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Missile Defense

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

rshowalter - 01:45pm Apr 1, 2001 EST (#1865 of 1869)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 3/22/01 8:10am

rshowalter 3/22/01 8:11am quotes the dustcover of NEWS AND THE CULTURE OF LYING: How Journalism Really Works --- Free Press, 1994. by Paul H. Weaver , a man with strong conservative connections.

" News is in no way the reflection of reality it claims to be. Nor haev even its most radical critics grasped its true nature. News, Paul H. Weaver argues, is largely a fabrication - a record of the joint performances by which journalists and official sources foist a highly artificial sense of permanent emergency on the public.

" The modern news genre has its origins in a sweeping but little-understood revolution at the turn of the (20th century) by figures like Joseph Pulitzer, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, and Woodrow Wilson, who helped to gut the liberal traditions of American democracy and replace them with a system of constitutional oligarchy based on news, the public-relations oriented corporation, and the activist presidency.

That revolution was based on usages that relied on limitations of human memory, and limitations on the human ability to handle complexity. With the internet, those limits can be radically extended, and the techniqus of the "culture of lying" can be placed under new, powerful, and entertaining pressure, in the public interest.

Not only would this change be in the public interest. It would be entertaining !

Yea, it would be fun !

chywang - 01:50pm Apr 1, 2001 EST (#1866 of 1869)

The Base of Mathematics and Physics has already gone. The Age of Science is ending soon. A new Kingdom is coming here now. Deatils please go:

http://www.yun-qi.com

Thanks.

rshowalter - 02:14pm Apr 1, 2001 EST (#1867 of 1869)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The Russians have done many, many ugly things, and have many faults. Faults American's don't have, and some they do. Americans have done many, many ugly things, and have many faults. Faults Russians don't have, and some they do.

Even so, as I've said before, rshowalter 3/27/01 3:27pm I personally would like a chance to apologize for the actions of my country toward Russia since WWII - but when I say that, I'm speaking for myself, not for others.

I was once at a lunch, in Madison, with some distinguished Russian educators. I proposed a toast, thanking the Russian people, whose sacrifices in the Great Patriotic War may well have given me, and others of my American generation, a chance to be born. That toast came from my heart. I personally think the conflict between our coutries has been a great human tragedy. But I can only speak for my own feelings here, not for my country.

rshowalter - 02:15pm Apr 1, 2001 EST (#1868 of 1869)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Truth is important to prosperity to safety, and to mental health. And truth can also be more entertaining than lies, which are usually ugly.

I was entertained by today's b WEEK IN REVIEW and its top story . . . . . Not So Fast: Suddenly, Bush's Smooth Ride Turns Bumpy by ADAM CLYMER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/01/weekinreview/01CLYM.html "President Bush's sudden difficulties coincide with the shocking discovery that he is a conservative Republican."

Clymer's piece includes this reference to a scene in Casablanca which has entered the literate western european culture:

" The dawning of that perception has its comic moments, as when abortion rights advocates, environmentalists, even labor, take turns in proclaiming, like Captain Renault in Casablanca, that they are "shocked, shocked to find that there is conservatism going on in here." "

I've relied on the Casablanca story and movie, and especially that scene with Captain Renault, in a discussion of the background of our nuclear impasses, and the psychological warfare that has been involved, and continues to do damage.

I feel that we need to apply "the Golden Rule" to people as they are. It we did, the world would be delivered from nuclear destruction. And many of the ugliest aspects of our human condition in the world might be adressable, by the people involved, as they actually are, from where they are, step by step.

I feel that if Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror .... Gaurdian TALK http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0 could be discussed, along with the movie, by Russians and Americans together, communication that might make us all safer, and happier, and richer, might come. Especially entries #13- #23 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12

It would help us all get in touch with our pasts, and shed lies, so that we could move, more comfortably and safely into our future. And survive.

rshowalter - 02:15pm Apr 1, 2001 EST (#1869 of 1869)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I believe that everybody concerned about matters of defense, and especially nuclear deployments, should consider carefully, and remember, the concerns about the “military-industrial complex” set out in the FAREWELL ADDRESS of President Dwight D. Eisenhower January 17, 1961. http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

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