QuasiMojo

The thing that scares me the most is that if John Kerry were to be pronounced the "President of the United States" would he allow our troops to be commanded by the "United Nations"?

Would Kerry Give Up Our Sovreign status in an effort to meet our.....
"Global Test?"

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Flyguy

Who ever said that the UN would have exclusive control over our forces? I don't think that's what Kerry meant. I'm all for cooperation with the UN to get the job done. But I really don't buy the fact that Kerry wants to turn over everything to the UN. Anybody can see that would potentiality compromise national security. What scares me even more is Bush's cowboy style diplomacy with his "fuck the world if they don't agree with me" attitude. He's caused anti-Americanism to pretty much double if not triple since he's been in office.

QuasiMojo

I don't know dude....

I don't know.

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Paq

I do...there is no way the UN would dictate what we can and cannot do with our forces. at most, he is saying he would get their support, which is exactlywhat bush SHOULD have done....

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seretogis

One thing you don't seem to understand is that if we were to wait for the UN Security Council to agree to invade Iraq, it would not happen -- ever. France said that they didn't care what evidence we showed them, they would never agree to it. Now, whether that is because of their exploitation fo the oil-for-food program or not, is another story. The fact of the matter is that while there is a veto system in place (which we have taken advantage of, too) we should not rely on the UN for anything. The UN is broken and corrupt -- why Kerry is so fond of it is for you to decide for yourself.

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bouray

When I think about the "global test" thing, I see it as not getting approval from the UN and the rest of the world to protect ourselves. This global test is not permission to defend, but I see it as us making sure the rest of the world knows we have a real reason for a strike against another country. It's a way for us to be sure we have support all over the world (like our attacking of Afghanistan), not just the help of Austrailia and Britain. Oh, I forgot Poland.

pan6467

Both Korea and Vietnam were "UN" police actions but the US was in control (McArthur in Korea (at first) and Westmoreland in Vietnam).

Look, whether you approve of the war or hate the. Love Bush, Hate Bush, fear Kerry whatever.... 1 thing stands clear we cannot finance this war by ourselves. We just cannot do it, eventually it will consume all tax revenue because there isn't a clear and decisive ending and there won't be for a long time.

People like to say the recession of the 70'-early 80's was caused by imports and high interest rates and this and that.... that was part but a lot of it was from Vietnam The government overspent severely and that caused interest rates to soar.

Interest rates were able to come down because Clinton took care of the deficit AND Greenspan is good. But we keep running deficits interest rates go up, inflation skyrockets and we have no industries to support the government with tax revenue. Where does that leave us? Up shit creek with no paddle.

No matter who is elected we have to find help absorbing the cost of this war or we are as good as the USSR was...... a bankrupt nation with our people starving and the government corrupt and trying to stay in control.

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scout

http://www.barefootsworld.net/untruth.html

Was we really in control? Perhaps you should do a little research as to who was actually in control, it might just change your opinion of the United Nations.

OpieCunningham

There are a number of things that scare me - I'll list a couple:

1- That somewhere around 50% of the voting population refuse to accept that pretty much every single thing Bush has tried, has failed. And yet all they can do is say "don't vote for Kerry". Anyone but Kerry? But he hasn't been the failed President for 4 year. It scares me how backwards some people seem to be.

2- That a significant portion of the conservative base, likely including the born-again Christian President himself, believe that the events in the Middle East is the beginning of the Rapture and fully expect the Messiah to return as the "good" battle is fought in the Holy Land. It scares me that we were supposed to be intelligent enough to discern rational judgement from religious judgement, and we are progressively failing more and more.

There are a dozen or so more things that scare me. The (un)likelyhood of Kerry signing the U.S. military into the hands of the U.N. is not one of them.

Rekna

What scares me is there are people out there who blindly accept the Bush lies as truth.

scout

What scares me is people actually think things will be different in Iraq with John Kerry as president. His policy is in reality no different than that of George Bush. France and Germany have already stated that they want no part of it, so pretty much it's gonna be more of the same. Everything Kerry has stated he will do the Bush administration has already tried and we currently have a coalition of 30 or so other countries, so what will change?? You all are so hyped of for Kerry when you boil it down, it's more of the same shit just a different shit-bearer. No matter who is President, it's just gonna be more of the same o crap until we actually have a valid third party candidate. The Republicans and Democrats alike are so deeply entrenched in the Washington "get rich establishment" that nothing will change as long as they are able to pad theirs and their friends wallets with our tax dollars. At least with Bush we know what we got and we don't have to worry about him selling us out to the UN or some other foreign establishment.

powerclown

France-Germany-Russia-China et al. put troops in Iraq? Hahaha. I don't think the UN is going to touch Iraq. What's in it for them?

rukkyg

1. I would never give up my right as President to protect the USA with a pre-emptive strike.
2. When i use that right, I have to do it in a way that my fellow humans fully understand why I did it, and that I did it for legitimate reasons.

rukkyg

2 things.

1. If we have to pull out because we run out of money, the middle east will deteriorate very quickly with a perceived victory over the hyperpower of the world.

2. If we stay there to win, but destroy our economy as we are doing now, those other countries' economies will suffer as well.

guy44

Anyone who actually believes that Kerry would give any control over U.S. military forces to the United Nations is smoking something truly amazing. Of course he wouldn't. No president would.

The U.N. is broken, but only insofar as it accedes to U.S. pressure all the time. The General Assembly will always pass anti-Israel, anti-U.S., anti-Western resolutions as every state gets an equal vote, and there are way more small, undeveloped countries suffering from international regime rules than there are Western countries benefiting from them. However, we have a permanent veto on the Security Council, which is the only part of the U.N. that can send troops anywhere.

What Kerry wants from the U.N. is an international rebuilding effort. Obviously, the security burden is on those who broke Iraq - the U.S. and Britain, basically. But the U.N. can and should have a role in helping to rebuild the country. Over 90% of U.N. funds go towards development efforts - for the most part, development is what the U.N. does. And for them to not be involved in Iraq, because Bush has a personal grudge against them and would rather throw money down the corrupt sinkhole called Halliburton/Brown & Root is foolhardy at best, petty and detrimental to the extreme.

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Rekna

Kerry hasn't lost all credibility with those nations. When he comes to the plate it will be a semi-fresh start. The rest of the world does not like or trust GWB. He is one of the most unpopular presidents of all time in terms of forgien governments.

Flyguy

Scipio

Nice post; I agree almost completely, though you perhaps overstate the importance of biblical theology in the prosecution of American Middle East policy. Some wingnuts believe that stuff, but I'm not sure that the policy people (such as they are) in the White House think that way.

Here's what I don't understand: we have a President who committed most of our military to a massive misadventure in Iraq that has done nothing to make America more secure. They've already been there for over a year, and there's no clear end in sight. He sent them in without enough preparation, without an exit strategy, and without a plan to win the peace.

Bush is perhaps the worst, most bumbling commander in chief that America has seen in decades, and people are afraid of the UN?

Are you kidding me?

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scout

On the other hand we have around 50% of the people willing to vote for someone that falsified battle reports, falsified injury reports, wrongfully accepted medals that he shouldn't have and continues to lie about it, can't make up his mind exactly what his "new and different" policy is on any particular thing other than its subject to change the next time he opens his mouth. After you cut through the political crap you find his real policy is almost exactly that of the current President. We've got a helluva choice this election don't we ?

filtherton

You need to stop listening to special interest groups.

roachboy

that kerry proposes a more sane foreign policy---not one that i agree with in all respects--but more sane than the bush administration has so far managed to implement--is on its own a strong reason to vote for him.

kerry's phrase "global test" implied that the americans would work in concert with the international community--that it would try to construct actual coalitions instead of the joke that bush managed in iraq--nothing about it implied, at any level, subordination to the un.

if you actually watched the debate, it would have been obvious to you that this is what kerry meant by the phrase.

did you not watch it?

if you did, then why would you allow the right spin machinery to substitute its remake for what you saw with your own eyes?

but maybe it works this way:
the conservative press assumed that, after a few days its constituency would begin to forget substantial elements of the actual debates and remember only certain phrases--and this kind of idiotic "interpretation" of kerry is an example of how trying to fill things in around that assumption works there.

why anyone would take the conservative press seriously is beyond me.
look what credulity gets you.
geez.

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it make you sick.

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scout

We can discuss this all night and I doubt either one of us will change our vote so it's not really worth the time. It's been hashed and rehashed on this board a thousand times if it's been discussed once. Both sides are wondering what the hell the other side is thinking and in the end it changes nothing. Why anyone would listen to the "left" press is beyond me This argument just goes in circles.

powerclown

I may be wrong, but I don't think money will be the deciding factor in the outcome of this war in Iraq. An enormous amount is riding on 2 things: a) how effective the newly trained Iraqi Security Forces will be (and they recently performed very well in Samarra) and, b) whether elections take place successfully in January as scheduled. Well, I may be wrong again, but this is a regional war, not a world war. US resources aren't at maximum or near so. Capital going into Iraq will only rise. But, indeed, something unforseeable could always happen.

rukkyg

Everything is about the money. What do you think trains those security forces? Money.

If America's economy goes down the tubes, the world's economy will follow suit. The cause of the original failure is irrelevant.

I guess I wan't clear enough.

sprocket

I still fail to see why anyone is alarmed, suprised or concerned that the UN is "pissed" at us. The vast majority of the UN are nations ruled by dictators similar to Saddam or single party governments that stomp all over human rights for personal benefit. They tend to get a little uneasy when someone like the US takes one of their bretheren out of power. Its in their interest that we turn a blind eye to weapons production, terrorism, and human rights violations because when we dont, there is a chance their leadership will be put into jeapordy.

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cthulu23

The US has a rich, storied history of supporting some of the worst dictators in the world, eg - Somoza, Suharto, Duvalier 1 & 2, Pinochet, etc, etc ad infinitum, whenever it is politically advantageous to us. We are also the world's largest arms dealer. We have hardly been the bulwark against repression that many US citizens think that we have. Let's not forget that we sold Saddam Hussein plenty of weapons during the peak of his repressive actions aginst the Kurds. All of this is not to say that the US never does good in the world but our actions, like most nations, have always been tempered with a strong dose of realpolitick. The popular american idea that we are the most moral nation on earth as far as foreign policy is concerned is a false one.

Yes, there are plenty of dictators in the UN. No, they do not all fear the US. In fact, many are our close allies.

pan6467

I don't know if the world's economy would suffer as badly or near as long as our.

That was the purpose of the European Union, to get away from effects of the US economy.

Face it the only thing we export is debt, BILLIONS in aid to Isreal and the UN and jobs right now. There maybe some economic turmoil overseas because we won't be buying imports as fast, however, we won't be much of a factor in things like cars either. We as a country will be selling everything over to foreign countries that hold our government and personal debt. And these great tax cuts "Bush gave everyone", will be reversed and you think taxes are high now?

I think if we are forced to keep paying for this war and the subsequent fronts we'll be going into (Iran, Syria, N. Korea) we are doomed financially and as long as we have a cowboy that wants to do everything his way and fuck the rest of the world, noone will help. If anything the allies we have through political pressure will drop fast once their economies and their power start to suffer.

And I don't think the people will stand Bush cutting more social programs like education and healthcare. If he does he'll lose Congress and then I think you'll see another Nixon, the Dems will go after Cheney first and find a way to get him out of office and then Bush.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

OpieCunningham

OK. Let's make a big assumption that the U.N., France, Germany and Russia will continue to give us the cold shoulder even though Kerry has never marginalized and denigrated them in front of the whole world. We'll assume that they have no interest in any stability in Iraq or risking anything to achieve it and that they have done nothing has nothing to do with the arrogance of Bush + Co. Let's make that assumption.

Now - help me out here - which of the two candidates was stupid enough to drag us into a war we can't win with allies I can count on basically 2 and a half fingers? Which of the two canidates made such an incredibly stupid decision?

Whichever one it is, I'm not going to vote for him. When it comes to a President, one big-ass strike and you're out. End of story.

guy44

I just don't understand the anti-U.N. mindset so many people have. The U.N. is not antagonistic towards the U.S., nor is U.N. power compared to U.S. power a zero sum game. To quote Joseph Nye from his book, The Paradox of American Power:

"...'There is an extraordinarily impoverished mind-set at work here, one that is able to visualize long-term challenges to the system of states only in terms of entities that are institutionally substitutable for the state.' A better historical analogy is the development of markets and town life in the early feudal period. Medieval trade fairs were not substitutes for the institutions of feudal authority. They did not tear down the castle walls or remove the local lord. But they did bring new wealth, new coalitions, and new attitudes summarized by the maxim 'Town air brings freedom.'"

The U.N. never, ever could replace U.S. institutions. As Nye wrote, it is a part of a "transnational [system] that is superimposed on sovereign states," not a replacement of them. To think otherwise is to fall victim to this "extraordinarily impoverished mind-set" created by kooks afraid of black helicopters or by savvy right wing political strategists, attempting to create a potent political straw man.

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powerclown

Yes I agree. There's money enough to train a few hundred thousand Iraqis. In the scheme of things, I would imagine this is to be a relatively minor expense, and shared by NATO as well. I believe Congress already earmarked money for Iraq, indeed, to the consternation of those who want to see the money spent faster and the country's 'reconstruction' progress yet more visibly.
Oh, yes it would be bad news for everyone. The fear of the unknown affects even the US stock markets...

Bodyhammer86

Sorry, but we provided him with a grand total of about 1% of his weapons during the Iran-Iraq war. We sold him about a hundred helicopters, only 20 of which were gunships and the other 80 were civilian models taken over for air force use. Doesn't sound like plenty of weapons to me....

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scout

[QUOTE=OpieCunningham.Now - help me out here - which of the two candidates was stupid enough to drag us into a war we can't win with allies I can count on basically 2 and a half fingers? Which of the two canidates made such an incredibly stupid decision?

Whichever one it is, I'm not going to vote for him. When it comes to a President, one big-ass strike and you're out. End of story.[/QUOTE]


As I stated earlier in this thread we can argue this for days and noone ever wins or loses. Everyone has an opinion, you have yours and I have mine. In the end it's still just an opinion and opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and it's usually full of shit. We both can posts links to someone else's opinion that we feel supports our own but it would change nothing. People only believe what they want to believe no matter what evidence is placed under their nose.

To further prove this theory and my previous statement about Kerry, check out this link http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lip01.html then shoot holes in it as a "right-wing" conspiracy. Then you can posts a few links to prove Kerry's a war hero and then move on to his corrected stance on the Iraq war, although he voted for it and now he claims he didn't, he only voted to give the President permission and the President got in to big of a hurry yada yada yada. The fact is, my opinion of course {see above about opinions}, the whole world thought Hussein had and was in the process of producing more WMD's, Kerry included. Now that the going is tough, suddenly Kerry is absolutely against it, always was and always will be because that just might win him this election, the election is worth billions of our tax dollars for the winners and the friends/contributors of whoever wins. It won't help either you or me all that much because after it's over it's gonna be more of the same shit, just maybe a different person to feed us this huge bucket of shit. After it's all said and done, we will both be sitting here hiding behind our moniter and keyboard still thinking the other is absolutely f'king nuts and blind as a bat .

onetime2

My thoughts on the subjects raised in this thread:

The financial cost of the war in Iraq is minimal. The only thing that will throw a wrench into the financing of the rebuilding efforts is the mistaken belief that the war in Iraq can not be won. It's only a matter of time before Iraqis tire of the fighting and begin helping to stabilize their own country. Perhaps the planned election will help them to feel that it is their own country they are fighting for instead of the ridiculous belief that America is only looking to expand its "empire". Certainly they have reason to think that since through their history there have been many claims of liberation and doing what's best for the people. In almost every case it lead to consolidation of power and a pronounced class system with the ruling party operating outside of almost any boundary. But the US does not take over countries. If that were the case we'd have already added Kuwait, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, and a host of other countries to the rolls of our territories.

I do not think Kerry will cede command to the UN. That's utterly ridiculous. He will, however, find it very difficult to act independently given his platform. France and German will gain a high level of say in foreign policy decisions involving using US military force since their abstention will carry cries of "unilateralism" or a failure to build a coalition. He will become exactly what he decries Bush for. Any coalition he puts together with France and Germany will almost certainly be one of the "coerced and bribed" because they will have greater bargaining power than they have now.

A struggling US economy will impact every country in the world. While the EU was formed to help mitigate the effects of the US economy, that was not its primary purpose. It's primary purpose was to consolidate economic power in the face of the growing importance of Eastern nations' economies and continued strong US economic influences in the world.

The UN is almost pointless in resolving world conflicts. Korea was probably the biggest UN effort and where does that stand today? A tenuous peace at best with decades of threats, massing weapons, and millions suffering under the power of a few. The entire process of UN actions is filled with opportunity for delay, manipulation, corruption, and failure. Countries can go for decades under sanctions which are supposed to force compliance to UN resolutions. Forces are only sent when absolutely everything else has failed multiple times and even then, in most cases, member countries require that there is little real combat involved before they go that route.

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roachboy

scout--it the situation really was as you describe it--everyone has an opinion, there is no possible dialogue--because each opinion is equally justified--then you would be in a quite different situation, both in terms of debate here and in terms of politics more generally.

the fact is that the premise of this thread is demonstrably false.

that kerry implied, at any level, that he would place american forces under the aegis of the un is simply false.


that the right press, over the subsequent days, in a desperate collective bid to reverse the damage bush caused his cause by his appalling performance, has moved to spin various details of the debate in various ways, seemingly aiming that spin at people with short memeories or who are having trouble for psycho-political reasons coping with what bush's performance might mean--this is also not open to dispute.

any equation you might try to make between the conservative press and something on "the left" is simply false--there are very different mechanisms for co-ordination of line in place on the right, which has constructed itself as a powerful, relatively unified block---nothing like this has happened on the "left" in america, such as it is. this too, is simply not open to dispute.

these problems just in the context of this thread...

at this juncture, maybe this post wanders into opinion, but then again maybe not--the only way you would be able to determine would be to actually engage the argument, not use a facile move over and over to try to make conversation pointless...

one function of the conservative cultural apparatus in recent years has been to shortcircuit debate---i think in particular of the generating of corporate-sponsored "science" to refute claims made by environmental groups, for example--realizing that you can prove anything as a function of what you include or exclude from the premises of experiments, you can fund and develop a whole body of pseudo-information whose function is simply to shut down debate......to produce your position----you have your opinion, i have mine, there is "data" for both sides that is protected from any meaningful scrutiny because it is either never cited or because you enter the debate assuming up front that your positions are not falsifiable.

but if you think that, then why waste your time at all in conversations about politics?

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

irateplatypus

on what basis do you base your claim that "pseudo-science" is endemic to the conservative side of the aisle? i'm not arguing that the phenomenon doesn't exist, just that both sides could be proven equally guilty... making a political statement aimed at a single side irrelevant.

i don't believe that kerry would turn iraq over to the UN... but he definitely has a different philosophy than bush has on it. in future situations, i think he is almost beholden to the UN because 1) ideologically he is more pre-disposed to such avenues 2) he has made the UNs role in international conflict a central plank in his platform making political suicide if he contradicts his campaign rhetoric.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

roachboy

on the attempts to engineer perceptions of the debate over the past few days, look here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/po...04spin.html?hp

requires registration, but it is free--the article is three pages long.

irate: listening to bill wattenberg for a couple of years made me wonder about this--for information about the process, look for example here:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.pht..._organizations

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

irateplatypus

it would've been helpful for you to cite the nytimes article rather than just a link. not sure if that violates any TFP policies... but that way all of us wouldn't have to register.

i didn't read the nytimes article, so this isn't a response to it... just my personal perceptions.

roachboys constant painting of the debate picture as an overwhelming victory for kerry and subsequent attack on republicans for trying to re-spin the events of the evening contain a great deal of irony. as always in our media-based political climate, the debate over the debate rages on... actual events have little to do with the advantage either side can gain from trying to convince the public of victories or defeats. the fact is cnn, msnbc, and foxnews all called the debate afterwards a near-draw with the coin toss going to kerry. only afterwards did kerry have such a dramatic win in the minds of anyone but the left's most faithful. bush's damage control efforts are not aimed at correcting his performance in actuality as much as they are protecting against the spreading notion that he was beaten soundly.

one thing i've learned recently, perhaps due to my interactions with all of you on TFP, is that people will interpret events in the way that most affirms their pre-existing worldview to extremes i would not have believed at an earlier time. i say with complete humbleness and sincerity, i don't discount myself from that ideology-centric worldview either. real growth and fruitful discussion is possible, but rare.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

roachboy

irate: did you actually watch the debate?
why would you rely on network talking heads to tell you what you could have seen with your own eyes?

i can see why bush supporters would be unhappy, and would prefer a different outcome, even one manufactured at the expense of being able to interpret what you were seeing in real time for yourself.

for the record, i am not an unequivocal supporter of kerry.
i am not immersed in a particular media space. i do far too much scrambling of types of sources for that. i almost never watch tv, read alot of newspapers from various political positions, various countries. the assumptions you make, irate, about how i get information are simply projections.

but whatever, if you want to try to make the spaces from which we work mirror images of each other in order to make it easier to dismiss what i say without engaging with it, then go ahead.
just dont pretend it is anything other than that, and we'll be fine.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ARTelevision

What scares me is that viewers/voters are swayed by "style."
This doesn't surprise me.
It reinforces the view that TV is where we live.
Nothing lies like television.

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irateplatypus

that's just the thing roachboy, i saw the same debate you did and came to different conclusions. i don't rely on the media for my own opinions... but when the media judges something to be a near-tie immediately after the fact... but changes its tune in the following days, that reeks of spin. i don't think you're a victim of the spin, because that is probably the impression you had right afterwards. at no time did i ever say you were an unequivocal kerry supporter, only that you were among the faithful left. i made no judgement on where you get your information. additionally, i'm dearly hoping our political biases aren't mirror images... may the good lord help me if they are.

art,

i'm w/ya. everything must be entertainment in order to receive the population's attention. style and rhetorical skill are legitimate components to political efficacy, but our current new/entertainment hunger and new means of supply twist it too easily in brand-new and misunderstood ways.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill