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From: plunkett@rlgvax.UUCP (S. Plunkett)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Criticism of US foreign policy
Message-ID: <137@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Sep-84 14:05:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.137
Posted: Tue Sep 18 14:05:59 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 03:11:42 EDT
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>Ever noticed how a criticism of a Western Government often gets met with a
>remark like "Try saying that behind the Iron Curtain, and see how far you
>get!"

Truism 1: Criticism of the Soviet Government by a Soviet citizen,
in the U.S.S.R. is personally dangerous.  Truism 2: Criticism of
the U.S. Government by a U.S. citizen, quite apart from it being
a method of governing here, is not personally dangerous.

However, to the extent that such criticism is congruent to
Soviet policy and aims, it is dangerous to the U.S.; certainly
it is not the same degree of danger for the Soviet critic in
the U.S.S.R., because the U.S. is big enough to absorb and with-
stand alot of abuse.  But criticisms based on Soviet propaganda,
or criticism believed to have been produced independently of
Kremlin machinations yet nonetheless friendly to the Soviet
point of view, undermines the ability of the West to survive.

So it is that the above quoted remark is used in an attempt
to bring some sense of personal responsibility to the "useful
idiots" who even unwittingly parrot the Kremlin line.

>It seems to
>be based on the assumptions that a criticism of the West is automatically
>pro-Soviet, and because the USSR is so much worse than the West it's wrong
>to criticise.

Not all criticism of the West is pro-Soviet, but a lot of it is.
It is more a general suspicion than an assumption, which is reasonable,
given the methods and ends of the Bolshevik regime.

To realize the U.S.S.R. is "so much worse" than the West is perhaps
a step in the right direction, but a faltering one.  It is implying a
moral relativism wherein the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. are mirror images
of each other.  This belief is one the Kremlin bureaucrats spend
some considerable time nurturing in the West.  An abominable regime,
what someone once referred to with uncanny accuracy as an evil
empire, need do nothing more to legitimize it's existence than by
destroying the very moral standards civilized men and women use
to condemn it.

Very clever, I say, but it doesn't wash here.