POLITICS - Sun Tzu and G.W.Bush

What has Sun Tzu (historically one of the most respected author on the "Art of War" taught in our military collages) have to say that applies to G.W. Bush?

In an article "Movements: From antiwar, to peace, to democracy" by Mike Ferner, in Smirking Chimp, quoting Tzu

• "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."



• "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."



• "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

The article is a theses on today's Antiwar, Peace, and Democracy movements. "Not a day too soon the antiwar movement has begun a desperately needed discussion." He then presents ideas on reevaluating tactics of these movements. For details, read the entire article.

My comment is that the basic nature of these movements, Progressives, and the Democratic Party (Left) presents a problem when they face Ultra Conservatives and the Republican Party of today (Ultra-Right).

The Ultra-Right can be categorized as a march-in-unison, hail to the chief, no self-doubting, troops. They march to their tune and are well disciplined which has given them an advantage that is hard to overcome. Of course, I am not saying their policies are correct, they're not.

The Left, by their very nature, are not as disciplined. We are freedom loving, which tends to make us freewheeling and contentious within our politics. We do not act like troops, we act more as a crowd, each person with an independent outlook. We tend not to take marching orders, on the whole. This puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to facing the Ultra-Right on the political battlefield.

If the Left is to have more influence on our nation's politics and policies, we have to find a way to mitigate this disadvantage without loosing our own nature; freedom loving, freewheeling, cynics that we are.