Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww From: dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Beyond Perestroika Message-ID: <1314@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 7 Apr 89 08:38:48 GMT References: <3982@kremvax.mosc.cccp> <2250@sigma.UUCP> <298@ubbs-nh.MV.COM> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Reply-To: "David Wright" Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 46 In article <298@ubbs-nh.MV.COM> noel@ubbs-nh.MV.COM (Noel Del More) writes: #In article <2250@sigma.UUCP> bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) writes: #>Egads! Will other states of USSR be left defenceless then? # #Rumor has it that they have petitioned Congress for admission to the #union, and are considering adopting a constitution similar to that of #Massachusetts. # #After all, its right down their alley... Massachusetts after all is a # Common_wealth B-) Sorry, you're too far away. They're going to join up with the rest of Europe. We're going to expand the European Comunity. Actually I'm not really joking - a Russian spokesman on BBC radio this morning (I didn't catch who it was), during an interview on Gorby's visit to the UK, said that Russia was a European country, and talked about Russia and the other Warsaw Pact countries seeing their natural future as being part of a democratic European community. I've also heard that 'Solidarity' policy includes Poland joining the EEC - and remember that they're a legal political party in Poland now. I don't know how wide support for such moves is here, but I feel it is the mood of the times. Certainly it is a popular idea in my own party (Social & Liberal Democrats). Needless to say, the above is a long term goal - democracy is such a recent event in modern Russia and its satellites that we need to allow a lot of time for it to take firm root and become safely established before we can really treat those countries as "more of us", but even starting down that long path will help the process of democracy and perestroika. Of course thay could always join the *original* Commonwealth (no, only :-) ) (And there's even talk of the Queen visiting Russia). P.S. Sorry to continue to fill news.misc with non net-news politics, but such a good discussion topic has come out of the original joke that I could not resist. Regards, David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK dww@stl.stc.co.uk ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww PSI%234237100122::DWW Living in a country without a written constitution means having to trust in the good will of the Government and the generosity of civil servants.