The truth, of course, is that the Soviets ran a brutal, authoritarian regime. The KGB killed their opponents or dragged them off to the Gulag. There was no free press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of worship, no freedom of any kind. The basis of the Cold War was not "competition in astrophysics and athletics." It was a global battle between tyranny and freedom. The Soviet "sphere of influence" was delineated by walls and barbed wire and tanks and secret police to prevent people from escaping. America was an unmatched force for good in the world during the Cold War. The Soviets were not. The Cold War ended not because the Soviets decided it should but because they were no match for the forces of freedom and the commitment of free nations to defend liberty and defeat Communism.And we totally owned them with our giant robots and laser cannons and we blew up their evil Technodrome base and we sent in our helicopters and ninjas and dinosaurs and ninjas on dinosaurs and WOLVEREEEEEEEEEEENS!
Honestly, when one is accusing the President of rewriting history by giving us an overly simplistic view of the workings of the cold war, and describing the Soviet Union as a place where there was "no freedom of any kind" not only does it make you look like a partisan hack, it makes you look like a stupid partisan hack.
When the person accusing the President of rewriting history is the clearly partisan daughter of the last Vice President, it just compounds the stupidity (if not fractalizing it.)
[UPDATE 2:57 PM] And now the epidemic of Liz Cheney All Over The TV makes sense.
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon.Oh let her be Saracuda's VP choice in 2012. It gets me all tingly just thinking about it. Of course, the tingly part may be because by 2012 the Palinites will be openly torturing political bloggers with car batteries and cattle prods."It's something I very well may do," said Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two Republican presidential campaigns.
Yeah, I've complained about her enough and she's thinking about running for office? You get a tag Lizzy, just like dad.
Sheezus....the way Cheney describes Russia and the US in the 80's you'd think she was writing scripts for the G.I. Joe cartoon. The sad thing is these people understand psychology of the masses enough to know that if they pump the media machine with enough of their bullshit it'll get traction. Sorta how crappy, overly produced, soulless, bar lowering music gets popular.
ReplyDeleteYou and Jason are both right on. The Soviet Union collapsed due to its economic system, and efforts by Gorbachev and other reformers. It had little to do with Reagan or neocon righteousness and delusions of grandeur.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how whenever a Cheney speaks, they're completely full of crap. When some new reports are released, I'm sure we'll hear once again from Liz about how holding her father accountable for war crimes is un-American.
Anyone that watched her performance on Bill Maher knows without a shadow of a doubt that her name is the only reason she will ever be elected to anything.
ReplyDeleteOh shit! Sorry. That was McCain's daughter!
ReplyDeleteLiz is just full of her father's evil/shit. If it's about a democrat, anything other than a republican and or her dad, then she is against it and it must be wrong. I can only imagine the bedtime stories that Dick would read to Liz as a child... Either he never did or he told her about his own dark side. What a good little soldier for daddy that she turned out to be, eh?