Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1981. január-június (35. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1981-06-18 / 25. szám
AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ Thursday, June 18. 1981. 2. The major threat to peace Following is the foreign policy section of the Report of the International Officers to the Twenty- Fourth Biennial Convention of the Internat! Longshoremen's Union. We stand today at an extremely dangerous crossroads in world affairs. Tensions between the two nuclear superpowers—the US and the Soviet Union—are at a dangerously high level. Arms control negotiations have collapsed, nuclear pro. liferation continues apace. The gap between the rich nations and the poor grows wider every day—the hunger, disease and poverty which are the lot of billions of people go ignored while a steadily increasing percentage of the world’s wealth and resources are squandered on weapons of annihilation. President Jimmy Carter took office in 1977 amid real hope of a new departure in US foreign policy. He was committed to strengthening detente with the Soviet Union, to meaningful arms control negotiations, a reduction in military spending as well as an increase in trade and cultural exchanges between east and west. He promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, particularly Third World countries struggling against racism, repression and poverty. He enjoyed the support of the overwhelming majority of the American people, exhausted by the war in Vietnam and eager to explore the benefits of peace. In the first few years of his administration, until the summer of 1979, President Carter attempted to proceed according to this agenda. He cancelled the development of the B-l bomber, and slowed work on the MX missile and the neutron bomb. He backed majority rule in Southern Africa, negotiated the Panama Canal treaty and was at least neutral toward the revolution in Nicaragua. He appeared sincerely committed to the negotiation of arms control. While the ILWU criticized his failure to act on his campaign promise to lower military spending, we nonetheless felt that he was acting in good faith to change the direction of US foreign policy. CARTER'S TURNABOUT But by the time he left office in January, 1981, events had come full circle. The arms budget had skyrocketed. Arms control negotiations collapsed in the wake of the phony crisis created around the “discovery” of a Soviet military force in Cuba. US strategic planners took the final steps toward developing a nuclear delivery system based on a first strike, while at the same time gearing policy toward the possibility of waging a “limited” nuclear war. A 100,000-man “Rapid Deployment Force” which could land US armed forces virtually anywhere in the world within hours was established, and the first steps were taken toward reinstating the draft. A new generation of missiles were positioned in Europe, and the US was back in the business of propping up any repressive African, Asian or Latin American regime which pledged to support our economic and political interests. Under the “Carter Doctrine,” the US proclaimed its willingness to use any means necessary, including war, to protect “our” oil supplies in the Persian Gulf region. Judging by his campaign rhetoric and by the actions of his administration in the few months since taking office, the Reagan administration can be expected to intensify this trend. He has surrounded himself with people like Alexander Haig, the new Secretary of State, who, as chief military aide to Henry Kissinger and the NATO command, has demonstrated himself to be an unabashed hawk, with a history of preferring the most extreme military options. The resumption by the US in its role as world policeman has been clearly signalled by the stepping up of military aid to El Salvador and the dispatch of US “advisors” to prop up that country’s shaky military government. The Reagan administration has all but embraced the apartheid government of South Africa. Belligerent and provocative statements directed at the Soviet Union are backed up with an unbelievable escalation of military spending, which will raise the Pentagon’s share of the federal budget from the current 24.1% to 32.4% by 1985. This rapid and bipartisan tilt toward a more belligerent foreign policy is by no means the fault of any one individual or nation. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, for example, was a serious violation of the basic principle of nonintervention. The seizure of the American hostages in Iran similarly threatened the world’s shaky hold on basic ideas of international law. These events were a dramatic watershed in US public opinion. They were seized upon to prove the argument by the US military and corporate leadership that the Soviet Union could not be trusted, and that revolutions in Third World countries are necessarily threatening to US security. But the evidence is overwhelming that the move toward a more aggressive and .more expansionist US foreign policy was the work of deeply entrenched corporate and military interests, long before these two events. Dramatic changes in President Carter’s orientation—the burying of SALT II in the Senate, the drive for first-strike nuclear capability, the request for a monumental increase in the US military budget and similar developments in the months preceding the Afghanistan invasion could easily have been taken by the Soviet Union as clear signals that the US had abandoned detente. MEDIA BLITZ At the same time, the American public continues to be deluged by media publicity about the alleged decline of American military power, the growth of Soviet strength and the need to pump up the defense budget. While this is relatively routine budget-time exercise by the Pentagon, it has become something of a national obsession, despite the fact that it is 1) irrelevant because both nations already have the capacity to destroy one another scores of times, and 2) not true, particularly when one takes into account the greater accuracy of US weapons, and the superiority of the military forces of the NATO countries over those of the Warsaw Pact. As things stand today, however, the Pentagon’s budget-planners can virtually write their own ticket. We frankly believe this re-militarization of American foreign policy is a cover for economic interest. In January, 1981, then Secretary of Defense Harold Brown put the matter rather simply. The greatest danger to American security, he said, was “not the threat of Soviet expansion but the proliferation of uncontrolled ‘turbulence’ in the Third World.” And, “because such turbulence threatens vital American interests — especially oil — we must be prepared to use force in defense of those resources.” These disorders “have many and varied sources,” Brown said, among which is the failure “to provide for the basic needs of people and narrow the explosive disparity between wealth and hunger.” While the Soviet Union may be attempting to exploit these divisions to the detriment of the US, he continued, equally important are “differences about the proper world distribution on income and natural resources.” At the heart of this outlook is a profound appreciation of America’s growing dependence on foreign markets and sources of raw materials. “The particular manner in which our economy has expanded,” Brown continued, “means that we have come to depend to no small degree on imports, exports and the earnings from overseas investments for our material well-being.” For many years, in fact, the United States was able to maintain a remarkably high standard of living precisely Toe- cause of its ability to draw on the cheap natural resources and cheap labor of the rest of the world. But as we concluded in 1979, “the world has changed very much since 1945 and the United States no 'onger stands alone as the great world power. To pretend that we can return to those days ... is playing with fire.” THE END OF EMPIRE We have reached a point of diminishing returns. The costs of maintaining an empire, as the British realized many years ago, have become greater than the benefits. The only real beneficiaries of current policies are a handful of military contractors, oil companies and other multinational corporations. Three generations of extravagant military spending have, in the long run, undermined the US dollar, sapped the civilian economy, and left important social needs unmet. Real national security - and that means the ability of average American people to go about their business and raise their families without fear of a world war — is more precarious than ever. Our number one enemy today is not communism, nor the expansion of the Soviet Union, but hunger and deprivation. Some 2.5 billion human beings live on an average income of $4.50 a week; half a billion are utterly destitute; more than a billion have no access to clean water. As long as the American establishment persists on responding to that crisis by building more bombs, it will do nothing to enhance the position of this nation in the world. We expect the next few years to be extremely dangerous — perhaps scary is a more appropriate word. The Reagan administration can be expected to move from one provocation to the next — more arms and advisors to El Salvador, more support for the apartheid government of South Africa and creation of ever more sophisticated weaponry. The ILWU must continue to do its part to counter this trend. Remarks by Jim Ryan, former Pres, of the U.S. Artists Union at the Gellert celebration In this morning’s N.Y.Times the art critic discussed a young artist newly come to prominence - and noted, with some surprise, that the artist is insistent on the “social mission of his art”, perhaps a radical and new idea in some parts of today’s art world, but hardly a new idea to the man wc honor today. I am not the appropriate person to talk about the message contained within Hugo’s art; however 1 can speak of what I have observed of the social conscience of the artist as a man and a fellow union member. I first met Hugo when I was elected to the Executive Board of the United Scenic Artists Union in 1969. At that time he was serving on the Board as a Trustee representing the interest of the Mural Artists group within the union. He had been actively involved in organizing the Mural Artists into the union and had been among the first group of artists to enter our Local in 1937. Hugo’s was a special voice on our Board; whereas the rest of us were immersed in the day-to-day problems of wages and working practices and too often divided into separate camps on questions which in retrospect seem often trivial, Hugo had a clear vision of the “Brotherhood” that by our name and by our membership oath should have been a primary concern for all of us. It was then the period of the Vietnam War that Hugo introduced a Motion that reminded us that we were all citizens of a larger world and could not bury ourselves in our own little problems. Hugo’s action demonstrated that in one union at least, there-was considerable opposition to that war. Hugo, 1 am sure, I represent all your brothers and sisters in the United Scenic Artists in congratulating you on this very special occasion. Let us learn Hungarian Inquiring One’s Way Vreuse me, sir, can you tell me the way to . .. Street? Horn can 1 get to .. .7 '■Yhich is the nearest way to . . . Square? !’ this the right way to tain l riglu for) the National Museum? i're Inst my way. I re lost my bearings. I’m a perfect stranger here. :n you direct me to the station? Tájékozódás Bocsánat, uram, meg tudná mondani, merre van a(z) ... utca (ucca)? Hogy jutok el a(z) .. .-hoz? Melyik a legrövidebb út a(z) . . . térre? Jó irányba megyek a Nemzeti Múzeum felé? Eltévedtem. Nem ismerem ki magamat. Én teljesen idegen vagyok errefelé. Meg tudná mondani, hogy jutok el az állomásra? The HUGO GELLERT TESTIMONIAL SOUVENIR JOURNAL contains illustrations and an in-depth assessment of the artist’s life and work. Copies are available for $ 2.00 each. Add 75 cents for postage For orders, please make checks or money orders payable to the HUGO GELLERT TESTIMONIAL COMMITTEE I ; 130 E 16 St. New York,NY 10003.
