Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: America: soft, rich, pacifist (how they perceive us)
Message-ID: <567@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 08:22:59 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.567
Posted: Tue Apr  2 08:22:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 02:28:00 EST
References: <314@ssc-bee.UUCP>
Organization: /usr/exptools/lib/netnews/myorg
Lines: 51

> > >  Reply to Jim Matthews:
> > >   If anything, the Soviets see us as a rich, soft, and corrupt
> > > power, with no stomach for the real world of power politics.
> >  
> >   .
> >   .
> >   .
> >
> > This is a "rich, soft and corrupt" power? Rich, yes. Corrupt, maybe.
> > Soft? You must be joking!
> >                        tim sevener    whuxl!orb
> 
> Jim stated how the Soviets perceive us, not how we perceive ourselves.
> There is a big difference between the two.  Don't forget, the Soviets lost
> 20 million men, women, and children in WW II and millions more from the
> purges of Stalin.  They may respect our current military power, but
> they still consider us "rich, soft, and corrupt."
> 
> 
> Tom Hill

What is your proof for the assertion that the Soviets perceive us as "soft"?
Under Ronald RayGuns and his sabre-rattling regime the ordinary Soviet citizen
(as well as many ordinary American citizens) have been scared stiff.
Besides losing 20 million in WW II, the Soviets probably remember that *we*
sent an armed force to their country, whereas they have never done the same
to us.  According to the official Communist line we are "Imperialist agressors"
who wish to conquer the world to control markets for our capitalist
industries.  I.e. they see us as "imperialists" and expansionist in the
same way we see them as expansionist.  Given our history aren't there some
grounds for this viewpoint? I think so.
 
To say that "we see ourselves" as soft is just as hard to prove.  We
see ourselves as "defenders of democracy" the ones who rebuilt Europe after
World War II, as the "heroes" of both World Wars which could never have
been won without our gallant entry into these wars.
 
We erect monuments to our soldiers killed by others in our numerous wars:
never do we erect monuments to those killed by our soldiers.
 
Unfortunately, the Soviets do the same: they see themselves as
"defenders of socialism", as the ones who defeated the horrors of Nazism
in WW II, as the vanguard of an ideal communist society.
The Soviets,too, erect monuments to their soldiers killed by others:
never to those killed by their soldiers.
 
Both sides are wrong.  Both sides threaten to make the whole world
the innocent victims of their struggles to impose their own way of life
on the rest of the world-by destroying that world if need be!
       tim sevener  whuxl!orb
 "We had to destroy that planet in order to save it!"