It is the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, and the eightieth anniversary of Kristallnacht.

And here we are again. Antisemitism is on the rise; the shooting in Pittsburgh is only the most graphic example.

The militaries of the world’s great powers are staffed by people who range from the incompetent to merely being unable to understand the new technologies and how they change warfare.

Our politicians, particularly in the United States, are aggressive and power-hungry. They use the rhetoric of martial power and pride, but Donald Trump was a draft-dodger and Putin a KGB thug. These are not men who fought in the trenches or the jungles or any other such thing. Just men who think they can exploit those who have.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The old lie.

I don’t have an answer here, no pithy comment on how to defeat the forces of violence and cruelty this time.

But I know we must reject their lies. That we must reject cruelty and violence, that we must help one another.

Otherwise, we will have broken faith with those who died and rendered their sacrifice as meaningless and pointless as possible.