The great victory and the great defeat, both at the same time.
The former was the United States victory in WWII, ....and the latter was the failure to recognize it as the victory of our values, and of our culture.
1. To this day there remains the unnoticed, unimagined crime of Communist penetration of the Roosevelt administration, which produced an undue influence on American policy, not only during the war....but afterwards.
There was the infamous "betrayal at Yalta" that handed Eastern Europe to the Soviets.
Perhaps a greater betrayal was the besmirching of America's shining moment: at the end of WWII when our own leaders allowed the lesson of our great moral and noble achievement to sink from memory to be replaced by postmodern doubt and multicultural division.
West, "American Betrayal," p. 48.
2. The war was over.
On the one hand, we had had enough war, and we saw it far easier to pretend some soft "moral equivalence" than to do anything heroic, or to be confrontational. And, so, this became the orthodoxy of twentieth-century elites, finding a home in editorials, political platforms, social activism and pop culture. Anything but a showdown.
We became cynical and conveniently amoral: East, West, Communism, capitalism, all the same....no different. That's postmodernism.
a. In the West, we've indoctrinated a generation or two with no pride in this great nation, and, therefore, no burning desire to protect it.
3. But not so for the Soviet Union.
While we were willing to blur the distinctions between the sides, Soviet foreign policy was run by the Cheka, and its spin-off, the KGB. In the one-party state, they were able to act in ways that Western intelligence could never act.
Andrew and Mitrokhin, "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB," p. 551.
4. Fast forward to 'The Malta Summit,' a meeting between U.S.President George H. W. Bush and U.S.S.R. leader Mikhail Gorbachev. This is how they, or we, 'ended' the Cold War. Gorbachev: "Some are beginning to speak about 'the Bush Doctrine' that is replacing the 'Brezhnev Doctrine ( Soviet use of force to keep its satellites in line),' implying that if one is out, so should the other.
About Gorbachev: " He bristled at Bush's repeated reference to "Western values" (a phrase found throughout the U.S. briefing materials for Malta) and argued that the U.S. approach of "exporting Western values'" would cause "ideological confrontations [to] flare up again" in "propaganda battles" with "no point." Bush and Gorbachev at Malta
a. The "Western values" that Gorbachev could not countenance were the rule of law, freedom of speech, the sovereignty of the dozen or so that the USSR had usurped...far better for Gorbachev were rule by threat and thugocracy.
b. What an opportunity to show backbone, to defend what is so easily defended!!!!
5. Bush 41: "What are Western values? They are, if you will, free speech, openness, lively debates. In the economic realm- stimulus for progress, a free market. These values are not something new, or of the moment....They unite the West. We welcome changes on [the USSR and Eastern Europe] but by no means set them against Western values."
a. At that moment, A.N. Yakovlev, Gorbachev's Marxist-Leninist theorist, served Bush the soft-ball question: "Why democracy, openness, [free] market 'Western values'?'
"41" could have referenced the Declaration of Independence, or the Magna Carta....
Instead: "It was not always that way. You personally created a start for these changes directed toward democracy and openness. Today it is really much clearer than it was, say, 20 years ago that we share these values with you."
Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe ... - Google Books
WHAT????? "....we share these values with you."
b. And so ended an opportunity for the truth. We're just like the Soviet Union...we grant legitimacy to the criminal Communist enterprise.
West, "American Betrayal," chapter two.
We became cynical and conveniently amoral: East, West, Communism, capitalism, all the same....no different.
That's postmodernism.
That's what we teach our children in university.
A lie.
The result is that American youth believe things such as a genocide against Native Indians, for example, and any other slander that the Left imagines.
So...philosophical question: which the worse crime, the Soviet infiltration and manipulation of Roosevelt...
...or Western ideological collaboration?
The former was the United States victory in WWII, ....and the latter was the failure to recognize it as the victory of our values, and of our culture.
1. To this day there remains the unnoticed, unimagined crime of Communist penetration of the Roosevelt administration, which produced an undue influence on American policy, not only during the war....but afterwards.
There was the infamous "betrayal at Yalta" that handed Eastern Europe to the Soviets.
Perhaps a greater betrayal was the besmirching of America's shining moment: at the end of WWII when our own leaders allowed the lesson of our great moral and noble achievement to sink from memory to be replaced by postmodern doubt and multicultural division.
West, "American Betrayal," p. 48.
2. The war was over.
On the one hand, we had had enough war, and we saw it far easier to pretend some soft "moral equivalence" than to do anything heroic, or to be confrontational. And, so, this became the orthodoxy of twentieth-century elites, finding a home in editorials, political platforms, social activism and pop culture. Anything but a showdown.
We became cynical and conveniently amoral: East, West, Communism, capitalism, all the same....no different. That's postmodernism.
a. In the West, we've indoctrinated a generation or two with no pride in this great nation, and, therefore, no burning desire to protect it.
3. But not so for the Soviet Union.
While we were willing to blur the distinctions between the sides, Soviet foreign policy was run by the Cheka, and its spin-off, the KGB. In the one-party state, they were able to act in ways that Western intelligence could never act.
Andrew and Mitrokhin, "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB," p. 551.
4. Fast forward to 'The Malta Summit,' a meeting between U.S.President George H. W. Bush and U.S.S.R. leader Mikhail Gorbachev. This is how they, or we, 'ended' the Cold War. Gorbachev: "Some are beginning to speak about 'the Bush Doctrine' that is replacing the 'Brezhnev Doctrine ( Soviet use of force to keep its satellites in line),' implying that if one is out, so should the other.
About Gorbachev: " He bristled at Bush's repeated reference to "Western values" (a phrase found throughout the U.S. briefing materials for Malta) and argued that the U.S. approach of "exporting Western values'" would cause "ideological confrontations [to] flare up again" in "propaganda battles" with "no point." Bush and Gorbachev at Malta
a. The "Western values" that Gorbachev could not countenance were the rule of law, freedom of speech, the sovereignty of the dozen or so that the USSR had usurped...far better for Gorbachev were rule by threat and thugocracy.
b. What an opportunity to show backbone, to defend what is so easily defended!!!!
5. Bush 41: "What are Western values? They are, if you will, free speech, openness, lively debates. In the economic realm- stimulus for progress, a free market. These values are not something new, or of the moment....They unite the West. We welcome changes on [the USSR and Eastern Europe] but by no means set them against Western values."
a. At that moment, A.N. Yakovlev, Gorbachev's Marxist-Leninist theorist, served Bush the soft-ball question: "Why democracy, openness, [free] market 'Western values'?'
"41" could have referenced the Declaration of Independence, or the Magna Carta....
Instead: "It was not always that way. You personally created a start for these changes directed toward democracy and openness. Today it is really much clearer than it was, say, 20 years ago that we share these values with you."
Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe ... - Google Books
WHAT????? "....we share these values with you."
b. And so ended an opportunity for the truth. We're just like the Soviet Union...we grant legitimacy to the criminal Communist enterprise.
West, "American Betrayal," chapter two.
We became cynical and conveniently amoral: East, West, Communism, capitalism, all the same....no different.
That's postmodernism.
That's what we teach our children in university.
A lie.
The result is that American youth believe things such as a genocide against Native Indians, for example, and any other slander that the Left imagines.
So...philosophical question: which the worse crime, the Soviet infiltration and manipulation of Roosevelt...
...or Western ideological collaboration?
thats right up there with that thread of hers that Reagan was a great president.
