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From: cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Power
Message-ID: <151@watmum.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 03:56:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmum.151
Posted: Tue Jun 11 03:56:10 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 07:28:32 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5685@utzoo.UUCP> <2010@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 58

>j chapman:
> No one has responded to my other point: what gives the USSR and the US
> the right to take this risk with the lives of the other few billion
> inhabitants of the planet??

Power.

It's what politics is all about. It's what the arms race is all about.
The reason why people marching in the streets don't have too much effect is
that they have no power, they don't control large lobbying organizations,
and they're not "fighting in the trenches" like (perhaps) they should.

By this I mean that in the US, not enough peace-group people lobby the various
arms committees. The defense contractors all do, and that's why we have a big
buildup when it seems to be the popular thing to do. Canada doesn't have this
because there is no arms industry to speak of, and they don't spend near as
much time/money on chasing down cabinet members.

I read an interesting theory as to why the US military-industrial complex
exists. The theory is that although the US economy is great, the Depression
still happened, and was only escaped by means of military spending. The 
idea is that the US economy still needs continuous priming of the pump via
government military subsidy. The consequnces of massive spending cuts are 
economic stagnation. The current recovery can be said to be military-fueled,
for example. The guy said that the reason why public works spending doesn't
do the trick is that the military is a big sink which can never be filled, 
while there are only so many bridges to build before people start saying
"enough bridges already".

The "guy" who is saying this (I might have forgotten) is Marvin Minsky.

The point I'm trying to make through all this is that the peace movement,
if it is to succeed in politics, must take over the reins of power. Power
in the Western world is exercised by how much money you can spend. (Witness
Jerry Falwell) The more money you can spend, and the more cash you can cause
others to spend/not spend the more power you have. To stop the arms build-up
you have to convince the spenders that there is more benefit elsewhere. 
Minsky's theory may be useful in finding an alternative to military spending.
Find another way to keep the economy going without the required (it seems)
continuous intraveinous feeding of buying weapons.

In other words, just saying the crashingly obvious is clearly not enough.
Saying "nukes cause mega-death" is insufficient to cause people to stop 
building them. It's like telling a heroin addict to stop shooting up.

The peace movement is a bit guilty of not asking the right questions to solve
the problem at hand. The peace people should ask "why nukes", and should at all
costs avoid the clearly bogus answer "soviet domination". Another part of 
Minsky's theory is that the military/gov't has been able to convince the voters
to go through with all this spending with the fear of Soviet Domination.
You know, commies under your bed and in the maple syrup and hiding behind the
refrigerator... all that crap. To solve this conundrum may only require an
economic solution, noat a technological one.


Chris Shaw    watmath!watmum!cdshaw  or  cdshaw@watmath
University of Waterloo
In doubt?  Eat hot high-speed death -- the experts' choice in gastric vileness !