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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: On peace and weapons
Message-ID: <370@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 18:12:21 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.370
Posted: Tue Nov 27 18:12:21 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Nov-84 04:34:54 EST
References: <671@loral.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 45

>From Ray Simard:
> [The finger on the button is Yours!]
>      To expess it a bit differently, these (and  all  other)  weapons  exist
> because  of attitudes of attack/defend in the minds of nearly everyone.  The
> problem I have with freezes, the gesture at Brown U. and other  such  things
> is  that  they  focus  the  energy  of the protest on the hardware - things,
> rather than human attitudes, perceptions, and policies.
> 
> See  the  father  teaching  his son that it is "unmanly" to decline to fight
> when challenged.  See the almost universal inability to  say  to  those  who
> hurt  us,  that  we  are  above the pain, and we forgive - automatically, NO
> MATTER WHAT.
>      Summarizing: the only significant progress in  world  peace  will  come
> when  there  is no longer any inclination to build weapons - not due to fear
> of their consequences, but rather a total absence of any  sense  of  needing
> them.
> 
> .... When  people learn it's not losing face to make peace with those
> with whom they are feuding ...
> the (ostensible) goals of the peace movement come to fruition.
> 
>      Peace begins at home.  Let's start a peace  movement  there,  where  it
> counts.
 
Yes, it is true that hateful attitudes are a major cause of war.  In order
to help dispell such attitudes Roger Mollander had a VERY good suggestion:
   instead of spending a billion dollars on some new weapon spend it
   on an exchange program between the US and USSR so both sides will realize
   the other side is not demonic but merely human.  When you become friends
   with your "enemies" you come to have a different attitude towards them.
 
As far as promoting "peace at home" I have my own suggestion: replace
policemen's guns with tranquilizer devices.
 
Of course this is the type of "hardware" solution Ray says doesn't work.
But it is NOT simply a matter of hardware- our total reliance on hardware
solutions such as guns and nuclear weapons to social conflicts reflects a
basic attitude towards violence: namely that the only way to prevent violence
is to threaten more violence.  By moving away from this type of solution
towards methods which actually can *prevent* violence without merely 
increasing violence we are showing how the world *can* begin to do without
such violent means. 
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
 
tim sevener whuxl!orb