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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 - 07:22am Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6757 of 6759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If you want to see an artist at work, and see the power of the internet, coming into flower -- look at the postings Dawn has just above. They are both beautiful, and powerful, and examples of how the internet can send messages as well as print- at the first level - but with access to a world-wide depth that is new and powerful.

The world is changing, and lies, and police state patterns, so common, in the ways that count, not only in Russia, but in the United States, are getting harder to sustain.

China has its press bent to a "culture of lying" -- though it sometimes knows the truth very well -- and uses force to destroy peoples' lives -- to supress ideas in ways that work.

In large measure (but not completely!) that happens in the United States, too, where we have our press, bent to a "culture of lying" -- and force destroys peoples' lives, and suppresses ideas in ways that work.

globalization , with the internet, is changing the world, and making ideas judged by people interested in them, wherever they may be -- more and more powerful.

What Is the Next Big Idea? Buzz is Growing for Empire by Emily Eakin http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/07/arts/07IDEA.html?pagewanted=all

The most basic threat to human rights of all --- the most basic degradation of humanity that has ever been -- is nuclear weapons. And whole organizations, dedicated to mass murder -- disciplined to take it lightly -- have taken control of enormous resources -- and set up patterns where even Congress, without questioning them much, meekly gives them whatever they ask for.

But the world is changing, and the enormous fraud, the enormous boondoggle, the enormous shuck of missile defense as this administration and the mic is pushing it -- is becoming vulnerable.

rshowalter - 07:30am Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6758 of 6759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We are now at a point where high tech weaponry -- properly understood, is becoming obsolete --- yea, ridiculous -- before even early prototypes are built. For now, not before many billions of dollars, sorely needed elsewhere, are wasted.

But the depth of intellectual and moral corruption in the military industrial complex, and its representatives so ably represented here by gisterme is becoming clear. These people cannot be trusted on issues where it matters -- not only because of their moral failings -- their committments to patterns that "make Machiavelli seem like one of the Angels of Mercy" but also because of their gross technical incompetence --and their inability to check even the most basic things on which they are asking us to spend huge amounts of money and risk our lives.

(The corpus of gisterme here bears reading -- it could not possibly be occurring without the knowledge, approval, and backing, of the highest levels of the Bush administration)

rshowalter - 07:43am Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6759 of 6759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

China knows better than to do what she's doing on human rights -- and sometimes that is clear.

MD5523 rshowalter 6/20/01 11:02am links to an article from China's flagship newspaper that makes points that China herself needs to remember, and that Russia, the US, and other nations should, too.

" Daring to Shoulder Historical Responsibility: Way to Become Big Political Power" http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200104/18/eng20010418_67992.html

China sometimes violates the good advice in that article horribly, many times in the suppresson of human rights, and also in not facing up to its past in an ugly case, as in the situation set out in

WHEN LIES KILL: In China, the Right to Truth Meets Life and Death by ERIK ECKHOLM http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/weekinreview/17ECKH.html

On human rights, and on the suppression of ideas, directly and indirectly, China knows better than it does, and we should, too.

Sometimes the truth is "somehow, too weak" MD4528 rshowalter 6/5/01 9:48pm .. but it can gain strength, with effort, and that is becoming much more true, because the internet can so much strengthen the power of one. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tank-1.jpg

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

We are in ugly situations where honesty and hard work are needed - so we can achieve a reframing, a Secular Redemption http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/619

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