[dogscoff]

Hmmm... returning to tyhis thread after a few weeks' absence (haven't checked it since my Last post) and it seems i kicked off a bit of a storm. Sorry everyone for kicking all this off and then disappearing. Too much has been said (and the heat has died down too much for me to want to stir things up again) for me respond to any comment or person individually but I'll say the following:

Fyron has pretty accurately summed up the mood of my flippant "revolution" comment. You need to break the two-party system, and neither of the two parties are likely to do that without a gun against their head. I'm not seriously suggesting you literally put a gun against anyone's head, but there are more kinds of revolution than up-against-the-wall civil wars. Any major and fundamental change in the way things are done is, by definition, a revolution, and that is exactly what you guys need.

If Katchoo has seriously left the Boards as an indirect result of what I said, then I am truly sorry to everyone, because Katchoo is (was?) a major asset to this community. I will email him and humbly ask him to come back. I would ask anyone else who feels they may have participated in his decision to leave to do the same.

I personally believe the war on Iraq is a crusade. Bush and- more importantly- the neocon puppetmasters behind him, really seem to believe that they are perfectly justified in imposing their values on the rest of the world. Just read the NPAC if you don't believe me. I can't be arsed to dig around for the precise quote right now but Bush has also made some very scary comments and references that imply that he does believe he's on a "mission from God" (said in Best Blues Brothers impersonation) to cleanse the middle East of heathens. He's certainly said on several occasions that God has told him to do stuff. ("God told me to strike at Saddam" etc)
I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear Starhawk, and I'm sorry for your berieved friend, but the people who should be even sorrier are all the bastards with the power and will to pay for their own goals in other peoples' blood.

Finally, I want to say that I've met a lot of Canadians and they were almost all very nice people.