Doubtful.

Ha. We can hope.

Why set ourselves up for disappointment?

Oops. But politics are entertaining and I thought he was Indonesian.

I like the fire, JP! Keep that radical spirit young. You'll very soon be a senior .

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions, yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Frederick Douglas

Limited, not all struggles are equal. In Sudan, the Janjawid Arab Muslim irregulars have murdered more than 300,000 people. Rapes? Beyond count. How many taken as slaves? You tell me. Now the Janjawid struggle to achieve their ends, their liberty ... a liberty to do as they will with other human beings, to murder them, enslave them and take from them what they want.

Now, the UN is essentially silent on the issue. The Western powers may complain, on occasion, but nothing is done to preserve the lives of these people. The OIC complains that what little complaining the west does in connection with the situation in Darfur speaks to an unfair singling out of Arab Muslims, an interference with the internal affairs of the Sudan.

In India, the Pakistani Lashkar e Taiba murders Jews and Hindus with enthusiasm. In the Philippines Abu Sayaff murders Christians and PULO and BRN murder Buddhists in Thailand. They struggle but not all struggles dignify humanity.

If you ask the murderers, they will tell you, they struggle against being ruled by Christians, or Buddhists, or Hindus, or Jews, or Animists, or, in Darfur, by Blacks. They struggle for supremacy, but if asked, they struggle against oppression.

STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.

Take your political discussion somewhere else. The internet is a big place with plenty of more appropriate places to alienate your peers.

Don't do this here.

Now that this thread has nothing to do with quotes, a thought about global everything.

If you don't live in North America, western Europe,
Australia, South Korea or Japan (well, 5 weeks ago), your life as a human is quite likely to suck out loud. And Israel, if you'r not Arab or Palestiinian.

80% of all human life blows. Indignation and speculation on it is noble, but pointless.

Viewpoints of commoners will affect no change.

The American World Police and Benevolence Foundation ain't that effective. If it's not a world war, we don't have a great track record, aside from Granada. We only went down there to save American med students who weren't smart enough to get into real med schools. We do protect our own numbies, like when they inadvertantly wander into Iran on a hike in Afghanistan (IDIOTS!)

So, at the end of the day, when everyone's armchair stances on world problems are logged in and duly noted, just be grateful that you got to be the one-in-five who doesn't sleep on dirt.

If you sleep IN and WITH dirt, then maybe you should save some cash and expatriate.

Edit: I was writing this when Peter's post appeared. Had I seen it first, such a strong admonition to cease probably would have gotten my attention. Sorry.

Hmmmm...dirt v. Axioms....

I hate budget decisions!