Coincidance - Principia Discordia

190 COINCIDANCE
campaign. Creating whole new forests would provide work for many of the
unemployed, and even if it takes 50 years for the economic return, it will be
worth it when we do have all those new trees full-grown. I also think the
government could create many, many jobs by giving Dublin a subway system.
How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the protests such as the women at Greenhatn
Common missile base who have attracted so much world-wide attention?
I believe you just answered your own question. Those women have done
a marvelous job of work in forcing world attention on the threat of nuclear
missiles.
What I really meant to ask is, I meet a lot of cynical and depressed people these days. They
don't like the missiles anymore than you do, hut they feel hopeless. If you talk about Greenham
Common at all, they'll just say, "Yes, those women gave it the old school try—but the missiles
are still there, aren't they?" At tlie age of 80, you haven't gotten discouraged yet. Whatgivesyou
the faith and energy to struggle on?
I have one big hope. I think public opinion has become much more
powerful than at any earlier period in history. We have all been rather stupid
in the past when we tried to predict the pace of oncoming events. Everything
is happening much faster these days. Public education and literacy
have increased incredibly in my lifetime and especially in the past 30 years
and the peoples of the world are better informed than they ever have been.
As I said, people are mostly very decent and just, once they know the facts of
a case, and they are learning the facts faster and faster. Television is bringing
everything right into the living room, and people know what is going on. I
think people will soon force governments to give up this insane arms race.
They just have to join together, like the women at Greenham Common,
and make their voices heard.
On my way here, \ was thinking about Graham Greene, perhaps because he is both a
Catholic and a radical, like you. He recently said he'd rather live in a world dominated by the
U.S.S.R. than in one dominated by the U.S. What do you think about such a choice?
I hope we are never forced to such a deplorable choice. But even if it came
down to that, my opinion would depend on which government was in
power in those countries. A world dominated by Kruschev wouldn't have
been too bad, and a world dominated by Eisenhower wouldn't be too bad,
either. But God forbid we should have a world dominated by Stalin or
Reagan.