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From: rupp@cod.NOSC.MIL (William L. Rupp)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: UUCP - USSR
Message-ID: <875@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 13:48:07 EST
Article-I.D.: cod.875
Posted: Tue Oct 27 13:48:07 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 03:07:22 EST
References: <8751@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <866@cod.NOSC.MIL> <11325@orchid.waterloo.edu> <659@artecon.UUCP>
Reply-To: rupp@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (William L. Rupp)
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Organization: Computer Sciences Corp., San Diego
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Vladimir Posner was the English speaking host of the Russian audience in
the Phil Donahue US/USSR people-to-people TV show.  This was a very
interesting show from a number of angles.  For instance:

1. NONE of the Soviet speakers had anything bad to say about the Soviet
   government or system.

2. MANY of the US speakers condemned the U.S. in terms that rivalled
   those used by the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after WWII to
   condemn the atrocities of National Socialism.

3. With the exception of obvious topics such as Afghanistan, few really
   tough questions were put to the Soviets.

4. The Soviet citizens responded clearly and coherently to the U.S.
   questions.  I would not say that they were coached, but they surely
   knew their Communist rhetoric extremely well.

5. On the other hand, the Americans did not seem to me to have as good
   an intellectual grasp of what their nation was all about.  They were,
   for the most part, either openly hostile to the U.S., or they relied on
   tired and not very sophisticated anti-communist rhetoic.

6. Phil, to his credit, ended the show by saying that he perceived that
   to most Americans, the total lack of any disagreement with their
   government on the part of the Soviet speakers was simply not
   credible.

What does it all add up to?  I am not sure.  But it was clear to me that
the Soviet participants were either hand-picked (I think a Soviet
defector has made that charge) or were very reliable aparchiki (I'm sure
that spelling must be wrong).  Certainly there were no Jewish dissidents
among them.  By the way, I do not mean to imply that these people were
insincere.  On the contrary, they seemed quite sincere.  I would say they were
professional types, if that makes sense with reference to Soviet
citizens, and probably people I would be pleased to know.  I
would mind the policies of their government, of course.

What about the Americans?  Why was there so high a percentage (25%?) of
them who seemed to want to outdo each other in bad-mouthing the U.S.?
Was the U.S. audience rigged against the U.S.A.?  That seems highly
unlikely.  Yet, if the audience is typical of the entire U.S.
populatioin, we have a very grave situation indeed.  It's bad to ignore
your country's faults, but it is equally bad to take an automatically
negative postition. 

What if one day a U.S. President, let's say a
Black, liberal, woman, gets a reliable intelligence report indicating an
imminent Soviet thurst across the Bering Straights to recapture Alaska
(BTW, this is my pet hobby horse; that the most likely area of conflict
between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. will be Alaska)?  She goes to the
U.S. people to gain support for a general mobilization designed to
discourage the Soviets from executing their plan.  But along comes 
"Citizens for the Anti-American Way", etc, lying down in front of troop
trains or on airbase runways, and generally making the mobilization
unworkable.  

In short, the degree to which Americans have only a shallow
concept of their political heritage, as well as history in general,
bodes ill for the future.

Bill

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I speak for myself, and not on behalf of any other person or organization
.........................How's that, Gary?
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