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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: America: soft, rich, pacifist (how they perceive us)
Message-ID: <383@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 23:41:54 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.383
Posted: Tue Apr  2 23:41:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Apr-85 06:36:56 EST
References: <314@ssc-bee.UUCP> <567@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 45

...
> 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.

No, the ordinary Soviet citizen does not think about politics.  Most of
those who applaud Reagan in general for his tough stand against the Soviet
government.  But this is irrelevant anyway, because the ordinary Soviet
citizen has nothing to do with Soviet politics.  So has the government been
scared stiff by Reagan?  Well, the Soviet government has an incurable
paranoia of the American government.  That Reagan should "scare it stiff"
is more a symptom of its mental illness than rational thought (a government
can be irrational even if its members are rational).  But Reagan has little
to do with the paranoia itself.  That is due to the fundamental ideology of
the Soviet system.  Even under more restrained Presidents, the Soviets are
suspicious, and they work towards strategic superiority under any regime.
As they say, "When the U.S. builds up, the Soviets build up.  When the U.S.
doesn't build up, the Soviets build up."

> 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.

My answer to your question is no.  In any case, the official Communist line
is as irrelevant as the opinion of the man on the street in Moscow.

> 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

Yes, both sides are wrong.  But there are fundamental asymmetries in the
arms race.  Furthermore, the arms race does not represent an attempt by
either side to impose their way of life on the rest of the world.  The
Soviets see it as their self-defense, while the Americans (well, the hawks
in the Pentagon anyway) see American superiority in the arms race as
essential to the preservation of peace.
-- 
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the
interests of the right of nations to self-determination." -Lenin, 1918