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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a
"Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed
considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense
initiatives more successful? Can such an application of
science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable,
necessary or impossible?
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(8829 previous messages)
rshow55
- 03:12pm Feb 12, 2003 EST (#
8830 of 8833)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
I've been hoping the President Bush will go down in history
as one of the greatest presidents the US has had - as the
president who took the actions that resulted in the solution
of big problems the world has faced - problems that have
greatly increased human risks and costs for decades.
It isn't that I've hoped that solutions would occur
according to Bush's exact specifications - power doesn't work
that way. Adolf Berle makes a basic point (in a dated sexist
usage Lunarchick and C. Rice might object to - worth quoting
anyway.)
"One impact of power holding on the power
holder is his discovery that the power act, the direction of
an event, causes surprisingly unpredictable consequences.
What it signifies to the men affected - a matter determined
by their emotions and their minds - is ultimately more
causitive than the thing done. That causation cannot be
controlled - certainly not by him. The power to cause an
event has scant relation to capacity to control the feelings
and opinions of men about the thing done, or assure their
adherence to a larger plan.
"The instinct for power consequently is
likely to have more reach than grasp.
I've spoken of basic human needs - 5724 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.oaNzayXL3KL.318955@.f28e622/7139
and especially Berle's Laws of Power - 5725 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.oaNzayXL3KL.318955@.f28e622/7140
Berle's laws are all important - but Rule Two: Power is
invariably personal seems worth emphasizing now.
Some solutions may seem obvious - and frustratingly easy -
yet elusive. Wizard's Chess http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/opinion/05SUN1.html
sets out key problems - and from where we are - it doesn't
seem like it should take a wizard to see solutions to them.
Washington must simultaneously cope with
three separate . . . threats — from Iraq, from North Korea
and from the threat of reconstituted international terrorist
networks.
Given resources available - and solutions already suggested
and discussed - why aren't these solutions obvious - and why
aren't they achieved?
A problem has to do with the logic by which people have to
live. A logic of power. It is much too easy to ask Bush, and
his administration, as human power holders - to do things that
human power holders essentially never do - especially abdicate
their power. It is much too easy to ask Hussien, and his
administration to do things that, right or wrong, human power
holders essentially never do - and aren't supposed to do.
Berle points out (p 81) that "Tampering with power outside
the institutions on which it is based may occasionally be
justified. But, prima facie, it is a political offense."
And something that power holders cannot reasonably be
expected to do.
Power holders have to exercise the power that they
actually have - and ask other power holders to do things
that they can actually do.
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