MyDD :: Slip Sliding Away

Slip Sliding Away

by Tito, Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 12:06:38 PM EST

Over and over again we have heard the phrase "Reagan won the cold war." The popular image of the Russkies simply folding and giving up in response to the brilliance and whiteness of Saint Ron's cowboy hat has been indelibly branded into our national consciousness. To back up their claims, conservatives will point out how Reagan both engaged the Russians and massively outspent them. Ignored, of course, is the inherent corruption that existed within the Soviet system. There was plenty of money for rockets, missiles, parades, and chemically enhanced athletes (sound familiar?) but very little for milk and butter.

Doesn't seem fair that the Gipper gets the credit for the inevitable tottering and collapse of an unwieldy and corrupt system, but if the conservatives want to give him the credit, they will not be denied.

I wonder, though...who gets the credit for Russia's latest "achievement"?

"Political rights and civil liberties have become so restricted in Russia that the country has been downgraded to "Not Free," Freedom House announced in a major survey of global freedom released today."

Yeah, that's right. Our ally in the "War on Terra" has now been classified as "NOT FREE" by the main organization that does these things. I wonder if Shrubby called Pooty-poot on the red phone to congratulate him.

There's more:

"Russia's step backwards into the Not Free category is the culmination of a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to concentrate political authority, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system. These moves mark a dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia, made more worrisome by President Putin's recent heavy-handed meddling in political developments in neighboring countries such as Ukraine."

The map is the Freedom Map from one year ago. Green represents "free" countries, yellow is "partly free", and purple is "not free." This years map will be decidedly more purple.

So if Reagan won the cold war, can we blame Russia's backslide into near totalitarianism on Shrubby?

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Help (none / 0)

Anyone know how I get the darn image to be seen?

by Tito on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 12:08:42 PM EST

Re: Help (none / 0)

Make it an absolute src tag (ie. http://www.yourdomain.com//files/user/378/map.gif)

by Shawn Borton on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 01:14:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Neocon Delusions (none / 0)

Doesn't seem fair that the Gipper gets the credit for the inevitable tottering and collapse of an unwieldy and corrupt system, but if the conservatives want to give him the credit, they will not be denied.

We do need to contest the conservative take on the end of the Cold War and for a very good reason.

It's part of the tissue of delusion and disinformation that neocons have built up over the last 35 years and that's largely responsible for the current mess in Iraq. There are two major misreadings of history at work here.
1.)That the Vietnam War was a good idea, was going well, and would have been won except for the antiwar movement and the biased liberal news media.
2.)That Ronald Reagan won the Cold War.

These flawed premises provide the basis for the rest of necon thinking, just as the premise that "Dreyfus Was Guilty" provided the basis for thinking on the French Right for nearly 50 years. Or, for that matter, the premise that "Germany Won the First World War" was the foundation for the German Right during the Weimar period. These are what Mussolini called "living lies", myths with political legs. And as such, they have to be fought for more than academic scholarly reasons.

"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past."

Wm. Faulkner

by LaughingHistorian on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 02:13:34 PM EST

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