I'm guilty of many of the circus distractions Tony Long lists in his rant What If They Gave a War...? but I know how he feels. I marched my ass off protesting Bush's calls to war, didn't make a damn bit of difference, now I'm feeling pretty apathetic about the whole shebang - they didn't have to ignore me for long to grind down my spirit. I expect many people are far easier victory.
My theory has always been most people will take pizza, cheap beer and Monday night football without so much of a thought before having to make much a sacrifice to keep it. Now most of the people out there making sacrifices never really had much of a choice about it - pretty much like those drafted for Vietnam - as is witnessed by the ever more frantic efforts to get people to sign up voluntarily for service (which recently included free iPods, messages on pizza boxes and more).
I gave up trying to read all the responses (mostly negative) responses it caused but clearly an awful lot of people have fallen for the circus act hook line and sinker.