Hoping Again This Christmas Eve - 2015 - 1914 - 1968

I will simply repost my hope from last Christmas Eve

http://2dollarjefferson.blogspot.com/2014/12/christmas-truce-1914.html

And I add this to it:
Christmas 1968: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/12/christmas-1968.html

 "The VC gun fell silent, as did the American. There was a hush as warriors waited for some sign that the hope of common humanity yet lived. The VC fire resumed. Now there were three guns shooting green stars into the blackness. The MI men’s gun chattered merrily, spilling a river of shell casings into the street. Red and green filled the night. "

And I also add: Joyeux Noel.  
Analytically, it is a beautiful story of how a one to one relationship, one soldier to another,  changed the course of history one evening when one hand on one side shook hands with another from the other.  Since that time in 1914 that possibility has been receding.  The few that commanded death and destruction could not allow it.  The way to control an exclusive one to one relationship and therefore control it is hate or love in the mind and heart of the individual at the granular, one of each one of us level.  That is what power is all about to tip the scales.

The scales can tip rapidly in an Information Age that enables paradigm shifts in thought and feelings.

The real power of warfare was not those that held the rifles but those few that commanded them:
The sword, the bow, the rifle are no longer the granular level one to one tools of war in the hands of single men facing single men although they still deal death as they always have.  New age war is a one to increasingly many direct relationship that at the same time puts the one that one that has the "finger on the trigger" at an increasingly safe distance from the ones that are killed.

Our nuclear plan B if Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will didn't work. 

"A second list was of urban-industrial areas identified for “systematic destruction.”  SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established.  Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively.  Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including “population” targets.  In both cities, SAC identified air power installations, such as Soviet Air Force command centers, which it would have devastated with thermonuclear weapons early in the war."

As chilling as that "systematic destruction" of war making ability might be perhaps it is a strategic model for the confronting worldwide war making ability including or own:

"The “final blows” in the bombing campaign would strike “basic industries”—those industries and economic activities which most contributed to war-making capability."

The Merchants of Death increase reward and decrease risk when they create weapons that are increasingly controlled by fewer individuals use against increasing numbers of people.   Weapons that cannot be thrown down on the ground like rifles in the hands of many to shake the hand of an enemy that did the same. 

It is simply turning swords to ploughshares.

Bernie:  Beat those Wall Street swords that impale us into ploughshares that work for us.  It takes some intense heat to do the forging.

Is this the great hope that Christmas Eve portends?

I am sending you a Christmas present, Bernie.  With love from me to you.  The power of money is a two edge sword.  A single edge ploughshare.

"In agriculture, a plowshare (US; /ˈplaʊ.ʃɛər/) or ploughshare (UK; /ˈplaʊ.ʃɛər/) is a component of a plow (or plough). It is the cutting or leading edge of a moldboard which closely follows the coulter (one or more ground-breaking spikes) when plowing."

The ground to be plowed is fertile.