From: llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: A new source of Angst.....
Date: 28 Aug 92 05:02:17 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Alex Bienek (ABienek@acorn.co.uk) wrote:

: Oh Yes, I saw them stand up in Houston and say "We won the cold war".
: I'm sure many people in Eastern Europe would have a different
: opinion, not least Lech Walesa. The Eastern Bloc fell apart due to
: the contradiction in the need to appear fair and just to the outside
: world in order to encourage trade, and the need to suppress free
: speech within the bloc. 

i think it's pretty much impossible to pin the collapse of the eastern
bloc down to any one cause. still, i think meech is prolly closer to
the mark with his standard-of-living analysis than you are with this
cognitive dissonanceish theory. it's really stupid that the people who
wanna screw around in latin america haven't understood that power
there could be theirs for the asking if they'd just make sure everyone
had a secure place to sleep and enough food to eat.

another thing that really bothers me about the whole situation with
the soviet union is how right-wingers (and some liberals) are hailing
it as the collapse of communism and as a great victory for capitalism.

first, last i heard, china was a communist state. rather a large one,
in fact. second, "they were wrong" <> "we were right" (as if the ussr
was a pure communist state or the usa a pure capitalist one anyway).

: The conference just starting in London to discuss the Yugoslav
: situation is a farce. No matter what they agree at the 
: conference table, they will just keep right on doing what they
: are doing.

depends on who does the agreeing. if you mean that it's pretty silly
for a bunch of outsiders to pass resolutions regarding a civil war,
i'd agree. but i guess it keeps them off the streets.

: Oh, and Saddam Hussien's agenda is:-
: 
:   1) Taunt and frustrate the UN and Bush as much as possible

probably. which means that giving him lots of attention will just
encourage him.

:   2) Hide as many weapons as possible

uh, okay.

:   3) Rebuild stock of weapons of mass destruction


: 4) Nuke Israel, Iran, USA, Britain and France, not necessarily in that order.

i'm not sure where you get that from. or where he's gonna get the
weapons to do all that. that sounds like paranoid freakout propaganda,
really.

: Well, it's _easy_ to be destructive. I don't defend Bush's actions,
: but I am convinced that a liberal approach of appeasement or
: sanctions will never work in such situations. What suffering may have
: been avoided had we not tried to appease Hitler. 

you seem to be suggesting we take the easy way out here. sigh. i don't
think we were right getting into it last february, and i don't think
it would be right to get back into it again. i think the
hussein-hitler analogy is flawed, tired, and overused. you're
comparing a two-bit tyrant who invaded a country with which he'd had
an old old border dispute to a person who took over several european
countries and nearly killed off an entire race of people. not even
close, and making the comparison goes back to my response to your #1:
it's just giving him attention.

obangst: i am so sick of people getting all rightwing and "patriotic"
and let's go kick butt, oh baby. grrrrrrr. almost anything we've ever
done in the middle east has only made a bad situation worse, and it's
silly to side with one or the other of the petty tyrannies there. the
gulf war was a sellout. 

--
sine nomine
debbie martinson
"marley was a rasta; moses was a jew; jesus was an outlaw, just like me
and you. let love be our religion 'til this life is through: the next
best thing to heaven's a sinful life with you" -- timbuk 3
Newsgroups: alt.angst