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Aw c'mon. This was an American pop culture reference. It's the hyperbole used to drum up support for any US military initiative.
Well, yes. We should ALL see it clearly for what it was. But some aren't that bright.
And yes, we've seen the same thing repeated which each war, as the new/current "enemy" in our government's crosshairs is demonized and vilified, using every trick in the bag. Truth takes the backseat, while drumming of emotion and foaming at the mouth takes front stage and center. The American Way appears to be the quick knee-jerk submission by the masses to this mindset and its participation.
Ignorance of the Russian people is one of the top 10 idiocies among American people. We still obviously see the same old cold war foolishness and ignorance played out like a broken record, with no real knowledge or light bulb 'on' behind the scenes.
Some people are much better at being parrots than thinking and rationalizing humans.
"Idiocy" may be too strong of a word, however "underestimation" fits right in.
Russians have their own wisdom proven by centuries, and the arrogance of the "new kid on the block," a nation that popped up on the world map only three hundred years ago + doesn't serve it well in the long run.
"Idiocy" may be too strong of a word, however "underestimation" fits right in.
I'd rather have "Idiocy" than the Idiocracy we're in now. Half the country glued to Fox News getting the Rupert Murdoch propaganda feed complete with the conspiracy theories.
Doesn't the OP think that ratings for the USSR depend heavily on who is talking?
That's exactly the case. It may have been an evil empire for a very right wing US republican president, but there are many people who do not think so. By the way, I don't think by far that the ussr was a perfect place.
As much as you are critical of the USSR, your refusal to unequivocally condemn it, strikes fear in the hearts of some people here, Anhity)))
I'd rather have "Idiocy" than the Idiocracy we're in now. Half the country glued to Fox News getting the Rupert Murdoch propaganda feed complete with the conspiracy theories.
"In Dumb We Trust" may soon become our new national motto. "Dumb and Dumber" would also fit.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 09-01-2019 at 02:53 PM..
I don't recall there being a controversy in the US over Reagan's statement.
However, this statement certainly was controversy in the USSR. Yuri Andropov went naz over it. But there are two things to understand: In most of the world, "evil" is not just a simple rhetorical tag because in most social contexts, there is no compromise with evil, there can only be its destruction. So they see a presidential declaration of being "evil" meaning, "We can't make a deal with you, we must destroy you."
Moreover, as we did not learn until the 90s, Yuri Andropov had already realized that the USSR had lost the Cold War. He actually believed the US could win a nuclear war with "acceptable losses" (from the Soviet point of view), and that Reagan actually intended to launch such a war.
The US did not realize how edgy Andropov was, which is why the situation of EXERCISE ABLE ARCHER 83 happened. You can check out that event on Wikipedia. I was on the combat operations staff of the US Strategic Air Command at that time, and that sparked four days of sheer terror for us in the SAC Underground Command Post.
It wasn't just Andropov. He became General Secretary upon the death of Brezhnev in November 1982, but the Soviets were freaked out by Reagan's election two years earlier. The combination of American posturing and Soviet paranoia (really, a built-in element of communism in general) necessitated a careful choreography wherein both sides needed to make sure their actions were not misinterpreted. It didn't help that Able Archer just happened to come two months after the KAL 007 shootdown and weeks after the invasion of Grenada. Normally, such exercises contain elements that conspicuously display them as exercises, and Able Archer did just that. However, it contained fewer than in previous iterations, and that freaked out Moscow (for example, B-52s were included in the maneuvers were included for the first time, which didn't go unnoticed).
For Reagan's part, he seemed mystified at the Soviet reaction, but he did change his tack. In January of 1984, he gave his Jim & Sally & Ivan & Anya address to the nation, which signaled a step back front the administration's previously confrontational rhetoric. Still, he didn't seem to fully grasp the situation - months later in a meeting with the Arthur Hartman, the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, he questioned him as to whether he (Hartman) actually believed the Soviets feared the United States or if that wasn't all just a stance to make the U.S. look bad.
It should be noted, however, that its second term the administration managed the dynamic changes ongoing in the Soviet Union fairly well, mostly by backing off and not giving the hardliners ammunition to oppose Gorbachev and his reforms (which failed, but at least had a positive result nonetheless).
[Reagan did profess to being disturbed by the film The Day After, even while dismissing it as 'anti-nuke propaganda']
On the contrary. Considering the vast amount of misinformation pumped into the American psyche over generations, a course change of enlightenment and education is of prime importance.
And there are Russian trolls on C-D, too.
It is far, far more important for Americans to understand that the country is being led by Saudi Arabia into a war with Iran. Russia is no more than a reflection of that.
It wasn't just Andropov. He became General Secretary upon the death of Brezhnev in November 1982, but the Soviets were freaked out by Reagan's election two years earlier. The combination of American posturing and Soviet paranoia (really, a built-in element of communism in general) necessitated a careful choreography wherein both sides needed to make sure their actions were not misinterpreted. It didn't help that Able Archer just happened to come two months after the KAL 007 shootdown and weeks after the invasion of Grenada. Normally, such exercises contain elements that conspicuously display them as exercises, and Able Archer did just that. However, it contained fewer than in previous iterations, and that freaked out Moscow (for example, B-52s were included in the maneuvers were included for the first time, which didn't go unnoticed).
For Reagan's part, he seemed mystified at the Soviet reaction, but he did change his tack. In January of 1984, he gave his Jim & Sally & Ivan & Anya address to the nation, which signaled a step back front the administration's previously confrontational rhetoric. Still, he didn't seem to fully grasp the situation - months later in a meeting with the Arthur Hartman, the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, he questioned him as to whether he (Hartman) actually believed the Soviets feared the United States or if that wasn't all just a stance to make the U.S. look bad.
It should be noted, however, that its second term the administration managed the dynamic changes ongoing in the Soviet Union fairly well, mostly by backing off and not giving the hardliners ammunition to oppose Gorbachev and his reforms (which failed, but at least had a positive result nonetheless).
[Reagan did profess to being disturbed by the film The Day After, even while dismissing it as 'anti-nuke propaganda']
The Soviets were freaked in general, but I think only Andropov actually knew they had lost the Cold War. Chernenko was too senile to realize it. Gorbachev said in his autobiography that he didn't know the facts until after he'd taken control.
In this context, it bears mentioning that Reagan was widely disliked and ridiculed by most of the American intelligentsia at the time. Reagan's policy towards the Soviets was viewed by many observers through a hostile lens to begin with i.e. based on the notion that Reagan was a simple-minded warmonger.
I would think that such a remark would have been seen as another simplistic statement from a senile man surrounded by war-mongering generals and advisors on the payroll of major defense corporations and thus scoffed at..while also raising fears of an international escalation that would have been seen as giving a leader such as Reagan - perceived as very trigger-happy - a pretext for a war. And fear of war was of course a major thing back then. It is often forgotten today, but obvious if you read articles, books, watch movies, listen to music written around that time, that many writers/artists back then thought the U.S. under Reagan was more likely to provoke a nuclear war than the Soviets.
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