What is this blog?
A hub for my thoughts on law, warfare, international relations, politics, and the human condition. Does that sound pompous enough?Who is the Steel General?
I lay no claim to the title the Steel General, but I take inspiration from his spirit.Yeah, but who is he?
"All know of the General, who ranges alone. Out of the pages of history come the thundering hoofbeats of his war horse Bronze. He flew with the Lafayette Escadrille. He fought in the delaying action at Jarama Valley. He helped to hold Stalingrad in the dead of winter. With a handful of friends, he tried to invade Cuba. He camped out in Washington when times were bad, utnil a greater General asked him to go away. He was beaten in Little Rock, had acid thrown in his face in Berkeley. He was put on the Attorney General's List, because he had once been a member of the I.W.W..."And so again he fought the rebel battle, being smashed over and over again in the wars the colonies fought against the mother planet, and in the wars the individual worlds fought against the Federation. He is always on some Attorney General's list, and he plays his banjo and he does not care, for he has placed himself beyond the law by always obeying its spirit rather than its letter...
"He shot craps with Leon Trotsky, who taught him that writers are underpaid; he shared a boxcar with Woody Guthrie, who taught him his music and that singers are underpaid; he supported Fidel Castro for a time, and learned that lawyers are underpaid. He is almost invariably beaten and used and taken advantage of, and he does not care, for his ideals mean more to him than his flesh...
"The General may be beaten, but he can never be destroyed, Wakim. Here he is now. Ask him yourself, if you'd like."
-Roger Zelazny, Creatures of Light and Darkness
