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!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Democracy, Wars, Imperialism and Nationalism:I
Message-ID: <849@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 14:43:21 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.849
Posted: Wed Nov 27 14:43:21 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 21:05:57 EST
References: <432@ssc-bee.UUCP> <841@whuxl.UUCP> <1280@jhunix.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 53

Earlier I posted an article about the Soviet Union's 
dominance of the countries in Eastern Europe after 
World War II.  I pointed out that the circumstances
of that occupation hardly proved popular theses of
either a monolithic Communist Conspiracy or the Soviet
Union's attempt to gain "worldwide domination" by taking
over every other country in the world.  Kenneth Arromdee
has claimed that scarcely anyone believes in a "worldwide
communist conspiracy" anymore.  If this is so I wonder why
Jerry Falwell decries "the communist conspiracy" behind the
struggle against Apartheid in South Africa?  I have seen similar
statements expressed both on this network and in letters in
the newspaper and also articles in the media.
 
If Kenneth is willing to admit there is no such thing as
either a "monolithic communist conspiracy" nor a Soviet desire
for worldwide domination I am glad.  It means reality may finally
be sinking into the American public. 
 
But there is another myth which is quite popular in the US
and other democracies, indeed it is a variant of rationalizations
always used by nations preparing for War or actively engaged in it.
For the US and Western democracies it is the myth that somehow
"democracy" necessarily makes a country less likely to go to War.
Another part of this myth is that countries with similar ideologies
will not go to War with each other, whereas countries with
different ideologies and social systems must be locked in
mortal combat. 
 
This myth is comforting because it resonates well with
past excuses for War such as Woodrow Wilson's slogan that
we were entering World War I to "make the world safe for
democracy".  Wars are always justified in terms of high ideals
even though they involve senseless mass murder usually for
greedy aims.  Even when a War's aims *are* noble, the use of
War's mass murder to achieve those aims is often both senseless
and a contradiction to the very aims War seeks to serve.
Thus, for example, the frequent justification for wholesale
bombing and napalming of villages during the Vietnamese War
was "we had to destroy that village in order to save it."(??!!!)
This contradiction reaches the height of absurdity when we
find Reagan and others claiming that we have to continue
producing and deploying evermore nuclear weapons aimed at the
Soviet Union in order to "protect Soviet human rights."(???!!!)
Aiming yet another missile at a Soviet dissident so they will
be more surely annihilated protects *their* human rights?
This absurdity smacks of the double-think so masterfully portrayed
by George Orwell's 1984.
 
My next article deals with the roots of War in the nation-state:
irrespective of ideology.
                        tim sevener   whuxn!orb