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From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: The arms race--doom & gloom vers - (nf)
Message-ID: <4103@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Nov-83 04:29:04 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4103
Posted: Thu Nov 24 04:29:04 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Nov-83 06:47:59 EST
Lines: 49

#R:rocksvax:-105000:uiuccsb:11000081:000:2301
uiuccsb!eich    Nov 24 00:07:00 1983

>/***** uiuccsb:net.politics / rocksvax!sam / 11:36 am  Nov 18, 1983 */
>* A major alteration in the views of nearly everyone on the basic
>concept of "national sovereignty" and all that this entrenched concept
>involves in terms of the absolute rights of nations to do what
>they damn well please to defend their interests.
>
"Views"?  Do sovereign nations war and compete because of immaterial,
Platonic views?  This sounds like the old therapeautic, "only-misinformed-
perspectives-cause-international-conflict" line.

>* Some sort of redefinition at the gut level of that most holy
>concept/feeling of national patriotism.
>
Good luck.  Furthermore, why should patriotism be redefined out of
existence? The patriot's impulse stems as often from real, *external*
things (like threats to his nation, home, and life) as from a bully's
mindset or from indoctrination.

>* Elimination of the free world vs. communism view; as
>corollary to excise the "better dead than red" (and the
>inverse) viewpoints from our mentalities.

This is rich; more therapy.  Did it ever occur to you that the free world
vs. communism view is underpinned by reality?  Yes, yes -- there is no
monolithic world communism; we cannot view human experience in
Manichaean terms; we have warts too; and on and on through all the
requisite disclaimers and special pleading.  But there are these things
called Gulags, filled with poets, artists, scientists, intellectuals,
and even common folk called zeks, and there is a wall, exactly like a
prison wall, dividing Germany in half, and there are 40,000 Warsaw Pact
tanks and 360 SS-20s deployed against non-expansionist Western European
countries.  Therapy directed toward views won't change these things.
As for Russell's "Rather Red than dead," well, some of us prefer not
to have to make the choice.

>I personally have no hope that such major changes will take
>place.  All the Jonathan Schells and Carl Sagans do is
>depress me more.  It's going to  be a cold day  in hades before
>there are many world citizens sitting around the fire, and
>scare tactics won't work.  The most rational response, for me,
>is to replace such long-term nihilism with short-term hedonism.
>
>Living well is the *only* revenge!!
>

Now, call in the therapists!!  Where is your social conscience?