vision wrote:All the rhetoric is just politics as usual
this.
One has to remember that a lot of the groundwork in functional politics* is essentially just of herding and manipulating masses of foam-mouthed blithering idiots.
To have power, one must first gain and maintain power. Democracy is great - but i imagine a lot of politicians throw up their hands and say "look at this ★■◆● i've got to work with".
*especially in countries with a lot of religious fundamentalism, eg: USA, Israel, Iran.
I'm sure a lot of these ppl, these leaders, are nice enough, reasonable enough ppl, behind the scenes in their daily lives. But
"i gotta put on my crazy hat to stay in power in this shithole of a country."
There's a line between the public "vote for me" face, and functional inter/national policies. All politicians walk that line, and due to a kindof natural selection they are the only politicians around.
It generally gives me comfort to know that it takes some brains to pull it all off (regardless of how dumb the public face portrayed is), i thus regard it as a sort of containment policy. That behind every well organised seething mass of idiots - there's some smart people controlling and herding it. It's nice to know there's a functional collection of braincells involved somewhere in the chain i guess. Well... until they herd the riot in your direction i guess.
ok it's not nice it's terrible, but i guess i'm mostly talking about at-home policies. The wonderful economic (and more) interconnectedness of our world tends to discourage wars. The drooling spittle leaking masses don't tend to quite get this. but the leaders generally do (get it).