I agree with you on that, pdq. The Kosovo thing was by far the bigger disaster, and for the entire Balkan region.

You see, I do not look at these things on a partisan basis. I do not have to line up on issues to support Democrats or Republicans one against the other....because I find no reason to support either one of them. That sets me apart from the many Americans who post here. They feel obliged (usually) to support either one of those parties...or the other. I don't.


Ebbie - I agree 100% with your estimation of the good character and excellent intentions of many, many people who go into politics and serve in government. I've known a good many such people, and they often have excellent intentions and high ideals. They do try to serve the public.

The reason I feel that their efforts are frustrated is not because they lose their ideals or become "bad people". No. It is because the government itself is an institution that must bow to immense financial forces that are in play in the world and that control the ongoing agenda. Those financial forces are not subject to much influence through anyone's votes. They are self-perpetuating, and their basic impulse is to survive...and to enlarge themselves...rather like the basic impulse of any hungry animal.

That's why you have wars over oil, not because politicians are evil people, but because the huge situation they find themselves in is way bigger than they are. That's why you have enormous poverty that cannot be solved while the world spends trillions of dollars arming itself.

Financial empires are driven by an aggressive need to expand, and they do so at the cost of the weaker parties around them. From that stems war, homelessness, poverty, despair, terrorist responses, and more war.

It's money that runs what's happening, not the politicians you elect. They are forced to bow to the power of money.

It's a game. It makes total sense inside its own playing field. It makes no sense outside it. Everyone ends up playing the game or being crushed by it...because the game is bigger than they are, and it's inescapable except by dying. The game, being not a very sane one, eventually ends up in a series of catastrophes, which are then rapidly followed by a new game of the same type.

And along the way, we do gradually improve various things in our societies...mostly because of the hard work and dedication of those good people in government that you mentioned. I do not fear politicians, Ebbie, nearly as much as I fear the global big business forces who pay the politicians' salaries, and who outlast the elected officials every time.