The Gambit

The Gambit

I. Introduction

We have finally reached a watershed moment in time not seen since the Unjust War was fought almost a year ago. When the Unjust War broke out I penned a topic called [url=http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/UJP_Treatise]The Unjust Path Treatise[/url]. I am bringing up this past work not because I think I was wrong about the need to fight the alliances leading the UJP. I bring this up because the promises that needed to be kept by the victors were never fulfilled. I have no regret as to the absence of GOONS, \m/, and others. As alliances they bullied others, they cheapened the game, and they destroyed politics. I hoped that these practices would die with these alliances, however many of those who fought for this great cause have wandered down the same path. Emboldened by victory and power these alliances have placed them selves on a pedestal high above the masses which they look down upon with malice and contempt. The time that has passed since the end of the unjust war represents nothing more than a squandered opportunity. The alliances of power instead of spreading the fires of freedom, politics, and justice instead have chosen to burn down the world.

The events of the past few days have filled me with sorrow. Almost nothing of the good that once was this world has escaped the fires of war and oppression. With little left to do, a move must be made. A gambit.

Gambit-noun 1.Chess. an opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece. “Many who have visited me in Washington in the past few months may have been surprised when I have told them that personally and because of my own daily contacts with all manner of difficult situations I am more concerned and less cheerful about international world conditions than about our immediate domestic prospects. I say this to you not as a confirmed pessimist but as one who still hopes that envy, hatred and malice among Nations have reached their peak and will be succeeded by a new tide of peace and good-will. We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war. I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war. I wish I could keep war from all Nations; but that is beyond my power. I can at least make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce or to promote war. I can at least make clear that the conscience of America revolts against war and that any Nation which provokes war forfeits the sympathy of the people of the United States. Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent frontiers, the "legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago." There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of ultimate truth and right.” -Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Chautauqua, New York (14 August 1936)