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From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: back in the USSR - (nf)
Message-ID: <3454@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Oct-83 20:41:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3454
Posted: Wed Oct 26 20:41:47 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Oct-83 03:21:26 EDT
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#R:uvacs:-98800:uiuccsb:11000035:000:1395
uiuccsb!eich    Oct 25 16:41:00 1983


Who's arguing?  You are.  Look, if the peace movement concedes that the
Soviets are totalitarian, it is lip service (and I haven't heard any
polls supporting your figure).  At campuses, in village squares, before
tv cameras, we are told that the caring and thoughtful thing to do is
support a nuclear freeze.  In the USSR, the pitiful handful of
disarmament proponents are harrassed and thrown into hard labor (or
psychiatric hospitals, which are worse).  Until the totalitarianism is
undone, the words `mutual' and `verifiable' are empty, technical means
of verification to the contrary notwithstanding.

Your second paragraph is an extended non-sequitur.  Who cares about
the tendentious views you rattle off any more than about an anecdote
on how repressive the Russian government is?  Sounds like a bone got
stuck in you throat.  The acid test is the following.

	`Of course the government of {Chile,Somoza,Marcos,S.Africa,etc}
	is repressive.  Who's arguing?  But does it necessarily follow
	that we should try to destabilize that government, causing
	it to be more repressive?  That we should cut off all aid to
	it and embrace {Cuba,Nujomo,etc} [per McGovern's platform]?
	The world doesn't work by such *simplistic*, *Manichaean*,
	*black/white* rules.  We should not try to force our standards
	on small nations just because we are big.'

Fairly gags, doesn't it?  Learn how to argue.