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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 - 08:20pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7390 of 7402)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

After that week of dialog, I felt I understood the Russians better, and hoped that, if the Russians could understand these things, they might be able to sort out some of their internal and international problems better than before.

I don't know if it has worked. But it seems to me that the Russians have done pretty well in a lot of areas since March, and almarst , Dawn and I have kept talking. (There have been 6258 postings since we cited "Muddle in Moscow" http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=533129 )

We've also had a lot of dialog with our "Bush administration stand-in" gisterme , starting with a powerful one in his first posting .. MD2997 gisterme 5/2/01 1:09pm ... that has clarified a lot. almarst has paid attention to that dialog.

Has all this work been useful? Dawn and I have tried to make it so.

It seems me that, if Bill Casey was looking down, he might be smiling.

Maybe laughing at me.

Hard to know.

lunarchick - 09:04pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7391 of 7402)
lunarchick@www.com

People, good-bad ideas, money ..

Interesting American - General Reinhard Gehlen center stage.

'Over the years, the diminutive dynamo helped amass $50 million in political war chests'

lunarchick - 09:22pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7392 of 7402)
lunarchick@www.com

The Nazi's who were attracted into and influenced, and still influence, USA political international thinking have a philosophy that is unacceptable to most.

On history, Adams said lunarchick 7/20/01 8:02pm history is NOW. Not yesterday, rather NOW ... which will become yesterday. So we look at the future, live in the present making history, and reflect back upon it when social historians pick it for patterns and focus.

The most important now group who forge both future and past are engineers, of whom there is always a shortage. Talking with an Aussie engineer i learned this: "Tell an Engineer the problem - and s/he will set out to find a solution" So Engineers are problem solvers. There are lots of problems to be fixed. This raises the question - 'Why does the USA lasoo in so many, only to tie them up in MD knots and deny them to the world communities who have problems and needs - that can easily be fixed?'.

Listening to a speaker regarding the world 'clean-up' conferences happening this week, she said, we were told that to fix this or that problem was 'too expensive' ... reports were produced to back up figures. Eventually the clean-up legislation went through in an individual country (say re air pollution), and it was found that the cost was far, far, less than the rebuttal suggestion - additional to which there were beneficial spin offs.

lunarchick - 10:01pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7393 of 7402)
lunarchick@www.com

Engineers need to work within financed frameworks, solutions are expensive, yet inexpensive, but people need steady salaries. A steady wage, a steady job ... yet little job satisfaction ... occurs when people are tied into a non-functional 'big picture'.

...' try to ensure a minimisation of mindless labour in order to maximise the time available for creative activity both inside and outside "work." This is to be achieved by free cooperation between equals, for while competition may be the "law" of the jungle, cooperation is the law of civilisation. This cooperation is not based on "altruism," but self-interest As Proudhon argued, "Mutuality, reciprocity exists '

"Goods, as now, will be produced in greater variety, for workers like producing different kinds, and new models, of goods. Now if some goods are unpopular, they will be left on the shelves. . . Of other goods more popular, the shops will be emptied. Surely it is obvious that the assistant will decrease his order of the unpopular line and increase his order of the popular." [Syndicalism, p. 55]

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Ellen Parr

rshowalter - 10:04pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7394 of 7402)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

They ought never to be used. The damn things are unbearably ugly, unthinkably dangerous -- and we should junk them.

If Russians and Americans agreed on some key things ---- after some hard work, we could.

I made a suggestion, that I liked for practical and ceremonial reasons, on September 25th.

People, both young and old, could understand what I'm suggesting, and people, including children, could remember it.

MD266 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am ... MD267 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:33am
MD268 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:35am ... MD269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am

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