Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site wu1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!rocky2!cubsvax!wu1!rf From: rf@wu1.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Soviet Uncivilization (Charges against Yelena Bonner) Message-ID: <309@wu1.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-Aug-84 13:16:16 EDT Article-I.D.: wu1.309 Posted: Thu Aug 9 13:16:16 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 16-Aug-84 01:54:58 EDT References: <292@genrad.UUCP> Organization: Western Union Telegraph, Mahwah, NJ Lines: 38 Stuart (genrad!stuart) writes: Isn't it digusting that the United States is doing commercial trade with a government that considers "punishing" an ailing old women for saying things against that government -- with a "punishment" of THREE YEARS AT HARD LABOR?? I think we should stop making believe that they're another civilized country over there. (They just believe in a different "social structure", you see.) I should rather trade with them than war with them. There are several reasons: - Trade sanctions are not likely to cause their government to change its policies. I'd guess that trade sanctions will only encourage their hard-liners. "You're playing into *their* hands" is an argument heard on both sides of the ocean. - Given the enourmous arsenals of nuclear weapons that both the USA and the Russians have built, we should take steps that lead away from war, not towards it. - We cannot lay claim to moral superiority -- Russia is our competitor, not our congregation. History is likely to judge *both* sides' claims of moral superiority as empty. Randolph Fritz UUCPnet: {ihnp4,decvax}!philabs!wu1!rf "Sirronde stared at the Goddess. 'Are You saying, then, that You were wrong to make heroes?' "'Indeed not,' She said. 'But I should have warned them--if you save the world too often, it starts to expect it.'" (Diane Duane, *The Door into Shadow*)