Dear colleagues, comrades, friends &c.
I have been too busy with my research for many months and had no time
to take part in the WSN discussions, but I could not avoid reacting
to this:
> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:26:33 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
> The fall of the Soviet Union and fragmenting of the socialist world system
> has meant a marked decline in freedom for over
> one-third of world's population.
I know that this bizzare idea is shared by some people in the West,
hence, as a part of the very one-third Genosse Austin is speaking
about, I cannot avoid saying again and again that this is complete
nonsense (of course, if we do not use any dialectical definitions of
"freedom is slavery" type). You can ask any WSNers from East Europe,
or the CIS - I would be very surprized if anybody agrees with our
Genosse (incidentally, the equivalent of "comrade" in the GDR was
Genosse/Parteigenosse, shared by the German communists [together with
the notion of "Fuehrer"] with the nazis).
Or, perhaps, Genosse thinks that he can evaluate the level of our
freedom better than we ourselves?
Yours,
Andrey (Moscow, RUSSIA)