Nice rant Nursey, I enjoy your spleen even if I am not always a fellow traveler in your spleneticism. I do find the whole "alternative" futures market thing bizarre and chilling, though.

What I find humorous about all this war talk is that, before the internet - that is, before we all had the ability to sit around all day and toss hypothetical situations back and forth with the importance of real-life certainties - the governments (of all nations) would do stuff like this all the time. All the time. They have to - they have to draw up war plans when nations like NK go rogue. If they don't, think of what could happen. But because we're all spoiled by the immediacy of the internet, we seem to think that all of this is A Certainty. It's just a plan, just in case. What would you rather happen - Bush & Co. sit back and do nothing, or ready a plan "just in case" NK really does feel like lobbing some missiles our way?

The news of a war plan for North Korea in no way indicates or predicts war will happen. If anything, it's just another effort to scare NK into backing down - that's what governments do, you know. It's what we did with Iraq - only Hussein wasn't having any of it. Will Kim Jong Il? We'll see. If he's smart, he'll quietly curtail his activities. I have my doubts . . .

Eric,
Thanks. You don't have to agree with me, but did you like the Amazon selections? I thought the CD selections were pretty good.

Tom,
Of course the administration needs a plan to address what to do in case of war. I am not disputing that. I certainly wish they'd had one before invading Iraq. I would, however, prefer we had an administration that could keep its people on a short enough leash that they wouldn't goad and provoke already hostile foreign heads of state. Bolton is a loose cannon and should never have been confirmed to the post.

All the Amazon selections are great, very fine secondary commentary. And I don't much use whether I agree with something as a gauge of whether I enjoy reading it.

Eric, increasingly I think the only difference between children and adults is kids haven't had time to do as much dirt. Cynical? Yes. But, what we like to think, that adults are wiser and better behaved, definitely isn't true much of the time.

I've also been thinking about whether leaders deserve all the blame for the horrors of history and the present. The impetus for that was a survey the blogger at Rightwing News recently conducted. He wanted to know who were the worse leaders of America in liberal bloggers' opinions. I got stuck on whether we should ignore the complicity of the population when considering my answer. Yes, we have awful leaders, but we wouldn't if millions of people were not willing to support them.

And a Supreme Court willing to select them.

I'm not sure if people get the leaders they deserve or not - I think they do in a democracy, but there is no such thing as pure democracy in the real world anyway. In particularly repressive societies the cycle can sometimes only be broken from without, which is what I believe we have done (or at least begun) in Iraq. In a perfect world, for us to be consistent we should do the same thing in North Korea, but the world isn't perfect and the danger of direct action appears too great. It's called "politics" - dealing with the real world - and is the reason dogmatism of any kind is so dangerous: every situation IS different.

There's no such a thing as pure democracy on any grand scale for the simple reason that it doesn't work, just as pure communism doesn't work on a grand scale. It can be hard to make either work with a couple of dozen young idealistic adults who all want it to work, much less an entire nation, pushing and pulling on every issue.

Still, the continuation of a regime is, in a sense, an indication of the consent of the governed. I do not mean that every individual likes or approves of her nation's leaders and their actions, but history tells us again and again what happens when people find situations unbearable: they revolt.

Generally it's only referred to as revolt when it involves armed conflict or clear deposition of a leader in a "bloodless coup," but people revolt all the time, in large ways and small, violent and peaceful. Isn't it a form of revolt to start a small business? What about leaving the power grid, growing organic vegetables, bicycling or walking to work, circulating petitions, holding school or worship services in private homes, reclaiming unused public property, smuggling people across borders, publishing underground periodicals? The forms of revolt open to an individual may be limited, but individuals can build groups, and groups can lead to real change.

Marla, absolutely right and completely uncynical.

Eric, "completely uncynical"? I guess my optimistic underbelly is showing. I've become a lot more cynical in the last two or three years, but at my core there's still a little optimist trying to peer out.