Slim Novel 17 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage
On the 2nd day of 2000, a Sunday Seminar is held in Professor John Edwardes's Homat in Tokyo. In the large living room around the brown mahogany oval table a mix of expats and Japanese sit. Edwardes is at head of table while wife Yuko in house dress puts out coffee or green tea.
At 1:01 PM, Edwardes stands. "Ladies, gentlemen and my son Jimmy! Welcome to first Sunday Seminar in what we are calling Y2K, or start of the 3rd millennium A.D.. The subject today is The Ending of the Cold War - Good? Or bad? Now I should like to be interrupted as is usual for Seminar.
Harumi, raises hand and says, "Speaking as dedicated communist, I recognize the Soviet Union in last decade of 20th century was being run by a corrupted elite and the population was confused and disoriented. Much of this was the fault of the communist party in Russia which had strayed from Marxist principles during and right after the 1917 Revolution. But some of it was caused by capitalist USA using its CIA bribery that went to the very top of the political leadership.
"What I want to emphasize is the human aspect. In all the former communist countries, there was a socialist framework and infrastructure: from the overall atheism that prevents the bad effects of religion to the universal social subsistence support like free, high quality medical care, free education, guaranteed low price for food staples, socialized care of the elderly, free modern state housing, control of capitalist entrepreneurial gangsters; these were all wiped away in a moment in 1991, and now we see the result - a crazy Islamic revival of fundamentalist blood lust and nationalist wars, a falling apart of former peacefully ruled nations like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and eastern Europe and Russia, a loss of education opportunities, an impoverishment of the peoples, and deterioration of health and welfare and living place. All wiped away because of CIA."
Harumi sits and wipes away a tear.
Kimura the newspaperman stands. "I am neither communist or (sic; Kimura is not a native English speaker) capitalist because I am scientific and do not think it wise to believe in ideas. My take on the ending of the Cold War is geopolitical and I focus on world stability. From 1945 until the end in 1991 we intellectuals who care about these questions saw a world with small, limited wars and we knew this depended on a balance between two world powers based on their nuclear arms superiority. It was a sort of order dramatized by the telephone between the White House and the Kremlin to ensure no mistakes that might lead to catastrophe. Now, merely 8 years since the ending of the Cold War, we already see the bad effects - the disorder and wars in the former Yugoslavia and the involvement of NATO in the bombing of civilians in Serbia, and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, with the creation of unstable Islamic states some which may have atomic weapons from former Soviet Union. And worst of all the related rise of Islamic fundamentalism with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the new strong man of Islamism, Osama bin laden and his Al Qaeda, which already has launched attacks in New York and on the US Embassy in Kenya that provoked retaliatory US missile strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan, and which are sure to have a payback of as yet unimaginable horror perhaps in a major city in USA. And this is only the first 8 years after end of Cold War! It is not just the end of Cold War; it is the way it was managed - and I agree with Miss Harumi that the management was by US CIA; just see who was president then, the former head of CIA, Mr George H.W. Bush. The Cold War ending was manipulated to destroy the USSR. And it liberated the worst minds in USA who mean to ring up the curtain on capitalism triumphant over the world. And what we are seeing in 2000 is just the very beginning of a horror on earth where one world power - USA - intent on world domination for its ideology is bringing on worldwide warfare and societal disruptions that will destroy this civilization and replace it with a dictatorship of the entrepreneurs."
Kimura sits and Professor Edwardes comments. "We have just heard some of the bad side of ending the Cold War. Allow me to present and demolish arguments for a good side. First, the reason the USA initiated and enlarged the Cold War beyond original Russian provocations in Berlin in 1945 and Korea in 1950 was liberation. Specifically, liberating former nations of eastern Europe from the so-called Soviet Yoke. Well, that was certainly accomplished but at the price of liberating insane nationalisms such as we saw tear former Yugoslavia apart, and wrench Czechs from Slovaks destroying former Czechoslovakia, and, worst of all, create hundreds of enclaves of nationalism within the former Soviet Union that have grown into monsters of terrorism.
"Then, a very important good of the Cold War's ending we saw immediately from 1992 to 96 in USA when the best ideas prevailed in USA and the military budget was slashed giving the first monetary surplus for making better life. Unfortunately the military-industrial complex assisted greatly by Mr Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda, which had, ironically, been liberated by the Cold War's ending, has reversed that situation so that by year 2000 it is worse than during the Cold war, and going to get much, much worse as the wars pile up in this next decade.
"The Cold War should never have started but given its perhaps inevitability due to stupidity on both sides, it should have ended in a compromise with both powers Still Standin," if I may use Mr Elton John's phrase."
Eddie signals he wishes to interrupt. "All I want to say is that this ending of the Cold War lost the gold opportunity for Earth's survival. By 1945, the scientists saw the disastrous overpopulation that now engulfs us. And from that the threat of global overheating. Fifty-five years ago, had the USA kept its head and allowed the Soviet Union to be its weaker junior partner, we could, by now, have controlled the population growth, limited fossil fuel emissions and be living in a new, good transition to science-civilization, just setting out to explore and colonize Moon and Mars." Eddie sits.
Professor Edwardes says. "OK. These were good declaratory responses. Now let's have tete a tetes. We have ordered sushi snacks." He looks at Yuko, who enters from kitchen bearing two large trays. "And a world New Year's birthday cake." He points to a big Baked Alaska with 3 large millennium candles. "So let us eat and drink and comment to each other."
End of Chapter. Next: 17.3 Professor John Edwardes - Life of an Old Sch...
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