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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 15, 2021 13:20:26 GMT -8
If any further proof were necessary that "the military" and "police" are not "naturally" conservative institutions, one only need look at what the FBI and various police forces across the country have been doing over the last year. The stationing of the National Guard in D.C. proves my comments about soldiers are first people who take orders. The recent attack by the military on Tucker Carlson proves my contention that "armed forces" are not not conservative and can be leftist, ala Trotsky's Red Army. Coordinated effort by US Military to destroy Tucker CarlsonThis is getting dangerous.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 15, 2021 16:44:03 GMT -8
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 30, 2022 13:19:49 GMT -8
Mikhail Gorbachev has died. He didn't bring about the fall of the Soviet Union because he wanted to, rather he did it by his incompetent handling of his "reforms." Still, things could have gone much worse than they did, so we should be thankful for him. Gorbachev is deadIn the bad-old-Soviet days, they would have said that "he has gone to see Marx."
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 31, 2022 10:40:39 GMT -8
I'd never seen that Pizza Hut commercial before. Pretty good.
From my perspective, the was no easy or sure way to reform the Soviet Union. It's along the lines of the aphorism that it's easy to catch a wolf with your hands. The trick is in letting him go.
That totalitarian state was wound so tightly, was so paranoid, and had so much blood on it's hands, I don't see how anyone could do perfect reform.
Mikhail Gorbachev was surely the face of a more rational and reasonable Soviet Empire. That's certainly how Thatcher and Reagan saw it. He believed in his own system but wasn't the kind of boxed-in paranoid of, say, Andropov.
Now Russia has that same kind a paranoid leader in Putin. But many believed at the time, including my father, that Gorbachev represented an end to the cold war. Many saw Gorbachev as just a friendly face, forgetting that he was still the head of a blood-stained totalitarian state. But he did seem to be a different man from his predecessors...which wouldn't be all that hard to do because most of them were either violently insane or just the usual paranoid Russian bureaucrat.
To me, the large feelings for Gorby were as misplaced as all the goo-goo eyes people made over "the Arab Spring." Gorbachev was the head of an Evil Empire that threatened nuclear war with the world. They were ideological kooks with a supremacist view of their own foul system. That Gorby took some of the edge of that is good. That he may have been a useful idiot in terms of that totalitarian empire collapsing was probably a good thing too, although evil monsters such as Putin think the collapse was a tragedy. God forbid people live free.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 31, 2022 12:16:49 GMT -8
According to what I have read, Gorby was extremely averse to the use of force against internal enemies. He did not put down internal descent with violence, which would very likely have extended the life of the U.S.S.R. This, alone, is reason enough for the world to be thankful for Gorby.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 31, 2022 16:30:59 GMT -8
I was listening over my brother's shoulder when he was listening to Ben Shapiro's podcast. I think he nailed the Gorbachev situation. The podcast is 40 minutes but his show starts out with the Gorbachev bits. I believe this will mostly be Kung Approved™.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 31, 2022 19:09:14 GMT -8
I agree with most of what he says, although in his typical way, he starts to overstate his case toward the end and mistakes his ideology for truth. This ruins the thing for me. Other than his extremely irritating nasal voice, this is one of the main reasons I do not like him. He seems to be fundamentally dishonest in order to make his case. I find it hard to believe he is so ignorant as not to know he is mis-stating things, because he is supposed to be very intelligent. For someone who claims some sort of intellectual leadership in the conservative camp, I find such behavior distasteful. Perhaps he is just pandering to his American audience, most of which is not terribly well read in history or has much knowledge or interest in the rest of the world. For example, (and there are others) his contention that communism created nothing is simply not true, if he means people under communism create nothing. Of course, the communistic system retards the growth of an economy more than free-market capitalism. But to state that nothing is created under communism is, let me be polite, bullshit. In the end, it is people who create things. And it would appear that people across history have constantly "created" things regardless of the system they have existed under. Some brilliant people under the Soviet Union created Sputnik, Vostok 1, Soyuz, the T-34, a huge merchant marine and I could go on. This is not to say they built more or better things, although there can be little doubt that some of the things they built were exceptional. Shapiro would have been closer to the truth had he simply maintained that "government doesn't create anything, it simply takes things from some people and gives these to other people." (Note the old saying used by conservatives to attack all government in general?) Even that is not necessarily true, unless one means that only individuals "create." But that's a discussion for another day. I went back and read my critique of Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union. I think it gives a better synopsis of Gorbachev's role/legacy in history than Shapiro's.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 31, 2022 20:16:12 GMT -8
I don't listen to him. But he made a good point about the press slobbering all over him as if Gorby was Nelson Mandela. And I think I rather prefer a good, overbearing Soviet Premier to Mandela. I could sit down and have a drink with Gorby. But I must admit I despised Mandela.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 31, 2022 20:30:32 GMT -8
I agree with all three of your sentences. I recall writing a more realistic obit about Mandela and posting it on ST.
I am still a big fan of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II as regards their work to bring down the U.S.S.R. But I can vouch for the fact that most people across the world, that I have spoken to on the subject, think Gorbachev, years of improving European relations with the leaders of the U.S.S.R. and the internal situation in the U.S.S.R, had a lot more to do with its downfall than Reagan.
I am somewhat divided on this point, for example Reagan left office January 1989 and the U.S.S.R. didn't fall until Dec. 1991. Bush 1 also had something to do with things. I won't try to award percentage estimates for responsibility. But I can give some real kudos to Gorbachev for keeping the world out of a very nasty situation. Even Shapiro admitted as much, in a cursory way.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 31, 2022 20:42:11 GMT -8
The Cold War wasn't a sprint. It was a marathon. And there were probably a half dozen other ways this could have all turned out. But one could say the first real shots in the war were fired by Churchill in his "iron curtain" speech.
Ever since then, leaders in the West (particular America) have opposed the Soviet Union. This included a few Democrats such as JFK.
Reagan's build-up of the military and his SDI might be considered the culmination of the build-up of pressure on the Soviets as they tried to keep up with us. Gorby certainly had inside information that they couldn't continue to try to compete with us as they always had.
But the hard-liners could just have easily won. History is a fluid thing. And Putin is a hard-liner who is doing his best to re-establish Soviet-like tyranny over the old member states. The Cold War isn't finished by a long shot. The difference is, in many ways the West is as old, rickety, and left-wing degenerate as the old Soviet Union was. Thanks to many dastardly forces, we have taken on much of that old ideological system. One could say that Gorbachev foresaw for his country something like what is happening in the U.S. – a one-party, semi-decentralized state where allegiance to the state is everything and the idea of freedom is heresy.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2022 7:18:32 GMT -8
But I can give some real kudos to Gorbachev for keeping the world out of a very nasty situation I give the big three, as leaders, most of the credit for the fall of the USSR a smaller amount to Bush I, and an even smaller amount to Gorby. From 1945 to 1991 the Soviets were the target at CIA. The agency was created to counter the threat of Soviet Communism, and we did that job very well. Our officers infiltrated the highest levels of Soviet politics, we turned their agents into double agents, we overthrew governments that were hostile to the west and supported governments that supported the west. In those day the agency was the most MAGA organization on earth. It was quality intelligence and a quality military that convinced Gorby that the Soviets could never compete. The kudos I give Gorby is finely coming face-to-face with realism. CIA was the tool that the big three had to send against the Soviets and excepting some big failures the record of success is spectacular. I am proud to be a very minor part of the effort from 1970 to 1990. My friends and I will never be written about in histories, we will quietly go into the night never revealing the things we know or did to protect liberty and freedom. Without CIA, MI-6, and the priest network. We would still be dealing with the USSR.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 7:28:05 GMT -8
And I've enjoyed reading stories of those days. Many of those books I've reviewed here. Most of this story is under the radar for most Americans so you have to go search it out.
Many kudos to the CIA. They were the polar opposite of Jane Fonda.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 8:13:06 GMT -8
Pope John Paul and the priest network were a yuge factor. Now this asshole pope they have aid and abets Communism.
It's interesting reading those old spy and war stories. MI-6, of course, cooperated with American intelligence (CIA or OSS), although British intelligence was very sparing regarding Ultra intelligence. And although both spy agencies had some yuge breakdowns, it's interesting reading how the British were often reticent to share info with the Americans because they thought they were leaky.
At the end of the day, we were joined at the hip regarding opposing Soviet aggression, as well as being vital parts of the nuclear deterrent. I just watched an episode of a series that had some interesting info on the British Vulcan strategic bomber. They still have one of these that can fly.
After the Vulcan, apparently the British switch their deterrent force to submarines. We could use a few of those Vulcans today to deter our in-home leftists.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2022 10:08:12 GMT -8
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 10:30:31 GMT -8
Wow. The Hustler looks like another great delta wing strategic bomber. I can't say I've heard of that one. The cruising speed of the Vulcan was 580 mph. 1400 for the Hustler is quite an advance in speed. Note that the Vulcan did come in anti-flash white. I had an old Toyota that was white. But I doubt that it was anti-flash white. I wonder if Home Depot could mix me up some. I was reading more of that Wiki article and it said that the B-58 Hustler replaced the B-47 Stratojet, itself quite a nostalgic piece of Cold War hardware. I believe this is the plane used in Dr. Strangelove. Or maybe they were B-52s. I'm not sure. It's amazing those wings of the B-52 can carry all the weight in engines and fuel. B-52s taking off: The sound of freedom.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2022 10:55:21 GMT -8
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 11:20:18 GMT -8
Yes, I've seen that before, probably a couple of times. It's a lot of fun to watch. That's cool that they have the whole movie on YouTube. I searched just now and they also have a good print of it (Vista Vision!) on Amazon Prime. There's also a free Roku channel that has it as well. I might just check that out again today or tonight. You can't fight in here. This is the war room.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2022 11:46:16 GMT -8
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 14:03:23 GMT -8
The first two planes mentioned in SAC: B-36 B-47 Apparently Jimmy is very familiar with the B-36. But now that he's called back, he'll have to familiarize himself with the B-47. I (or my older brother) had a metal B-36 toy when we were kids. I recall it being a fairly large one, maybe about 18 inches in wingspan. This is one of the most interesting propeller planes, perhaps second in my estimation only to the P-38 in sheer what-about-dat. What are the advantages of twin-fuselage aircraft?
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 1, 2022 14:11:40 GMT -8
There once was a guy named von Braun Who shot his guided missiles around In his left Nazi pocket He had a V-1 and 2 rocket Himself, in America he touched down
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