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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshowalt - 08:13pm Jul 25, 2002 EST (#3282 of 3339)

You're right - very good post, lchic !

Saw Senator Daschle on Cspan - - and he said something that impressed me. He said:

" We're for accountability , all across the board. We feel strongly about it."

If only that became a bipartisan position! We'd be a better country, and we'd be able to lead a better world. Disagreements about ideas are one thing. But we ought to be able to establish what key facts are. It takes a little work -- but the work is worth it, when the stakes justify right answers. That ought to be an area of broad agreement.

MD 2286 rshow55 5/18/02 5:44pm includes this:

"Tom Daschle , the Senate Majority Leader , pledged to try for workable patterns of discourse in A New Deal for a New Senate http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/opinion/10DASC.html

" I believe the only way forward is to embrace a spirit of principled compromise. What this requires is open debate, because it is only through debate that we can find new areas of agreement.

" Even in an increasingly partisan political environment, agreement is possible...

" I don't know if this thread has helped, but people working here have tried to be constructive. MD2000 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

. . . .

Eisenhower became very concerned about patterns he'd seen, and warned against the military-industrial(political) complex in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

Everything Eisenhower was worried about has happened. People with power are going to have to ask that some key things be checked. It matters because the United States, intentionally or not, is setting up situations that lead to fighting and death, rather than peace and stability - - and it is happeneing again and again.

A very good way to handle many of these issues would be to discuss missile defense according to the patterns set out in MD1896-1899 rshow55 4/30/02 10:10am

Chain Breakers http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

2629 rshow55 6/19/02 2:53pm ... 2667 rshow55 6/22/02 10:19am

lchic - 03:19am Jul 26, 2002 EST (#3283 of 3339)

B A C K D A T I N G

Accountabilty

lchic - 03:24am Jul 26, 2002 EST (#3284 of 3339)

PETROV affair Australia

Mrs Petrov .. who was pulled onto an airplane by Russian Agents Melbourne - leaving a shoe on the runway (ColdWar) but put down in Darwin .. after living the past 40+ years in secrecy has died.

Conservatives in Government had victory using the same - 1950's.

lchic - 03:38am Jul 26, 2002 EST (#3285 of 3339)

The party's over - time to call it a day http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/26/opinion/26KRUG.html

Wonder if the USA will have to determine that all folks with wealth over a given amount should put the excess into the public kitty - it will be needed!

rshowalt - 06:33am Jul 26, 2002 EST (#3286 of 3339)

Nothing that dire, or unamerican, will be needed. But honest accountabily will be. Krugman's pieces in this paper have been important -- and The Private Interest By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/26/opinion/26KRUG.html raises points that if they were widely understood and believed would effect national debate, and political decision, in ways very much in the national interest (ways Eisenhower, Casey, and Douglas McArthur would all approve of). But - as pieces streaming through time - forgotten and disconnected in the rush of information - facts that should be decisive just aren't.

This thread has been, in large part, an effort to show how, with the new internet tools, facts and ideas, evidence and interrelations - can be presented together with all interested parties able to raise points and look at them. Unweildy - on this thread, surely -- because there is no adequate umpiring. But umpiring on key questions of fact is only so difficult technically, and only so expensive.

We need to find ways to "connect the dots" so that we can deal with key facts, that ought to have morally forcing circumstances. The technical means are at hand - or only a small effort input away. The stakes are very high - for reasons Krugman has pointed out before, that he points out again in The Private Interest By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/26/opinion/26KRUG.html .

We need to do better than we have done at

"the collection, connection, and correction of the dots"

We can. For a long time, the Bush administration has intimidated so many so thoroughly that this hasn't been doable. But it is becoming so.

Some "unwritten rules" of journalism need to be rethought. Sometimes "old news" and "new news" need to be combined - and checked.

It is worth pointing out, as lchic has recently, that Krugman and others are speaking of relatively "open" dealings. What would these same people, and people like them, do under circumstances hidden by classification rules, where it is possible to hide everything that matters, with easy complications?

Just how did the right wing of the Republican party come to be so very well funded, anyway? It is a question well worth checking.

lchic - 07:37am Jul 26, 2002 EST (#3287 of 3339)

Just 'bear baiting' - it's open season lchic 7/26/02 3:38am

One way of delivering some wealth might be (don't laugh) to issue shares to people from government enterprises, to enable all to achieve some wealth.

Government enterprises being services or projects that require taxPayer capital to initiate - and can later be sold into the private sector.

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