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The US-USSR arms race was already in full swing when Sputnik was launched, the big $$ spending on rocket technology started immediately after WW II. To infer Sputnik started all the spending as Palin has done is just plain BS.
You need to re-read what she said. Then remember what you just wrote.
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The US-USSR arms race was already in full swing when Sputnik was launched,
Do you remember all the rhetoric of SDI? You know, the missile defense system that'll go nowhere.
I still don't see what is wrong with her statement. I think that statement clearly attributes the collapse to debt, of which the race to space helped incur.
Oh, please. Sputnik was a moment of unbridled triumph for the Soviet Union, and the space program was one of the few endeavors that actually provided successes for the Soviet system, for decades. The expenses incurred were trivial compared to the military build-up, and a good chunk of the R&D was needed for missiles and military space applications anyway.
Hell, Russia has retained its capacity for manned spaceflight today, a testament to the robustness of their program. 3rd Shock Army, on the other hand, is nothing but a memory.
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It would be equally incorrect to attribute the military spending to causing the collapse. It helped incur that debt, but it did not lead directly to it's collapse. Their collective debt (incurred by various means) is what caused it. People are really splitting-hairs here.
There was a multitude of causes for the Soviet collapse, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone ascribe it to their space program. In the large scheme of things, rockets are cheap. Even militarily speaking, rockets are much, much cheaper than armored divisions. (This is why NATO never gave up the right to first-use of nukes, btw. One NATO Corps facing one Soviet Army will really make you look for an edge.)
Palin done messed up. This is like citing the Battle of Britain as the event that triggered the loss of the British Empire.
It's not so much that she attributed the fall of the USSR to Sputnik.
It's that she did not even get what a sputnik moment is: the moment in the US when we became cognizant that we needed to push harder to redouble our efforts in the face of world competition.
In the case of sputnik our country consequently pushed mathematics, science, and technology, subsequently competing in the race by putting a man on the moon.
The analogy was made in the state of the union in regard to our position today, our need to push harder in the face of competition in the global economy.
Van Susteren's question in the interview was in essence is this a sputnik moment for the US?
And in a recent speech on national TV news, she confused Iraq with Afghanistan and kept saying we'd be completely out of Afghanistan in a year!
Now that was hilarious. Too damn funny......uh, huh? What? No way it was him that said that........youSURE? Oh, well then nevermind.....
Well now she did hold a campaign speech in Manitowoc, WI recently, after the SOTU speech (this country's Sputnik moment). It's just a coincidence that Sputnik crashed there.......'no one will believe this is a coincidence'.
How DARE her make this speech and then and act like............ uh, huh? What? No way it was him that said that........youSURE? Oh, well then nevermind.....
Nevermind......
Last edited by wrench409; 01-29-2011 at 06:44 AM..
I think she was talking about Obozo's Sputnik reference during his **** on the union speech.
Nice, well thought out, intelligent response. I'm not a liberal and I'm a business owner--if you'd actually listened to the SOTU, it was exactly on target in terms of how to support business growth and job creation in this country. When you can't hear the message just because you personally (for whatever reason) hate the messenger, you're a big part of the problem vs. the solution.
And in a recent speech on national TV news, she confused Iraq with Afghanistan and kept saying we'd be completely out of Afghanistan in a year!
Now that was hilarious. Too damn funny......uh, huh? What? No way it was him that said that........youSURE? Oh, well then nevermind.....
Well how she did hold a campaign speech in Manitowoc, WI recently, after the SOTU speech (this country's Sputnik moment). It's just a coincidence that Sputnik crashed there.......'no one will believe this is a coincidence'.
How DARE her make this speech and then and act like............ uh, huh? What? No way it was him that said that........youSURE? Oh, well then nevermind.....
Nevermind......
You should be happy. You all have milked your misguided teleprompter lines and his saying 57 states rather than 57 states and territories for all they're worth. You needed some new material. Bush was so much more generous in this regard that it always stayed fresh.
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