Soccer Mom: "Thank GOD Reagan ended the Cold War!"

[chookie]

I saw this interview of a woman waiting in line for pay tribute to the late President Reagan yesterday on CBS News Tonight.

She brought her two children, and was embracing them in a beatific glow as she spoke to the cameras. "Thank God that President Reagan ended the Cold War! Because of him, my children will never grow up under the terror that I was, that we could be attacked by the Soviet Union at any time. Ronald Reagan made America a safer place."

Um, lady, gee, its nice that your kiddies missed out on all the "duck and cover" stuff we boomers grew up with, but didn't you and they find the actual collapse of the WTC towers even MORE upsetting than the tension of the Cold War? Sept 11 was a "morning in America", in case she's forgotten it already.

Bizarre.

I don't agree that we are all that much safer now.

Aother little detail this happy soccer mom has airbrushed out of her consciousness -- Tim Osman, who we know better these days as Osama bin Laden, was one of the brave muhajaddin fighters that Ronnie provided with training and weapons to fight our good old fashioned Cold War proxy war against the Russkis in Afghanistan. Policies out of the Reagan administration sowed the seeds of highly organized terror. Ooops.

[Cocoa]

1. we'd be safer if we let the USSR keep Afghanistan

but there's no way that soccer mom -- I saw her too -- would understand blowback.

[chookie]

9. I think she would

I think "blowback" is very easy to understand -- "eye for an eye" kind of thing, right?

If "blowback" wasn't such an obvious consequence of wacko policies, then it wouldn't be necessary for the GOP to brainwash people that it doesn't exist. The people who airbrushed Sept 11 out of this woman's brain are the Flying Monkeys who scream about "Blame America First!" when anyone talks facts and logic.

Just wondering -- has anyone gotten a statement from Osama bin Laden regarding the death of Ronald Reagan? I bet he feels very bad about the passing of his patron. Ronnie was an incredible aid to the rise of Islamic insurgencies worldwide. It's only been since the coming of George W that they have gotten such support -- i.e. a boom in recruitment and not having to work so hard to get people to hate America, because Bush is doing all the heavy lifting for them. Seriously. At the very least, he has mixed feelings.

[Warpy]

10. She was a Ronnie

part of a generation who came to the age of awareness during Reagan's reign and have no reference point for how the country was before he screwed up the tax code to rape us all. Her high school history books did nothing to enlighten her, dedicated as they are to the same feel-good jingoism Reagan exemplified. She's ignorant and a damned fool.

Pity her.

[chookie]

24. More irony

Ronnie came to power during the "disgrace" of American hostages in Iran.

On the day of his inauguration, the Iranians were SO SCARED of Mighty Ronnie that they put the hostages on the first plane out of Teheran. Right?

Yeah, that's the story, all right. American standin' tall. Not givin' in, like Jimmy Carter.

Trouble is -- Ronnie's guys were doing back room deals with the Iranians, offering them the stuff they needed to fight Saddam, IF they went along with the fiction of handing the hostages because they were FINALLY intimidated by a Real Man Standin' Tall, like Reagan. Yeah, the Iranians needed that stuff pretty bad, being that we had built up Saddam so powerfully. The war even went to their advantage after that point.

It's all fiction. Pie in the Sky. Bullshit.

Now, Khaddafi is said to FINALLY be terrified of Mighty George. He was so scared of George he gave up terrorism. The fact that Osama bin Laden targeted Khaddafi for assassination, as he had Saddam, because these two guys were secularists -- that had nothing to do with it.

Sad thing -- people are so scared and insecure these days that they may *want* to believe rosy lies, and not confront the brutal facts. I know Bush is counting on it....

[cheezus]

2. now we have enemies for who MAD isn't a deterrant

and they and the regimes that support them are a carryover from the US/USSR puppet wars

[molly]

3. There used to be a saying

she wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful. Like all good little stepford pug wives. It's just less painful to be dull and stupid.

[seabeyond]

4. i was more comfortable with soviet threat

was glad the wall came down for germany, but really during that time i remember thinking that at least with both sides in this place, it kept both sides frozen, where neither could do a stupid. balanced world out for me. i wasnt fearful during that time. anyone else. i was teens and twenties then

[Cocoa]

5. the Reagan years were my teen years

and I was never frightened for a second. I thought "The Day After" was hilarious.

And I don't remember a single person my age that ever expressed fear of the Russians.

[Kikosexy2]

6. Too bad...

they didn't ask her if she felt "safer" with the Chimp at the helm. Repubes....uggghhh!!!

[Wapsie B]

7. I never knew his CIA name was Tim Osman.

Another one of the many things hidden from the public.

[chookie]

16. A brave Saudi volunteer in Afghanistan fighting atheist Soviets

"The other man, dressed in Docker's clothing, was not a native Afghan any more than Olberg was. He was a 27-year-old Saudi. Tim Osman (Ossman) has recently become better known as Osama Bin Ladin. "Tim Osman" was the name assigned to him by the CIA for his tour of the
U.S. and U.S. military bases, in search of political support and armaments. "

http://www.orlingrabbe.com/binladin_timosman.htm

[skypilot]

8. I remember feeling during the '80s...

...that there was a 50/50 chance of a nuclear war during my lifetime but I didn't feel it very urgently or intensely. I feel a lot more certain that something really horrific---in addtion to 9/11--will happen in my lifetime. I don't know why these people think they and their children are safer. The low level anxiety that I felt about the Cold War during the '80s had pretty much disappeared by the '90s only to be replaced by a dreadful certainty of horrors to come once the neocons started in with their shit.

[chookie]

12. Smart leaders during the Cold War

When Kennedy and Krushchev were at the brink, both men simultaneously had a thunderclap of insight into what was happening -- that they were being PUSHED into devastating war by politic forces surrounding them. Both men were being pressured to show the other side that they were "not soft" by starting a war. Both were courageous in pulling back.

Ah, back in the days when world leaders had working brains and authentic morality.

Today we have a religiously insane chimp at the helm, goaded by unbelieveably cynical war profiteers, who have yielded to the pressure to "prove" America is "not soft."

The NeoCon war wackiness has been around for decades. They never forgave Truman for not nuking it out with China and Russia (which they say made us look soft). They never forgave Kennedy for not nuking Castro. Ah, now their Vision of America is manifest. They don't QUITE have their most ardent wish -- that of a disastrous World War -- but they are still working on it.

[skypilot]

14. Sometimes I think...

...that far right conservatives and terrorists have something else in common in addition to their radical beliefs. I think that they just like to see shit blow up. That seems to be their answer to everything.

[edbermac]

11. Methinks Mom has taken one too many soccer balls to the head...

Thank God Ronnie single-handedly defeated the Evil Empire...

just like Harry Truman smashed the Nazis and the Japs in WW2.

And it only took him about 4 months!

FDR?? What did HE ever do?

[jonnyo]

13. And, what was Gorbichov in all of that Cold War Ending? Chopped liver?

There is a person that is just plain ignorant. It was widely reported, even during that time, that our own CIA had come to the conclusion that Soviet Communism was an economic failure and cave in on its own. The only end Reagan accelerated was our own buy setting such a glowing precedent in running up massive Federal borrowing and using murder and oppression as an acceptable tool for advancing U.S. interests under the banner of "democracy".

Today, our own U.S. autonomy is at the mercy of Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship, and CHINA -- A COMMUNIST COUNTRY!

Thank you to all idiot soccer moms for destroying in a few decades what took 200 years to build all so they could "feel good about themselves".

[chookie]

19. Excellent point

You have made an excellent point -- let's see, our industry has moved to China. We've bloody well built them up, and indebted ourselves to them. But the "entrpreneurial spirit" that sends jobs overseas is innately patriotic and pro-American, and hasn't made us vulnerable? Yeah yeah. And let's all try to forget that little incident that occured back in Feb 2001, when the Chinese captured the crown jewel of American espionage -- the spy plane. Yeah, they "gave it back" after His Chimperial Highness apologized -- after dismantling it and studying it. But, nothing to see here, move on.

Gorbie spoke in Gainesville a few years ago. When asked about Reagan and the Cold War, he said that he was upset that Americans dismissed his own contributions to the end of the Cold War, and spoke about how annoying Reagan was, talking down to Gorbie, and lecturing him about eh fucking obvious....

[Snellius]

15. Then why does everything I own say "Made in China" on the back?

If Reagan ended Communism, who are all those people making all this stuff? Last I looked Communist China is not only still going strong, it's an essential cheap labor market to keep the profits of Western capitalism from going over the verge of collapse. It might even be argued that, without communism, capitalism would have gone bankrupt years ago.

Yes, Communist China -- with whom, unlike the Soviet Union, we actually waged war, not once, but including Vietnam, twice -- is no longer a threat. But I don't see Richard Nixon being given a state funeral for ending that enemy of the Cold War.

[SlingBlade]

18. To the Winner goes the Spoils

I’ve often asked that very same question to the freeping unabashed supporters of “Free Trade”

It seems as though as each day passes we our Country becomes more and more like that which we were taught to hate, Communism and Authoritarian styles of Government,

Makes you wonder, Who really won the cold war, Seems as though this is a perfect example of defeat from the inside as well as from without, Only now days they call it Corporatism.

[BOHICA06]

17. In the 80's we made the Cold War

cost the Soviets something!

Between America's Credit Card, the Xerox, and the Fax Machine ... we finally began to fight the Cold War.

[Snellius]

26. Actually military spending as % GDP was not so huge under RR

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size-graph.php?meas=GDP

Certainly less than most of Cold War and never enough to bankrupt the Soviet Union back then.

[Ganja Ninja]

20. The USSR collapsed on it's own.

It wasn't Reagan's spending spree that brought them down. It was Afghanistan, Chernobyl, the earthquake in Armenia and 70 years of war and communist mismanagement. In short, they did it to themselves.

[VOX]

23. Exactly right. This "Reagan won the Cold War" crap is pure fiction...

It's as if two boxers were to climb into a ring, and one suddenly dies of a massive stroke, before a glove is laid on him. The handlers of the standing boxer all shout, "Wow, did you see the beating our boy gave the other guy?"

Clumsy analogy, but you see where I'm going.

[Vickers]

21. No, no, no, she actually said ""Thank GOD Reagan ended my cold sores!"

She used to be plumb ate up with them things.

This is actually one of the miracles he performed that makes folks want to canonize him.

[qanda]

22. Thanks to Reagan, I grew up with the terror of drugs and crime

In my neighborhood. Under Reagan, our inner city neighborhood went from half decent to downright dangerous. Reagan was an evil man.

[ibegurpard]

25. stupid lemming

I thank God that my parents encouraged their children to be independent thinkers...ironically, we ended up NOT following their conservative religious and political way of thinking. Even so, my parents are NOT the typical knee-jerk bushbots.