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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 06:52pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4569 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Bombing ought to end -- all over the world -- whether the bombs are carried by suicides, or fancy technical means -- the indiscriminant killing is the same. Get rid of bombing -- or TAX it enough - - - and a militarily stable world would be possible.

People ought to take a good look at how moral standards have degenerated in the last century -- and throw away some avoidable horrors -- which would take discipline and careful negotiation, but could be done.

rshowalter - 06:53pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4570 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There's a lot of psychological injury from war and it lasts a long time -- lies keep the mind from making connections, and cause pain. The bottle scene in Casablanca shows that very well. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/17

Russia has been injured -- and "just" getting the truth about what happened will make healing possible there.

rshowalter - 06:54pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4571 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Russia can do things to heal herself, and has to.

She has plenty of big concerns, plenty of things to worry about, without holding on to deep, wrenching fears that have done so much to blight the lives of the Russian people - when the reasons for these fears are either obsolete, or when these reasons can, with moderate work and care, be put aside.

Even at the ugly cost of negotiating with some Americans. . .

MD4128 rshowalter 5/21/01 9:33pm

rshowalter - 06:58pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4572 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some expository poems:
MD4131 rshowalter 5/21/01 10:45pm . . . MD4132 rshowalter 5/21/01 10:45pm
Md4133 rshowalter 5/21/01 10:46pm

rshowalter - 07:03pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4573 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

How much worse we've done than C.P. Snow expected, and many others expected, forty years ago. People thought that world poverty would be history by now. And most people in the world are still desperately poor.

The Cold War has been a big part of the reason. More generally, failures of human beings to cooperate - which may perhaps be mostly technical failures, have kept the world poorer than seems sane, given technical possibilties that have long been in place.

MD4143 rshowalter 5/22/01 8:33am . . . MD4144 rshowalter 5/22/01 8:34am
MD4145 rshowalter 5/22/01 9:29am

lunarchick - 07:03pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4574 of 4585)
lunarchick@www.com

Turner took the WorldGames to russia 4 years ago ... perhaps looking for beauty through the perfection of sport, understanding and comradely-ness ..

rshowalter - 07:07pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4575 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

He has a feel for beauty.

rshowalter - 07:07pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4576 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I responded to a tough question from almarst in MD4301 rshowalt 5/29/01 6:18pm

"a conspiracy ... subverted one area of American function. And that one area coexists only very uneasily with many other aspects of American culture and ideals, which are admirable and causes of hope. -- Something I can say without in any way diminishing the horror of some of what America has done and become, when it acts as if bombing is a blameless, casual act.

rshowalter - 07:21pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4577 of 4585)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This thread has included a lot of disussion about press freedoms and press function -- in the United States and in Russia -- and some are summarized in links in a letter I sent to one of Turner's lawyers. MD2088 rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am

lunarchick - 07:24pm Jun 7, 2001 EST (#4578 of 4585)
lunarchick@www.com

Was CNN duped into putting out US military say-so through the Nineties?

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