From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Subject: Re: Myopia. A common ailment among Europe's intellectual elite? was (Re: [military] sending troops to the Middle East)
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:16:22 GMT

>  silva@pangea (Holly Silva) writes:
>: Jyrki, that you focus upon this aspect of this particular government is
>: telling enough. That you obliquely suggest the possibility that 'Yank may
>: be synonymous with totalitarian' is also, telling. Why fixate upon this
>: aspect of the US, you who grew up in the shadow of the Soviet Union?
>
>  jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>: #oversimplification on
>: Perhaps that's just why.  There are many signs that USA is turning
>: into another Soviet Union - an oppressive, totalitarian oligargy.
>: #oversimplification off
>
>  What a jerk! This is the essential clue to the mystery of this thread. 
>I have long wondered what was really bothering this guy. I mean, who poked
>him in the eye, anyway? Why the malcontentia?
>
>  In case you missed it, Holly called Jerky on one of those grossly
>transparent insinuations that have become his stock and trade. Jerky's
>response is to assert that the USA is becoming another USSR, a statement
>for which he attempts to shirk responsibility with palsy disclaimers.

Hmm - I think I'm again having some kind of a communication
difficulty.  The original flame war against me started because I was
reposting articles which showed the U.S. government using techniques
familiar from the former Soviet Union and other totalitarian-style
countries.  Thus, it is not an assetion, just an observation.

>  Jerky is obsessed. Blind to the importance of freedom in American
>history, as well as to the horrifying cost Americans have paid for their
>opposition to tyranny, he must find some thing he can see to continue his
>overly pessimistic, if not utterly and completely bigoted, insults on the
>American character.

Interesting.  I don't think I have said much anything on the "Usonian
character" or "American character" as you call it - I've been talking
about the political climate in USA and mostly about the actions of
U.S. government.  Moreover, most of the stuff has been repostings from
other groups, written by Usonians reporting happenings in USA.

>  Why, how convenient for the Soviet Union to need an understudy! A perfect
>villain role just happened to become available, and at just the right time,
>too. He gets no other meaning from the demise of the former SU than a grim
>spectre he can raise and point to as if it were us. Why, can you imagine
>him _not_ taking the opportunity to be dis'n on us as a people?

I'm afraid I have difficulty understanding here, again - possibly due
to my lack of skills in English, possibly due to a totally different
world view.  What does "dis'n on you as a people" mean?  I have been
talking about what the U.S. government does, and what the political
culture of USA seems to be like - not about Usonians as a people.

>  Of course not! He must do it. He has no other choice. He is the messiah
>with the one true word, and any sense of worth we Americans might feel
>about ourselves are completely beside the point. I doubt the comparison
>would be made by those who knew the USSR and the USA very well. 
>
>  Hell, how many times has Finland been liberated from Oregon? Having seen
>Popeye defeat Bluto, Olive Oil gets mad at Popeye.

What on Earth are you talking about?  I was saying that the civil
liberties and freedom development (and the media action) in USA seems
to start having similarities to what there was in the Soviet Union.

>  There is an old saying which may not be well known your own part of the
>world. It is about a pot calling a kettle black.

It is known - "pata kattilaa soimaa, musta kylki kummallakin" which is
translated roughly as "The kettle blaming the pot, both have black
sides".

>If you are so very
>concerned about tyranny that you feel you must point it out in others, you
>ought to first look at your own environment and contend with the tyrannies
>within it. So go counsel victims of violent crime in Germany or something
>and stop your armchair condemnation of Americans. 

Germany is hardly in my environment.  In addition to your geography
knowledge being a bit lacking, perhaps you have been sloppy of reading
sfnet.keskustelu.laki, sfnet.keskustelu.politiikka,
sfnet.keskustelu.huumeet and similar groups, or alt.drugs etc?  There
I have been talking about Finnish violations of civil liberties - for
example, a law in Finland was just passed which lets the Finnish
police have identification information on telephone calls and such,
and there's been talk about giving the police a power to eavesdrop on
phones of persons suspected of a crime.  I opposed the id info law and
I oppose phone eavesdropping.

The world is quite small in the current age of telecommunications and
other technology and U.S. cultural and political power is such that it
has a relatively big influence on a country like Finland - phenomena
appearing in USA tend to spread to the rest of the world.  So by
worrying about the actions of the U.S. government, I actually am
taking care of my own backyard.  Also, by talking about things
happnening in USA with likeminded people, I get valuable information
on how things have gone over there which can then be used locally.

>  Really. No, really. I mean it. If you're so all-fired up against tyranny,
>you should rise up and fight it. That's how it's done. Not by whining on the
>newsgroups of other cultures.

Words are a powerful weapon for fighting, particularly uncensored
words in an anarchistic world-wide communications network.

//Jyrki
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa