A4 - Wednesday, November 7, 1984 - North Shore News strictly personal by Bob Hunter Those Ruskies HAVE MENTIONED betore that where my house sits, 1f | draw a line straight north from my front porch, the nearest village or town turns out to be in the Ural Mountains of Russia. I joke to visitors that the “front fine’’ begins ino my front yard | have American neighbours just a few miles to the south—and = Russians across the street. If you forget vour Mercator Projec- tion for a Minute, it is easy to see that this is a reasonable political description of Canada’s place in the world Tucked as we are like a papoose on the back of the American Empire, our history has been little af- fected by the fact that we had first the Czars and now the commuissars living next door across the tundra. When we use the phrase “tthe world’s fonezesti undefended border.’ we should be Jooking north, not south. The High Are- tic—that’s the world’s longest undetended border We are the only country living next to Russia that takes its Security more or less for granted, or has anything like warm feelings for the ruthless tyranny that the land of the Gulag. lL try to keep track about what's going on ‘across the street’ ays much as possible, but | can’t pick up Russian TV shows and = Russian Magazines are hard to find In any event you can't believe What you read any more than you could believe what vou saw, if you could see grips Guardian ran a series of ar- ticles that provided the best insight yet into what 1s going on behind the Iron Curtain these days, forgetting Afghamistan, Eastern Europe and the aging Kremlin leader- ship entirely. According to the Guar: dian, the US S.Rooais in an advanced state of economic, social and political decay. Repeated attempts to make the economy more rational have failed, leaving the Soviet Union a semi- developed industnal power that does not even have a ‘*According to the Guardian, the U.S.S.R. is in an advanced state of economic, social and political decay.’’ anything, what with the media being government con- trolled. (No Doug Collins there!) So it is a rehef to find a well-researched behind-the- scenes report. Recently, the Manchester reliable telephone system or a network of decent roads. It cannot produce industrial goods capable of competing in international markets. The rate of alcoholism ts a Staggering 8S per cent of the labour force. Crime, which 1s West Van peace group pushes council action WEST VANCOUVER Citizens tor Peace told local poliicians Monday to tell both US) and Soviet leaders to stop nuclear arms buildups “We are in favor of your sending (a) resolution to Prime Minister Mulroney, but we would have hoped that (West Van council) would also have sent a copy dof the resolution) to Press dent Reagan and a Russian copy to President Chernenko.”” said the chair man of WVCP in a letter to council Monday In addition, the group ury ed that Canada take the in wiative) and not ‘play a waiting game’” and should declare the country a nuclear free zone | Happy Skiing | from 5439% ” ty Intermediate FISCHER to Advanced -iI>CHER FISHER > Tt, toeotdtccfuale Near tt 4st) Bae not supposed to occur in a Soviet State, has risen so dramatically in recent times that apartment houses in Moscow feature triple locks on the doors, just like in big cities in America. The famous Five-Year Plans, which used to be able to raise investment by SO per cent over each previous plan, have now disintegrated to the level of a mere 10 per cent in- vestment. At the same time, the number of people enter- ing the work force has drap- ped from 11 million a year between 1976 and 1980 to on- ly 3 million this year. Theft of ‘‘socialist proper- ty''—raw materials, finished goods, spare parts—has become the biggest crime problem in the country, to the point where a_ belated program to burld garages to service the {0 million cars that have been built since 1970 has been aborted because everybody knows that all the spare parts distributed to the garages would be stolen long before they could be sold. Health careiius degenerating, the Guardian claims. The infant mortahty rate is actually rising, partly due to a dwindling number of doctors and nurses. Medicine is in short supply. In small cities and towns it is) prac- tically nonexistent. 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