Poli-Sci Digest Volume 6, Part 1
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 23 Jan 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 1
Today's Topics:
A new moderator
Information on Technology
Hosts, Drinking and Driving
City Boundaries
Phil. "State of Emergency"
A lesson in Politics
We're off on the Road to Managua
South Africa & Nambibia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 23 Jan 86 19:43:50 EST
From: Charles < MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: A new moderator
Hello,
I'm the new moderator of Poli-Sci. You might say that JoSH would
prefer his politics pre-digested (but then again you might not). Some
of you may know me from Human-Nets; I'm the moderator of that as well.
I hope to be able to do a good job at this list.
Charles
------------------------------
Return-path: < SIMCS@AFCC-3.ARPA>
Date: 8-Nov-85 10:26 PST
From: SIMCS.AFCC@AFCC-3.ARPA
Subject: Request for information on Technology
To: telecom@mit-xx
I am looking for information on when technology transition from the
research and development stage and transfered to off-the-shelf stage.
In concerned, I am looking for when R&D started on the following
fields and when they enter into the production market. I understand
that there is a lot of grey area around these dates, but I am looking
for journals, news items, and/or history articles which summarize the
following technologies;
A. Telephone Switch
B. Satellite Communication
C. The modern day computer
D. Fiber-Optic
E. Store and Forward digital switches
F. Higher Lever Computer languish
G. Local Area Networks
Any information you can provide is appreciated.
Sampson sends.
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 11 Nov 85 17:45:40-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: hosts and drinking and driving
There is a difference between drinking and driving and making a bad
deal buying property, or even climbing a dangerous mountain and
risking you neck. Drinking and driving is a CRIME, which endangers
other people's lives. And a host who provides drinks to someone he or
she knows is going to drive under the influence is not just failing to
stop a friend from doing something foolish, or even just failing to do
anything to prevent a crime. He or she is aiding and abetting that
person in committing a crime. If I gave weapons to someone I knew was
going to assault someone, then I should be legally responsible.
Lynn Gazis
[ Why? By that reasoning, anyone giving or selling anyone anything
remotely usable as a weapon is 'legally responsible' for what is done
with the object at any time in the future. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 85 19:34:58 PST
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: city sizes
> [I know where Phoenix is, it's the *character* of midwest towns I
> know of I was assiging it. I had no idea it was so large, though.
> --JoSH]
There's a lot of politics in this (which is why I feel justified in
sending in a comment on it... :-). The population of a city depends
on where you draw the boundary line around it. Many Southwestern
cities have impressive population figures because the line is drawn a
long way out, whereas Eastern cities often have political constraints
on this sort of thing. Where would you draw the line around New York?
If you used the same sort of algorithm that seems to be common in the
Southwest, you'd include most of several states.
If you want a real example of politics making unrealistic borders,
look at where the official metropolitan-area boundary between
Washington DC and Baltimore is. Much aid for cities is keyed to
population of metropolitan area. Guess who decides where the
metropolitan-area boundaries of Washington are? Right. I don't think
the Baltimore city hall is in Washington yet... but just wait a
while.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Return-path: < FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA>
Date: Sat 23 Nov 85 17:19:28-EST
From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA
Subject: Bye-bye, Constitution
Say goodbye to another piece of the Constitution.
According to recent news reports, it seems the
incompetents and amateur arsonists who run the
city of Philadelphia have decided to assume
"emergency" powers, under which they can order
to disperse any assembly of more than four
persons.
So much for the right of the people "peaceably to
assemble, and petition for redress of grievances."
Robert Firth
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:MCGRATH%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 11 Jan 86 03:19:17-EST
From: "Jim McGrath" < MCGRATH%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: A lesson in the Irrationality of Politics
Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
This is a tale about how a well conceived public program can be
undermined by not paying attention to political forces. In October of
1965 a Presidential task force, consisting of academics and interest
group leaders, but no members of the bureaucracy and only one of
Congress (who was not there most of the time), designed a Model Cities
program. Their goal, based on long experience, was to make the
program effective by:
1) concentrating federal assistance into a small number of urban
areas to enhance its impact,
2) pay more attention to social issues than physical reconstruction,
3) tightly coordinate federal housing programs to get more bang
for the buck.
Originally they proposed a 5 to 10 city experimental program. But as
they talked, the numbers grew. First 36, and then 50 cities were
included (to give the Senate, with 50 states, some reason to approve
the "experiment"). Finally, they requested 66 cities.
It took 10 months to pass this high priority Presidential program.
Sections dealing with integration were knocked out, to appease
southern Democrats. Spending was reduced from $2.3 billion over five
years to $900 million and three years, to appease conservative
Republicans. The role of the federal coordinator, one of the three
goals, was practically eliminated.
But the real change came in the number of cities and what type of
cities were considered. The Senate doubled the number of cities, and
special provisions were put in so that certain cities would be sure to
be selected. Over 100 Congressmen were promised that their cities
would be selected before any applications had even been filed. But
even though goals 1 and 3 (and to a large extent 2) had been
abandoned, the program passed.
Next year the cities had to be picked by the civil servants in HUD,
and Congress had to appropriate the operating funds. HUD put off the
decision point until after the appropriations battle. After a very
hard and close battle, HUD awarded programs to 53% of their
supporters, and only 2% of those who opposed them. That 2%
represented one lone person, the ranking Republican on the Independent
Offices Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (the HUD
funding committee) - a man they could not afford to alienate. The
next and last year of the program, there was no real opposition.
While the allocation of the military budget among districts is
somewhat less openly political, this episode drives home the lesson
that politics count no matter what the program is. Moreover, a
wholly "rational" program was turned into an irrational pork barrel
mess by the political process.
People should keep the lesson of the Model Cities Program alive in
their minds when debating SDI, conventional weapons modernization,
etc... Like it or not, our political system, eminently rational on
its own merits, is often irrational with respect to solving problems.
Jim
------------------------------
Return-path: < CARTER@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: 7 Nov 85 23:57 EST (Thu)
From: _Bob < Carter@RUTGERS>
Subject: Poli-Sci Digest V5 #45
JoSH,
Is the following orphan file I found something that you would like to
run in POLI-SCI?
_B
Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
Last of an eight part series.
As I left the beautiful Managua Airport with my tecNICA
colleagues (close friends, as they had become) or the first leg of my
journey back to Madison, I began to think what I would say to
friends back home who, I knew, would ask how they could help the
beautiful and efficient Nicaraguan people sustain and preserve their
way of life against the hostile forces that are arrayed against it.
Protest, of course. We must raise our voices in teach-ins, in
demonstrations, in protests of every sort, against the mistaken and
in fact imperialist policy Reagan is pursuing in Central America. But
it seems to me that, even if we can drive Reagan from office as we
drove his friend Nixon, something more is needed, to prevent the next
Reagan or Nixon from starting the next war against some small country
striving to better the lot of its citizens.
It seems to me that we might start by trying to emulate the sense
of cooperativeness and community spirit that I saw in so many
Nicaraguans. Not only did they seem to share the goals and ideals of
the Sandanista government; their easy acceptance of the sacrifices
that the government and party was compelled to ask of them gave them
an air of serenity and peace that I can remember seeing only in very
religious people, nuns and priests, at home. If we could just
achieve that outlook and attitude, we would find that many things
that we now value would seem unimportant. They would certainly not
seem worth fighting colonial wars to preserve.
Take "freedom of the press," for instance. As a journalist I have
been taught that this was sacred, but after thinking about it, I
believe that a completely free press is necessary only if the people
and the government are adversaries. After return from up-country, I
spent a half-day at the offices of MENTIRA (Movimiento
Estadistica Nicaraguenza para Tasar Igualdad Racia'l en las Americas)
a private civil rights organization sympathetic to the Sandanistas. I
raised the question of censorship of La Prensa, the right wing paper,
even though my visit took place before the suspension of free speech
President Ortega was compelled to proclaim a few days later.
MENTIRA was headquartered in a small set of basement rooms, which
my hosts told me had been gay night club before the Revolution. It
was pleasantly decorated with patriotic posters, although somewhat
run down. (Incidentally, Madison gays will be interested to know that
MENTIRA members assured me that there is no discrimination against
homosexuals in Nicaragua, and that many Nicaraguan gays had actually
rethought their sexual preferences under the new government.) The
important thing to understand about the extensive censorship of La
Prensa is that the only articles the government asks the editors to
omit are the ones that would upset the people or which attempt to
separate them from their close relationship with Sandinismo by
advocating selfish narrow individualistic values at the expense of
the community. I thought the large white spaces on the front page of
La Prensa gave a light airy feeling to the paper's page make-up.
In the same way, I think it might be time to rethink some of the
legalistic values that seem so important to some people in this
society, but which serve mainly to give employment to lawyers. One
of these notions that I was raised to value is due process. While I
was up-country, I bicycled through the sleepy little city of Jinotega
(pop. 15,000) just at the time the Army was executing 13 Miskito
Indians for treason. I stopped and chatted with one of the sentries
after the execution had been carried out. He was very unassuming and
friendly and teased me when I couldn't remember the words for "firing
squad." (Peloto'n de fusilamiento.)
There had been no need for witnesses or lawyers at the military
trial, he said. A very respected young officer had brought them in,
and explained to the court martial that they had given aid and
comfort to the U.S.-backed contras. During the ceremony, I was struck
again by the simple dignity of all Nicaraguans. The condemned
prisoners were serious and correct in their bearing, as if they knew
they were serving as a public example. The soldiers were tender and
caring toward the Miskitos, aside from a little friendly jostling.
They took care to offer blindfolds and cigarettes (I'm sorry to say
that many people still smoke cigarettes in Nicaragua.)
------------------------------
Return-path: < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 85 14:24:21 EST
From: Jim Hofmann < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Subject: South Africa, Nambibia.
I was once a victim. I was once a victim of effective South
African propaganda. They tell us they are our friends through
various emmisaries and sources (Falwell, Reagan, Schultz and the
Heritage foundation) when they send commando raids into Angola
to knock out US corporation (Gulf) owned oil refinerys. US
papers publish little about this aborted operation and most people
in the US don't even know about it. They never have publicly
apologized.
Pretoria tells us they are moving slowly and surely to end
aparthied yet at the same time they seek to annex Nambibia (South
West Africa) into their empire (truly an "evil empire" if there
ever was one). They tell us it is for their own good, seemingly
they plan to civilized an already civilized territory by making it
a homeland. To their ends, they sign a non-agression pact with
neighboring countries but are the first to violate it. When the
other participants in the pact make moves to protest, Pretoria
shrilly denounces them.
And still aparthied exists in South Africa. What can we do? What
can I do? Can anyone on this list tell me?
Once a victim now a willing catalyst for change ...
Hofmann.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 25 Jan 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
Police Power
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 85 09:37 MST
From: RWhitney@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Police Power.
Well, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I had not expected
the number of counter-arguments that appeared. I'm afraid I simply
don't have enough time to respond completely to all of it but I'll try
as best I can.
(By the way, as a quick geography lesson for JoSH, Phoenix is in the
SOUTHwest, not the MID-west. And for those who think Phoenix is a
small town, it happens to be the 9th largest city, population-wise, in
the U.S., and still growing.)
First let me say that I don't believe the police are always right.
Their human just like you are. They make mistakes like everyone else
and some do overstep their authority. Take any group or profession and
you're bound to find "bad-apples" (even if they're ex-navy criminal
investigators!). I'm even willing to admit there may be "bad"
departments out there. Often though what probably happens is that an
officer or officers screw up and it wins an instant reputation for the
whole department. There's an old saying that goes "You can build
bridges all your life, but suck one cock and you won't be known as a
bridge-builder. You'll be a cocksucker."
I think I'll start with Mr. Sybalskys' comments...
From: Sybalsky.pa@Xerox.ARPA
"I can't condone blatant trespassing and terrorism."
Whoa, wait just a minute! I'm afraid the facts presented in this
article (IF indeed they are facts, which I'm not quite so sure of) do
not substantiate a charge of trespassing, let alone "terrorism".
Obviously your concepts of trespassing and terrorism are much
different than mine. If you don't mind I'm going to throw out the
"terrorism" charge as ridiculus and concentrate on the alleged
trespass.
From: [same]
"If you'll re-read the article..."
Unfortunately I can't. Threw it in the ole bit bucket. Terribly silly
of me.
From: [same]
"...daughter describes the armed men coming up the driveway,
telling her to get out of their way."
Rude perhaps (depending on how and why they told her to get out of the
way), but not trespassing. I'll have to use AZ. law since I'm not
familiar with Californias' trespass statues so pretend it happened
just outside of Phoenix for a bit. Under AZ. statues one of the
following conditions must be true in order to charge for trespass...
1. The yard must have been fenced and posted "no trespassing" or,
2. The owner must have made a reasonable request for those persons to
leave, allowing them a reasonable amount of time to do so.
There are of course other conditions but I didn't think it useful to
enter all possible statues involved in trespassing since they didn't
really apply. Was the yard fenced? How long is the driveway? Is the
driveway distinguishable from a state owned road? (often not in rural
areas) How far up the driveway did they go? How long were they there?
Does the ex-navy man own that part of the driveway? Awful lot of
questions here that the article didn't even hint at. Questions I'd
have to ask as a police officer before I could arrest someone for
trespasssing.
From: [same]
"I guess I'm not willing to believe that they had a warrant
allowing them to search that property."
Why not? Seems like a pretty big asumption on your part.
From: [same]
"...WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY DOING THERE?"
I don't know, and neither do you. I'm willing to assume they're
looking for marijuana, you on the other hand have lept to the
conclusion that they were engaging in "trespassing and terrorism".
Tisk tisk. If you (as a civilian) did the same thing they did, i.e. an
armed man coming up the driveway, I couldn't charge you with
trespassing, at least not without more facts.
If you really wanted to you could describe every officer who came to
your door as "a heavily armed man who came trampling up my driveway"
no matter why he was there. See what I mean? I'm not saying those
officers weren't doing something wrong, but your claims based on this
article are simply unsupported.
From: [same]
"...but only granting that you had any business being on his
property to start with--and I spell that "observed
infraction" or "warrant"."
There are other instances in which police may enter your property even
though you have not given permission for them to enter. The obvious
example is a police officer who walks up to your door to to talk with
you (for any reason). Another in which an officer may actually
brandish a weapon is "hot-pursuit" of a suspect. If a foot pursuit is
going through a residential neighborhood it's more than likely that
the suspect will try and evade the officer by cutting through a back
yard. Yet another instance is the "check-welfare" type of search. Say
I'm outside your home and hear a scream. I'm going to want to search
that home to insure the welfare of the inhabitants. The courts have
generally upheld the officers' right/duty to investigate even though
the officer has no warrant and has not observed a crime. Phoenix has a
rather large elderly population and it is not unusual for us to break
into the home of a senior citizen to search for them if there is any
reason to believe they may have been injured or died.
From: [same]
"...(generalizing shamelessly--I KNOW this isn't true of
each individual policeman!) tend to do what makes their jobs
easier: they take short cuts."
Yes you are generalizing, shamelessly and incorrectly. The fact of the
matter is that if I arrest you for a crime your defense attorney is
going to love every short-cut I make because each one is an almost
sure bet for a dismissal when your case gets to court.
From: [same]
"--A broadening of a policeman's discretion to stop people
and search them, to investigate on flimsier and flimsier
grounds, etc. Stop-and-frisk laws are an example of this.
An officer doesn't need any probable cause to believe
that you've committed a crime, he only needs a reason
to believe that you may be armed (legally or not) and
he may search you. Forcibly if need be."
"Stop and frisk" is an area a large number of people don't like or
don't understand. When I stop and frisk someone my sole aim is to
insure my own safety. As it happens an incident occurred just last
week while I was on patrol. I feel it might be a perfect example for
this discussion...
While travelling along a major street in Phoenix I noticed the car in
front of us had out-of-state plates without a validation sticker.
Suspecting a possible registration violation I asked my partner (who
was driving) to pull the car over. As the car pulled over the male
passenger jumps out. "Watch out," said my partner, "Looks like he's
going to run." Thinking the same thing I had already jumped out of my
side and moved up towards the subject. The female driver (still in the
car) was hanging onto the male yelling "Don't go. Stay here. STAY
HERE!" He then tured and shook her off and, from my vantage point
appeared to be reaching back into the car as if to get something from
the dash or glove compartment. I suddenly realized I was in a
tactically bad position (out in the open without nearby cover and too
close to the subject). The subject then turned back towards me without
a weapon in his hand.
Me: "Put your hands on the car."
Him: "No!"
Me: "PUT YOUR DAMN HANDS ON THE CAR!"
Him: (Putting his hands on the car) "What the fuck you hasslin' me for
man?"
Obviously he felt we were needlessly hassling him. I didn't see it
that way. Would I have used force if needed to search that subject?
You bet. I believed at that point that he was acting extremely
suspisious and may well be armed. Someone watching from across the
street might believe I had searched that person for no reason. I'm
sensitive to rights violations too, but I'm even more sensitive to
catching a bullet. With this in mind the Supreme Court has ruled "stop
and frisk" a reasonable search, therefore it is not a violation of
your rights.
I would also point out that "stop and frisk" does not give an officer
the right to start pulling everything out of your pockets. Unless it
appears to be a weapon he has to leave it alone.
Not long ago another Phoenix officer was not so lucky. He saw,
approached and talked to a suspisious subject who, unknown to the
officer, had just commited an armed robbery. After the officer
finished talking to him the subject drew a handgun and fataly shot the
officer in the neck.
From: [same]
"--An increasing monopoly on the part of the police on
the means of defending person and property against
crime."
This is not really true. Police departments all over the nation
support block-watch and "Operation Identification" as well as other
community involvement programs. What the police do not support are the
"Guardian Angle" type operations. Why not? Because there is too much
danger that these groups will turn in to vigilantes. The police are
accountable to the legislative bodies who control their funding if
nothing else. Vigilante groups are accountable to NO ONE AT ALL.
That's often why they seem to be anti-citizen involvement.
It's ashame that your state (California) has adopted such assanine
laws in regards to firearms, mace, etc... I sympathize, honest. I
strongly support private ownership of firearms. My personal arsenal
ranges from .22's to fully automatic sub-machineguns. Pity the poor
burglar who finds me at home! As far as mace goes I can't for the life
of me understand why California would require a permit to carry it. I
always recomend mace for protection outside the house. (I perfer a
Colt .45 for inside my own home.) Mace is non-leathal and quite
effective if you get good stuff. I don't know what "watered-down"
variety you've heard about, but Smith & Wesson Mark IV is great.
From [same]
"Pray tell, then, why is it that the DEA and project CAMP
(the anti-marijuana campaign in Mendocino Country) never
want for one-time volunteers to go along. I have seen
published reports of interviewees saying they wanted to try
it once. NOT that they wanted to do their part in
eliminating drugs, but just to go along once. Why, if not
for the thrill?"
Curiosity and a sense of adventure is probably what drives most to
apply. I`d like to try it once to see what these kind of operations
are like, and I'd even bet you wouldn't mind tagging along yourself if
the opertunity presented itself. Secondly, I seriously doubt that
these "one-timers" comprise any significant portion of the DEA teams.
Too much training is required to spend it on "one-timers".
From: [me!]
"I'm more likely to be penalized
for shooting someone as a police officer than as an
average citizen, justified or not."
From: Sybalsky.pa@Xerox.ARPA
"Would it be out of place for me to point out that 11% of
police shootings of suspects wind up being adjudged
unjustified, vs 2% of civilian shootings of suspects?"
Kind of proves my point, no? These figures don't really suprise me
though. The police officer faces a couple of problems. First is that
a police shooting is typically scrutinized on a level that civilian
shootings are not. Also, police officers are, for obvious reasons,
involved in far more situations in which a "shoot, no-shoot" decision
must be made. Civilians also tend to find the situations they're in
far more obvious and typically have more information to work with.
Most civilian shootings involve the owner of a home firing on a
burglar. The homeowner is almost certain to know who is and is not
authorized to be in the home. The police officer is often operating on
less than complete information when he has to make the decision to use
deadly force. Let's look at an example...
Several Phoenix police officers responded to a possible burglary in
progress call at a large commercial yard. Finding an open gate they
entered and began a routine search. Unknown to the officers some
security guards were in the compound playing cards in one of the
buildings. The guards were apparently off duty and had removed their
uniform shirts. One of the guards heard the officers outside and
believed they were burglars. He picked up his revolver and charged out
of the building, gun at the ready, suprising the officer. The officer
fired one round wounding the guard. I'm sure this falls under your 11%
as a mistaken shooting, but at the time the decision to shoot had to
be made, and given the officers view of the situation it's hard to
find fault (at least in my mind).
This isn't to say that police officers don't screw up. Of course they
do and I certainly won't try to deny it. The shootings that Mr.
Sybalsky has pointed out may well have been screw-ups, but on the
other hand we really don't have all the facts. Since a shotgun was
involved it's certainly possible the weapon wasn't actually pointed at
the subjects head. He could have been killed by ricochet from a blast
hitting the ground several yards away.
From: [same]
"I have no comparable figures for murder and aggravated
assault--I'd be very interested in them, if you do."
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. I usually assume ALL
murders and agg. assaults are "unjustified".
From: [same]
"...and you agree that crime control should be
left completely to the police, apparently)."
No, I believe enforcement of laws should be left to the police. I have
no problem at all with people defending themselves. Things like owning
a gun (AND knowing how to use it) as well as installing an alarm
system are a part of this. Most people though are just too lazy. They
don't know the laws, they don't know how to fire a gun, they don't
have an alarm system and they don't think it will happen to them.
Citizens also need to get involved. Often people will see something
suspisious and do NOTHING about it, not even call the police.
From: [same]
"According to studies of criminals, the single most
important deterrant--the reason most given for avoiding a
particular target--is a fear that the occupant is armed.
This sounds like an argument for widespread possession of
guns to me."
This may be true if they think the home is occupied. Most burglaries
though happen when noone is home and the burglar has nothing to fear
from the residents. In my experiance an audible alarm (preferably a
motion detecting type) is your best bet to keep away burglars. When
they hear it go off they seldom stick around.
Mr. Sybalskys' problem seems to stem from a legislature gone whacko.
I`d suggest either moving to a reasonable state (like Arizona) or
working to elect legislators with more common sense.
In closing I'd like to say that there is a system for punishing the
police when they screw up. If they injure you in some manner then file
a lawsuit! Police departments learn when you hit them where it hurts,
in the budget. Phoenix doesn't have a "good" department just because
they thought it would be wonderful. We have a "good" department
because we don't like getting sued. And that's the way the world
works...
Whew! That's a mouthful. I realize I didn't get a chance to respond to
all the transactions I'd have liked to, just not enough time right
now. Sorry. I'm sure that this will be more than enough to fan the
flames already burning however. I'm eagerly awaiting the next batch of
replies.
REW
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 6 Feb 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 3
Today's Topics:
A Recent Article &
Drinking and Driving &
City Sizes (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 6 Feb 86 20:18:39 EST
From: Charles < MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: A recent article
Hello,
Recently a reader/contributor to Poli-Sci, Jeff Myers, has
become concerned that an article in Poli-Sci claiming to be the
'eighth in a series of eight', and a parody of a real 'eight in a
series of eight' that he has written would be taken seriously and
damage his credibility to comment on Poli-Sci. To set things to
rights, I'd like to describe the actual events that occurred.
First, and perhaps most root cause of the mixup:
JoSH decided to stop being moderator of Poli-Sci and I volunteered
to take it over. JoSH forwarded to me the old mail (most of it
several months old). I had not been a constant reader if Poli-Sci and
did not realize, frankly, that the letter sent by Bob Carter and the
one that had arrived from Mr. Myers were connected. It just plain
didn't occur to me.
The reason for my NOT publishing Mr. Myers's eighth part was that
it violated longstanding Poli-Sci rules against anything that might be
construed as political advertising. I sent a message back towards Mr.
Myers, by sending it to the person who forwarded Mr. Myer's message to
me. He promised to forward the message on (to the person, it turned
out, who forwarded it to him). There the matter lay. I published the
parody as a routine submission.
I am going to print Mr. Myer's 8th part, with addresses and
monetary information on organizations converted to elipses.
I had no intention of defaming Mr. Myers in any way, and I hope
that any misunderstandings caused by the above happenings have been
cleared up.
Charles
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 85 01:08:39 EST
From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" < SASW@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: [genrad!panda!lkk: forwarded]
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 85 12:55:55 est
From: genrad!panda!lkk at teddy.ETHER
To: panda!genrad!mit-eddie!prog-d at mit-oz.ARPA
From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Article #8: Helping Nicaragua...
Date: 4 Nov 85 18:21:31 GMT
Date-Received: 5 Nov 85 04:53:57 GMT
Organization: Ken Kopp's Fresh Seafood Tank
Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
Eighth of an eight part series.
The best single way that you can begin to help Nicaragua is to
better inform yourself. The best way to do this is to travel there
for yourself as I did - unfortunately, this will probably entail shel-
ling out about [...] for a two-week trip. It's best for several rea-
sons to try to go through the auspices of a solidarity group or an
organized tour - your passage through customs will be speeded, you'll
have fellow explorers with which to share and compare experiences, and
you'll have knowledgeable people around who will know what events are
happening when, etc.
If you are not able to visit the country, for whatever reason,
there is a lot you can do in the US to learn about the country - talk
to friends who have gone, attend lectures and meetings on Nicaragua,
and read. A good place to start reading is the May/June 1985 issue of
the NACLA Report on the Americas, titled ``Sandinista Foreign Policy''
(but which also covers history and the economy). It is available for
[...] from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA),[...].
Two full-expense tours that you can take are advertised in The
Nation and The Guardian. The first has tours from [...]. The second
has a [...] tour in January - for information, contact [...]
There are also two schools where you can go to study Spanish and
the revolution, one in Esteli' and another in Managua. Both offer
family living, community work, meetings with politicos, and four hours
of classes daily. Call or write NICA, [...], or Casa Nicaraguense de
Espan~ol, [...].
Following is a list and descriptions of solidarity organizations
which you can join and aid. I apologize for not being able to list
everybody's favorite organization - there are many out there doing
good work of which I am ignorant, or was not able to include.
WCCN (Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua) is the major
organization dealing with the Sister-State relationship between
Wisconsin and Nicaragua. The chairman of the Advisory Board is Gover-
nor Anthony Earl. WCCN publishes an excellent monthly newsletter -
suggested membership donations are [...].
Medical Aid to Central America is the local group which is coor-
dinating supply of medical equipment and supplies to Nicaragua and
other countries. They recently were the sponsoring organization for a
national conference of medical aid groups which took place here in
[...] Medical Aid to Central America, [...]
The National Network in Solidarity with the Nicaraguan People
(NNSNP) is one of the strongest national organizations working on
Nicaragua. They also publish the excellent ``Nicaragua Handbook -
Tips for Travellers''. [...]
CALA (Community Action on Latin America) is another local peace
group which focuses on educational efforts within the US to inform
people about the continuing US interventions in Central America,
including Nicaragua, and working to forge opposition to intervention-
ist policies. [...]
Witness for Peace is a national organization of people interested
in promoting peace in war-torn Central America, and in saving lives of
non-combatants. They sponsor trips to Nicaragua where the primary
emphasis is on self-education; some protection of Nicaraguan civilians
through the presence of US citizens is a side benefit of Witness for
Peace visits to war zones. [...]
The Pledge of Resistance is a nationwide effort to organize oppo-
sition to the Reagan administration's destructive policies toward Cen-
tral America, particularly Nicaragua. The Pledge is a network for
communication and action oriented toward peace in Central America,
using a phone hotline for information exchange. [...]
The Nicaragua Computer Brigade is a local organization working to
provide The Voice of Nicaragua radio station with a computer and a
connection to an international, news-oriented computer network. The
target delivery date is Christmas, 1985, and the total estimated cost
will be [...].
Last but not least is the organization which sponsored my trip to
Nicaragua, tecNICA, the Technical Support Project to Nicaragua. Since
December of 1983, 145 volunteers like me have gone to Nicaragua,
volunteers with a wide variety of technical skills. While much of
tecNICA's work focuses on computer technology, there is actually alot
of other technical aid that is more important. For instance, tecNICA
has sponsored seismologists, civil engineers, and maintenance people.
While some volunteers are placed directly in teaching situations at a
university, the more typical situation involves a combination of work
and teaching in an active government ministry, institute, or corpora-
tion. While I don't at all want to denigrate the fine tours and
organizations mentioned above, I think that working with tecNICA is
one of the best ways to learn about Nicaragua, as you are actually
working, and working in Managua, very much the center of activity in
the nation. For more information, please contact tecNICA, [...]
[ Moderator -- Please don't edit or append to this message. Thanx.
(But remove message headers as appropriate if you wish.) ]
$$
[ Unfortunately, I am unable to comply with your request - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 27 Jan 86 16:14:46-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: drinking and driving
I don't understand Charles's criticism of my comments on drinking and
driving. I said to begin with that I had mixed feelings about laws
holding hosts responsible for the actions of guests who drink and
drive. On the one hand, I feel that a host who, for instance, served
a guest alcohol knowing that that guest had had too much to drink to
safely drive home and was going to drive anyway, and then, when
someone suggested that that person should not drive home, disagreed
and said it was fine for the guest to drink and drive, bears some
responsibility for that guest's behavior.
On the other hand, hosts are not able to perfectly control the
behavior of their guests. The host could serve a guest alcohol under
the belief that someone else had been designated to drive, and the
guest could then drive and kill someone. Or there could be any number
of other ways that a guest could drink and drive without the host
being culpable.
Someone else objected to holding the host responsible at all, on the
grounds that people who drink and drive are only hurting themselves.
I said that they are committing a crime and hurting other people. Now
Charles says that under my view anyone who sells anything that could
be remotely used as a weapon would be held responsible for crimes
committed with it. I have said nothing of the kind. What I am saying
is that it is reasonable to hold people responsible who encourage a
crime and knowingly provide someone with the means to commit it, but
it is not fair to hold people responsible who unwittingly provided
someone with the means to commit a crime when they had very little
reason to suppose that a crime was to be committed. I actually think
that providing people with information on how to discourage guests
from drinking and driving is probably more useful than punishing hosts
whose guests drink and drive. But I think that people who condone
drinking and driving should be aware of what they are condoning, and
that it is not on a par with not buckling your seatbelt or hang
gliding.
Lynn
[I suppose I just don't beleive that the phrase 'unwittingly provide'
will protect a host who is party, under the law, to a DWI accident.
Certainly I oppose drunk driving, but I don't think this is the way
to stop it. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcgeer%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 86 13:05:51 PST
From: mcgeer%ji@berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
Subject: Re: city sizes
> > [I know where Phoenix is, it's the *character* of midwest towns I
> > know of I was assiging it. I had no idea it was so large, though.
> > --JoSH]
>
> There's a lot of politics in this (which is why I feel justified in
> sending in a comment on it... :-). The population of a city depends
> on where you draw the boundary line around it. Many Southwestern
> cities have impressive population figures because the line is drawn a
> long way out, whereas Eastern cities often have political constraints
> on this sort of thing. Where would you draw the line around New
> York? If you used the same sort of algorithm that seems to be
> common in the Southwest, you'd include most of several states.
>
> If you want a real example of politics making unrealistic borders,
> look at where the official metropolitan-area boundary between
> Washington DC and Baltimore is. Much aid for cities is keyed to
> population of metropolitan area. Guess who decides where the
> metropolitan-area boundaries of Washington are? Right. I don't think
> the Baltimore city hall is in Washington yet... but just wait a
> while.
>
> Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
>
Henry, you should know about this. As a former resident of
Southern Ontario, I too know the answer to the trivia question: "which
major Canadian city stretches from Barrie in the north to Kitchener in
the west to Ajax, or Whitby, or wherever the hell it is in the east,
and Lake Ontario in the South?" Hint: it ain't Hamilton.
[For those who don't know Canadian geography: Metro Toronto is
the largest metropolitan fiction north of the Dallas-Ft. Worth
Metroplex. Toronto the Good itself is a postage-stamp sized enclave
in the centre, with a population of 75 or so dour Presbyterian Scots,
with a random collection of tightfisted bankers and railroad robber
barons for flavour. However, because the official statistics include
the area of New Jersey (well, OK. Rhode Island) as part of "Metro",
Toronto gets to claim that it's Canada's largest city. Have a beer at
the Duke for me, Henry.
-- Rick.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 86 11:40 MST
From: Paul Benjamin
From: < Benjamin%HIS.PHOENIX.MULTICS.ARPA@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: city sizes
Cc: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
This is not really a southwestern phenomenon, but rather something
that tends to happen to cities and metropolitan areas that have done
the bulk of their growing since World War II. In the established
areas of the East and Midwest, cities were surrounded by towns. They
were not suburbs in the sense that we think of them today, but rather
full-fledged towns that were economic centers. Their periphery was
dotted with farms, mines, logging, or whatever was appropriate for the
area. Although the economies of the cities and towns were
interrelated and they were not that far apart, they functioned
separately for the most part. Travel to the city was by horse and
could tie up the better part of the day in round trip. Then came the
automobile and later freeways. Suddenly it became feasible to live in
the adjacent towns and commute to the city to work. Housing was less
expensive out there and the quality of life was deemed better by many.
Thus were born suburbs in the modern sense. The empty land that
existed between the city and the towns was either annexed by the
cities or the towns or became new suburbs. The city could not grow
past these areas because the towns were already there.
In areas which, for whatever reason, growth did not occur until much
later, there was a different phenomenon. The area was not as
developed and the countryside didn't have as many towns. When the
population moved outward, the newly settled area was simply
incorporated into the existing city. As a result of this, there are
some extremely large cities in terms of area. Compare Jacksonville
(759.6 square miles) or San Diego (323.4) with Pittsburgh (55.4) or
St. Louis (61.4).
So it isn't something peculiar to the Southwest, but rather something
that occurs in any area that has experienced rapid growth in
previously undeveloped areas, i.e. primarily the sun belt. But no one
is playing tricks with numbers or political oddities. Phoenix really
is the 9th largest city in the country. It does have, within its city
limits, more people than Boston, Washington or San Francisco have in
theirs. Metropolitan areas, however, are another thing. Whereas San
Diego, Phoenix and San Antonio rank 8, 9 and 10 as cities, their SMSAs
rank 20, 26 and 36, and all for the same reason, they are
geographically large with relatively few suburbs. This is because
they have all 3 experienced the bulk of their growth since commuting
and suburban living became a reality.
It is very interesting to watch how these places grow. The Arizona
cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale are involved in a race wherein they
seem hell-bent on seeing who can reach Flagstaff first. Phoenix Mayor
Terry Goddard recently had to catch a redeye flight from some sort of
mayors' meeting in Washington DC after he learned that the Scottsdale
City Council had expressed their intention, in a late night meeting,
to conspire with equally expansionist Peoria to annex large portions
of land that would have cut Phoenix off at its northern flank. That
move was aborted and the state's annexation laws are currently in the
courts. These people are annexing many, many square miles of
substantially uninhabited desert for perceived future needs. A common
technique is to annex a strip that is one foot wide that encircles an
area that the city eventually wants. This prevents the area from
becoming annexed by another jurisdiction or incorporating on its own.
They don't annex the whole thing because then they would have to
provide sewers, streets and garbage collection.
Jacksonville, by the way, is roughly 3/4 the size of Rhode Island.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 8 Feb 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 4
Today's Topics:
World peace and the human condition
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < LANE%umass-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 86 13:51 EST
From: "Whose woods these are, I think I know..."
From: < LANE%umass-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: Poli-Sci@red.rutgers.edu
Subject: World peace and the human condition
The Promise of World Peace
A Statement by The Universal House of Justice
Baha'i World Center - Haifa, Israel
October l985
To the Peoples of the World:
The Great Peace towards which people of good will throughout the
centuries have inclined their hearts, of which seers and poets for
countless generations have expressed their vision, and for which from
age to age the sacred scriptures of mankind have constantly held the
promise, is now at long last within the reach of the nations. For the
first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire
planet, with all its myriad diversified peoples, in one perspective.
World peace is not only possible but inevitable. It is the next stage
in the evolution of this planet--in the words of one great thinker,
"the planetization of mankind".
Whether peace is to be reached only after unimaginable horrors
precipitated by humanity's stubborn clinging to old patterns of
behavior, or is to be embraced now by an act of consultative will, is
the choice before all who inhabit the earth. At this critical
juncture when the intractable problems confronting nations have been
fused into one common concern for the whole world, failure to stem the
tide of conflict and disorder would be unconscionably irresponsible.
Among the favorable signs are the steadily growing strength of the
steps towards world order taken initially near the beginning of this
century in the creation of the League of Nations, succeeded by the
more broadly based United Nations Organization; the achievement since
the Second World War of independence by the majority of all the
nations on earth, indicating the completion of the process of nation
building, and the involvement of these fledgling nations with older
ones, in matters of mutual concern; the consequent vast increase in
cooperation among hitherto isolated and antagonistic peoples and
groups in international undertakings in the scientific, educational,
legal, economic and cultural fields; the rise in recent decades of an
unprecedented number of international humanitarian organizations; the
spread of women's and youth movements calling for an end to war; and
the spontaneous spawning of widening networks of ordinary people
seeking understanding through personal communication.
The scientific and technological advances occurring in this
unusually blessed century portend a great surge forward in the social
evolution of the planet, and indicate the means by which the practical
problems of humanity may be solved. They provide, indeed, the very
means for the administration of the complex life of a united world.
Yet barriers persist. Doubts, misconceptions, prejudices, suspicions
and narrow self-interest beset nations and peoples in their relations
one to another.
It is out of a deep sense of spiritual and moral duty that we are
impelled at this opportune moment to invite your attention to the
penetrating insights first communicated to the rulers of mankind more
than a century ago by Baha'u'llah, Founder of the Baha'i Faith, of
which we are the Trustees.
"The winds of despair", Baha'u'llah wrote, "are, alas, blowing
from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the
human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions
and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order
appears to be lamentably defective." This prophetic judgement has
been amply confirmed by the common experience of humanity. Flaws in
the prevailing order are conspicuous in the inability of sovereign
states organized as United Nations to exorcise the spectre of war, the
threatened collapse of the international economic order, the spread of
anarchy and terrorism, and the intense suffering which these and other
afflictions are causing to increasing millions. Indeed, so much have
aggression and conflict come to characterize our social, economic and
religious systems, that many have succumbed to the view that such
behavior is intrinsic to human nature and therefore ineradicable.
With the entrenchment of this view, a paralyzing contradiction has
developed in human affairs. On the one hand, people of all nations
proclaim not only their readiness but their longing for peace and
harmony, for an end to the harrowing apprehensions tormenting their
daily lives. On the other, uncritical assent is given to the
proposition that human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive
and thus incapable of erecting a social system at once progressive and
peaceful, dynamic and harmonious, a system giving free play to
individual creativity and initiative but based on cooperation and
reciprocity.
As the need for peace becomes more urgent, this fundamental
contradiction, which hinders its realization, demands a reassessment
of the assumptions upon which the commonly held view of mankind's
historical predicament is based. Dispassionately examined, the
evidence reveals that such conduct, far from expressing man's true
self, represents a distortion of the human spirit. Satisfaction on
this point will enable all people to set in motion constructive social
forces which, because they are consistent with human nature, will
encourage harmony and cooperation instead of war and conflict.
To choose such a course is not to deny humanity's past but to
understand it. The Baha'i Faith regards the current world confusion
and calamitous condition in human affairs as a natural phase in an
organic process leading ultimately and irresistibly to the unification
of the human race in a single social order whose boundaries are those
of the planet. The human race, as a distinct, organic unit, has
passed through evolutionary stages analogous to the stages of infancy
and childhood in the lives of its individual members, and is now in
the culminating period of its turbulent adolescence approaching its
long-awaited coming of age.
A candid acknowledgment that prejudice, war and exploitation have
been the expression of immature stages in a vast historical process
and that the human race is today experiencing the unavoidable tumult
which marks its collective coming of age is not a reason for despair
but a prerequisite to undertaking the stupendous enterprise of
building a peaceful world. That such an enterprise is possible, that
the necessary constructive forces do exist, that unifying social
structures can be erected, is the theme we urge you to examine.
Whatever suffering and turmoil the years immediately ahead may
hold, however dark the immediate circumstances, the Baha'i community
believes that humanity can confront this supreme trial with confidence
in its ultimate outcome. Far from signalizing the end of
civilization, the convulsive changes towards which humanity is being
ever more rapidly impelled will serve to release the "potentialities
inherent in the station of man" and reveal "the full measure of his
destiny on earth, the innate excellence of his reality".
I
The endowments which distinguish the human race from all other
forms of life are summed up in what is known as the human spirit; the
mind is it essential quality. These endowments have enabled humanity
to build civilizations and to prosper materially. but such
accomplishments alone have never satisfied the human spirit, whose
mysterious nature inclines it towards the ultimate reality, that
unknowable essence of essences called God. The religions brought to
mankind by a succession of spiritual luminaries have been the primary
link between humanity and the ultimate reality, and have galvanized
and refined mankind's capacity to achieve spiritual success together
with social progress.
No serious attempt to set human affairs aright, to achieve world
peace, can ignore religion. Man's perception and practice of it are
largely the stuff of history. An eminent historian described religion
as a "faculty of human nature". That the perversion of this faculty
has contributed to much of the confusion in society and the conflict
in and between individuals can hardly be denied. But neither can any
fair-minded observer discount the preponderating influence exerted by
religion on the vital expressions of civilization. Furthermore, its
indispensability to social order has repeatedly been demonstrated by
its direct effect on laws and morality.
Writing of religion as a social force, Baha'u'llah said: "Religion
is the greatest of all means for the establishment of order in the
world and for the peaceful contentment of all that dwell therein."
Referring to the eclipse or corruption of religion, he wrote": "Should
the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and
the lights of fairness, of justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to
shine." In an enumeration of such consequences the Baha'i writings
point out that the "perversion of human nature, the degradation of
human conduct, the corruption and dissolution of human institutions,
reveal themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most
revolting aspects. Human character is debased, confidence is shaken,
the nerves of discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is
stilled, the sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of
duty, of solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the
very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually
extinguished."
If, therefore, humanity has come to a point of paralyzing conflict
it must look to itself, to its own negligence, to the siren voices to
which it has listened, for the source of the misunderstandings and
confusion perpetrated in the name of religion. Those who have held
blindly and selfishly to their particular orthodoxies, who have
imposed on their votaries erroneous and conflicting interpretations of
the pronouncements of the Prophets of God, bear heavy responsibility
for this confusion--a confusion compounded by the artificial barriers
erected between faith and reason, science and religion. For from a
fair-minded examination of the actual utterances of the Founders of
the great religions, and of the social milieus in which they were
obliged to carry out their missions, there is nothing to support the
contentions and prejudices deranging the religious communities of
mankind and therefore all human affairs.
The teaching that we should treat others as we ourselves would
wish to be treated, an ethic variously repeated in all the great
religions, lends force to this latter observation in two particular
respects: it sums up the moral attitude, the peace-inducing aspect,
extending through these religions irrespective of their place or time
of origin; it also signifies an aspect of unity which is their
essential virtue, a virtue mankind in its disjointed view of history
has failed to appreciate.
Had humanity seen the Educators of its collective childhood in
their true character, as agents of one civilizing process, it would no
doubt have reaped incalculably greater benefits from the cumulative
effects of their successive missions. This, alas, it failed to do.
The resurgence of fanatical religious fervor occurring in many
lands cannot be regarded as more than a dying convulsion. The very
nature of the violent and disruptive phenomenon associated with it
testifies to the spiritual bankruptcy it represents. Indeed, one of
the strangest and saddest features of the current outbreak of
religious fanaticism is the extent to which, in each case, it is
undermining not only the spiritual values which are conducive to the
unity of mankind but also those unique moral victories won by the
particular religion it purports to serve.
However vital a force religion has been in the history of mankind,
and however dramatic the current resurgence of militant religious
fanaticism, religion and religious institutions have, for many
decades, been viewed by increasing numbers of people as irrelevant to
the major concerns of the modern world. In its place they have turned
either to the hedonistic pursuit of material satisfactions or to the
following of man-made ideologies designed to rescue society from the
evident evils under which it groans. All too many of these
ideologies, alas, instead of embracing the concept of the oneness of
mankind and promoting the increase of concord among the different
peoples, have tended to deify the state, to subordinate the rest of
mankind to one nation, race or class, to attempt to suppress all
discussion and interchange of ideas, or to callously abandon starving
millions to the operations of a market system that all too clearly is
aggravating the plight of the majority of mankind, while enabling
small sections to live in a condition of affluence scarcely dreamed of
by our forebears.
How tragic is the record of the substitute faiths that the
worldly-wise of our age have created. In the massive disillusionment
of entire populations who have been taught to worship at their altars
can be read history's irreversible verdict on their value. The fruits
these doctrines have produced, after decades of an increasingly
unrestrained exercise of power by those who owe their ascendancy in
human affairs to them, are the social and economic ills that blight
every region of our world in the closing years of the twentieth
century. Underlying all these outward afflictions is the spiritual
damage reflected in the apathy that has gripped the mass of the
peoples of all nations and by the extinction of hope in the hearts of
deprived and anguished millions.
The time has come when those who preach the dogmas of materialism,
whether of the east or the west, whether of capitalism or socialism,
must give account of the moral stewardship they have presumed to
exercise. Where is the "new world" promised by these ideologies?
Where is the international peace to whose ideals they proclaim their
devotion? Where are the breakthroughs into new realms of cultural
achievement produced by the aggrandizement of this race, of that
nation or of a particular class? Why is the vast majority of the
world's peoples sinking ever deeper into hunger and wretchedness when
wealth on a scale undreamed of by the Pharaohs, the Caesars, or even
the imperialist powers of the nineteenth century is at the disposal of
the present arbiters of human affairs?
Most particularly, it is in the glorification of material
pursuits, at once the progenitor and common feature of all such
ideologies, that we find the roots which nourish the falsehood that
human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive. It is here that
the ground must be cleared for the building of a new world fit for our
descendants.
That materialistic ideals have, in the light of experience, failed
to satisfy the needs of mankind calls for an honest acknowledgment
that a fresh effort must now be made to find the solutions to the
agonizing problems of the planet. The intolerable conditions
pervading society bespeak a common failure of all, a circumstance
which tends to incite rather than relieve the entrenchment on every
side. Clearly, a common remedial effort is urgently required. It is
primarily a matter of attitude. Will humanity continue in its
waywardness, holding to outworn concepts and unworkable assumptions?
Or will its leaders, regardless of ideology, step forth and, with a
resolute will, consult together in a united search for appropriate
solutions?
Those who care for the future of the human race may well ponder
this advice. "If long-cherished ideals and time-honored institutions,
if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to
promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer
minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be
swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten
doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law
of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs
overtake every human institution? For legal standards, political and
economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of
humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the
preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine. "
II
Banning nuclear weapons, prohibiting the use of poison gases, or
outlawing germ warfare will not remove the root causes of war.
However important such practical measures obviously are as elements of
the peace process, they are in themselves too superficial to exert
enduring influence. Peoples are ingenious enough to invent yet other
forms of warfare, and to use food, raw materials, finance, industrial
power, ideology, and terrorism to subvert one another in an endless
quest for supremacy and dominion. Nor can the present massive
dislocation in the affairs of humanity be resolved through the
settlement of specific conflicts or disagreements among nations. A
genuine universal framework must be adopted.
Certainly, there is no lack of recognition by national leaders of
the world-wide character of the problem, which is self-evident in the
mounting issues that confront them daily. And there are the
accumulating studies and solutions proposed by many concerned and
enlightened groups as well as by agencies of the United Nations, to
remove any possibility of ignorance as to the challenging requirements
to be met. There is, however, a paralysis of will, and it is this
that must be carefully examined and resolutely dealt with. This
paralysis is rooted, as we have stated, in a deep-seated conviction of
the inevitable quarrelsomeness of mankind, which has led to the
reluctance to entertain the possibility of subordinating national
self-interest to the requirements of world order, and in an
unwillingness to face courageously the far-reaching implications of
establishing a united world authority. It is also traceable to the
incapacity of largely ignorant and subjugated masses to articulate
their desire for a new order in which they can live in peace, harmony
and prosperity with all humanity.
The tentative steps towards world order, especially since World
War II, give hopeful signs. The increasing tendency of groups of
nations to formalize relationships which enable them to co-operate in
matters of mutual interest suggests that eventually all nations could
overcome this paralysis. The Association of South East Asian Nations,
the Caribbean Community and Common Market, the Central American Common
Market, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the European
Communities, the League of Arab States, the Organizations of African
Unity, the Organization of American States, the South Pacific
Forum--all the joint endeavors represented by such organizations
prepare the path to world order.
The increasing attention being focused on some of the most
deep-rooted problems of the planet is yet another hopeful sign.
Despite the obvious shortcomings of the United Nations, the more than
two score declarations and conventions adopted by that organization,
even where governments have not been enthusiastic in their commitment,
have given ordinary people a sense of a new lease on life. The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the similar
measures concerned with eliminating all forms of discrimination based
on race, sex or religious belief; upholding the rights of the child;
protecting all persons against being subjected to torture; eradicating
hunger and malnutrition; using scientific and technological progress
in the interest of peace and the benefit of mankind--all such
measures, if courageously enforced and expanded, will advance the day
when the spectre of war will have lost its power to dominate
international relations. There is no need to stress the significance
of the issues addressed by these declarations and conventions.
However, a few such issues, because of their immediate relevance to
establishing world peace, deserve additional comment.
Racism, one of the most baneful and persistent evils, is a major
barrier to peace. Its practice perpetrates too outrageous a violation
of the dignity of human beings to be countenanced under any pretext.
Racism retards the unfoldment of the boundless potentialities of its
victims, corrupts its perpetrators, and blights human progress.
Recognition of the oneness of mankind, implemented by appropriate
legal measures, must be universally upheld if this problem is to be
overcome.
The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute
suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the
brink of war. Few societies have dealt effectively with this
situation. The solution calls for the combined application of
spiritual, moral and practical approaches. A fresh look at the
problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide
spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological polemics,
and involving the people directly affected in the decisions that must
urgently be made. It is an issue that is bound up not only with the
necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty but also with
those spiritual verities the understanding of which can produce a new
universal attitude. Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part
of the solution.
Unbridled nationalism as distinguished from a sane and legitimate
patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of humanity
as a whole. Baha'u'llah's statement is: "The earth is but one
country, and mankind its citizens." The concept of world citizenship
is a direct result of the contraction of the world into a single
neighborhood through scientific advances and of the indisputable
interdependence of nations. Love of all the world's peoples does not
exclude love of one's country. The advantage of the part in a world
society is best served by promoting the advantage of the whole.
Current international activities in various fields which nurture
mutual affection and a sense of solidarity among peoples need greatly
to be increased.
Religious strife, throughout history, has been the cause of
innumerable wars and conflicts, a major blight to progress, and is
increasingly abhorrent to the people of all faiths and no faith.
Followers of all religions must be willing to face the basic questions
which this strife raises, and to arrive at clear answers. How are the
differences between them to be resolved, both in theory and in
practice? The challenge facing the religious leaders of mankind is to
contemplate, with hearts filled with the spirit of compassion and a
desire for truth, the plight of humanity, and to ask themselves
whether they cannot, in humility before their Almighty Creator,
submerge their theological differences in a great spirit of mutual
forbearance that will enable them to work together for the advancement
of human understanding and peace.
The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality
between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less
acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality
perpetrates an injustice against one half of the world's population
and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from
the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to
international relations. There are not grounds, moral, practical, or
biological, upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women
are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor
will the moral and psychological climate be created in which
international peace can emerge.
The cause of universal education, which has already enlisted in
its service an army of dedicated people from every faith and nation,
deserves the utmost support that the governments of the world can lend
it. For ignorance is indisputably the principal reason for the
decline and fall of peoples and the perpetuation of prejudice. No
nation can achieve success unless education is accorded all its
citizens. Lack of resources limits the ability of many nations to
fulfill this necessity, imposing a certain ordering of priorities.
The decision-making agencies involved would do well to consider giving
first priority to the education of women and girls, since it is
through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can be most
effectively and rapidly diffused throughout society. In keeping with
the requirements of the time, consideration should also be given to
teaching the concept of world citizenship as part of the standard
education of every child.
A fundamental lack of communication between peoples seriously
undermines efforts towards world peace. Adopting an international
auxiliary language would go far to resolving this problem and
necessitates the most urgent attention.
Two points bear emphasizing in all these issues. One is that
the abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and
protocols; it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment to
resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of peace.
Based on political agreements alone, the idea of collective security
is a chimera. The other point is that the primary challenge in
dealing with issues of peace is to raise the context to the level of
principle, as distinct from pure pragmatism. For, in essence, peace
stems from an inner state supported by a spiritual or moral attitude,
and it is chiefly in evoking this attitude that the possibility of
enduring solutions can be found.
There are spiritual principles, or what some call human values, by
which solutions can be found for every social problem. Any
well-intentioned group can in a general sense devise practical
solutions to its problems, but good intentions and practical knowledge
are usually not enough. The essential merit of spiritual principle is
that it not only presents a perspective which harmonizes with that
which is immanent in human nature, it also induces an attitude, a
dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and
implementation of practical measures. Leaders of governments and all
in authority would be well served in their efforts to solve problems
if they would first seek to identify the principles involved and then
be guided by them.
III
The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with
its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which
harmony and cooperation will prevail.
World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of
the oneness of mankind, a spiritual truth which all the human sciences
confirm. Anthropology, physiology, psychology, recognize only one
human species, albeit infinitely varied in the secondary aspects life.
Recognition of this truth requires abandonment of prejudice--prejudice
of every kind--race, class, color, creed, nation, sex, degree of
material civilization, everything which enables people to consider
themselves superior to others.
Acceptance of the oneness of mankind is the first fundamental
prerequisite for reorganization and administration of the world as one
country, the home of humankind. Universal acceptance of this
spiritual principle is essential to any successful attempt to
establish world peace. It should therefore be universally proclaimed,
taught in schools, and constantly asserted in every nation as
preparation for the organic change in the structure of society which
it implies.
In the Baha'i view, recognition of the oneness of mankind "call
for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the
whole civilized world--a world organically unified in all the
essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual
aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet
infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its
federated units.
Elaborating the implications of this pivotal principle, Shoghi
Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, commented in l931 that:
"Far from aiming at the subversion of the existing foundations of
society, it seeks to broaden its basis, to remold its institutions in
a manner consonant with the needs of an ever-changing world. It can
conflict with no legitimate allegiances, nor can it undermine
essential loyalties. Its purpose is neither to stifle the flame of a
sane and intelligent patriotism in men's hearts, nor to abolish the
system of national autonomy so essential if the evils of excessive
centralization are to be avoided. It does not ignore, nor does it
attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of
history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that
differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a
wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the
human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses
and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It
repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all
attempts at uniformity on the other. Its watchword is unity in
diversity. . . ."
The achievement of such ends requires several stages in the
adjustment of national political attitudes, which now verge on anarchy
in the absence of clearly defined laws or universally accepted and
enforceable principles regulating the relationships between nations.
The League of Nations, the United Nations, and the many organizations
and agreements produced by them have unquestionably been helpful in
attenuating some of the negative effects of international conflicts,
but they have shown themselves incapable of preventing war. Indeed,
there have have been scores of wars since the end of the Second World
War; many are yet raging.
The predominant aspects of this problem had already emerged in the
nineteenth century when Baha'u'llah first advanced his proposals for
the establishment of world peace. The principle of collective
security was propounded by him in statements addressed to the rulers
of the world. Shoghi Effendi commented on his meaning: "What else
could these weighty words signify," he wrote, "if they did not point
to the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty as an
indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future Commonwealth
of all the nations of the world? Some form of a world superstate must
needs be evolved, in whose favor all the nations of the world will
have willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose
taxation and all right to maintain armaments, except for purposes of
maintaining internal order within their respective dominions. Such a
state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive
adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every
recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose
members shall be elected by the people in their respective countries
and whose election shall be confirmed by their respective government;
and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even
in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to
submit their case to its consideration.
"A world community in which all economic barriers will have been
permanently demolished and the interdependence of capital and labor
definitely recognized; in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and
strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial
animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code
of international law--the product of the considered judgment of the
world's federated representatives--shall have as its sanction the
instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the
federated units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a
capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an
abiding consciousness of world citizenship--such indeed, appears, in
its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by Baha'u'llah, an Order
that shall come to be regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly
maturing age."
The implementation of these far-reaching measures was indicated by
Baha'u'llah: "The time must come when the imperative necessity for the
holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be
universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs
attend it, and participating in its deliberations, must consider such
ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace
amongst men."
The courage, the resolution, the pure motive, the selfless love of
one people for another--all the spiritual and moral qualities required
for effecting this momentous step towards peace are focused on the
will to act. And it is towards arousing the necessary volition that
earnest consideration must be given to the reality of man, namely, his
thought. To understand the relevance of this potent reality is also
to appreciate the social necessity of actualizing its unique value
through candid, dispassionate and cordial consultation, and of acting
upon the results of this process. Baha'u'llah insistently drew
attention to the virtues and indispensability of consultation for
ordering human affairs. He said: "Consultation bestows greater
awareness and transmutes conjecture into certitude. It is a shining
light which, in a dark world, leads the way and guides. For
everything there is and will continue to be a station of perfection
and maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made
manifest through consultation." The very attempt to achieve peace
through the consultative action he proposed can release such a
salutary spirit among the peoples of the earth that no power could
resist the final, triumphal outcome.
Concerning the proceedings for this world gathering, 'Abdu'l-Baha,
the son of Baha'u'llah and authorized interpreter of his teachings,
offered these insights: "They must make the Cause of Peace the object
of general consultation, and seek by every means in their power to
establish a Union of the nations of the world. They must conclude a
binding treaty and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall
be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the
world and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race. This
supreme and noble undertaking--the real source of the peace and
well-being of the world--should be regarded as sacred by all that
dwell on earth. All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to
ensure the stability and permanence of this Most Great Covenant. In
this all-embracing Pact the limits and frontiers of each and every
nation should be clearly fixed, the principles underlying the
relations of governments towards one another definitely laid down, and
all international agreements and obligations ascertained. In like
manner, the size of the armaments of every government should be
strictly limited, for if the preparations for war and the military
forces of any nation should be allowed to increase, they will arouse
the suspicion of others. The fundamental principle underlying this
solemn Pact should be so fixed that if any government later violate
any one of its provisions, all the governments on earth should arise
to reduce it to utter submission, nay the human race as a whole should
resolve, with every power at its disposal, to destroy that government.
Should this greatest of all remedies be applied to the sick body of
the world, it will assuredly recover from its ills and will remain
eternally safe and secure."
The holding of this mighty convocation is long overdue.
With all the ardor of our hearts, we appeal to the leaders of all
nations to seize this opportune moment and take irreversible steps to
convoke this world meeting. All the forces of history impel the human
race towards this act which will mark for all time the dawn of its
long-awaited maturity.
Will not the United Nations, with the full support of its
membership, rise to the high purpose of such a crowning event?
Let men and women, youth and children everywhere recognize the
eternal merit of this imperative action for all peoples and lift up
their voices in willing assent. Indeed, let it be this generation
that inaugurates this glorious stage in the evolution of social life
on the planet.
IV
The source of the optimism we feel is a vision transcending the
cessation of war and the creation of agencies of international
cooperation. Permanent peace among nations is an essential stage, but
not, Baha'u'llah asserts, the ultimate goal of the social development
of humanity. Beyond the initial armistice forced upon the world by
the fear of nuclear holocaust, beyond the political peace reluctantly
entered into by suspicious rival nations, beyond pragmatic
arrangements for security and coexistence, beyond even the many
experiments in cooperation which these steps will make possible lies
the crowning goal: the unification of all the peoples of the world in
one universal family.
Disunity is a danger that the nations and peoples of the earth can
no longer endure; the consequences are too terrible to contemplate,
too obvious to require any demonstration. "The well-being of
mankind," Baha'u'llah wrote more than a century ago, "its peace and
security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly
established." In observing that "mankind is groaning, is dying to be
led to unity, and to terminate its agelong martyrdom," Shoghi Effendi
further commented that: "Unification of the whole of mankind is the
hallmark of the stage which human society is now approaching. Unity
of family, of tribe, of city-state, and nation have been successively
attempted and fully established. World unity is the goal towards
which a harassed humanity is striving. Nation-building has come to an
end. The anarchy inherent in state sovereignty is moving towards a
climax. A world, growing to maturity, must abandon this fetish,
recognize the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, and
establish once for all the machinery that can best incarnate this
fundamental principle of its life."
All contemporary forces of change validate this view. The proofs
can be discerned in the many examples already cited of the favorable
signs towards world peace in current international movements and
developments. The army of men and women, drawn from virtually every
culture, race and nation on earth, who serve the multifarious agencies
of the United Nations, represent a planetary "civil service" whose
impressive accomplishments are indicative of the degree of cooperation
that can be attained even under discouraging conditions. An urge
towards unity, like a spiritual springtime, struggles to express
itself through countless international congresses that bring together
people from a vast array of disciplines. It motivates appeals for
international projects involving children and youth. Indeed, it is
the real source of the remarkable movement towards ecumenism by which
members of historically antagonistic religions and sects seem
irresistibly drawn towards one another. Together with the opposing
tendency to warfare and self-aggrandizement against which it
ceaselessly struggles, the drive towards world unity is one of the
dominant, pervasive features of life on the planet during the closing
years of the twentieth century.
The experience of the Baha'i community may be seen as an example
of this enlarging unity. It is a community of some three to four
million people drawn from many nations, cultures, classes and creeds,
engaged in a wide range of activities serving the spiritual, social
and economic needs of the peoples of many lands. It is a single
social organism, representative of the diversity of the human family,
conducting its affairs through a system of commonly accepted
consultative principles, and cherishing equally all the great
outpourings of divine guidance in human history. Its existence is yet
another convincing proof of the practicality of its Founder's vision
of a united world, another evidence that humanity can live as one
global society, equal to whatever challenges its coming of age may
entail. If the Baha'i experience can contribute in whatever measure
to reinforcing hope in the unity of the human race, we are happy to
offer it as a model for study.
In contemplating the supreme importance of the task now
challenging the entire world, we bow our heads in humility before the
awesome majesty of the divine Creator, Who out of His infinite love
has created all humanity from the same stock; exalted the gemlike
reality of man; honored it with intellect and wisdom, nobility and
immortality; and conferred upon man the "unique distinction and
capacity to know Him and to love Him," a capacity that "must needs be
regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying
the whole of creation."
We hold firmly the conviction that all human beings have been
created "to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization"; that "to
act like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man"; that the virtues
that befit human dignity are trustworthiness, forbearance, mercy,
compassion and loving kindness towards all peoples. We reaffirm the
belief that the "potentialities inherent in the station of man, the
full measure of his destiny on earth, the innate excellence of his
reality, must all be manifested in this promised Day of God." These
are the motivations for our unshakable faith that unity and peace are
the attainable goal towards which humanity is striving.
At this writing, the expectant voices of Baha'is can be heard
despite the persecution they still endure in the land in which their
Faith was born. By their example of steadfast hope, they bear witness
to the belief that the imminent realization of this age-old dream of
peace is now, by virtue of the transforming effects of Baha'u'llah's
revelation, invested with the force of divine authority. Thus we
convey to you not only a vision in words: we summon the power of deeds
of faith and sacrifice; we convey the anxious plea of our
coreligionists everywhere for peace and unity. We join with all who
are the victims of aggression, all who yearn for an end to conflict
and contention, all whose devotion to principles of peace and world
order promotes the ennobling purposes for which humanity was called
into being by an all-loving Creator.
In the earnestness of our desire to impart to you the fervor of
our hope and the depth of our confidence, we cite the emphatic promise
of Baha'u'llah: "These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall
pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come."
THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I am submitting this document for your appraisal and
investigation. I am interested in any thoughts you have regarding the
establishment of world peace, and can refer you if you have any
questions about the source of this message or the Baha'i Faith.
Miles Lane
(413)545-3143 - work phone
(413)586-1086 - home phone
[ Splendid sentiments, certainly; I wonder doubtfully if the various
patterns of violence are in quite the 'last gasp' stage you portray,
or if national governments (or their citizens) are at all ready to
give up their power, or if international forces are as powerful
comparitively as you maintain. - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 8 Feb 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Re: Removing Names and Addresses &
What Makes America Great: A European View &
Nicaraguan Contra, Your Friends and Mine &
Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @USC-ECL.ARPA:UCCOPS@ECLD>
Date: Sat 8 Feb 86 05:09:35-PST
From: UCCOPS%ECLD@USC-ECL.ARPA
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #3
DEAR POLI-SCI DIGEST MODERATOR,
I think it was unfair to edit Mr Jeff Myers letter (helping Nicaragua
#8). I don't think he was advertising any commercially/freely
available product like Coke or Ford. I really feel that this being a
poli-sci digest, it should help us , the readers, in becoming less
ignorant of what is happening around us, and Mr. Myers letter was one
way in which we could learn first-hand on what exactly is happening in
Nicaragua instead of hearing it from the Gippers mouth. I do
understand your explanation but there can be exceptions to every rule
and in Mr Myers case an exception should have been made. Just an
opinion. Thanks for reading,
FG
[I agree that the purpose of the digest is to better inform us all
about politics, but I don't agree that it should necessarily be a
place for advertising, especially of the form "send $5.00 to X". I
agree that its often a 'judgement call'. Fortunately, I can seek out
JoSH for sound advise when I need it. Besides, you can certainly
contact the sender of an article directly for further information.
-CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < lars@acc.arpa>
Date: 1 Feb 86 08:50:00 PST
From: < lars@acc.arpa>
Subject: What Makes America Great: A European View
[Note: Address and subscription info replaced with elipses below -CWM]
Fans of NPR news, may have heard the Stanley Foundation mentioned
among the sponsors. One of the activites of the Stanley Foundation is
publishing "World Press Review", a monthly magazine of quotes from
non-U.S. newspapers. [...] The February issue has this reflection
about what makes a country great. Being an alien myself, I can agree
with many of the thoughts expressed in the article. Including the
conclusion: Why else would I have chosen to live here.
/ Lars Poulsen
America Since Reagan - Feeling Self-Satisfied
"One of the least reflective societies on Earth"
By Max Hastings, The Sunday Times (London)
No Nation learns fewer lessons from its errors of the past than
the U.S., and few societies profit more by freedom from the
imprisonment of history. Two years ago the U.S. reveled in its
moment of martial glory during the seizure of Grenada. A recent
Senate report highlighted the extent of the military fiasco
behind that operation, but nobody was listening.
These are the symptoms that cause many foreigners to behold the
U.S. in the image of some great college football player - a vast
and imposing mountain and muscle from the neck down, surmounted
by a head that would never have got on the team if academic
prowess came into the selection.
This is what generates dismay among many European visitors. We go
to California and drive down the West Coast highways. We are
overwhelmed by the massed ranks of aircraft on every strip, the
cruisers jammed in every marina, the lacquered skyscrapers rising
on a host of construction sites - proof of a society that is
leaving us ever farther behind not only in wealth but also in the
power to generate it.
Then we go to Washington and behold the confusion in which the
policies of the greatest power on Earth evolve, by competing em-
pires within the administration. Economists are appalled by a
leadership that cannot muster a political consensus to grip its
vast budget deficit. The rivalry between the great bureaucracies
of state creates a disturbing sense of a nation whose leadership
is too diffuse to speak with one voice on any issue.
Yet America today is a happy place - not a contented place, but a
society richly delighted with what it perceives itself to be. The
people love Ronald Reagan. As British journalist Steve Hayward
wrote recently, "Reagan understands, as our media and intellectu-
al elite do not, that the most prevalent feature of American
character is forward-looking optimism, and innate confidence in
... the greatness of the American cause."
Some foreigners look forward to a post-Reagan administration in
which intellect will reign once more, and the crusade against
Communism will be conducted with less fervor - in Central America
and elsewhere. Yet it seems a great error to suppose that this
president will be succeeded bu an entirely different manner of
man. The whole thrust of modern U.S. politics arguses against a
reflective leader. This is one of the least reflective societies
on Earth.
Reagans age and slight sense of absent-mindedness that he carries
off so gracefully inspire admiration in the U.S. He embodies that
dominant American aspiration: to live forever. In a society ob-
sessed with health to a degree that most Europeans find
grotesque, Reagan is the star who beat cancer and gun wounds and
still looks great for his age. Health is of more interest to
Americans than is foreign policy.
The U.S. remains a country less frightened of the future than
perhaps any other in the Western world. Americans hasten boldly
toward the 21st century, a great indoor shopping mall where moth
and dust corrupteth not, and nobody need get hot or wet or pay
cash ever again.
The country has become a terifying matriarchy in which the domi-
nance of women and the cringing deference of men border on the
ludicrous. The streets of Washington and New York bustle with
well-dressed, earnest, taut, driven, working women, pityfully few
of which appear to have achieved the slightest measure of con-
tentment from their equality and achievements.
Yet in one area America's superiority over the rest of the world
is toweringly apparent: education. Many American secondary
schools are no better that their English counterparts and may
even be inferior, and a B.A. from most American universities is
still worth less than its European equivalent. But thereafter,
through the balance of their lives, the American passion for
self-improvement confers critical advantage. For all their ig-
norance of the world outside, the competance of Americans within
their chosen areas is seldom in doubt.
In the long run of history, it may transpire that the Americans
were wrong in their relentless pursuit of whatever was new, led
by a president from the very cradle of fantasy. But in the short
run of history, we can scarcely be surprised that the persisting
drive of the American dream leads to ever-increasing riches, how-
ever absurdly squandered, while our own approach nurses only
disillusion.
[This report is excerpted from the conservative "Sunday Times" of
London, Nov 3, 1985]
------------------------------
Return-path: < upstill@degas.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 86 22:51:47 PST
From: upstill@degas.berkeley.edu (Steve Upstill)
Subject: Nicaraguan contra, your friends and mine
"Climate of an Undeclared War" by Abraham Brumberg
(review in the New York Times Book Review of the book
With The Contras: A reporter in the wilds of Nicaragua
by Christopher Dickey
...review excerpted for brevity)
The story of the anti-Sandinista guerrillas, the so-called
contras, once a rag-tag band of 500 survivors of Anastasio Debayle
Somoza's notorious National Guard of Nicaragua, now a force of more
than 15,000 men -- well-equipped, professionally trained and
energetically looked after by its foreign patrons -- is well worth
telling. Until about two years ago the Sandinistas, keen on depriving
their enemies of any claim to legitimacy, were apt to dismiss the
contras as either mercenaries of diehard "Somocistas." Champions of
the contras, on the other hand, above all President Reagan, often
consider them lineal descendants of America's Founding Fathers,
valiant freedom fighters determined to deliver their countrymen from
the tyrannical reign of Communist totalitarianism. While few people
give credence to the Sandinista version -- and indeed while the
Sandinistas themselves have become increasingly realistic in their
assessment of the rebels -- the far more extravagant claims for them
of the Reagan Administration continue to flourish.
Christopher Dickey, a reporter who covered Central America for The
Washington Post from January 1980 to September 1983, set out to
provide an account of the contras that would steer clear of the
tendentious images fostered by their friends and adversaries alike.
For nearly six years he collected firsthand evidence from the
insurgents in the jungles of Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica, and
from their spokesmen in Miami. He interviewed American officials, as
well as representatives of the Sandinista National Liberation Front,
Nicaragua's ruling party. And he spent several dangerous and grueling
weeks in the spring of 1983 with one of the rebel groups in Northern
Nicaragua.
[...criticisms of the stylistic shortcomings of the book...]
Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss the book because of its
stylistic solecisms. With all its flaws, it succeeds better than any
account I have seen in capturing the sordid climate of the undeclared
war in which thus far nearly 12,000 Nicaaguans have lost their lives,
and in tracing its bloody, convoluted history. (All of his sources are
scrupulously listed, chapter by chapter.) Mr. Dickey's views will
not necessarily please the Sandinistas, but they will also certainly
provide no comfort to their foes, either in Central America or in the
United States. The contra commanders, he writes -- many of them
former "Somocistas," others blood relations of former National
Guardsmen -- are men addicted to violence. Their brutality is
indiscriminate -- their victims include Government officials (health
workers, agricultural specialists, teachers, all carefully selected
targets for torture, rape and murder), rank-and-file soldiers in the
Sandinista armed forces, few of them lucky enough to remain alive when
taken prisoner, and local "campesinos" suspected of sympathizing with
the Sandinistas. [...brief aside about internecine quarrelling among
the contra...]
Mr. Dickey's portraits of these men, "who loved to kill," many of
them bearing grim noms de guerre ("Suicida," "Cancer," "El Muerto"),
reveal a world where political commitment is indistinguishable from
the need to flaunt one's Machismo, and where personal jealousies among
the various commanders often erupt into bloody vendettas. Many
Nicaraguans, including former Sandinistas, have joined the contras --
some under coercion, others out of conviction, some because of
rumbling stomachs, others who feared the expropriation of their farms,
and some who wanted to escape a political climate that increasingly
blurs the distinction between counterrevolution and legitimate
dissent. They soon find themselves swept into the "freedom fighters"
vortex of mayhem and corruption. Many decide to stay. Yet those who
want to leave find it nearly impossible: the penalties for attempted
desertion are savage (including a particularly sickening description
of El Muerto cutting the throat of a 13-year-old "deserter") is often
based on the testimony of those few who have managed to escape, but it
is altogether in keeping with the reports of various human rights
organizations on the subject. (See, for instance, the Americas Watch
Report, "Human Rights in Nicaragua", New York, July 1985.)
[...discussion of American role in organizing and promoting the
Contra...]
What emerges most starkly from Mr. Dickey's account is that,
despite the reservations of some American officials, Mr. Reagan and
his closest advisers (including the head of the CIA, William Casey)
were from the very start determined to pursue policies aimed at
overthrowing the Nicaraguan Government. Claims that the purose of
providing funds to the rebels was to interdict the flow of weapons to
the Salvadoran insurgents (for which, as Mr. Dickey notes, no
persuasive evidence has been produced since 1981) were unalloyed lies.
So were the declarations, repeatedly made to Congress, that the
contras were to be used merely to wrest political concessions from the
Sandinistas. As one CIA "briefer" told Mr. Dickey: "Nobody wanted to
say they [the contras] were going to overthrow them. But obviously
that was the idea."
[...grim assessment of the progress of the war...]
In the meantime, the Sandinista reign, as Mr. Dickey points out,
is becoming "ever more onerous." [...comprehensive list of complaints
agains the Sandinistas...] Whether the Sandinistas would have become
more oppressive anyway is a moot -- and unanswerable -- question.
Like any other species of determinism -- Hegelianism, Marxism, or the
once fashionable domino theory -- the assumption that the Sandinistas
are bound to become totalitarian rests more on ideological dogma than
on verifiable evidence. What is undisputable, however, is that the
Reagan Administration fully understands that its policy contributes to
the spiral of repression and violence. Mr. Dickey paraphrases the
mood of official Washington: "In Nicaragua, if the CA's operations
meant the Sandinistas became more radical, more oppressive and more
Soviet-allied, that was all to the good."
[end of excerpt]
Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it? Here's
hping this inspires as much discussion as Shirley Christian's book.
Steve Upstill
------------------------------
Return-path: < ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 86 22:12:07 PST
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
> Take "freedom of the press," for instance. As a journalist I have
> been taught that this was sacred, but after thinking about it, I
> believe that a completely free press is necessary only if the people
> and the government are adversaries...
Sounds plausible. Especially if you define "the people" as "those
people who are friendly to the government". And keep them that way by
censoring anything that might change their minds.
> ...The important thing to understand about the extensive censorship
> of La Prensa is that the only articles the government asks the
> editors to omit are the ones that would upset the people or which
> attempt to separate them from their close relationship with
> Sandinismo by advocating selfish narrow individualistic values at
> the expense of the community...
"Upset the people" meaning, naturally, suggesting that the government
might be doing something they might not like. "Selfish narrow
individualistic values" like the notion that their kids' supper is
more important to them than the government's latest tax goals. "At
the expense of the community" where "community" is defined as "the
government and its supporters". And a "mostly free press" where
"mostly free" is defined as "responsible", and the government defines
what is "irresponsible".
I would also note a phenomenon repeatedly observed in societies like
North American peace groups: heavy emphasis on unity and cooperation
is a subtle but effective method of reinforcing authoritarian
leadership. When any form of dissent is seen as counterproductive
obstructionism, then the leaders can do no wrong, no matter how bad
their decisions really are. Governments, no matter how good their
intentions, make mistakes; feedback mechanisms are important. For a
recent domestic example of "domination through unity" and the effects
it can have, check out the article on "The Farm" in the latest Whole
Earth Review.
> I thought the large white spaces on the front page of
> La Prensa gave a light airy feeling to the paper's page make-up.
Rose-colored glasses do improve the view, for sure.
> In the same way, I think it might be time to rethink some of the
> legalistic values that seem so important to some people in this
> society...
> There had been no need for witnesses or lawyers at the military
> trial, he said. A very respected young officer had brought them in,
> and explained to the court martial that they had given aid and
> comfort to the U.S.-backed contras...
There was no possibility, of course, that he was lying, perhaps to
further his personal ambitions or to ensure that he met his quota, so
to speak, of demonstrable anti-Contra results. If you assume that the
authorities are saints and anyone they arrest is a devil, then
naturally there is no need for due process. The problem is that the
authorities are fallible human beings, subject to personal biases,
outside pressures, and honest mistakes like all of us. Even "very
respected young officers". I am glad I live in a country where my
life does not hang from a thread any time such a man gets out of bed
on the wrong side.
I assume that a report of this execution would "upset the people" and
hence none appeared in the press.
> ... The condemned
> prisoners were serious and correct in their bearing, as if they knew
> they were serving as a public example...
Being scared sh*tless is another possible explanation. Or hoping that
good behavior might help save them, not realizing that with the word
of a "very respected young officer" against them, they were beyond
help even if innocent.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 2 Mar 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
City Sizes &
Humor in politics &
Nicaragua and South Africa &
Comments about Moderation (5 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < FUQUA%ti-csl.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Date: 8 Feb 1986 01:21 CST (Sat)
From: Paul Fuqua < FUQUA%ti-csl.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: city sizes
Date: Monday, 27 January 1986 15:05-CST
From: mcgeer%ji at berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
To: Poli-Sci at MIT-MC
Re: city sizes
[For those who don't know Canadian geography: Metro
Toronto is the largest metropolitan fiction north of the
Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.
Metropolitan fiction? Here? What does "metroplex" mean to you?
Around here it's usually used to mean Dallas and Tarrant counties, an
area of about 55 miles by 30 miles (if my map is to be trusted), with
a population of close to two million (Dallas 900,000, Fort Worth
400,000, Irving, Garland, and Arlington each 100,000, half a dozen of
50,000). The SMSA, however, covers most of eleven counties, an area
four times larger, and population density falls off pretty rapidly.
There are some amusing aspects to expansion around here. Just
northwest of Dallas, a bunch of small towns are competing to annex the
remaining land, because the big development boom is moving north.
Frisco has taken more than full advantage of strip annexation and
extra-territorial jurisdiction and has ended up controlling an area
more than five times the size of the town itself, including a strip
right along the city line of one of its competitors, The Colony. The
Colony, by the way, is a plain old housing development that one day
woke up and incorporated itself as the prototypical bedroom community.
Dallas, meanwhile, playing the same game, managed to annex about a
five-mile-long strip right along Interstate 30 east to Lake Ray
Hubbard, then annexed the lake (the biggest of several supplying water
to the city).
While there is a lot of unincorporated land in the southern halves of
both counties, most expansion of late has come through the annexation
of neighboring or enclosed towns. The nastiest case was recently when
Richardson, your basic residential suburb, refused to renew water
contracts with Buckingham, an enclosed rural community with some
producing farms, in what might be considered a hostile takeover. They
wanted the land, and they didn't want the possibility of a wet (in the
alcoholic sense) spot in their dry city (but that leads to liquor
laws, which I don't want to get into).
Survival of the fittest?
pf
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MCC.ARPA:wex@mcc.arpa>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 86 15:27:26 cst
From: Alan Wexelblat < wex@mcc.arpa>
Subject: Humor in politics, edit 1
The following is reprinted (without permission) from The Guardian, a
weekly newspaper published in NY (ie not the British one):
"President Reagan's proposal to sell the Federal Housing
Administration to the private sector gave the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) a new idea. The following is a letter sent by ACLU
executive director Ira Glasser to Attorney General Edwin Meese on Dec.
17, several days after Reagan's modest proposal:
Dear General Meese:
This is a formal offer to purchase the Department of Justice or, in
the alternative, its Civil Rights Division.
We believe, consistent with President Reagan's recent proposal to
sell the Federal Housing Administration to private interests, that we
can make an attractive offer which will satisfy your interest in
divesting the government of unwanted responsibilities and at the same
time restore a healthy balance sheet to your Civil Rights division,
whose liabilities now exceed its assets to a degree that has long-term
investors in justice very worried.
We are only the principals in a broadly-based group of investors and
would be pleased to meet with you to discuss the details of our
proposal.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Ira Glasser
"
--Alan Wexelblat
WEX@MCC.ARPA
------------------------------
Return-path: < decwrl!qubix!lab@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 86 19:40:59 pst
From: decwrl!qubix!lab@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Window Wizard)
Subject: Re: Poli_Sci Digest V6 #1
> Return-path: < CARTER@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Date: 7 Nov 85 23:57 EST (Thu)
> From: _Bob < Carter@RUTGERS>
> Subject: Poli-Sci Digest V5 #45
> Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
> As I left the beautiful Managua Airport with my tecNICA
> colleagues (close friends, as they had become) or the first leg of
> my journey back to Madison, I began to think what I would say to
> friends back home who, I knew, would ask how they could help the
> beautiful and efficient Nicaraguan people sustain and preserve their
> way of life against the hostile forces that are arrayed against it.
I would suggest reading the October 8, 1984 issue of _The New
Republic_. The feature article is "Sins of the Sandinistas", written
by someone who who had previously testified in Congress *against* aid
to the contras and *reducing* the U.S. role in El Salvador. This was
his seventh or eighth trip to Nicaragua - reality was finally sinking
in.
> Protest, of course. We must raise our voices in teach-ins, in
> demonstrations, in protests of every sort, against the mistaken and
> in fact imperialist policy Reagan is pursuing in Central America.
Hey hypocrite, open your eyes to Soviet imperialism.
> It seems to me that we might start by trying to emulate the sense
> of cooperativeness and community spirit that I saw in so many
> Nicaraguans. Not only did they seem to share the goals and ideals
> of the Sandanista government; their easy acceptance of the
> sacrifices that the government and party was compelled to ask of
> them gave them an air of serenity and peace that I can remember
> seeing only in very religious people, nuns and priests, at home. If
> we could just achieve that outlook and attitude, we would find that
> many things that we now value would seem unimportant. They would
> certainly not seem worth fighting colonial wars to preserve.
The Sandinista public appearance != Sandinista private. Former
Sandinista official Alvara Baldizon notes: "The Sandinista front
controls the tours. [It] has at its disposal many different mechanisms
to project the image it wishes a foreign delegation to perceive."
> Take "freedom of the press," for instance. As a journalist I have
> been taught that this was sacred, but after thinking about it, I
> believe that a completely free press is necessary only if the people
> and the government are adversaries.
Sure, and the guy down the street has a land deal for you. Free means
FREE. As soon as one person thinks the government is sweet-talking the
people, a free press guarantees the right to make his point known
without fear of censorship.
> even though my visit took place before the suspension of free speech
> President Ortega was compelled to proclaim a few days later.
"compelled"??? What kind of chicken act is that? This is from the same
paragraph as the previous quote where the author intimates that the
Sandinistas and the Nicaraguans are not adversaries.
> The important thing to understand about the extensive censorship of
> La Prensa is that the only articles the government asks the editors
> to omit are the ones that would upset the people or which attempt to
> separate them from their close relationship with Sandinismo by
> advocating selfish narrow individualistic values at the expense of
> the community.
Now there's a group of guys with land deals for you...
In the June 1984 _Imprimis_ (monthly journal of Hillsdale College,
Hillsdale, Michigan), former La Prensa editorial-page director
Humberto Belli - himself a former Marxist and Sandinista - wrote an
article on "Central American Policy." Quoting without permission:
With all honesty I can tell you that we [La Prensa] tried,
particularly at the beginning, to avoid criticizing the
Sandinistas in ways which might lead to confrontation or which
would sound harsh. We had meeting after meeting of the
editorial staff of the newspaper, trying to moderate our
criticism, devising ways not to provoke the government's
anger, and figuring out how we could offer positive
alternatives. Nothing worked, whatsoever.
The Sandinistas would interpret our behavior as hypocrisy, and
soon they were referring to us as the "counter-revolutionary
plotters," "the hidden hand of the CIA"... We could not be a
dissenting voice in a pluralistic society; we were the
enemies. And if the Sandinistas refrained from destroying La
Prensa completely, it is only due to their awareness of the
international political cost that such a move would entail.
> In the same way, I think it might be time to rethink some of the
> legalistic values that seem so important to some people in this
> society, but which serve mainly to give employment to lawyers. One
> of these notions that I was raised to value is due process.
"Rethink" due process? Good-bye, Brown vs. Board of Education! Hello,
lynch mobs and vigilantes!
> While I
> was up-country, I bicycled through the sleepy little city of
> Jinotega (pop. 15,000) just at the time the Army was executing 13
> Miskito Indians for treason. I stopped and chatted with one of the
> sentries after the execution had been carried out.
> There had been no need for witnesses or lawyers at the military
> trial, he said. A very respected young officer had brought them in,
> and explained to the court martial that they had given aid and
> comfort to the U.S.-backed contras. During the ceremony,I was struck
> again by the simple dignity of all Nicaraguans. The condemned
> prisoners were serious and correct in their bearing, as if they knew
> they were serving as a public example.
One man's word was enough to kill 13? Stalinism at its finest! And the
earlier intimation of the Sandinistas and Nicaraguans not being
adversaries is clearly belied by this.
The Founding Fathers knew well the ability of the state to zap people
by denying them either lawyers of due process. But the generation of
Personal Peace and Affluence has forgotten it all.
There is a phrase which describes you well: Coercive Utopian. I
recommend to anyone Rael and Erich Isaac's book of that very title.
> ------------------------------
> Return-path: < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
> Date: Mon, 2 Dec 85 14:24:21 EST
> From: Jim Hofmann < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
> Subject: South Africa, Nambibia.
> I was once a victim. I was once a victim of effective South
> African propaganda. They tell us they are our friends through
> various emmisaries and sources (Falwell, Reagan, Schultz and the
> Heritage foundation) when they send commando raids into Angola
> to knock out US corporation (Gulf) owned oil refinerys. US
> papers publish little about this aborted operation and most people
> in the US don't even know about it. They never have publicly
> apologized.
U.S. papers also publish relatively little about the essentially-
imprisoned dissident Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov while they devote
tons of space to a free-traveling dissident Nobel Laureate from South
Africa. You are a victim of worse propaganda than you think.
> Pretoria tells us they are moving slowly and surely to end
> aparthied yet at the same time they seek to annex Nambibia (South
> West Africa) into their empire (truly an "evil empire" if there
> ever was one).
Open your narrow mind. Russia is far worse than South Africa. In fact,
even in Africa alone, South Africa is one of the *least* oppressive
regimes (about 6th out of 40). Evil by black vs. black is rampant in
Africa, but the propagandists never tell you that.
> And still aparthied exists in South Africa. What can we do? What
> can I do? Can anyone on this list tell me?
Realize that tribal violence is still going on in South Africa,
despite Bishop Dodo's claims of a unified black front. Realize that a
white political party which has been opposed to apartheid since its
legalization 32 years ago holds about 20% of the legislative seats.
Also that Botha is trying to keep South Africans - white and black -
out of the economic nightmare that the hard-line racists (who also
hold about 20-30% of legislative seats) could inflict all too easily.
Realize that ending apartheid overnight isn't going to be the panacea
that the propagandists make it out to be.
End Moscow's oppression. Picket the Soviet embassy. Support the
mujaheedin in Afghanistan. Get Andrei Sakharov out of exile.
Larry Bickford, {amd,sun,decwrl,idi,ihnp4,cbosgd}!qubix!lab
------------------------------
Return-path: < JOSH@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: 26 Feb 86 22:05:01 EST
From: JoSH < JoSH@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: Editorial Policy
It has come to my attention that a number of the readers of this list
have been harrassing Mr. McGrew, the moderator, with various
complaints about the way the list was run. Particularly interesting
were some assertions that the previous moderator would not have done
the same, or "Why don't you ask him about ...?", or whatever.
Well, please stop. Charles and I sit in the same office and he has in
fact asked my opinion on most of the editorial decisions he has had to
make. Furthermore, he took over the list as a favor since I was under
such a heavy backlog from being out two months. Thus Charles
represents "a continuation of JoSH by other means". He doesn't have a
strong interest in the subject and is putting up with all you yahoos
out of the goodness of his heart.
--JoSH
ps-- in the matter of Myers' Nicaragua series: It seems to me that
much of the misunderstanding arose because the messages had been
forwarded to the list, possibly without Myers' knowlege. The articles
had been originally written for a different forum, in which they were
entirely kosher. When Charles sent back the final installment, *as
per the stated policy of this list*, the explanatory message went to
the forwarder (who should have known the installment was unprintable,
being a poli-sci subscriber), instead of Myers (who had no way of
knowing anything about any of this). Thus the confusion. I suggest
that in the future, before forwarding something to the list that was
not written for it, readers should consult with the authors ahead of
time and apprise them of the poli-sci rules. Let them know you intend
to dump their stuff here and that it may come back folded, spindled,
and mutilated. That way the appearance of high-handedness can be
avoided.
------------------------------
Return-path: < wild%oscar@SUN.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 86 13:41:36 PST
From: wild%oscar@SUN.ARPA (Will Doherty)
Cc: wild@oscar
Subject: Heavy-handed censorship
Well, poli-sci readers, we have descended to yet lower levels
of pointy-headedness, short-sightedness, and generally
astounding incomprehensibility. Zouch!
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator)
< Poli-Sci-Request@Rutgers.berkeley.edu>
Subject: A recent article
The reason for my NOT publishing Mr. Myers's eighth part was
that it violated longstanding Poli-Sci rules against anything
that might be construed as political advertising. I sent a
message back towards Mr. Myers, by sending it to the person
who forwarded Mr. Myer's message to me. He promised to
forward the message on (to the person, it turned out, who
forwarded it to him). There the matter lay. I published the
parody as a routine submission.
I am going to print Mr. Myer's 8th part, with addresses and
monetary information on organizations converted to elipses.
[sic]
Since you haven't read poli-sci regularly, by your own admission, then
it is understandable that you misunderstand poli-sci's ``rules on
anything that might be construed as political advertising.'' This
conveniently passive construction allows the censorship of anything
that you, the moderator, decide you don't like.
Why don't you construe all of your alterations and ellipses (and
perhaps all of your postings) as political advertising (at least of
your political position)?
In fact, poli-sci has routinely published contact info for just about
everything except specific political demonstrations.
Helping Nicaragua - What You Can Do
Eighth of an eight part series.
The best single way that you can begin to help Nicaragua
is to better inform yourself. The best way to do this is to
travel there for yourself as I did - unfortunately, this will
probably entail shelling out about [...] for a two-week trip.
What could possibly be considered political advertising about what I
assume is the estimated cost of a trip to Nicaragua?
A good place to start reading is the May/June 1985 issue of
the NACLA Report on the Americas, titled ``Sandinista Foreign
Policy'' (but which also covers history and the economy). It
is available for [...] from the North American Congress on
Latin America (NACLA),[...].
This is direct *reference* information for the purpose of learning
more about the situation in Nicaragua. Why not replace all proper
nouns with ellipses to enhance our understanding of the matter?
I don't believe the extent to which you have abused the moderator's
privilege in censoring this posting. Did you contact, as previously
decreed on poli-sci, the person who posted the message to ask whether
or not the censorship was acceptable? If not, you shouldn't have
posted it until you had obtained consent from the author, as decreed
previously.
I think your actions betray clear political bias and murky brainwaves.
Why even pretend that this forum allows free speech?
If this censorship continues, I would like to hear suggestions for
starting a new forum elsewhere.
Back in the USSR,
Will "All Speech Is Political Advertisement" Doherty
sun!oscar!wild
[ I have explained previously my reasons for editing Mr. Myer's
message. If I had such a 'political bias' as you claim, the cleverest
thing would have been to simply not print the message in the first
place, now wouldn't it? - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < arice@bbncch.arpa>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 86 13:37:07 EST
From: Andrea Rice < arice@bbncch.ARPA>
Subject: CWM
Cc: arice@bbncch.arpa
[I for one do not appreciate the bracketed insights of CWM.
The moderator of a mailing list should not abuse his/her
position by determining the light in which readers
perceive the communications of other members of the list.
Case in point:
< [Splendid sentiments, certainly; I wonder doubtfully if the
< various patterns of violence are in quite the 'last gasp'
< stage you portray, or if national governments (or their citizens)
< are at all ready to give up their power, or if international
< forces are as powerful comparitively as you maintain.]
(This comment followed the "Universal House of Justice" paper
that called for a world-wide human sensibility toward
overcoming the problems of hunger, greed and violence that
are exacerbated by increasingly nationalist, patriarchal,
and opportunist attitudes and the seemingly never-ending
aggrandizement by the currently reigning race-sex-creed.)
I have great faith that the readers of poli-sci can derive their
own doubts (and inspirations) from this paper without CWM's
editorial comments to guide them. CWM's comments seem a bit
omnipresent as he can express them whenever and wherever he likes.
The comment I quoted above is one of many which I feel was intended
for influence rather than discussion.
Andrea Rice]
[ The 'bracketed comments' is a time-honored way for moderator
response in Poli-Sci. If you don't want me to comment on your
messages, simply say so in the message. -CWM]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 86 07:43 MST
From: RNeal@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Baha'i sermon
Now that we have heard a sermon from the Baha'i, does this mean we
have to give equal time to Jerry Falwell or the KKK? I think you
dropped the censorship ball on this one. It looks sort of
hypocritical to censor Myers submission (not that I wanted to see it)
and leave this ridiculously long sermon on the Baha'i faith.
Answers???
[ You want to sermonize? Go right ahead. My job is to moderate the
digest, and that means I send out what comes in (within certain
limits). I don't judge articles on their 'political worth' (whatever
that means) as a criteria for inclusion in the digest. I realize that
politics is a sensitive issue with many people, which means that I'll
get attacked no matter what I do. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sunday, 9 February 1986 14:35:11 EST
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: removing names and addresses
Some people forget that this digest is distributed over the ARPANET,
which is run by the Defense Communications Agency. Anything that gets
too political is hazardous to continued digest health, and probably
illegal. Long-time Poli-Sci readers will remember that shortly after
the 1980 campaign, when Poli-Sci was formed, one reader from Harvard
attempted to create a CAMPAIGN digest, to discuss computer technology
for political campaigns. This person's father was some politician.
After a few digests, the powers that be nuked the digest off the
network. The same thing can happen to this digest. Just imagine what
some Congressman or Senator can do if they discover that this digest
is fomenting political activities that they don't agree with.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 2 Mar 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 7
Today's Topics:
New Order/Old Order &
South African Opresssion &
Those Ever-Lovin' First Ladies &
Humor in (nuclear) Politics
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 10:29:01 EST
From: Hofmann < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
To: LANE%umass-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: re: New Order/Old Order ...
Only problem here is if you believe that these New Age freaks
believe that the human has REALLY changed and establishment of
a "World Order" would be an ideal way for a world dictator to
come into power. Remember these Eastern types were the same
ones running around Berlin in World War II kissing Hitler's
butt talking about how the Third Reich would establish a "New
Order" ... yeah, lots of peace and love coming from THAT
goverment. Really, I found the posting pretty offensive to
religion in general and very much more self-righteous than
most. If I want to read this sort of tripe, I'd go down to
the local day-glo, granola shop ...
hofmann@amsaa
------------------------------
Return-path: < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 9:36:41 EST
From: Hofmann < hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
To: decwrl!qubix!lab@ucb-vax.ARPA
Subject: my, my aren't we paranoid today ...
Mr Larry,
My original posting was about South Africa, not about the Soviet
Union, but I would agree with you on most of your points - but why so
kneejerk? I mentioned NOTHING about the USSR at all ...
> U.S. papers also publish relatively little about the essentially-
> imprisoned dissident Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov while they devote
> tons of space to a free-traveling dissident Nobel Laureate from South
> Africa. You are a victim of worse propaganda than you think.
Bullshit, US Papers pick up on whomever is current and will help them
sell papers, Sakharov had his day in the media (re: HBO movie, re:
Yelena's trip to the US) as much as Bishop Tutu - and they BOTH
deserve attention. But you seem to be comparing apples with oranges -
what does the Soviet treatement of dissidents have to do with South
African treatment of dissidents? Sure, they are both wrong, but
doesn't this deserve perhaps a separate article?
> Open your narrow mind. Russia is far worse than South Africa. In
> fact, even in Africa alone, South Africa is one of the *least*
> oppressive regimes (about 6th out of 40). Evil by black vs. black is
> rampant in Africa, but the propagandists never tell you that.
Well, thanks - you must have the most open mind in the world, you hot
shit, larry - except in your mindless fuming and ranting you missed
Bob Carter's point in his phoney Nicarauguan article - you may be
suprised that the article was meant as sarcasm more in line with your
views ... Your comments on other regime's in South Africa deserve
comment,too. I agree with you - other regime's are opressive but
first off, where did you get your figure and what do you mean by
"least oppressive?" Does that mean when oppression is done in the
name of rascism that it is "better" than oppression done in the name
of primitive, tribal rivalry? or oppression done in the name of
communism? please do elaborate ...
> Realize that tribal violence is still going on in South Africa,
> despite Bishop Dodo's claims of a unified black front. Realize that a
> white political party which has been opposed to apartheid since its
> legalization 32 years ago holds about 20% of the legislative seats.
> Also that Botha is trying to keep South Africans - white and black -
> out of the economic nightmare that the hard-line racists (who also
> hold about 20-30% of legislative seats) could inflict all too easily.
> Realize that ending apartheid overnight isn't going to be the panacea
> that the propagandists make it out to be.
Realize that tribal violence is still going on in South Africa due to
goverment espionage? No? Botha is not part of any moderate faction
as you make him out to be ... his interests lie with those who own the
land and keep him in power. Realize that ending "goverment sanctoined
rascism" must be done NOW, not tomorrow - that's what Pretoria was
saying yesterday, dodo - today is tomorrow, the blacks and coloreds
and sympathizing whites have waited long enough. All it takes is to
incorporate a fair voting system and allow those whom the people want
to rule them rule them. Is that a "panacea" or a neccesity?
hofmann
> End Moscow's oppression. Picket the Soviet embassy. Support the
> mujaheedin in Afghanistan. Get Andrei Sakharov out of exile.
Gee, I agree with everything here, Larry but how is picketing an
embassy going to help anything? And where were you when the
Khomeni types in Iran needed support? And yes, get Andrei out
of exile so he can come over here and build some nukes ..
hofmann
------------------------------
Return-path: < GEOFF@SRI-CSL.ARPA>
Date: 1 Mar 1986 17:36-PST
Subject: Michele/Imelda - Those Ever-Lovin' First Ladies.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow < Geoff@SRI-CSL.ARPA>
To: info-cobol@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From the San Francisco Chronicle, sometime this past week.
PERSONALS/Leah Garchik
THOSE EVER-LOVIN' FIRST LADIES:
A Point-by-Point Comparison
(picture of (picture of
Michelle Duvalier, 35) Imelda Marcos, 57)
EXPERIENCE
Desk clerk and public relations Beauty queen,"Muse of Manila"
woman for fancy hotel in Port au at 1953 Philippines Inter-
Price. national Fair.
WHEN LOVE WALKED IN
She and Baby Doc were students She was working for a bank,
together in Haiti. Ferdinand was a congressman.
MIRROR, MIRROR
"My father warned me -- pretty "Filipinos ask only one thing
face, empty head....My husband from life -- beauty....Maybe
does not share that view, the only privileged thing is
fortunately." my face."
THE GOOD TIMES
Last November, a $1.7-million In 1982, took 40 assistants
shopping spree in New York, Paris and 300 suitcases to New York
and London allegedly left for a shopping spree. Among
government coffers empty, the purchases were some $1.5
enraging Haitians and thereby million worth of furnishings
leading to the revolution. for new digs in Manhattan.
LOVE OF NATURE
$50,000-a-month flower bill. $1000 in fresh flowers every
day to her Waldorf suite
during a trip to New York.
SPARKLE PLENTY
"She wore errings that looked like Owned an 11-carart diamond
lanterns," said a friend. engagement ring and 11-diamond
studded band, both
commemorating the 11 days
between the time she met
Ferdinand and the time they
married.
FOOT FETISHES
A friend describes buying "dozens" Total palace shoe count so far
of pairs of $500 shoes for her at a is 170; figures not yet
Park Avenue store. complete.
KITCHEN SKILLS
Owned a $75,000 freezer. For her "Woman have their place
fur coats. somehow at home. Being gov-
ernor of Manila is
housekeeping."
ALWAYS A KIND WORD
"You're not the one in bed with him. "Cory Aquino doesn't use
I am" (to her mother-in-law) makeup, she doesn't do her
nails."
POWER
"If you will not be a man like your "I would be a freak of a woman
father, I will put on his trousers"(to if I became president."
Baby Doc).
LEAVING IN STYLE
Threw a part with a final midnight Left beds unmade, half-eaten
champagne toast before departing dinner on table.
for airport.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MCC.ARPA:wex@mcc.arpa>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 86 15:58:07 cst
From: Alan Wexelblat < wex@mcc.arpa>
Subject: Humor in politics
The following is a list of `interesting' responses received by
canvassers for the Wisconsin Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.
- "I don't think I want to be interested."
- "What would the President think if he knew what you were doing?"
- "I served in the Vietnam war. Serving in a nuclear war is your
problem."
- "I'm all for nuclear war! How else will we know of the second
coming of Jesus?"
- "Sorry, I'm a WASP."
- "Nuclear weapons? Wish I had one!" - this from a man shaking his
copy of Guns & Ammo magazine at the canvasser.
- "The Bible says the yellow people will destroy the Earth."
- "We need nuclear weapons because no one will enlist in the Army
anymore."
- "You should read the Reader's Digest if you believe that."
- "I'm in favor of a Freeze. Please leave my house now."
- "Do you have any *Russian* signatures?"
- "Don't worry; God will destroy the Russians."
- "No, no. We're Reagan people. He don't allow us to do these sorts
of things."
- "Not after Pearl Harbor."
- "My husband makes all these kinds of decisions for me."
- "I'm for the Freeze all right. But don't worry. Ronald Reagan is
gonna be reelected President, and he'll take care of everything."
- "Don't sign! They're the KGB!"
--Alan Wexelblat (another KGB dupe for peace)
WEX@MCC.ARPA
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 11 Mar 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 8
Today's Topics:
Privatize the Contras &
Set the Way-Back Machine &
Thinking about Politics &
Everything in (or on) Moderation (4 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < upstill@degas.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 86 23:14:19 PST
From: upstill@degas.berkeley.edu (Steve Upstill)
Subject: more privatization
PRIVATIZE THE CONTRA!
(from an unattributed mimeographed sheet)
President Reagan has long championed the privatization of many
governmental operations. Most recently, eh's targeted bank deposit
insurance and FHA loan programs. We're seeing some progress on this
front, but I submit that we haven't yet taken this worthy effort far
enough.
A new and costly bureaucracy has sprung up in recent years, one that
threatens to grow into a monster. Its budget is likely to quadruple
this year alone. Its "hidden" costs are even more astronomical, and
it seems increasingly immune to political control.
I'm speaking, of course, of the bureaucracy that has sprung up around
our efforts to topple the Nicaraguan government. We have here a
classic case of Congress throwing money at a problem without having a
clear understanding of its underlying causes, and without having a
clue as to how to resolve it. Once again, Congress has abdicated its
responsibility by delegating authority to an executive agency (the
CIA, in this case), only to find it had opened a Pandora's Box of
ever-multiplying demands.
I suggest we nip this new bureaucracy in the bud. We can do this
without abandoning our aims (a peaceful, friendly Nicaraguan
government), and without pulling the rug out from under the contra
mercenaries. It will be the supreme test of the Reagan privatization
program.
We should issue vouchers to each and every contra soldier, each worth
$10,000 to be spent as he sees fit (with 10,000 soldiers, this will
equal the $100 million the President seeks for their efforts this
year). At the same time, we should offer them diplomatic passports.
This will allow the "freedom fighters" to reveal their preferences by
voting with their feet for the country of their choice.
...
[ end of excerpt ]
Personally, I think this is a fine idea. Conservatives?
Libertarians? How about it? Let's see what those Freedom Fighters
are made of!!!
Steve Upstill
[ If this idea goes through, they'll be made of money...
It would also mean the instant dissolution of the Sandinista gov't,
as every last Nicaraguan citizen would become a Contra overnight.
Ortega himself would probably be the first.
--JoSH]
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 86 15:56:57 pst
From: pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #59
To: nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
> Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, March 3, 1986 12:23AM
> Volume 6, Issue 59
>
>
> Date: Saturday, 1 March 1986 10:40-EST
> From: ihnp4!abnji!nyssa at seismo.CSS.GOV
> To: arms-d at mit-mc.arpa
> Re: History
>
> > On Sunday, ABC aired a program [...] in which the point was made
> > that the US was the first world power that never wanted to be a
> > world power, that in fact if world domination was our plan, we
> > could have accomplished it after WWII. Instead [...] we instituted
> > the Marshall Plan.
>
> Come now, we're not the only ones who ever refrained from conquest.
>
> In the 2nd Macedonian war the Romans under T. Quinctius Flaminus
> came to the aid of the Greeks (esp. Rhodes, Pergamum, Athens)
> against Philip V, who was asserting Macedonian hegemony. Flaminus
> declared the independence of Greece cities and the Romans withdrew
> in 194 BC. (In 148, after the 3rd Macedonian war, Macedonia became a
> Roman province.)
>
Gee, didn't know Rome was a world power. I thought they just
controlled the Mediterranean. :-) In fact, they weren't even a
Mediterranean power in 194 BC.
> Going back somewhat further, the Delian League was formed by Athens
> (inc. Aristeides "the Just") as a free and equal association against
> the Persians in 477 BC. This became the basis for the Athenian
> empire, destroyed in the Poloponnesian War.
>
They were in no position to control the world, or even Asia Minor.
The Delian League also didn't have the political cohesiveness of the
United States when it was formed, although Athens exercised greater
control over it by the end.
> In our time, the Soviets like to point out that they have withdrawn
> their forces from Austria and Finland.
>
The forces withdrawn from Finland? You mean after the Finns fought
the entire Red Army to a standstill? Didn't the Soviets lose
something over a million soldiers? That's withdrawal?
I've read that withdrawal from the Soviet part of Austria (not the
whole country) was done after heavy pressure from the U.S. and
Britain. I've also read that Soviet withdrawal from Iran was because
of the threat to use nuclear weapons.
>
> *** This was sent to me from burl!icase!xanth!uvacs!mac(Alex Colvin)
> James
>
------------------------------
Return-path: < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Date: Tue 11 Mar 86 09:25:40-PST
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #6
Do any of the rest of you develop "black hole" files in your mind
for various political issues? I do this when I get saturated with
information on an issue or area of the world beyond my level
of interest and/or ability to do anything about the situation.
It happened about Viet Nam in the late 60's.
Since I'm only 31, the middle east almost started out in that file.
Now, they get to move over and make room for Central America.
Probably the reason for this is that my main interest is in political
theory rather than the day-to-day operation of the world. No
request for changes in the digest implied--just a comment.
New moderator--your doing great, don't get rattled. I think your
right that SOMEONE will harrass you no matter what you do!
TCS
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcgeer%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 86 22:31:42 PST
From: mcgeer%ji@berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
Subject: abuse of moderator...
For God's sake, people, either lay off McGrew or think up some
new criticisms. The matter of "censorship" has been raised before,
and often: neither McGrew nor JoSH has *ever*, to my knowledge,
censored anything other than as required by ARPANET rules. Myers'
submission, which I read in its entirety on USENET net.politics, was a
blatant pitch for Sandinista fund-raising, and that is (and should be)
forbidden on the ARPANET.
As for the business of postscripts, JoSH was criticized for
this as well: he pointed out that (a) he could post a response as a
normal reader of poli-sci, and that this editorial feature merely made
the digest easier to read; and (b) he refrained from doing so when a
specific request was sent with the message. This argument was
generally agreed at the time to be unanswerable, and there the matter
rested -- do we have to go through the whole thing again just because
we have a new moderator?
-- Rick.
------------------------------
Return-path: < hollande@dewey.udel.EDU>
Subject: Big Brother
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 86 12:51:12 -0500
From: Frank Hollander < hollande@dewey.udel.EDU>
> Some people forget that this digest is distributed over the ARPANET,
> which is run by the Defense Communications Agency. Anything that
> gets too political is hazardous to continued digest health, and
> probably illegal. Long-time Poli-Sci readers will remember that
> shortly after the 1980 campaign, when Poli-Sci was formed, one reader
> from Harvard attempted to create a CAMPAIGN digest, to discuss
> computer technology for political campaigns. This person's father
> was some politician.
> After a few digests, the powers that be nuked the digest off the
> network. The same thing can happen to this digest. Just imagine
> what some Congressman or Senator can do if they discover that this
> digest is fomenting political activities that they don't agree with.
Must we be so *afraid* of this sort of thing?
Frank Hollander
------------------------------
Return-path: < ns@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 3 Mar 1986 19:24-EST
From: Nicholas.Spies@GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: censorship
The recent messages about censorship (which reflect my own
annoyance about recent tampering with mail) brings to mind
that a communications channel that is not capable of
transmitting information without censorship is probably worse
than having no channel at all. Why? Because it is impossible
to know what messages were sent to begin with; so the low
frequency information (in particular) about how many people
are for or against a certain item is distorted so that it
cannot be trusted as "information" at all. Middle-to-high
frequency information-tampering (details of where to buy
other information) is particularly obvious because it
involved altering the messages themselves, explaining the
outcry.
If this sort of noise is seen to be a necessary part of
political discussions (which demand a high band-width) then
poli-sci is nothing more than a sop or discussion group. I
can understand the reasons that ARPA cannot be used for
personal or personal-political gain, but think that
censorship on the part of poli-sci editors is over-cautious
and reprehensible. After all, if they believe in a free
discussion of political issues, they should do so in an
unqualified manner, not ever-mindful of what DARPA might
think. If DARPA takes exception with what is posted, this
should not be the responsibility of the moderators, unless
they are more concerned with maintaining the status quo
rather than eliciting original political opinion.
Athough this medium has no legal protection per se I say that
it should because it is being paid for by taxpayer's dollars.
If the rights that are conferred on us by the Constitution
and Rill of Rights have any real meaning then the rights of
free speech should apply to as public a medium as ARPAnet,
without threat of political (or other) retribution.
Nick
[ Well, moderators ARE held responsible for what goes out in the
digests. I've pretty much said all I have to say on this matter
before, so I won't repeat it. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 4 Mar 86 15:46:12-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: Nicaragua
Please look more closely at Bob Carter's article on Nicaragua before
you send any more withering criticisms, people. That article is
satire. Nobody on this list is advocating censorship and suspension
of due process.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 10 Apr 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 9
Today's Topics:
As a matter of History &
Logic &
Population (2 msgs) &
Everything in Moderation (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 86 15:56:57 pst
From: pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #59
To: nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
> Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, March 3, 1986 12:23AM
> Volume 6, Issue 59
>
>
> Date: Saturday, 1 March 1986 10:40-EST
> From: ihnp4!abnji!nyssa at seismo.CSS.GOV
> To: arms-d at mit-mc.arpa
> Re: History
>
> > On Sunday, ABC aired a program [...] in which the point was made
> > that the US was the first world power that never wanted to be a
> > world power, that in fact if world domination was our plan, we
> > could have accomplished it after WWII. Instead [...] we instituted
> > the Marshall Plan.
>
> Come now, we're not the only ones who ever refrained from conquest.
>
> In the 2nd Macedonian war the Romans under T. Quinctius Flaminus
> came to the aid of the Greeks (esp. Rhodes, Pergamum, Athens)
> against Philip V, who was asserting Macedonian hegemony. Flaminus
> declared the independence of Greece cities and the Romans withdrew
> in 194 BC. (In 148, after the 3rd Macedonian war, Macedonia became a
> Roman province.)
>
Gee, didn't know Rome was a world power. I thought they just
controlled the Mediterranean. :-) In fact, they weren't even a
Mediterranean power in 194 BC.
> Going back somewhat further, the Delian League was formed by Athens
> (inc. Aristeides "the Just") as a free and equal association against
> the Persians in 477 BC. This became the basis for the Athenian
> empire, destroyed in the Poloponnesian War.
>
They were in no position to control the world, or even Asia Minor.
The Delian League also didn't have the political cohesiveness of the
United States when it was formed, although Athens exercised greater
control over it by the end.
> In our time, the Soviets like to point out that they have withdrawn
> their forces from Austria and Finland.
>
The forces withdrawn from Finland? You mean after the Finns fought
the entire Red Army to a standstill? Didn't the Soviets lose
something over a million soldiers? That's withdrawal?
I've read that withdrawal from the Soviet part of Austria (not the
whole country) was done after heavy pressure from the U.S. and
Britain. I've also read that Soviet withdrawal from Iran was because
of the threat to use nuclear weapons.
>
> *** This was sent to me from burl!icase!xanth!uvacs!mac
> (Alex Colvin) ***
> James
>
------------------------------
Return-path: < D-ROGERS@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA>
Date: Wed 26 Mar 86 08:59:03-PDT
From: D-ROGERS@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA
Subject: logic
I just found this interest group and have only read the digest thru
5/6/85. Please forgive if my viewpoints have already been covered
between then and now.
> 31DEC84 0:42 PST
> From: Martin D. Katz < katz@uci-icse>
> ...A third social force involved is the concept that "each
> man is responsible ofr the life of his neighbor," meaning
> that one *should* not let ones neighbor starve.
*emphasis* mine
CONTRADICTION: The option of "should" or "should not" is not available
to one who is responsible. If one bearing a responsibility fails to
perform, he becomes *irresponible*. Furthermore, being responible for
something presumes a certain measure of control over the situation.
Since i have no control over my neighbor's stupidity, for example, i
cannot be responible for his circumstances which result.
Nevertheless, i can be generous and relieve my neighbor's distress,
provided that it does not imperil that for which i AM responsible.
e.g. family, other contractual obligations. On the other hand, there
is no generosity involved if i am forced to contribute to the
sustenance of my neighbor at gunpoint [a' la taxation], rather i, too,
become a victim. Indeed they who would then attempt to distribute
largess so acquired, put themselves in a position of passing stolen
property, hardly that of the benefactor they are claimed to be.
* -- *
RE: BINARY RIGHTS Most of the comments i have read so far are still
missing the point. The founding fathers understood that *rights* ARE
absolute. It may be that they are often VIOLATED, sometimes WITH the
consent of society [zoning laws, imminent domain] or else WITHOUT it
[burglary], but the only real question is *how much* violation will a
particular society tolerate before restraining the violator(s). This
is the logic behind the assertion of Thomas Jefferson that "that
government is best which governs^ least."
^ = infringes upon rights
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 86 19:37:42 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Population
To: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Rem@IMSSS
K> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
From: Robert Elton Maas < REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Do we want Earth's human population to be that large??
K> Who is 'we'? You and I? Why should it be up to us?
K> Governments? Why should it be up to any government? It should
K> be up to the individuals involved, as it already is in all free
K> countries.
I'm one of the individuals involved, and I don't want wall to wall
people around where I live. It's bad enough here in the suburbs
where I live now, just within bicicle riding distance from halfway
decent bus service, but not in the 30-story-skyscraper downtown
SF...
Why do you think you have a right to decide how other people can use
the land they have purchased or are leasing? What if you owned a
house and some bicyclist said "I'm having this house torn down because
I would like to ride my bicycle through here"? What if the company
you work for was bankrupt by its expensive skyscraper being torn down
to make way for a park since most people decided there were too many
buildings and too few parks in the city? Perhaps you could sit in the
park all day and contemplate the pretty flowers as you go hungry.
There is plenty of empty land around. It is ironic to say that you
"don't want wall to wall people around" when the whole reason you live
in an urban area is to be near to friends, family, employment,
hospitals, and computers. Cities are centers of wealth. This is why
so many people like to live there. They have the choice of living in
a rural area, but most people do not choose the meager advantages or
rural living over city living.
But you want to have your cake and eat it too. You like the vibrant
night life, the symphonies, the art museums. You like the computers,
the access to the net. The employment opportunities, the nice
housing, a view of the Golden Gate. You like the social interactions,
the many eligible young women, your family, your friends. The medical
care. The many radio and TV stations. Cable TV. The convenient
transportation. Income levels that make San Fransisco the envy of the
world.
But you think it is too crowded and there are too many buildings and
too much traffic. You wish all those other people (except your
friends, family, and future wife) would drop dead or at least get out
of the city. This includes your boss, who should continue to employ
you via long distance, the longer the better.
As if this wasn't bad enough, you use the crowding of your own
neighborhood, even though entirely self-selected, as an argument
that the whole Earth is too crowded! Even though there are still far
more acres than people, you use your own acre to falsely generalize to
the rest of the world rather than look at even so close a place as
your neighboring states of Nevada and Arizona! Owning several
calculators, as you say you do, is of no use if you use none of them!
... and a single
hydrogen bomb, or even a release of toxic gas, can do more damage
than the cost of building the bomb or making the gas so there's
incentive for terrorists to attack such heavily populated areas.
Huh? A single axe can do more damage in a minute than the cost of
the axe. And this would be true regardless of the population density.
How is this an incentive?
If all those other people breeding like flies
I now see your opinion of your fellow man. And of yourself.
causes the Earth to become like downtown SF,
People should be so lucky! San Fransisco has one of the highest per
capita incomes in the world. Not to mention one of the best climates.
And easy access to beaches and to mountains.
I'd consider that an attack on the quality of my personal living,
and I might want to defend myself by forcing them to use birth
control.
This is why I oppose gun control. As long as there are people like
you running around, the rest of us should be armed for our own
protection.
(How would you feel if a bunch of squatters took up residence in
your bedroom ...
It is you who seem to want to invade other people's bedrooms.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 86 19:41:29 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Belated reply to "Belated message"
To: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA
Date: 23 Mar 1986 1624-PST
From: Rem@IMSSS
KFL> Date: Sun, 16 Mar 86 18:36:18 EST
KFL> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
KFL> [Perhaps] the majority of people will spend most of their
KFL> working hours and leisure hours hunched over a keyboard and
KFL> screen.
I hope not. I get eyestrain and neckstrain as well as back
stress ...
Well, I would hope that future terminals be made more 'ergonomic'
(If I might use that much abused word).
My objection to your original posting was that you were implying
that an increased population in and of itself would be a good
idea. I am hoping to get you to modify this approach to: "an
increased population is a good idea if we can maintain a
sufficiently high standard of living".
Well, I have a problem with the way you say this. There isn't any
"we" to maintain any standard of living seperate from the people
having the standard of living.
I personally would like to see a high population, as I said. I do
think that the standard of living would be higher if the population
were higher, up to a very high limit. This is true both on Earth and
in space, though the limit in space is of course much much higher.
But I do not think it should be up to you or to me or to any
government or the United Nations or to a majority vote. It should be
up to each family how many children they will have. No guilt should
adhere to any choice they make so long as the family supports each
child until he or she reaches adulthood. I was disappointed by your
implying that you would feel guilty about having more than two
children on Earth. This is irrational. One should not ever feel
guilty unless you are infringing someone's rights. And there is no
such thing as a right to a small population. You have no right to
tell your neighbors how much wealth they should be allowed to have or
how they can spend it, and neither do they have any right to tell you
how much wealth you may create or earn, or how you are allowed to
spend it.
Population is everywhere self-regulating. Famines do not occur
except when people are deliberately starved by their governments or by
foriegn invaders, or when the economy is distorted in such a way as to
encourage irrational and uneconomic childbearing. For instance by
welfare, socialism, and foriegn aid.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thursday, 13 March 1986 23:31:30 EST
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: the wheel of reincarnation
These last few digests have reminded me of the wheel of reincarnation.
I am seeing the same discussions start up again and run their same
course as they did years ago. I think Rick McGeer's suggestion that
this is due to a new moderator is incorrect. It is due to new
readers. How are they to know that we beat something to death 4 years
ago, and aren't terribly enthused about seeing it again? The standard
answer in the past was to go through old digests. There are a lot of
old digests. No one has the time to go through them. It might be an
aid to new readers to summarize each year's discussions in one
archive. This might be as simple as just appending each digest's list
of subjects. Of course the rate of digests has radically fallen off
in recent years, so maybe rereading old ones isn't so hard. But get
that reading in before the 1986 campaign begins in earnest.
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcgeer%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 86 10:51:21 PST
From: mcgeer%ji@berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
Subject: More on censorship
> The recent messages about censorship (which reflect my own
> annoyance about recent tampering with mail) brings to mind
> that a communications channel that is not capable of
> transmitting information without censorship is probably worse
> than having no channel at all. Why? Because it is impossible
> to know what messages were sent to begin with; so the low
> frequency information (in particular) about how many people
> are for or against a certain item is distorted so that it
> cannot be trusted as "information" at all. Middle-to-high
> frequency information-tampering (details of where to buy
> other information) is particularly obvious because it
> involved altering the messages themselves, explaining the
> outcry.
This is certainly a danger, but has it been happening on
poli-sci recently, or at all? I don't believe so. The only
censorship that's been done has been cleearly marked as such, and the
reasons given. Those who wished the full text were and are free to
obtain it, either by looking at the referenced USENET article or by
mail direct to the author. The degree of censorship of poli-sci is a
good deal less fervent than that applied by newspaper editors to their
letters column, and nobody here objects to that.
>
> If this sort of noise is seen to be a necessary part of
> political discussions (which demand a high band-width) then
> poli-sci is nothing more than a sop or discussion group. I
> can understand the reasons that ARPA cannot be used for
> personal or personal-political gain, but think that
> censorship on the part of poli-sci editors is over-cautious
> and reprehensible. After all, if they believe in a free
> discussion of political issues, they should do so in an
> unqualified manner, not ever-mindful of what DARPA might
> think. If DARPA takes exception with what is posted, this
> should not be the responsibility of the moderators, unless
> they are more concerned with maintaining the status quo
> rather than eliciting original political opinion.
So? As far as I know, ARPA only bans fund-raising. Certainly
the current controversy centres around a message pitching for funds
for a foreign, and hostile, government. The rest of the article, a
puff piece for the aforementioned government, ran unedited. What
opinions remained unelicited?
And the moderators are respionsible for what is published,
much in the same way that the editor of your local newspaper is
responsible for letters printed in the local newspaper. If I
published a libel in this journal McGrew could be sued along with me.
If the digest breaks ARPA rules, not only could it be closed down but
McGrew could lose his ARPA access. If you want to form a digest for
generalized fund-raising and run that risk, go ahead. But don't blame
the moderators for adhering to the rules that govern this network.
>
> Athough this medium has no legal protection per se I say that
> it should because it is being paid for by taxpayer's dollars.
> If the rights that are conferred on us by the Constitution
> and Rill of Rights have any real meaning then the rights of
> free speech should apply to as public a medium as ARPAnet,
> without threat of political (or other) retribution.
Wrong. The Bill of Rights emphatically does not guarantee you
a podium for your views, paid for by the taxpayers. The Bill gives
you the right to express your views, using your lungs and whatever
other media you can obtain legally. In Berkeley, the preferred medium
is crayon, paper and Xerox machine (though Macs are gradually
displacing crayon), and any nut with a cause can use them. In fact, I
would strenuously argue that the taxpayers should not provide a podium
for *anybody* other than elected officials; to do so implies an
endorsement of their views, which endorsement is only given to those
elected to represent us...
In any case, the US taxpayers are under no obligation to
provide us a forum for discussion and assuredly did not intend to.
The ARPAnet was formed to promote *technical* communication, not
political flaming. The government would be entirely within its rights
to close down this digest and almost all the others in a minute. They
don't because it's almost free and it's pretty inoffensive, and
because nobody really wants to monitor every ARPAnet message for
legality or technical relevance. But don't mistake ARPA's benign
neglect for legal or moral privilege. We have neither. McGrew
understands this, as did JoSH. It's time you did, too.
-- Rick.
[Moderator -- I hereby cede to you all privileges and powers normally
taken by the editor of my local newspaper's letters column. You are
free to censor this message or any part thereof for taste, clarity,
length, and conformity with ARPAnet rules and libel laws in each of
the fifty states. I do ask, as a favour, that you mark censored or
edited areas. You are, of course, perfectly free to remove this
bracketed section without comment -- but you probably don't want to.
-- Rick.]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 11 Apr 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 10
Today's Topics:
Eight MIT Students Arrested &
Free goods from free space &
Rights &
Welfarism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < lkk@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 86 00:44:23 EST
From: lkk@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Larry Kolodney)
Subject: Eight MIT Students Arrested
Subject: Eight MIT students arrested in Apartheid protest
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.college,ne.general
Distribution: net
Keywords: Shanties, MIT, Apartheid, Fascism
Eight MIT Students Arrested
The MIT Campus Police, assisted by the Cambridge police, arrested
eight members of the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid early Friday
morning as the students resisted the destruction of a shantytown that
had been constructed on the Kresge Oval 12 days earlier.
About 20 MIT physical plant workers arrived at approximately 7AM, and
awoke the 4 people who were sleeping inside of the shanties. They
were ordered to leave. A few minutes later, other Coalition members
arrived and, along with those who had been sleeping, climbed atop one
of the shanties and refused to move, chanting "MIT out of Alexandra"
[Alexandra was the name of the shantytown, after a real one in South
Africa].
William Dickson, senior vice president of MIT, arrived and read a
prepared statement, informing the students that they had 5 minutes to
leave or be arrested. Approximately five minutes later, with no final
warning, the police rushed the shanties and arrested 8 students,
including two who were on the ground, one of whom (me) was
photographing the event.
---------------
The MIT Coalition Against Apartheid is a group of students, faculty
and staff at MIT who are working in support of the liberation struggle
of the Black majority in South Africa. We come from a wide variety of
political persuasions, from Republican to Marxist. For the past nine
months, MIT CAA has been waging a campaign for MIT to divest from its
holdings of stocks doing business in South Africa, which culminated in
the building of "Alexandra Township." This shantytown protest came
after months of entreaties through official channels to the MIT
Corporation were ignored.
The MIT Coalition Against Apartheid feels that the destruction of the
shanties and arrest of non-violent protesting students by MIT is an
afront to academic freedom and tolerance. MIT launched this attack
without prior warning and with little concern for the safety of the
students involved. No specific reason for the removal was given.
MIT seems to have little use for dissent on its campus. (A similar
shantytown at Dartmouth was allowed to stay up for 2 months).
Although the divestment issue is one of great concern to many members
of students, faculty and staff, the MIT corporation has refused to
meet with reprentatives of students or the MIT community at large to
discuss the issue. With this action it has destroyed the first
effective rallying point for political protest that MIT has had in
years.
Larry Kolodney
[For more information on the MIT CCA, contact Larry directly -
lkk@eddie.mit.edu - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 86 20:09:44 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Free goods from free space
To: ulysses!ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
You seem to think that while governments may have enough wealth to
develop space resources, that individuals and corporations do not.
This is a rather silly attitude to take, since governments produce
no wealth, but take it from individuals and corporations. In free
countries, individuals and companies are still allowed to keep more
than half of their created and earned wealth (though this may change
in the U.S. if the Democrats are elected in '88) so they should be
better able to afford the expense of space exploration, development,
and colonization.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 86 14:03:58 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Rights
To: Space S1-B.ARPA
Cc: KFL AI.AI.MIT.EDU
From: ucdavis!ucrmath!hope!xcalibur ucbvax.berkeley.edu
(Marco Summers)
Morally, speaking, animals ... have all the rights of humans and
every other life form --- perhaps MORE than humans, since, by most
accounts, they were here first.
And plants were here before animals. Do they have even more rights,
i.e. the right not to be eaten by those upstart animals and by people?
If you really believe this, what do you eat?
It is also analogous to the school of thought which (in America)
gives "rights" only to American citizens.
People in every country have rights, whether or not that country
recognizes them.
Please explain how the U.S. can give rights to Soviet citizens.
Wouldn't we have to overthrow the Soviet government first? Do you
advocate this?
I'm directing any replies to the political science list,
POLI-SCI RUTGERS (sorry, I don't know the usenet equivalent).
This doesn't belong on SPACE.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 86 18:14:47 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Welfare
To: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
From: Robert Elton Maas < REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
If only the essentials are provided by welfare (which in turn is
"stolen" from everyone via income tax), the incentive will be to
get more than just essentials.
Where do you draw the line? People may be able to survive with just
a little toxic waste in their food, for instance, but isn't none at
all better?
Once you start with the idea that there is any 'right' to the
necessities (at whose expense?) it is a slippery slope. What is a
necessity? I know this one guy, 34 years old, who has never worked,
who has always been on welfare. He lives with his parents, both of
whom have been on welfare for at least twenty years. They have a
house of their own, with a quarter acre lot. They have three color
TVs, a computer with a printer and lots of software, a cordless
telephone, and a car. This is a much wealthier lifestyle than I live.
I rent a small apartment with no car or personal computer or printer
or TV (color or otherwise).
My income is less than the median for this area. Yet nearly half my
salary is witheld for taxes, mostly for social programs. You might
not think so by looking at my pay stub, but if you count the employers
'contribution' to social security and to unemployment insurance and to
disability insurance, the real magnitude of the problem begins to sink
in. Don't forget sales tax and property tax. Being a renter I do not
pay property tax directly. But you can bet my landlord passes it on
to me. And when I buy groceries, part of the price goes to pay for
property tax of the land the grocery store is on. And for the store's
corporate tax. And so on and so forth.
Social Security espeically irks me. The wealthiest age group is the
over 65, yet 7.15% of everyone's salary goes to them. Actually,
14.3%, as one's employer makes an equal contribution. That's up from
14.1% last year. And it is expected to rise some more next year. The
recipients feel they have a right to the money since they were taxed
for it when they were working. And since if they had been allowed to
invest their contributions even at the low rates banks pay, they would
be receiving far more money today. But their money was not invested.
It went to pay other recipients, whose money wasn't invested either.
It started when Roosevelt needed a large source of money from
nowhere. He started this runaway pyramid scheme, which won him the
old people's votes, getting him an unprecedented four terms as
president. And we are still paying off the costs of this, which are
now far higher than they were in his lifetime, and will become higher
yet. Any private pension plan or investment scheme based on the
principles of Social Security would be flagrantly illegal, and rightly
so. Ask Mr. Ponzi.
Not even Reagan has the guts to stand up to this nonsense. Social
Security has become a sacred cow, impervious even to the Gramm Rudman
Hollings legislation. Which is stupid because it represents more than
half the national debt (though it is not usually even listed as part
of it).
The IRA legislation is a step in the right direction, though I wish
they didn't have the $2000 limit. A better idea would be to allow
people to deduct their IRA contributions from their Social Security
tax. If you make at least $14,700 your SS contributions ARE greater
than $2000.
What's worse is that now people talk as if welfare and not just
Social Security is some kind of right. People are asked if houses and
good food and clothing are not good things. And when they reply in
the affirmative they are told they should not complain that they are
being taxed to provide such things.
If taxation is truly approved by the people, why does the government
take taxes in such 'painless' ways as:
1) Deducted from your pay before you get it.
2) Payed by your employer, i.e. deducted before you even see it on
your pay stub.
3) Corporate taxes. The argument that corporations are wealthier than
individuals and thus should pay their fair share is completely
spurious. Corporations are composed entirely of individuals.
Corporate taxes are passed on to the stockholders, the consumers of
the company's products or services, and the company's employees.
4) Multiple taxes, no one of which looks terribly large, but which add
up. Federal income tax, state income tax, property tax, state
sales tax, local sales tax, vehicle registration, vehicle tags,
vehicle plates, federal telephone tax, state telephone tax, utility
tax, corporate taxes passed to you by your employer, corporate
taxes passed to you by the stores you shop at, corporate taxes
passed to you by your landlord, corporate taxes passed to you by
your bank.
If the people as a whole generally approve of the size of the taxes
they are paying, why not abolish the corporate tax, increasing the
others proportionately, and then merge all the taxes together into one
big tax, and present each person with a bill at the end of each year?
And what does this tax money go to pay for? Well, most of the money
that goes for welfare does NOT go to the welfare recipients, but to
the administrators of the welfare programs. Not that these
administrators seem to be able to prevent massive fraud.
A lot goes to defense. But defense at least really is NECESSARY,
and none of the published figures show that the government immediately
gets at least half of what it pays for defense back again in the form
of increased tax revenues.
Some of it goes to the National Endowment for the Arts and the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Yes, I know this amount isn't
large compared to the whole governemnt budget (though it is huge
compared to almost anything else) by why shouldn't it be zero? I
spend a lot on classical music myself, but lots of people choose not
to, and why should they be compelled to subsidize it? Who chooses
what to subsidize, and on what grounds?
Federal support for research is a sticky question. It has almost
certainly more than payed for itself, but why couldn't it have been
private voluntary money that did so? Why should anyone be compelled
to pay for something they don't want? It seems likely to me that
government spending on 'pure' research distorts priorities and drives
out private money. Since why should anyone pay for what they can get
for free?
What about federal support for college education? Personally, I am
completely against it. If a college education is worth what everyone
says it is, why don't private investors pay for it? Probably because
government spending has displaced private money (who will borrow at
ten percent when they can get a government loan for five percent?) and
because the enormous amount of government money has driven up the
costs of college education to the point where non-wealthy people
without loans or scholarships have little chance of affording a
college education. I myself have no college degree, and this is
largely because government policies have on one hand driven up the
cost of a college education and on the other hand driven down my
earnings. One reason my salary is low is precisely because I don't
have a degree, and because so many other people do. And yet I am
compelled to subsidize other people getting degrees. I am compelled
to subsidize my own future competitors. I do not think this is fair.
Nor do I think it is fair that so high a percentage of college loan
recipients pay them off late or never. I think at the very least the
government owes it to us to reduce the loan program by the amount of
the unpaid loans.
I recently read that the Washington DC government is spending $40
per night on shelters for the homeless. They could put them all in
hotels for less. This is typical of government inefficiency. The bus
system in the DC area is a travesty. It takes me over an hour to get
to work four miles away, and another hour to get back. And a quarter
of the time the buses don't show up at all. The bus stops are usually
mudholes, with a highway two feet in front of you and a deep ditch two
feet behind you. They don't talk about the buses much, but about the
subway. The subway that doesn't go much of anywhere and that has cost
more than three thousand dollars for each INCH of tunnel! And this
replaced a thriving efficient inexpensive system of privately run
buses, trains, and trolleys, that were on time and needed no
astronomical government subsidies or fares priced just below the cost
of a taxi.
Welfare in this way is essentially compulsory insurance. Everyone
who has income pays, and everyone who needs survival basics gets
it.
I see. "From each according to his abilities to each according to
his needs". There is an excellent section on what happens to a
factory run according to these Marxist principles in Ayn Rand's book
_Atlas_Shrugged_. If you haven't read it, please do so.
Who decides what a person's needs are? On what basis? Who decides
what a person's abilities are? How? Don't you think a person is owed
a salary BY RIGHT for what he has done, and shouldn't have to beg for
it by describing and justifying his needs? Don't you think a person
has the right to spend his own money in a way he sees fit? And don't
you think a person has the right to decide his own ability? If he
wants to work less and earn less, that should be his right. Would you
have each person work "according to his abilities", i.e. if he shows
some real promise, force him to work harder and for longer hours, to
feed all those starving Ethiopians? He will be feeding all those
starving Americans if America follows Ethiopia in its socialist
experiment. Read Orwell's _1984_ to see what a socialist state is
really like.
The justification for this is that it's better to live in a
society where you don't have to worry that one mistake and your
stock portfolio collapses and you starve to death ...
I think most investors know better than to invest more than they can
afford to lose. Can you think of anyone, of the Earth's billions, who
has ever literally starved to death because his stock portfolio
collapsed? The countries where starvation is rampant are not known
for their thriving stock markets.
If you feel sorry for the unemployed and the homeless, nothing
prevents YOU from giving them money and goods and services. It is so
much easier to be generous with SOMEONE ELSE'S money!
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 23 Apr 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 11
Today's Topics:
The Welfare State (6 msgs) &
Drunk Driving
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 86 23:57:39 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Welfare
To: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA, LKK@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
First of all, I think you should expect some degree of
incompetence and inefficiency in shelter housing and bus services.
My main point is not that these are inefficiently run, but that they
should not be run by the government at all.
Ayn Rand explains it much better than I can. Or read _Reason_
magazine.
After all, most of the government's effort is put into the
military.
Military expenditures aren't terribly efficient either. But they
are needed at some level. Or else we will ALL lose our REAL rights,
the ones described in the Constitution. And probably our lives as
well.
... 400,000 people were cut off the Social Security rolls a few
years ago without individual hearings. I talked to a lawyer today
who handled the cases of many deserving recipients ...
See, people are treating it like some kind of right. I will believe
it is a right when I see it in the Bill of Rights.
The difference between my outlook and yours is that I'm willing
to tolerate some degree of waste or inefficiency because the
alternative, human suffering, is worse.
If you dislike suffering, nobody is preventing you from using YOUR
money to alleviate it. Just don't be generous with other people's
money.
Also, if INDIVIDUALS control the disposition of their own money, it
is likely to be allocated much more efficiently.
Also, I see problems with BOTH socialism AND capitalism that
create authoritarianism and exploitation.
The capitalist tycoon has the power to refuse to trade with you.
This is the only power he has over you. You are free to trade with
others.
In a socialist system, there is only one trading partner, the
government. If some bureaucrat doesn't like you, or doesn't want to
pay you a fair wage, or doesn't want to sell to you for a fair price,
you have no recourse.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 86 01:59:21 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: More of the same
To: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Robert Elton Maas < REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Would you rather see 10 billion people equally
spaced across the globe with one house each, spaced so close
together there's no farmland or rainforest remaining? Or would you
rather see people clumped together in compact places separated by
farms?
I don't think it should be up to me.
Or would you rather have the population reduced to 2 or 3 billion
so we don't have this dilemma?
Reduced? How? *** is to 'murder' as theft is to 'taxation'?
Oh yes, you don't actually advocate killing anyone. You advocate
mandatory birth control. If someone does not want to cooperate, their
door will be smashed down, men with guns will barge into their bedroom
and drag them off to a room in which white coated men will forcibly
strip all their clothes off and put them to sleep with chloroform.
When they wake up, they will find surgery has been done to make them
permanently sterile.
If this is NOT what you advocate, please tell me.
(Answer, you'd rather see total anarchy, no
official policy of welfare or distribution of landspace, but in
fact the people who are strongest take from the people who are
weakest.)
Thank you for typing in my opinions. I might as well withdraw from
this dialog and let you run both sides yourself.
Actually, that is not QUITE what I had in mind. A few minor
clarifications are in order. To begin with, I do not advocate
anarchy, 'total' or otherwise. I *DO* advocate an official policy of
welfare and distribution of landscape, to wit, the common law.
Voluntary transactions between consenting adults. You are free to buy
and sell land for however little or much you can. You are free to
earn as much as you can convince someone to pay you, and to give it
all to those less well off if you so choose. You are free to try to
talk others into doing the same with their wealth. But not to COMPEL
them to do so.
I do NOT advocate that the strong take from the weak. This is what
YOU are advocating, whether you realize it or not. I am advocating
that NOBODY take from ANYBODY without their consent.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 86 14:16:53 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Welfare
To: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Robert Elton Maas < REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
A technical (on paperwork) waste is better
than true waste of human lives. (Avoiding technical waste at the
expense of losing the whole purpose of life is sort of like penny
wise pound foolish.)
Well, if government wastes half of the money it takes as taxes to
help poor people, and individuals waste none of the money they
voluntarily donate to poor people, then if government got out of the
welfare business, and if each of the people who are now taxed less
were to donate half of their former taxes to poor people, the poor
people would be getting the same amount, and the people formerly taxed
would have more too. The only ones to 'suffer' would be the
bureaucrats who ran the welfare program. They would have to get
productive jobs or rely on voluntary donations.
But, you reply, what will guarantee that the people whose taxes have
been reduced will donate any of that money to the poor?
Nothing! What guarantees that government will give any money to the
poor? The will of the people? Well, then those same people should be
willing to give LESS of their money for MORE benefit to the poor, even
though government is no longer compelling them to do so.
Presumably the amount of money poor people get is the average value
of what everyone thinks they should get. Surely government would
decrease or increase the size of welfare if enough taxpayers felt it
was too large or too small. So, once it is made voluntary, if
everyone gives what they think is a fair amount, the poor people will
get the same amount they would have. PLUS they would get all the
money that went to the administrators of the program.
Well, what about the administrators, who will all be thrown out of
work? Well, since the amount of money available will increase by the
amount that the administrators received in salary and benefits, even
if none of the administrators managed to find another job, since the
amount of money available for the poor people would have gone up by
the amount of the administrators salaries and benefits, there would be
enough for them as well as for all the poor people. Even if they were
to continue to receive as much as their former salaries, which is
presumably more than most of the poor would get! And if even ONE of
the former administrators managed to find an honest job, the switch
to voluntary contributions would have been a net benefit!
So you still don't think that anywhere near as much money would be
donated voluntarily to poor people as is donated under our present
system? Well, if that is true, then our present system is giving too
much to the poor people, by definition. Since the right amount is
defined as what the creators and earners of the wealth think is the
right amount. No more, no less.
Yup, pure capitalism with no safety net and no prevention of giant
power mechanisms in companies is as bad as pure dictatorship.
Well, this seems to be the stylish thing to say. But it shows a
complete lack of thought and of sense.
The only power anyone in a capitalist system has over you is the
power to refuse to trade with you. And you have the exact same power
over everyone else.
A dictator has ALL power over you, including the power to take your
property without compensation, and the power to torture you and your
loved ones to death for any reason, or for no reason at all. And you
have NO power and NO rights.
Any comparison between dictatorship and capitalism is like comparing
burning to death with a pleasant holiday.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < Power.wbst@Xerox.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 86 15:35:20 EST (Monday)
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #9
From: Power.wbst@Xerox.COM
Re: Population being self regulating.
It seems invalid to talk about something like population being self
regulating and speak only of the rights of individuals. Libertarians,
anarchists, minarchists all seem to believe that only individuals have
rights, and that groups of people don't. I argue against this on
purely factual, not moral, grounds.
Groups have rights and authority because that's the way the world is;
moral right or wrong has nothing to do with it. People band together
into groups because that is the type of animal that we are. A group
(country, church, political party, the in 'clique', your poker club)
has more power and is better able to survive as an entity than can
individuals. In other words, evolution has bred people to be units in
a group, that's the type of animal we are, and trying to evaluate
whether that is right or wrong is as beneficial as discussing the
moral correctness of water flowing downhill.
This may be offensive to many people, but that doesn't change
anything. The way the world is, Is, and it doesn't matter whether we
like it or not. So to say that groups cannot morally force
individuals to action (or inaction in this case) doesn't mean
anything: groups do force conformity - that's their main purpose. It
is neither bad nor good on its own; it's a fact of existence. If it
works, it survives, if it doesn't, some other species will take our
place.
Flames, anyone?
-Jim
------------------------------
Return-path: < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 16:08:52-EST
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Objectivist Orgasm
To: kfl@AI.AI.MIT.EDU, rem@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU, lkk@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Keith Lynch States:
;"... It should be up to each family how many children they will
> have... Population is everywhere self-regulating. Famines do not
> occur except when people are deliberately starved by their
> governments or by foriegn invaders, or when the economy is distorted
> in such a way as to encourage irrational and uneconomic childbearing.
> For instance by welfare, socialism, and foriegn aid."
Childbearing is encouraged by sexual desire; not welfare. Sure,
perhaps a few hundred thousand U.S. inner city children could have
been "encouraged" by welfare payments, but if we're talking about
famine, we mean developing countries, not the United States. In these
countries, the primary cause of famine is adverse weather conditions,
if the country already has a precarious food situation, and precarious
food situations are created when population outstrips economic
development.
In these countries, childbearing is caused (time for the BIRDS and the
BEES!) by sex without contraceptives, which is encouraged by religion
(Catholicism) or lack of sex education. Both are relatively
unaffected by "distortions" of the economy.
Mr. Lynch should remove the ideological blinders that make him blame
everything bad in the world on non-military government spending:
-rich
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 86 23:43:47 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Population
To: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA, LKK@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Childbearing is encouraged by sexual desire; not welfare.
There is no shortage of contraceptives.
How do you explain the fact that population in the U.S. is
increasing at below replacement level?
Mr. Lynch should remove the ideological blinders that make him
blame everything bad in the world on non-military government
spending:
You might be more persuasive if you were able to cite a
counterexample to my assertion, rather than resorting to namecalling.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 86 00:41:01 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Drunk driving
To: cugini@NBS-VMS.ARPA
Cc: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU, MetaPhilosophers@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU
From: "CUGINI, JOHN" < cugini@nbs-vms.ARPA>
So he has several conflicting desires. The moral issue is:
are any of these *ethically* preferable (never mind prudence
about self-preservation or legal issues for the moment). If you
spoke to Joe, would you urge him to satisfy his desire-1 to
drive while under the influence, or his desire-1 not to endanger
others? Would you urge from a moral point of view?
He should not drive under the influence. It has been demonstrated
beyond reasonable doubt that people who are intoxicated present a
great risk to others. Running someone over and killing them of course
violates their right to life.
One could alternatively argue that drunk driving should not be a
crime, but having an accident while drunk should be. I don't feel too
strongly about this either way. What I DO totally oppose are sobriety
checkpoints and no drinking if under 21 laws. Both of these seem to
me to violate people's rights, as described in the Constitution.
Warrantless search on the one hand, and presumption of guilt on the
other. Should a 20 year old drinking a beer be sent to jail because
1) He might have had enough beers to get drunk, 2) being drunk, he
might have driven (but what if he has neither license nor car?) and 3)
being drunk and having driven, he might have killed someone? I think
this is going way too far.
There is also the issue of the federal government pressuring the
states by threatening to withold highway funds if the states don't
pass the laws. This is a blatant violation of the seperation of
powers (state and federal) as mandated in the Constitution. It is
also a perfect example of how the government can use the taxpayers
money in new and creative ways undreampt of by the founders of this
country. Maybe you are saying 'well, so what' because you are against
drunk driving. That's not the point. Abuse of power is abuse of
power. Must we wait until they use this undelegated power for
something less popular? By then it will have a clear precedent!
Well, I am starting to drift off the subject here, so I will end the
message.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 30 Apr 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 12
Today's Topics:
Drunk Driving &
Granting Rights to Soviet Citizens &
The Welfare State (6 msgs) &
Back to the Future
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: drunk driving
Date: 24 Apr 86 17:11:29 PST (Thu)
From: Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer
From: < mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU>
> One could alternatively argue that drunk driving should not be a
> crime, but having an accident while drunk should be.
Gee, almost the way I would state it. One question, though: why is
having an accident when sober not a crime? After all, if you run over
somebody, you've done the same amount of wrong, whether you were drunk
or sober.
< mike
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 21:45:47-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: re: How can the US grant rights to Soviet citizens
Obviously we can't. We can apply various sanctions, of debatable
effectiveness, to governments which are violating human rights,
but we can't make them respect the rights of our citizens. We can,
however, ourselves violate the rights of foreign citizens. We can,
for example, continue to provide military equipment to a government
when we know that it is using that equipment for widespread killings
of civilians, train people in foreign countries in torture techniques,
or send refugees with a well-founded fear of persecution back to a
probable death. If the US government has a policy of doing any of
these things, then it would be fair to say that it is not behaving
as if it considered that foreign citizens had rights. If anyone
believes that the US government ought in any case to have such
policies, then it would be fair to say that that person does not
place great value on the rights of people who are not US citizens.
So it is meaningful to say that there is a school of thought in
the US which believes that only US citizens have rights.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thursday, 24 April 1986 10:29:28 EST
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: what should government do
I can't believe that family on welfare is on the dole legally. Around
here, there's no way anyone could afford half that stuff with what
welfare provides.
The Social Security system now seems to be on a reasonably sound
actuarial basis. The surpluses currently generated do earn interest
on special Treasury bonds, but not as much as commercial investment.
If the government wasn't running a deficit, that SS money would be
available for investment, either directly, or indirectly through the
government buying back its other bonds.
Only very large companies have been able to take the long view, and
even most of them don't. That is as true in other countries as the
US. I cannot imagine large companies funding such long-term research
as basic particle physics. Just look at how AT&T is cutting back on
basic research now that they are no longer a monopoly. Small
businesses that generate most of the jobs in the US will never do much
research because they live a hand-to-mouth existence, even if there
taxes were much lower. The only way to generate the funds for that
work is for people to elect a government that then coerces the money
out of everyone through taxes.
------------------------------
Return-path: < random@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #10
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 86 10:53:30 -0500
From: random@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In a society with so much as ours has, you(meaning those with control
over the most resources i.e. our government) do the best that you can
to make sure that everyone has what we consider to be the basic
necessities: food, shelter, and clothing. It is easy to come up witth
isolated pathological examples of welfare fraud. However, for each of
these cases there exists hundreds of other cases of families without
adequate subsistence levels.
------------------------------
Return-path: < random@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #11
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 86 11:02:43 -0500
From: random@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
NOTE: birth control consumes a large portion of a person's income in
most third world countries because it is not heavily subsidized as
(partially) in this country. The U.S. withdrawal of its support of
Plaanned Parenthood International because of their support of abortion
has something to do with this.
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 15:27:48-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: birth control
There is no shortage of birth control? Where are you talking about?
In the US, where there is also no famine? Or in the Third World
countries whose population and food situation is more precarious?
I just got back from Kenya, and birth control and birth control
information are nowhere near as available there as here. No stacks
of pamphlets describing various forms of birth control (if you
could even read enough English to understand them). No corner
drugstore with rows of various brands of condoms. If you want
to get someone who is sick to a doctor, you carry that person
on the back of you bike and then on several overcrowded buses
to get there. You could probably go there to get birth control
too, though it is far less convenient than here. But that is
assuming you know about birth control and it occurs to you to
use it. And that information isn't all that available. People
just assume that they will have "as many children as God gives
you." The secondary school students are very eager to learn
when they are taught about family planning, but it will take
some time before the information disseminates to the point
where you can say that there is no shortage of birth control.
I really don't think that overpopulation all over the world
is caused by welfare.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 16:11:43-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: the necessity of defense and welfare
I don't quite understand why defense is a necessity and welfare isn't.
It is true that if someone attacks me and I have no way of defending
myself I could die, and so have no more rights to be respected. But
the same could happen if I have no food or shelter. Is it that people
think that prudent people can always protect themselves from starving
or freezing to death, but can't always protect themselves from attack?
Or that people would give enough money to keep poor people alive
without taxes, but wouldn't give enough money for defense without
being coerced? Some other reason?
Military spending is just as much a slippery slope as welfare
spending. Just as you can ask what are really necessities, and
"necessities" can be stretched to cover a great deal, so the military
spending which is "necessary" for defense can be stretched till it
covers much more than the actual cost of defending these shores. And
it is. I do not think most of our defense budget is being spent to
actually protect this country from a direct attack. Much of it goes
to troops in Europe and to Third World intervention. No doubt many
people have reasons to consider such use of their money appropriate
(e.g. if we defend our allies, they will help defend us, or we need to
protect our economic interests, or we need to defend freedom wherever
it is attacked). But are those reasons so compelling that people like
me who are strongly morally opposed to our Third World intervention
should be forced to pay, and sent to jail if we do not? While forcing
someone to pay money to feed hungry people is morally wrong? And if
defense is so obviously necessary, wouldn't most people contribute
voluntarily anyway, as you say they would to feed the hungry and house
the homeless?
If there are freedom fighters who need our money, then it should be
given by those who think they are freedom fighters, and not coerced
out of those who think they are terrorists.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 16:29:56-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more welfare
Do the libertarians here think it is appropriate for the government
to subsidize activities where people's imprudence and failure to
take care of themselves would endanger other people (sanitation
and the treatment of contagious diseases, for example)? Or would
they rather leave these things in the private sector?
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 13:43:57-PST
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #9
1) The idea of Binary Rights, right/wrong, etc has probably caused
more grief than any single idea in human history. The real world is
grey, not balck and white (or amber and ??, depending on your
monitor), and trying to pound behavior into the binary mold is doomed
to failure.
2) I've been on the poli-sci net for about 4 years off and on, and
the repetition of discussions doesn't bother me. If I'm not
interested in something, I just don't respond. Sometimes (gasp!)
people come up with new and interesting perspectives. For me
at least, going back to re-read the old digests is a ROTTEN idea.
It reminds me of studying, which reminds me of work < which is NOT
why I'm on the net!
TCS
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************