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The Bomb won't go away on its own
Diemer, Ulli
http://www.connexions.org/SevenNews/Docs/7News-Diemer-TheBomb.htmDate Written: 1982-06-04 Publisher: Seven News, Toronto, Canada Year Published: 1982 Pages: 1pp Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX5618 Our task is to break out of this closed self-justifying system by depriving governments of the passive populations they need, by refusing to accept the choices we are offered and instead becoming active participants pressuring them to accept our proposals. Abstract: The people of all countries, whether Russian, American, Chinese, Canadian, etc., are much the same mixture of good, bad, and indifferent that we find in our own society and in ourselves. And most people everywhere want much the same things: a decent life, a better life for their children, security, and to live in peace. The Russian people no more want to be annihilated in a war than we do. They are not our enemies. Governments, state apparatuses, on the other hand, are a different matter. These tend to coalesce into huge bureaucracies, with goals and dynamics of their own, with needs quite alien to ours. And one thing that the Russian and American military-economic-political bureaucracies have in common is a common need for the Cold War. The Cold War is vital to them to keep their allies and populations in line, to justify ever-increasing military expenditures, to justify repression. For example, the Soviets use the military threat of NATO to justify crushing any moves to independence or democracy in Eastern Europe, while the U.S. uses the threat of Communism to justify its support for some of the bloodiest regimes in history in Central America. Our task is to break out of that closed, self-justifying system by depriving governments of the passive populations they need, by refusing to accept the choices we are offered and instead becoming active participants pressuring them to accept our proposals. Subject Headings |