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From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Democracy, Wars, Imperialism and Nationalism:I
Message-ID: <1316@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Dec-85 23:35:49 EST
Article-I.D.: jhunix.1316
Posted: Sun Dec  1 23:35:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Dec-85 20:17:30 EST
References: <432@ssc-bee.UUCP> <841@whuxl.UUCP> <1280@jhunix.UUCP> <849@whuxl.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.ARPA (Kenneth Adam Arromdee)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Computing Ctr.
Lines: 87

In article <849@whuxl.UUCP> orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
>[Soviet post-WWII actions] 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? ... 
>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. 

I do NOT agree with Jerry Falwell and I do not believe there is a monolithic
Communist conspiracy. I do believe that the Soviet Union wants worldwide 
domination, but I do not believe that everybody who expresses liberal views
is supporting this desire, either intentionally or unintentionally, and
I do not believe that every Communist government's creation was due to
this Soviet desire for worldwide domination. To clarify, I believe that the
the leadership of the USSR knows that it isn't possible to just take over
the world, but that it views a situation closer to this as a desirable 
outcome, and takes advantage of opportunities that enable it to come closer.

>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.

When, in the 20th century, did a democracy invade another democracy?

>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. 

I do not believe this part of the myth, only the narrower version that
democratic countries don't go to war with democratic countries and that
non-democratic countries are likely to become enemies of democratic
ones. (Note the word "likely".)

>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.

What other way could Hitler be stopped? In what way was the entrance of the
US into WWII a "greedy aim"? I think that the concentration camps alone
were sufficient reason to fight that particular war, even though they were not
the main reason for the US entrance.

>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."(??!!!)

I do not support these past actions of the US, and nowhere did I say I had.

>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."(???!!!)

Please give a reference for this; I strongly suspect that the context for
this is somewhat different than what you make it out to be.

>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.
>                        tim sevener   whuxn!orb

Read 1984 again. A lot of it (though by no means all) was aimed against the
USSR. Better yet, read Animal Farm. It's even clearer that it was aimed
against the USSR.
-- 
If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'.

Kenneth Arromdee
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