Simple. Just look at history. Countries unable to defend themselves in the face of overwhelming force get ransaked. Always have. Nukes is simply the progression of weaponry, and it is not the last. Antimatter bombs are on the way that will make the nuke look puny.

-S

Goes all well into the ear. But simply lacks objectivity and reason. We sell military goods worldwide. Nuclear fuel. We differ between civil and milutary use of nuclear tech. We support tyrants if they are of short-termed use for us, we condemn them, if they are no longer our obedient servents. Our economy and our finances are run beyond reason and solidness. Our monetarian debts amongst each other are beyond imagination. We cause conflict and poverty, dependence and misery all over the globe, and call that our mission in the name of freedom, democracy, free trade - OUR freedom, OUR democarcy, OUR free trade. we excuse our falures by our intentions, and ignore that our intentions never matched our candy-sweet words. We have build the international structures and offices of global administration to our will and intention, because in the short term they promised us immense benefits, at the costs of others. We have created our own fate, and now make it sound as if it is the respnesebility of others, as if we have added nothing to the situation, as if all moral autority is ours.

All this in the face of other powers and factions, beliefs and ideologies that also act in the same way like we do. We live on a small and sinking island of the happy, while all around us people were drowning in the stormy sea by the hundreds of millions.

And today, in the present, many of us think that all what we need is more of that tough double-moral, packed into pithy phrases that directly deliver it into the centre of our emotion's control. You know what? This will solve nothing, because it does not change ourselves, not our selfishness and hypocracy, and it does not change the very rottenb mark and intention of the many systems and institutional interactions that form our so-called civilization.

Should we stop trying and fighting for the better? No. But please spare us the emotional catch-phrases and pithy slogans. Instead of a Kennedy speach, we need a general attitude of mind that share's a samurai's determination to serve, that focusses less on our rights that we define ourselves, and focusses more on our duties, and that repalces all what is rotten and hypocricy and split-tongued in our society and international administrative systems with what serves the best of all at the cost of no one and can rightfully be taken as a reason to claim that this it is what it is worth to fight for, and defend. But when the next elections approach, and you will see the ape's theatre that politicians put on, and the masses applauding that BS and call it "good" and "great" and "just" and "worthy", then you can see the grace and greatness of western man's reason and the worthiness of what is left of western civilization.

But at least you have a chance to get a blue or red abllon for free, and a pencil, and a card with some lying bastard's handwritten signature on it. Isn't that a good reason to fight for?

If Kennedy would be around today - I tell you what, it wouldn't make a difference. The general global trends would remain unaffected. That simple. Our civilization seems to be automatted to such a degree, that it now is run by it's own suicidal self-dynamic. We don't need a better speech-writer. we need new "ourselves".

Sometimes i think it would be good if out in space there would emerge an alien power that threatens all mankind and all earth with extinction. maybe that would motivate us to create a better world. But a thinking of "mine is longer than yours" will make us fight against each other and killing each other until the end of human race.

Keine Macht den Doofen! "There is no other hope than that mankind very quickly becomes reasonable." - Einstein, I think.

We need men in office like those who founded this nation.

They received no pay for public service.

Agreed.

damn straigt!

And Krazy Kim's bomb was supposedly an actual failure. It was a plutonium bomb, which should produce at least a Hiroshima type yeild, but it actually had only the power equal to or less than an American "Davy Crockett" (you may ask me what this is if you are not familliar, I will GLADLY answer!:up: )

Sky, you have your head in the clouds. Forget "moral authority" and "samurais", practical steps are necessary. Steps taken by the Kennedys, Roosevelts, Trumans, Reagans, and Thatchers in the past kept you from speaking Russian and made it possible for the world to last this long without another world war. The world is not going to burst forth in love and understanding tomorrow, people are still essesntially the same. If you apply some of your analytical skills to the substance of Kennedy's "emotional catch-phrases and pithy slogans...", you would see it was a necessary move to keep the Soviet Union in check. You wouldn't have done very well in the USSR, not with your independant nature.

You keep waiting for the aliens to unite us under a one-world peace but I think more pragmatism would be more helpful.

The Alien part is completely wrong.

If Aliens invaded we would see a world-war with mankind fighting to decide who will submit first and ally with the Aliens. :rotfl:

As long as the Aliens promise bread and circus the planet is theirs.

I think any species that is advanced enough to make the trip to earth from another star system has the planet regardless of whether they offer bread and circuses or not.

unfortunately they seem to assasinate good leaders when they come and let the idiots that ******* up there country get away scot free

And what is your pragmatic solution? Hoping for a holy saint, or a better Führer in the WH? The UN sanction do not hit Kim, they hit the already starving people. I do not judge the moralaity of it, I just doubt thta this could be called "pragmatism". Or nuking NKorea, maybe even preemptively? Massmurder (nuclear war simply is that) of a people that are victims, for just some dozen people at the top being bad bullies? Or retaliate nith nukes if they attack first? you have a right of self-defense, agreed, but again, mass murdering even in case of self-defense is not what correlates with the meaning of the word pragmatism, in my subjective understanding.

No-no, Neal, you just make it sound as if all that is needed to improve the world is a Kennedy-guy and a heart-warming speech and a red line drawn for this or that bad guy (many of them we have created ourselves), and that is all that is needed to let the West, or America, appear as the knight of the holy powers of light, and save the planet. Indeed, that is one of my most dominant impression about Americans: a great tendency and vulnerability to blindly believe in authorities especially a president, and easily falling for speeches that are done with rehtorical raffinesse. Maybe a mentality born from the colonizing period and wars with the indians, I don't know.

I just think beyond that immediate action, and reminded you that not all but much of the evil in the world today is created by actions and decision masterminded and carried out by - ourselves in our shining armour. Our position in the fight against tyrannies, progroms, terror and islam by far is not as clean and shining and perfect as America believes. We have plenty of dark spots on our not so white jackets, really. And that you made my comments look as naive love for the good things in life and hoping for aliens from outer space, just illustrates that you do not see that so many of today'S situations are created with help of the West and America, or that you do not want to see it and prefer to think of America as the country of the still morally superior who never troubled any water. From America I only always hear: tough stand here, tough stand there, but I never hear America thinking about it's own contribution to the global mess. You people still seem to think that you have nothing to do with it, that everything would be better if everything just would be like America, and you still seem to think that the many international political decisions you formed and implemented are only selflessly and really for the good of the people whom are affected.

But that things like the ICF for example has led foreign nations into higher dependency and made more people even poorer than helping to improve their life, while it all happened for OUR economical benefit and interest keeping, you refuse to see. Now the rules of the ICF are starting to work against us under the mechanism of so-called globalization (have you noticed the fall in enthusiasm for it in Western economies during the last two years or so, while it starts to become hurting not omnly for th eothers, but for ourtselves as well, while many of the others - are becoming stronger by it?), and I predict you that it is only a question of years now until it will be thought about to replace the ICF by a new design that matches our egoistic interests better - it will be argued to do so for very different reasons than what I said above, of course. but it will not work this time, for china, SE Asia and S America have learned their lesson and are to strong now as if you can push personal agendas through against their will. So that globalisation more and more wreaks havoc amongst Western employees and leads to regular jobs being replaced by low-wage mini-jobs by the many millions, and the class of the so-called working poor is increasing, in some nations even exploding, is in fact kind of a blowback ( i do not refer to chalmers johnson's book title this time, but use the term in the original CIA meaning of it: negative consequnces feeding back on us from causes and actions that are so long ago and so far away that we do not remember them and do not see the link between cause and effect and thus attribute these consequences to different causes that have nothing to do with it). But many of such international structures are masterminded by America, and give America a dominating position in it.

You also often make it look as if you only bring sacrifices and nobody honours you and that you are strong, militarily for example, completely by your own effort. And while you have waged more wars for SELFISH reasons in the last 70 years than anyone else, you present yourself as the misunderstood victim of anti-americanism and international hate that only always brings sacrifices and is payed be people becoming greedy and envy at (of?) america. But as so many commentators have calculated before, without incredibly high financial investements from other countries and especially europe into your national finance saystems, you simply would be to poor to maintain such a giant military apparatus that you now call your own - you depend on us, like it or not, and that is nothing new in history: many empired depended on military contributions from their vasallas and thus enforced the flow of goods and finaces into the empiral centre, no matter the cost. you are living a national lifestyle that you cannot pay for by yourself. You live on tick. All Western nations live on tick, but america by far more than anyone else. And you consider it to be a naturalness. Some days ago somebody here told me proudly that it already has been taken care of by planning not to ever pay back the massive debts, and calculating them on a 1:20 basis only. If financial investments into the US would suddenly dramatically drop, your lights would go dark. During the last five hundred years, the majority of european nations had run into total bancruptcy over reasons of living beyond their potential and maintaining a military during the many wars over here that simply strecthed their finacial systems beyond braking point: they had to start new, at point zero, with all the chaos and personal tragedy of ruined families this meant for the affected nation's population. the US is steaming into a comparable direction - at maximum speed.

And concerning Kennedy, I want to remind you that he, or you, or we all, simply had LUCK during Cuba. Contemporary witnesses of name, Kissinger for example, I think McNamara also, said it very clearly that it was not a crisis that got solved and managed: "Things were out of control. We had completely lost control at some time. We were simply lucky."

Nothing against pragmatism. But that must be considered to be much more than just a popular leader with catching speeches. Sense of realism and being aware of one'S own positive as well as negative influence during the emerging of current situation are necessary preconditions. and here I see America failing as well as Europe is failing, too, but both for different reasons and deficits. America needs Europes financial support, and europe indeed would need a strong and leading america. We are sitting in the same boat, as we say in German. That'S why I consider it to be of such high interst for us europeans as well what kind of leadership the Us is led by, and how trustworthy the motives of it are. If it fails, not only America but Europe feels the consequences as well, sometimes even much more immediately and directly than the US, for example Islamic terrorism. If this mutual dependency would not exist, I wouldn't give a damn about Bush and would have scratched his name from my memory long time ago. Bush not only brought America into trouble, but us as well.

Seen that way, Kennedy would be better than Bush. Anybody would be better than Bush. Maybe you are right after all with your call for pragmatism :D

ASWnut101,
Are you familiar with the B57? I worked on that puppy many years ago...

Yours, Mike

Skybird: Try to limit your thoughts to just a few paragraphs at a time then maybe I'll pay more attention to what your attempting to put forth.

That is your loss. It is also not his responsibility to supply you with the discipline required to read his postings. Personally, I enjoy reading about his thoughts on matters.

I'm not losing anything. My point still stands. It's not necessary. It's just double talk when someone has to go to such length to make a point that could be done in much fewer words. I'll pass, thankyou very much. :ping:









Attack b4 it's too late.

I do not hold a weapon at anyone's head to make him read my comments, fred. Do as you feel to do. You don't owe me, and I don'T owe you. ;)

There is a reason why I don't do it in the style of TV commercials and 20sec news snippets simplifying things. Things are more complicated, and complex and cannot be caught in just three sentences adequately, not without missing things or running the risk of being misunderstood - and i already need to fight occasionally to master this foreign language. The lacking willingness or ability of many people to reflect over the complexity of things is what I especially target when writing such a posting and try to illustrate that things are not as simple and uncomplicated as it is thought.