a disease will break out. Covid cases might rise. No matter; what counts is who wins.

Why do people refuse to learn, or worse, to ignore the things they do learn?

The answer is required.

And it is a terrible thing, the answer. It took years, but I have at least part of it.

The answer is: people do learn. From their knowledge we get new weapons, new battle tactics, new ways to keep men alive to return them to battle.

We could use our lessons to better humanity. Sometimes we have. Never often enough. Technology and medicine advancement largely come from the demand for new ways to equip a military body.

And we sit by in silence and we do nothing because our safety depends on such a force as to overwhelm and deter any other country.

Right now we in the United States are, as always, divided. We see the news footage. Rockets fired at Israel by Hamas and Hamas mortars causing Israeli airstrikes to fell buildings and kill indiscriminately just as the rockets have. There are conflicts everywhere but the Israeli fighting is not new. While I’m neutral and want it to stop, believing both sides are wrong, there are many in my country who hate Netanyahu and think Pesident Biden should intervene and those who think Israel should kick all Palestinians out of Gaza and other territories. Neither side sees the truth.

The truth that a six-year-old girl pulled from a pulverized building’s rubble now has no family and can never be the same, the rest of her life to be filled with both waking and the nightmares of sleep. The truth being, no adult, no national leader, no general should ever have had the power or the disposition to cause her life to be so horribly affected.

I don’t know her name. But her eyes as she emerged from the rubble, I will not forget. No one should ever forget her eyes. Look at her. Look at what they have done to her. Do that, and still tell me that you support either side’s actions.

If you can do that, I have some pretty dirty things to call you.

However I think, or feel, affects nothing. I am neither a diplomat nor a leader. I am not particularly intelligent. I’ve never made a significant difference to anything or anyone. My history of being given the lash, of being brainwashed and sexually abused, it’s all here on the pages of this blog. That’s my contribution to society. It is, in all candor, the only thing I have to offer, and yet I fear that too few eyes will read the story, and fewer will get anything from it.

A child. A precious thing. To be nurtured, protected, encouraged. To watch as it grows, a miracle impossible to ever fully appreciate because we have proven that we cannot.

Tell yourselves, “But she’s alive,” and pat your own backs for being so emotionally and intellectually sophisticated.

Dolts! How can you, and how dare you? You’re not going to get out of it that easily. Such thoughts are selective, evading the other children who have been killed and suffered grievously before the mercy of passing could happen. By not standing up for them, you approve their injuries and deaths. That means you dishonor their lives and their memories; that you also disregard the worth, priceless though it is, of all human life.

Prince Harry has essentially been forced to take up for his wife because of how she was treated in England by the royal family. He has done so. He had, not merely the right, but a debt of honor to speak out. The response to his words was the rejoinder of ones guilty as charged:

“With all that he was given, he has no right to complain.”

As has been said by uncounted people throughout history. The minute you begin doing the things that must be done, everyone who hurt you says the same thing: “After all we’ve done for you…”

They do not know that we get it. We, the walking wounded, understand. But if we hear the words and understand them, then this is the translation:

“You owed us and yet you betray us like this?”

If abuse is surrounded by finery, pomp and circumstance, is it then not abuse? Do the guilty get a free pass?

He obviously grew up under pressure. His mother was killed and still disrespected. She is to this day. His father, according to Harry, treated him the way his grandfather treated his father. He says, “I’m going to break that cycle.” The meaning is evident. He understands honor more than his father or brother ever will. And this is just basic. As an American I may not be a qualified critic of the Royal Family, but as a victim, I am qualified in this matter.

Even worse are the rumors of Harry and his wife Meghan being stripped of their royal titles, further displaying actions typical of the guilty: revenge and retribution.

If a prince deserves the chance to oppose undue abuse and actions, then what difference is there between him and a child of six whose world was destroyed by an air-to-ground assault, which Israel claims are “precision attacks”?

Does the little girl have the same human rights as a British prince? What should be given to her, and what portion of justice will she receive?

I look at the red carpet. Not in Buckingham Palace. In Hollywood. It is such an affront to all who suffer that I am sickened by the dresses, the boasts of the price tags, the supercilious banter. Hollywood does a service for the people. They entertain us. Yet the price of a theater ticket has branched off, especially during the pandemic, making streaming services a premium. Should I wish to watch certain shows, I must first pay for cable and internet. Then I need to subscribe to Amazon, Hulu,Netflix and more. Even the networks take us to the cleaners; CBS being particularly shameless. Everyone has their hands out, and people who could use the money for essentials throw cash into those hands. Do they ever ask, these mega corporations, what they do to their customers?

No. Occasionally they advertise that “CBS cares” and other bullshit claims, thinking that we won’t notice how insulting and superficial those ads are.

For what reason I do not know people line up to have their money taken by people who appear on red carpets and pose and are so full of themselves that God in Heaven must get close to throwing up.

Those who have money and celebrity, those who have power with weapons, forget what we never can. That out here, death means more than they know. That honor is not negotiable, that it doesn’t come in degrees; you know honor or you ignore honor, or you never understood it.

In Israel, right now, there is no honor to be seen. It is absent from both belligerents. That means that restraint is only slightly used and escalation to more horror is near. Hate, bitterness and vindictiveness have a power over humanity that all too easily smothers the good in us. If we are not an inherently violent species, we have utterly failed to prove it.

If we are not an inherently evil species, we need to prove it at once. We have the capacity for greatness and honor, for sympathy and love. We should act on it more often.