Word: meliorist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Dramatic pessimism does not come naturally to Thomas. He is a self-acknowledged meliorist, one who believes that change is for the better and people can accelerate the beneficial process. He proposes that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. exchange hundreds of thousands of guest-hostages in the hope that neither side would send missiles to kill its own people. But why travel? The technology of nuclear action and reaction has already made everyone hostage...
...communications cut-off cannot obscure the most important fact underlying the government's declaration of "a state of war" and "a state of emergency": that liberty--whether of speech, of assembly, or of labor--is anathema to Soviet-controlled regimes in Eastern Europe. A gradual meliorist approach to meaningful social reform is untenable for the Soviets and their puppets. The Polish workers are simply the latest victims to be sacrificed in the name of Soviet statism. Whether or not the Soviet Union intervenes militarily is unimportant at this point; the USSR will probably only refrain from doing...
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