plunkett@rlgvax.UUCP (Scott Plunkett) (03/08/84)
.
" ... I find that Reagan's saber-rattling is pretty
scary. I don't doubt that the Russians are scared of him - he scares ME,
and he's supposed to be on my side! ... " (allegra!nbires!rcd)
"Saber-rattling" is becoming very stagnant now. Liberals should try
at least to keep their cliches circulating.
Apart from telling the truth about the Soviets, understandably an
unsettling thing for Conventional-Wisdom-Liberals, the current
administration has yet to deploy a single MX, the B1-B has yet
to be commissioned, it has merely carried through to completion
the Carter administrations' decision to deploy Pershing and
Cruise missiles in Europe, has rescinded a (Carter) trade-embargo
against the USSR, did nothing concrete in the face of the KAL-007
massacre, has run away from the Lebanese conflict, and has proposed
several radical schemes for reducing the nuclear weapons stock of
both countries. This is "saber-rattling"?
Calm down, chaps.
--
..{allegra,seismo}!rlgvax!plunkettka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (03/11/84)
From Scott Plunkett: - Apart from telling the truth about the Soviets, understandably an unsettling thing for Conventional-Wisdom-Liberals... "The Truth" is sometimes very difficult to pin down. Was Reagan telling "the truth" during the campaign when he called the Soviet Union the worst violator of human rights in the world, the country where there are no human rights whatsoever? Was he accurately characterizing the Soviet Union in his "evil empire" speech? When Reagan during his most recent State of the Union speech claimed that the U. S. had never fought against the Soviet Union, was he coming forth with some sort of revealed "truth" that the history book accounts of WW1 have never heard of? I suppose the laws of probability suggest that Reagan must have made a true statement about the Soviet Union some time; forgive me if I can't recall an occasion. Back to Scott: - the current administration has yet to deploy a single MX, Dont' worry, it's working on it. - the B1-B has yet to be commissioned, Again, not through lack of support by Reagan. - it has merely carried through to completion the Carter administrations' decision to deploy Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe, The Carter administration decided to deploy the missiles *only* if an agreement could not be reached with the Soviet Union concerning Soviet missiles in Europe. It was the Reagan administration which failed to reach such an agreement. - has rescinded a (Carter) trade-embargo against the USSR, Sure, it wasn't supposed to last forever. - did nothing concrete in the face of the KAL-007 massacre, OK. (Although it was a Korean, not American, airliner that was shot down.) - has run away from the Lebanese conflict, What a lovely term: "run away." Of course we wouldn't be "running away" if we hadn't gotten involved in a futile policy of supporting one faction in a civil war. Too bad we had to loose 250 marines before the president realised this. - and has proposed several radical schemes for reducing the nuclear weapons stock of both countries. I guess that the nuclear freeze proposal is too radical even for Reagan. But yes, after a long period of disinterest in nuclear arms limitations he finally responded to the pressure from the freeze groups by announ- cing his "zero option" which he knew in advance that the Soviets would reject. It may be that he (now) wants the nuclear arms negotions to succeed. - This is "saber-rattling"? I expect that the term refers to talk, such as the Reagan administration's talk about "limited" nuclear wars and "winning" nuclear wars. But if you want to discuss actions, you might have mentioned 1. U. S. invasion of Grenada 2. Covert aid to Nicaragua We fought one war and are fighting another by proxy. Calm down, chaps. I guess I should apologise to the readers of this group for indulging in this flame. A serious attempt to catalogue all of Reagan's deficiencies would overwhelm this newsgroup, but I can't resist the temptation to intersperse some comments now and then. Kenneth Almquist
rcd@opus.UUCP (03/12/84)
<> > "Saber-rattling" is becoming very stagnant now. Liberals should try > at least to keep their cliches circulating. The phrase is no more a cliche than the action. I think that most liberals will be happy to abandon the phrase as soon as it doesn't apply to what is alleged to be our foreign policy. > Apart from telling the truth about the Soviets,... Calling it the "evil empire" has little to do with truth/falsity. > ...the current administration has yet to deploy a single MX... ...thank heaven - but not because they haven't tried. > ...has rescinded a (Carter) trade-embargo against the USSR... ...but somehow managed to interpret an arms-export-control act as license for prior restraint of publication and for restricting flow of publicly available information in the scientific community... (Referenced article cites other examples of non-agressiveness of current administration.) OK, there are certainly examples of non-aggressive behavior, although the Lebanon yes-no-maybe-no-no-yes-no circus was so totally fumbled that it's hard to tell WHAT attitudes were behind it. But I'm still more scared by Reagan's aggressiveness than Hart's lack of it... Digressing, I find Hart to be an interesting phenomenon. I haven't studied the man enough to know whether he can be a really good president - but putting this aside for a moment, the political realities are interesting. I'm encouraged for the Democrats that it looks like they are finally figuring out that Mr. Second-to-Carter-back-when isn't going to be able to win them a presidency. (I may be proven wrong by the time this article gets out into general circulation, however!) It should be obvious to anyone, with a little observation, that Mondale couldn't possibly beat Reagan without even judging Reagan in detail. In fact, it's probably obvious to the average elephant! (The average donkey might have trouble figuring it out...) I might enjoy seeing a presidential election in which I could vote FOR a major-party candidate instead of AGAINST one/both. -- {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd