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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: More double standards
Message-ID: <7800711@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-Nov-85 13:12:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800711
Posted: Sat Nov 23 13:12:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 22:06:45 EST
References: <13348@rochester.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:rochester:-1334800:inmet:7800711:000:1827
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 23 13:12:00 1985


[ray@rochester]
>>[Tony Wuersch:] As most all journalists and experts on the Soviet
>>Union  would attest, the vast, vast majority of residents of
>>the USSR do not want any other system of government ...

>>Why then do some continue to maintain that Russians have an empire
              ^^^^
>>over the other Soviet republics?  I don't get it.  

What should puzzle Tony even more is that "most experts"  of  the
1st  paragraph are *also* among the *some* of the 2nd paragraph.

> Ya can't miss nothin ya never had!  

Ray's answer is right on target. It is not even like missing a
billion bucks you never had, it is like missing the absence of gravity.
The Communist system is the only one most people there can *imagine*.

But:
(1) This tells you *nothing* about the relations of nationalities
within the existing system - which *are* imperialistic.
(2) Neither does the population  there  *support*  the  force  of
gravity *or* the system of government.
(3) They are prevented by force from *acquiring* knowledge of
other systems. Their consent cannot be informed.
(4) All these other republics have been *conquered* by  force  of
arms. In several, there was guerilla resistance for a decade or
so. That resistance was smothered by force.
(5) *Some* people *do* have an idea of other systems.  But  their
ideas and knowledge are prevented from spreading by KGB terror.
(6) There are whole *republics* - the Baltic ones - where the
majority know of other ways of life and *want* them. They
are in a position similar to (but worse than)
(7) the captive nations of Eastern Europe. There people *know*
what is being done to them. Every decade or so one of these
nations becomes restive and is crushed by force. 
(8) The only purpose of the Afghan genocide is joining that
piece of real estate to the Empire.

		Jan Wasilewsky