Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    
    It does look that way to me. A world that that is outraged
    at the poison gas warfare in the ME, that has negociated 
    away a class of weapons, and has Soviets getting out of 
    Afghanistan as fast as they can go certainly seems a lot
    gentler than, say in Hitler times. 
    
    We are on to the real threats of our time: greenhouse,
    population, environment...
    
    One horseman may be falling from the saddle but there are 
    the other three to deal with.
    
    Another prediction: a US Green Party (with any luck)..

    I was born in 1956. I was a child during most of Vietnam. I was
    taught to question authority. With the swing to the right, I think
    the kids these days may not question decisions made by there sup-
    erior. I hope and pray for peace for the sake of my two young children
    and for the sake of the world. One of my greatest fears is to loose
    a child in a war, be it for a "good" reason or not. Death is death.
    
    -Kate

    Re: .1

    >Another prediction: a US Green Party (with any luck).. 

    There is a Green organization in the U.S.  I believe it is called the
    "Committees of Correspondence", and is based (I think) in Kansas City.
    They decided not to use the name Green, apparently because they feared
    that people would assume they were strictly an environmentalist
    organization; the current name is a reference to the Revolutionary War.
    However, they are affiliated with the Greens in Europe. 
    
    -- Mike

>It's been about forty years since the 
>end of World War II ...

   43 years, five months ... I remember because I was born
two days after VJ day. Didn't want to come out before they
stopped that stuff!!

>Do you think that the world will be much different, 
>a  better place once these large scale conflicts 
>are gone from memory?
  
   Be great once our nations cease to arm 
   as we currently do.  I forget exactly ... but I think the
   economists say 1/5 or 1/3 of Earth's annual GNP is spent 
   on military efforts.

>gone from memory?  
 
   ummm, no. it is important that we remember we are a set
of creatures capable of the unspeakable.  We seem to forget
that a lot.  Treat everyone like a saint but don't belive
everyone is a saint. Or even sane.

>What amazes me about Vietnam is that more people died 
>in Vietnam then in WWII (and WWI?).  

No. More American soldiers, not people per se. Even the 
Dresden fire storm body count (excuse the expression, but we're 
talking 20th century) exceeded American military deaths in
VietNam.  So did the concentration camps ... the numbers are
still be argued but:

  WWII concentration camp deaths = 10,000,000
  Viet Nam American military     =     50,000

>Will people continue to fall through the cracks
>of society and wander homeless, despairing? 

Sigh. Don't see any counter trend.

    
    It is precislely because some of us former soldiers do remember
    those horrors that we wish to see the way of arms go the
    way of the dinosaur. 
    
    >too selfish and aggressive to give up our outrageously inflated
    >life-style without a battle on somebody else's soil ... 
    
    We do not fight over life styles! Our wars have been reluctant
    ones, fought by idealists against what were percieved as evil 
    foes (they were, but how the got that way has its roots in
    an earlier war)... We would eat leaves and grass before engaging
    in a war of conquest. 
    
    > Wars are really good to boost a sluggish economy and we seem to be headed
    > for a new generation of leadership who have no memory of wars ...
    Say what? 
    
    Wars are a rat hole, good for throwing away lives, material, and treasure.
    It pollutes the environment, wastes energy, hurts children, leaves
    people homeless and without jobs (even the victors lose - look at 
    post WWII UK)... I just don't know how any thinking person could
    utter such nonsence.
    
    Enough with wars, generals, militarism! We are killing the only
    planet we've got, upon which we all depend. We are supposed
    to be neighbors, our brothers keepers... 
    
    G*d save us from those who would send our sons off to kill each other...

    THEIR IS NO DOUBT THAT WARS ARE A HORROR SHOW TO BE AVOIDED AS MUCH
    AS POSSIBLE. BUT WE CANT LET OURSELVES FORGET WAR, BECAUSE ONCE
    WE FORGET WE LEAVE OURSELVES OPEN FOR ANOTHER ONE. REMEMBER THE
    PAST WARS IN ALL THEIR HORROR AND MABY WE WONT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE
    AGAIN.

    re .0  BURDEN::BARANSKI
    
    > more dead in VN than in WWII
    
    Are you sure about this?  While I'm not sure of the total amount
    of US troops killed in WWII without some research, it would seem 
    to me that there would have been many more KIA from WWII because 
    the fierce battles and campaigns (Normandy, Anzio, Ardenne, Tarawa, 
    Iwo Jima, Aachen, Batann/Corregidor, Midway, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, 
    etc) we were involved in ate up entire DIVISIONS of men at a time, 
    as opposed to VNs 50k which is only about 5 divisions worth.
                                   
    
    
    Dave  

    Wars do tend to invigorate the economy.  After all, we have to gear
    up to make all the needed military supplies.  This puts people to
    work, at least on the short term.  WWII helped to pull us out of
    the depression.  The Vietnam helped to keep this economy rolling
    during the sixties.
    
    I don't believe that we must give up our standard of living as so
    many people so sanctimoniously have been stating.  I live well.
     I will not give that up if I don't have to.  And I resent people
    telling me I live too well.  If they don't like the way they live,
    then let them give away all of their possessions and live like a
    pauper.
    
    Ed..
    

    	War is man's way of keeping the population of the world under
    control. It is a means to insure that the victor has dominance of
    family for the next generation.
    
    	In ancient China, the Warlords used to battle for years, losing
    thousands on a daily basis. When an opposing army was near defeat,
    the victor would continue the slaughter until one man was remaining.
    The victor would then decide to eliminate him and then the entire
    village, county, or whatever, or send him home to tell of the victor's
    graciousness in allowing all of the womwn and children to live.
    Everything was destroyed in these battles. Animals, trees, all
    reference to a culture.
    
    	Having done four + tours of VN, I must say that I still don't
    understand what was being accomplished. The best of the young men
    of the United States died in this conflict, not all were killed,
    but we lost our youth. We look older than our counterparts who were
    not directly involved and many have never come home. Many use the
    VN experience as an excuse also. Never have so many, given so much,
    for so little, for so long.
    
    Ken

    Born and grew up in that war, spent one month on the boat, three
    months in the ref.camp and prison, lost six family members in one
    year, I am very depressed, I still can not overcome my depression
    SO DO FORIVE ME IF I SOUND PESSIMISTIC.
    
    Reply to all
    
      War is h*ll.  We accomplish nothing.  The VN and American peoples
    lost everything.  However, we always have war, generation after
    generation, we can not avoid it.  I cry a lot, and I am living one
    day at a time, I still have nightmares of that war and my days on
    the boat and ref.camp and prison.  I am petrified when I think about
    future, but I must live on until I am called.
    
      Too many mouths to feed, so many ideologies, so many religious
    fanatics... and the list goes on, tell me how we can avoid war?
    No way we can avoid WAR.  
    
    I am sorry for being so down, but this topic brings back so many
    memories.  DO FORGIVE ME!
    
    
     
    
    and Americans lost 

	> No way we can avoid WAR


The group "Beyond War" has some interesting ideas suggesting that
we can indeed avoid war, but that it requires us to change how we
think about things.

There are many ways to find out about the "Beyond War" organization.

Let me know if you want more info...

/Eric

    in re .11 Nguyen, please don't appologise. You h ave lived through
    what most of us can only imagine poorly. Please continue to speak
    out as you can, and educate others.
    
    Bonnie

    
    re war invigorating the economy:
    
    How invigorating is it to burn money, or to waste farmland,
    or to destroy industrial capital equipment? 
    
    re the war keeping the economy going through the 60's:
    
    Can you elaborate? I'm really dying to know how that 
    could possibly be true. 
    
    The only possible benefit is to eliminate excess males in the
    population (did I hear cheering from the wn's..?)

    in re .15 and cheers..
    
    not from this one

    re: war & economy
    
    I suspect it might be more accurate to say that war can invigorate
    an economy in the short run and providing the country isn't destroyed
    by the war.  Like it or not (I don't, particularly) war (short of
    Armageddon) creates jobs both for the actual combat and in support
    of combat.  In the military arena, for every combat soldier, there
    are 10 or more support troops.  In the civilian sector, those
    troops need a tremendous amount of goods and services and that means
    jobs.
    
    I've never studied economics in the Viet Nam war era, but it wouldn't
    surprise me to learn that the war was a major "employer".  At the
    same time, I believe history indicates that war as an economic
    stimulant is a highly risky business at best.  WWII was a tremendous
    stimulant to the American economy, but, though it was initially
    the same for Germany, for example, it ended in disaster for Germany
    (not to mention much of the rest of the world).  While a short
    term effect of the Viet Nam war may have been to stimulate the economy,
    the longer it dragged on, the more the effect was that of sapping
    of the country's resources.  The long-term economic strain of the
    Soviet-Afghan conflict was perhaps even more pronounced for the
    U.S.S.R.  In the Iran-Iraq war, a search for an econmic "winner"
    would, I think, be a long one.
    
    I suppose what irks me most is the suspicion that if two governments
    decided (just for grins) that instead of competing with each other
    in warfare, they'd co-operate with each other in a joint venture
    (say, colonizing the Moon or Mars), the economies of each country
    would be just as well ivigorated.  The trick would be to throw 
    the same level of energy and resources at the venture that countries
    typically do when at war.
    
    Steve
    

Remember the story about the Emperor's New Clothes?
The whole crowd accepted the myth because they were told what to
believe, and to disagree would have been naive.

I believe the cold war is ending, but not because some idealists wish it 
were so, or Mr. Gorbachev is a different kind of Soviet leader.  The 
environment has changed.  We must now end war, or face the destruction 
of our civilization.

Albert Einstein put it succinctly in 1946:

  "The unleashed power of the atom
       has changed everything
     save our modes of thinking
        and we thus drift
   toward unparalleled catastrophe."

For the first time in the history of the planet, one species has the 
capacity to destroy its own life support system.  Ultimate use of force
means the destruction of our planet.  Force can no longer be used as
the ultimate arbiter of conflicts.

Said Gorbachev in May of last year:

  "We wish to emphasize the importance of the newly discovered truth 
   that it is no longer possible to settle international disputes by 
   force of arms.  Our awareness of the realities of the present-day 
   world has led us to that conclusion."

More weapons of mass destruction cannot make us more secure.  The world 
has changed, but our thinking has not yet caught up to the new reality.  
The emporer has no clothes.

*  "OK, so full scale nuclear war is out, but that doesn't mean we
*   can't continue to fight small wars.  We've been doing it for
*   40 years"

           [War = mass organized violence against an enemy
                  with the only rule being to win]

From where I see it, we're running out of time:

  We cannot fight a limited nuclear war.  Detonation of even a small
  percentage of the world's nuclear arsenals could cause catastrophic
  damage to our life support system.  It is also highly probable
  that a limited nuclear war would escalate to a full-scale
  nuclear war.

  We cannot fight a conventional war among the superpowers.  Such a
  war would likely escalate to a nuclear war.

  We cannot fight a conventional war among the non-superpowers without
  potentially involving the superpowers.  The growing interdependence
  of nations has produced a network of "vital interests" that the
  superpowers have pledged to defend.  This defense could, in turn,
  escalate through conventional war to nuclear war.

      [Notice how even regional or proxy wars don't seem to
       work anymore?  Each side is supplied by a superpower and
       is not allowed to loose, but the superpowers must restrain
       themselves so as not to let the war escalate out of control.
       Eight years of war between Iran and Iraq accomplished
       practically nothing.  Nuclear weapons didn't help the
       Soviets in Afganistan, or the U.S. in Viet Nam or Nicaragua.
       Perhaps this nuclear robe isn't all its cracked up to be.]

  A nuclear war could happen by accident.  Either by political
  miscalculation, false alarm, or computer error.  Response time
  is decreasing.  In 40 years we've gone from one plane delivering
  one bomb in 8 hours flying time, to being able to deliver hundreds
  of weapons in under 8 minutes.  Launch on warning is a real
  possibility.

  Nuclear technology is proliferating.  Nuclear weapons are not
  that hard to make.  In 20 years, many small countries we consider
  hostile will have them (Libya, Iran, Syria).  Other weapons of
  mass destruction are even easier to make (i.e. chemical weapons).
  While disarmament is a worthy goal, it will not eliminate the
  knowledge necessary to fashion new weapons.

War is only a symptom of the problem.  Environmentally, we are
poisoning our planet.  

Einstein hinted we must change "our modes of thinking".
From where I see it, this is the only real solution.

We can no longer afford to pose others as enemies to be killed without
endangering ourselves.  We can no longer afford to see the planet as so
big that polluting somebody else's back yard won't affect the whole
(including us).  We can no longer afford to spend billions on weapons
of mass destruction while doing practically nothing to alleviate the
poverty and hunger that breed war.

    [Getting back to our Emperor:  "But Sire, all this money for
     defense and not one cent for the poor?"  "Well, that way when
     the rebellion comes we'll be ready."]

We live on one planet with one life support system.  We are 
interdependent.  We must either live together, or we will die together.
We must all be responsible for maintaining the habitability of our 
planet.  No one country or even superpower can do it alone.  If we fail 
to work together to protect our environment and preserve the life on 
this planet, we will become extinct.

*  "This is impractical, it's against human nature."

Is nuclear war practical?  Is there only one human nature?

*  "But we're still animals... Survival of the fittest."

The most important characteristic of the species homo-sapiens (literaly
man the wise) is its ability to change, to adapt.  We stopped relying on 
genetic evolution thousands of years ago and have been adapting to our 
environment socially and mentally ever since (consider collective
agriculture).  "Fittest" means fit to procreate, not necessarily strongest
or most aggressive, in an interdependent environment, one must fit in
with the whole (i.e., into an ecological niche).

*  "But we'll never convince everyone, there are a lot of crazy
*   people in the world."

We don't have to convince everyone.  Marketing research has shown
that when 5% of a population get hold of a new idea (that works),
it becomes embedded.  When 20% adopt the idea, it becomes unstoppable.
As more people begin to accept an idea, it becomes more acceptable.
Most people will not adopt a new idea until they perceive other people 
around them have accepted it.  Ultimately, even the most conservative 
members of society can be convinced to change their thinking, or they 
will have little influence.

    [Note national political leaders cannot promote a radically new
     idea until it reaches around 20% acceptance within their constituent
     population.  If they adopt a new idea too early, they risk losing
     their followers.  We can't wait for the politicians to solve this
     problem for us, it's much bigger than they are.]

I am convinced the human species is intelligent enough to end war.
Each of us who can see the problem clearly is desparately needed to
communicate the possibility to others.  What's happening in the
Soviet Union is no accident.  They are responding to pressure
from the environment.  We must do the same.  War is no longer 
consistent with the long term survival of our species.

Happy peace making.

- Peter

    What do folks think of peace if it leads to a one world 
    government?  Do you think that a one world government will
    lead to happiness and prosperity, and great leaps forward
    for humankind?  Do you think it will lead to stagnation,
    since there will no longer be a need for competition and
    therefore will be less of a push to make better mousetraps?
    Who do you think will end up running it, and under what
    system?  Do you think the human animal is meant for that
    sort of government?
    
    --Louise

    
    I for one don't buy the proposition that a one-world government
    would be a priori evil, or would lead to stagnation. We already
    compete - individually for wealth, status, jobs, mates... and as
    corporate entities for market share and sales. 
    
    National boundaries don't make commercial enterprises any more
    competitive... Europe is doing much better since forming itself
    into the EEC. 
    
    We still will go into hardware stores and find mousetraps made
    by different manufacturers. With a unitary world market, competition
    will become more, not less, fierce.

The one fear that I have of one world government, or for that matter,
uni-anything, is that diversity will be lost, and uniformity will be enforced.
As long as a purality of peoples, cultures and customs are encouraged, that fear
will be groundless.

Jim. 

    
    -< uniformity is oppressive and boring >-
    
    I don't understand how world government would automatically
    become oppressive. 
    
    We can still speak our regional lingo here in the US (been to
    Chicago lately?) yet have one government.  
    
    As to whether its oppressive or not, is hard for me to say.
    

I don't think a world government would automatically be oppressive.

The US government is not oppressive by design, but it is oppressive through
stupidity and bureaucracy, by trying to use mindless law where a human
intelligence is needed, by third-partying, by diluting responsibility, by
responsibility without authority and authority without responsibility. 

Such are the pitfalls of any organization.  I am afraid that a world government,
being bigger, would be much more of the same.

Jim.

I think it's possible to have unity and diversity at the same time.
In fact, unity can actually enhance diversity.

For example, we might unify around the principle that life itself
is a basic human right, and that to secure this right, we reject
violence and war as means of resolving conflict.

Consider the following definitions:

  Conflict:  two opposing forces (ideas, points of view, etc...)
             that come in contact.

  Violence:  any action intended to harm another person.

  War:       mass organized violence against an enemy (to force
             them to accept some condition), with the only rule
             being to win.


PROPOSITION:

  All war is an attempt to eliminate diversity (opposing points of view)

-------------

World government will require national governments to give up
some of their power or independent soveriegnty.  I don't think
this will happen unless the people insist on it because they
want to have a world universally governed by the force of law
(as opposed to the law of force - which is no longer practical
in the nuclear age).

For this to happen, people all over the planet will need to
reach consent on some universal principles we are willing to be
governed by.  Principles which define basic human rights and
protect diversity.  (Think of it as a world wide constitutional
convention similar to what the 13 american colonies did 200 years ago)

Today, there is little world consensus on human rights.

  The west has tended to focus on political rights: freedom of
  speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to
  vote (political equality).

  The east has tended to focus on economic rights: the right
  to a job, housing, education, health care (economic equality).

  The third world has focussed on the right to meet ones
  basic survival needs: the right to food, fuel for cooking
  and warmth, and perhaps to have a family.

The challenge ahead is to define universal human rights based
on the total human experience.  I see this as an affirmation
of diversity, not a threat.

- Peter

re .12 and .13

Beyond War is a grassroots educational movement that teaches
non-volient means of resolving conflict.  The broader goal is to
establish a new way of thinking that will move the nations of the
world beyond their current deadly rivalry.

We are an educational movement: non-profit, all volunteer, and non-partisan.
Our action is to educate ourselves and others to understand the
crisis we face and the possibility of changing our modes of thinking,
so that we may respond more effectively as individuals.

While I've been concerned about the arms race and the environment
for some time, Beyond War appears to me to be unique.  It doesn't
have all the answers, but it's the first group I've found that
has a coherent well thought out approach to the whole problem.

I've found it to be valuable both in terms of my own learning,
and as a constructive way to become involved and make a difference.

- Peter

The following  items  are exerpted from U.S.  News March 13th issue.  The
two news brief  articles  were  printed  on the same page.  Evidently the
late Mr. Lorenz was not familiar with the work of Mr. Hussein.


on  the death of Konrad  Lorenz:
    His studies of mammalian violence resulted  in  a 1966 bestseller, ON
AGGRESSION, which has enduring relevance.  Lorenz  postulated  that  most
higher animals, including man, are instinctively aggressive, yet only man
regularly kills his own kind.  In the animal  world,  fights are tempered
by  ritual  and  restraint:  the loser submits, the victor  instinctively
spares  the  opponent's  life.    Man  has  never  developed such genetic
inhibitions to killing because he learned at an early evolutionary age to
make artificial weapons,  thereby  suppressing innate restraints.  Lorenz
believed that man will  eventually  overcome  his  killing  impulses  and
through natural selection evolve into  a creature that eschews aggression
toward its own kind and values  life.  In short, he will become more like
an animal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

on the human rights in Iraq:
    More in horror than  anger,  London-based  Amnesty International last
week reported that the government  of  President  Saddam Hussein over the
last four years has tortured and  killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of
children  to  silence dissident parents.  Amnesty's  report  details  the
cases  of  a  5-month old baby denied milk,  starved  until  the  parents
"confessed", and of 300 kurdish child hostages swept into  prison  and  a
hell of whippings, electric-shock torture and sexual abuse in late  1985.
Twenty-nine  were  executed  without  trial  during  1987;  the rest have
simply "disappeared".

    ...an  almost  logical  progression  for  a leader  who  is  said  to
participate in the executions he orders, especially those of old friends.
In  1979, Saddam purged his cabinet, condemning six ministers  to  death.
As an object lesson, the firing squad was composed of  the  18  surviving
cabinet  ministers.    In  1982,  the  Health  Minister  was executed for
agreeing that Saddam needed a rest.

    re: .26
    
    Who was it that said something like "Perhaps time will, in the
    end, prove that "human intelligence" was just one more of Nature's
    failed experiments"?
    
    Steve (who's really more optimistic than the above might indicate)
    

Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila recently spoke to the Congress of the Philippines
and shocked them by telling a story about how the monkeys and apes had
held a convention to refute the fact that they were ancestors of humankind.
The monkeys and apes felt it was an insult.  After all, THEY didn't pollute
their environment, or go to war.

Its all too common in our society to become preoccupied with content
and miss the larger context.  For example: most of us find it upsetting
that Congressman X from Michigan consistently blocks legislation to require
higher average fuel economy, or lower exhaust emissions.  With all the
concern about global warming and the greenhouse effect, why does Mr. X
continue to block responsible legislation supported by a majority of the
american people?

The reason is Mr. X represents thousands of us who think just like him.
Not that most of us are opposed to higher fuel economy, but that most of
us expect our Congressman to protect our states economic interests ahead
of other states, and often ahead of national or global interests.

Almost every congress person advocates higher military spending that
provides jobs in their district.

The United States is one of the biggest military powers on the planet.
Most of us believe that using force to impose our political will on others
is justified.  Peace through strenth.  It's interesting that "deterence"
and "terrorism" both come from the same Latin root: "deterrere" which means
to control by fear.

From where I see it, we will not be able to solve the problem of political
violence, international terrorism, abuse of human rights, or environmental
degredation by focusssing on the behavior of third world leaders.

A fundamental shift in our own thinking is required.

The world is the way it is, because we are the way we are.

- Peter