![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
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?
    (3779 previous messages)
possumdag
- 06:14am May 13, 2001 EST (#3780
of 3800)
Possumdag@excite.com
I'll come back to the point re the misuse of children by bullies.
China: Mao missued children, he set them up against their
families and against the middle class .. to maintain HIS strength
and weaken others.
Africa: children are being kidnapped to be used as slaves and
soldiers.
Asia/world: childen are being used and abused sexually by adults.
Childrens minds haven't finished developing, abusing them in
macarbe situations is a crime against their humanity. Making
children kill - is a factor they'll then have to deal with through
the rest of their disturbed lives.
Rescuing children and rehabilitating them to normal childhood and
back to education is the work of international charities.
International Treaties can stop children being used in war ...
why don't strong countries bring the wayward into line?
rshowalter
- 07:41am May 13, 2001 EST (#3781
of 3800) 
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
The misuse of children in war, and the gruesome facts about what
children can be asked to do, and will do, should give us all pause,
when we "trust man's better nature" too much. War is ugly.
The misuse of women in war, where rape is so common, and almost
unbelievable cruelties are done in organized ways, should give us
all pause when we "trust man's better nature" too much.
Rape Camp by Dawn Riley http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/1512
WAR IS UGLY.
Nuclear weapons are UGLY.
We need to find ways to discipline ourselves, and each other, so
that people do not do the worst that they are capable of.
Because to not do so is ugly.
And because, if we do not, the world could easily end.
Though I have some hope, and in fact find this thread hopeful.
rshowalter
- 07:43am May 13, 2001 EST (#3782
of 3800)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
It seems like a good time to post this - which is a sermon
'When the Foundations are Shaking" -- on nuclear war, and
human decency and responsiblity.
The sermon was preached in the church my parents attend, to a
prosperous and overwhelmingly Republican congregation.
People with only secular interest might skip the first nine
minutes twenty seconds. After that, it tells the story of a nuclear
holocaust that could have happened, but did not, because a Russian
colonel had enough good sense. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html
To keep the foundations of life on earth from shaking and
falling there are some foundation sins, some foundation lies, that
need to be shaken.
Things don't have to be as ugly as they are.
One part of that is that military values, though they are
necessary, need to be balanced and subordinated to
other values. Values that favor life, and a sense of proportion, not
death, and murder of any bystanders who happen to "be in the way"
****
Anybody think of me as a "polyanna" or a weakling? Or
unrealistic? Or uninformed? I can marshall some evidence to the
contrary.
almarst-2001
- 08:51am May 13, 2001 EST (#3783
of 3800)
On ugliness and abuse.
I don't think it is a surprise, some human are able to display
their worst while others - their best, in the same situations. It
seems, some extreme situations can throw a person in any direction -
which one may depend on a very small number of personal or social
factors easily overlooked in an ordinary life (The mistery of the
brain).
However, the cold-blooded "people of power" who create and
exploite such extream situations are of the worst kind of Human
Genome. There you find no heros - just criminals.
It is another mistery (or is it?) such people always find their
way to the top.
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