Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!plunkett 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 References: <479@tty3b.UUCP> <1731@sdcc6.UUCP>, <5971@mcvax.UUCP> <1380@qubix.UUCP> <5978@mcvax.UUCP> Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 44 [] >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.