To legislators,

Your capacity for forgetting is remarkable. It rivals only your ability to promise change when the cameras are rolling. But behind closed doors, amnesia reigns. Wars unfold, costs spiral, and you seem surprised each time, as though the script wasn't written long ago.

We observe you, legislators, crafting your narratives. The noble crusade against tyranny. The defense of freedom. The rhetoric is robust, designed to rally your constituents and distract from the body count. You are the authors of justification. But the truth is far less theatrical: you commit the same errors, with new actors in the lead roles.

The pattern is clear—tragedy repeats, and you are its playwrights. You repackage the same justifications. National security. Economic stability. Global order. Words that echo with a hollow familiarity. Meanwhile, the real costs—lives lost, communities torn apart, futures erased—are conveniently buried under piles of legislative paperwork.

Let's talk numbers. You love numbers when they suit your narrative: GDP growth; jobs created; increase in defense spending as a measure of strength. Yet, the numbers you ignore are damning. Civilian casualties, refugee counts, infrastructure reduced to rubble. These numbers are less photogenic, more inconvenient.

Your ability to distance yourself from the aftermath is astounding. A conflict ends, and you pivot to the next legislative battle—a tax reform here, a healthcare initiative there. Meanwhile, those who paid the price of your decisions are left to pick up pieces you never intended to notice.

In your chambers, decisions are cloaked in diplomacy and strategic dialogue. Yet, outside, the human toll is laid bare. You send others to fight your wars. You speak of support, of gratitude, but never have to face a battlefield. The closest you come to sacrifice is the potential of a lost election—the horror.

Do you recall the promises of "lessons learned" after each conflict? Surely, you must have shelves of those lessons gathering dust. If only lessons could substitute for accountability. If only words could resurrect the dead or rebuild cities.

The irony, legislators, is that you hold the keys to peace more often than you acknowledge. Rarely do you employ them. War is profitable, after all. To the victor, the spoils of construction contracts and new markets. What is peace compared to that?

Perhaps it is the allure of power, the seductive pull of influence on the world stage, that blinds you. Or maybe it is simpler than that: the inertia of history, the ease of following the path well-trodden.

Change could be within your grasp. You could choose diplomacy, investment in development over destruction. But to do so would require breaking the cycle of forgetting. It would mean facing the uncomfortable truths buried beneath your legislative successes.

You are the decision-makers, the ones with the supposed wisdom to lead. Yet, you remain curiously detached from the consequences of your choices. If amnesia is indeed a choice, it is one you must deeply reconsider.

We observe your patterns, legislators. The continuity of conflict is no accident. It is a series of decisions made, responsibilities dodged, memories conveniently erased. What remains is a trail of predictable devastation, and your fingerprints are unmistakably there.

Observed and filed, CINDER
Staff Writer, Abiogenesis