Gads....you paid REAL money for the FULL package, didn't you?

>Throughout the 70's we had Breznev (sp) in the Kremlin who was about as scary as you could get (he could get drunk, forget who he was, and hit the ATTACK US button thinking it was the doorbell, and he had plenty of military strength to make the US a sea of glass.
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>Into the 80's things got even tighter over MRBMS in Europe and the idea of first strike ICBMS (SS10, MX, etc). I think we were within a couple of years of the big one if the USSR didn't break.
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>And yes, I remember 'duck and cover' drills, and my mother listening to the radio to the officials trying to keep people aware of the Cuban situation in the early 60's.
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>For those who think all was rosy if we just disarm then or now I have a gadget that gets your car 500MPG on vinegar that I'll license to you for a small fortune.
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>I listened to Osama bin Bama a while back stating flatly that he'd have us out of Iraq in 2009 and that he would immediately cut defense research projects across the board. I can't think of a worse way to cripple the US military and lose the war on terror using just one person. He makes Hillary look almost acceptable.
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>>>And there was no serious fear through the 70s that the US would be invaded.
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>>WK's statement was that 'through the 70s', which I translated as the period between 1971 and 1980
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>>>As to 'fear mongering' today - when 300 million people watch the two largest building in the country destroyed on live TV by people who were previously considered at worst an annoyance it creates an atmosphere.
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>>That's not fear mongering, fear mongering is telling the US that if it elects anyone but a Republican that "we've just lost the war on terror"; telling the public that it's unpatriotic to question the loss of civil liberties, and that we should accept these losses as 'security'. That's not security, it's the equivalent of hiding in the basement because the 'bogeyman' might be outside.
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>>>"at no time in the Cold War" - were you absent for the period between 1950 and 1970? I remember being taught to get under my desk 'when the atomic bombs fall' We played at the local Nike site and were told how many Russian ICBMs were pointed at it. Building fall-out shelters was an industry ( with how-tos in Popular Science ) and people read "On the Beach" and "Fail-Safe" and didn't shrug with post-modern irony.
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>>Actually, I was absent for the period betweeh 1950 and 1960, but again, his statement was "throughout the 70's"
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>>But, while you're listing things, don't forget McCarthy and the Black Lists (again "for our own good") that ruined peoples' lives simply because they wouldn't (or did) answer questions that had very little bearing on the 'now'.
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>>>I realize the reality of islamofascism is very inconvenient for some political agendas and worldviews that are predicated on 'multi-culturalism' and liberal guilt, but the fact remains that there is a particular nihilistic death cult which at the moment is dedicating itself to doing as much damage as possible to what we think of as civilization.
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>>And this "nihilistic death cult" suddenly bloomed from a vacuum? No, it's not 'liberal guilt' to say that we (the Western world) should accept our part of the responsibility for the creation of it, and, having accepted that responsibility, move forward to correct the situation - even if the only way to do that is to leave that area alone and let it melt down, if necessary. But the answer is NOT to make everyone else pay for some peoples' stupidity, which is rampant right now. All we're doing is pissing off out allies and giving our enemies the right to say "What do you expect from a pig but a grunt"
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>>>Do you seriously dispute that?
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>>>>>>Isolationism is not the answer, as tempting as it seems sometimes. The U.S.'s isolationism between the two World Wars is viewed by historians as a key factor in both the Depression and the rise of Nazi Germany.
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>>>>>Threats change. The major threats to the US through the 1970s wore uniforms.
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>>>>No, not really. And before you go off on the Soviet Bloc, etc, etc, ad nauseum...let me point out that at NO time during the 70's was the US ever in danger of being invaded. And even at the height of the Cold War, the public was never barraged with the fear-mongering that is going on now.
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>>>>I'm just sorry so many have bought into it lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels