To: greenspirit who wrote (11300 ) 2/23/2002 3:03:41 PM From: MSI Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 93284 MDC, I see you are responding to Neo's response to a post of mine. To expand: You are quite correct, IMO, in the main of your answer, item #2. Any attempt by despots at forstalling communications is doomed to rapid, not slow, failure. Gingrich's speculation of "a century" is a wishful-thinking sop to his paying constituents - only few years, and fewer as technology becomes evanescent and everywhere. This is exactly the reason I criticize existing old-guard militarist policies that simply recapitulate WWII adventures. They are fighting the last war, with wonderful toys that hardly need using. It's great fun and great politics from 50 years ago. The most powerful influence on the planet is the American Consumer, not the military or Wall Street. Backed by a military used only to prevent major destabilizaton and direct threats to Americans, the AC is an unstoppable $8 trillion international influence, a solution that disolves despotic regimes more powerfully and permanently, with less corruption and suspicious smoldering resentment, than secret military or clumsy foreign policy machinations, both of which are subject to easy corruption behind the scenes, away from the view of taxpayer-citizens. The comms revolution causes residents to be more important than governments, and eventually find their way anywhere electronic media universally appear, including the old Soviet Union, China, all of the Arab countries, the newly dubbed "axis" etc. The obsolete notion of military intervention is supported only by those who benefit, which is the military, in-charge political types, and parasitic industry looking for contracts in military or foreign raw materials. So, all of the lies of the old Soviet, the new "axis", China etc. will fail. And any lies we're being told, likewise, will cause the tellers to fail. As we've seen in the last administration.