onald Reagan
walks across
the White House
lawn to the awaiting
helicopter,
shrugging,palms up

A 70 year old man who looks 50, he
smiles slightly, showing two nice bright
rows-of Hollywood teeth. Ronald Rea-
gan who, in a flannel shirt, could be
anybody’s uncle, always exudes con-
fident optimism.

The man who the New York Daily
News refers to affectionately as ‘‘Ron’’
looks like he should be in charge. One
can almost hear the music; ‘‘He’s got
the whole world in his hands...’’ y

Unfortunately, it’s true.

Ronald Reagan manipulates the
press, the US Congress, the American
public and in some measure the world
more successfully than few people ever
have.

Heads of state and public figures file
from his office speaking of his sincerity
and grace. They are often won over to
his point of view by what they refer to as
his “‘awesome powers of persuasion.’’

MEN AT WAR:

 

The Other Press .

September 16, 1982

Reagan-bombics
in post- war U'S:A

On the air and in public he is poised
and relaxed. When he speaks he does so
with a controlled voice and demeanor
that come across as perfectly natural.
Ronnie is ‘real people’.

Hostile questions are deflected with a
joke. Jeers are neutralized with a
thoughtful remark. Vociferous critics
are caught off guard by~ the fresh
simplicity of his ‘‘first let’s have a jelly
bean’’ approach.

Reagan’s act has been perfected
through years of stage practice at

“dramatic projection in which meaning-

 

Throughout the history of Human-
kind, men have almost continuously
been at war with each other some-
where on earth. Since 650 B.C., there’
have been 1650 arms races, with only
16 that have not ended in war, the
remainder ending in economic col-
lapse. The vast majority of these
conflicts have been initiated by men‘s
macho idiosyncracies, mainly their
fear of appearing weak.

In the twentieth century, millions of
people have died due to the political
leaders‘ inability to accept defeat, and
their fears of appearing irresolute or
soft. John F. Kennedy was a prime
example of this. The Cuban Missile
Crisis was clearly a showdown of
masculinity; Kennedy risked eradica-
ting the entire world to prove that he
was aman. Fortuntely for the world,
Russian leader Khruschev was more
‘pragmatic in his macho principles--he
was willing to be reasonable and back
down, and display the simple human
fear of the consequences of a nuclear
war. But the American ‘victory‘
seemed to many a triumph, and the
United States was soon on its way to
Vietnam.

_ When Richard Nixon was elected
President, machoism was still flour-
ishing. He was ‘tough’, his men were
‘tough’: they were all tough. Oh
yeah. He was not going to be the first
American President to lose a war. He
would not allow the United States to be
humiliated or turned into a ‘second
rate power’! The war was over for the

U.S. in 1972, when it left with the war directly affect you. It will kill you.
hse

still going in Vietnam, but left ‘with
honour’. Richard Nixon was ousted
shortly atterwards.

by Nancy Powell

One positive aspect that resulted
from the Vietnam war, however, was
that men were no longer willing to go
to war over such abstract concepts as
duty, bravery, or honor. They were.no
longer afraid to admit that they did not
want to die for their country.

~ Unfortunately, we are now facing a
new dilemma--nuclear holocaust. Men
are no longer needed to fight wars on a
wide scale basis. With modern
technology, only a select few are
needed to ‘push the buttons‘. The,
Trident Submarine, for example, is
capable of destroying 408 targets
within a. 4,600 mile range, with
amazing accuracy. Other modern
weapons, such as the Cruise Missile,
are equally as horrifying.

We are now on the threshhold of a
nuclear war. Reagan and Brezhnev
are playing a game of nuclear roulette,
stockpiling weapons for a seemingly
inevitable showdown at the expense of
the earth. The new threat of war is no
longer ‘way over there‘, it is here.
Vancouver, being a port city very close
to the United States and the Bangor
Washington Trident base, is now a
target for destruction. This is a very
real threat.

Speak out against it--do something
about it. If nothing is said now, the
situation will only worsen. It will

 

less dialogue is pumped up with
rationalized, temporary sincerity. It is a
trick that any good actor knows. Talk
yourself into believing what you are
saying and the world thinks you mean it.

No one but a professional actor could
bring it across with similar class and
wit. In terms of effective style, Ronald
Reagan should certainly go down in
history as number one.

But the trouble with Ronnie isn’t his
style, it’s his substance.

The following is only a partial list of
reagan’s ‘‘accomplishments’’ since he
assumed office as the most. powerful
politician in the Western world. _

He has substantially damaged the US
social welfare program. This program,
designed to eae the condition
of the largest social underclass, took 30
years of work to build. This segment of
the US population composed mainly of
inner city racial minorities now shows
signs of becoming a unique and
permanent American phenomenon.

He has given large multinational
corporations, through lax enforcement
of anti-trust laws and special tax breaks,
the green light for unrestrained expan-
sion in North America and abroad.

The multinationals already have a
powerful influence which many people
belive exceeds that of government.

He has strengthened and aided,
through pledges of friendship and arms,
undemocratic and dictatorial regimes all

over the world. Some of them indulge in

worse repression of their civilian pop-
ulations than anything the Soviet bloc
has ever dreamed of.

He has demolished Jimmy Carter’s
well intentioned human rights cam-
paign. Carter’s effort, as in the case of
the Jewish expattiot newspaperman
Jacobo Timmerman from Argentina,
actually saved people’s lives. In so
doing, Reagan has also jettisoned a
rationale for popular Third World
support of the West.

He has substantially eroded, in a
single year, the living standard of lower
ant middle class Americans and Can-

- adians by raising interest rates and

sely causing a recession.
hag hes dezcroren through the relax-
ation of existing pollution controls, a
legislative and grass roots campaign to
clean up an increasingly poisonous
environment.

He has continued to push nuclear
power under the throats of a growingly
unwilling population, even though it has
been proven dangerous and is now

*

economically disadvantageous. Since no
safe method of disposing of nuclear
waste has been developed it also
represents a growing future menace of
unparalleled proportions. -

He has brought US Canadian
relations to a 30 year low by attempting
to bully the Canadian government on its
energy policy, by reneging on the
Fisheries Treaty and hedging on the
Alaska gas pipeline. In addition, his
government has steadfastly refused to
seriously address the problem of acid
rain. .

He has denounced gun control,
dismantling the federal agency which is
responsible for what little there is.
Through this attitude he has further
aggravated the principal reason for the
US having one of the worst rates of
violent crime in the world. He has even
become a victim to it.

He has psychologically set the stage
for what was formerly unthinkable: a
limited nuclear war on the European
continent. In so doing he has alienated
European opinion, isolated the United
States and, some think, irreparably.
divided the NATO alliance.

orst of all, through intentional
W siication and a demonstrated

unwillingness to negotiate, he
has set into motion the most gargantu-
an struggle for arms superiority the
world has ever seen. It is a race which
shows every indication of draining the
world’s resources and heightening ten-
sion in every world conflict. He has
pushed the arms race, formerly out of |
control, into the twilight zone.

Even if there had been no formally
announced intention to start a monu-
mental miltary conflict, as Reagan has
done, the race would have accelerated.

Technological advances in . recent
years have caused gaps in defenc
ses to appear at a taster rate. These
gaps, or windows of vulnerability, as the
Pentagon sometimes calls them, are
simply weapons systems of innovations
for which an equivalent weapon is
missing on the other side.

For every ‘‘window’’ that appears,
the opposing side must build a counter-
force system. Each gap now requires
much more sophisticated and expensive
technology to fill, meaning that money
spent on defense is going to increase at
an even faster rate from now on.

This drama can have only two.
possible endings. One involves a
mutual attempt to reverse, or at least