"The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with a very stable, conservative, immobile government" Robert F Byrnes and his associates proclaimed in 1983"
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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Fools for Communism |
| 2004-05-10 |
| EFL In 1983 the Indiana University historian Robert F. Byrnes collected essays from 35 experts on the Soviet Union -- the cream of American academia -- in a book titled After Brezhnev. Their conclusion: Any U.S. thought of winning the Cold War was a pipe dream. "The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with a very stable, conservative, immobile government," Byrnes said in an interview, summing up the book. "We don’t see any collapse or weakening of the Soviet system." Barely six years later, the Soviet empire began falling apart. By 1991 it had vanished from the face of the earth. Did Professor Byrnes call a press conference to offer an apology for the collective stupidity of his colleagues, or for his part in recording it? Did he edit a new work titled Gosh, We Didn’t Know Our Ass From Our Elbow? Hardly. Being part of the American chattering class means never having to say you’re sorry. Journalism, academia, policy wonkery: They all maintain well-oiled Orwellian memory holes, into which errors vanish without a trace. Stern pronouncements are hurled down like thunderbolts from Zeus, and, like Zeus, their authors are totally unaccountable to mere human beings. Time’s Strobe Talbott decreed in 1982 that it was "wishful thinking to predict that international Communism some day will either self-destruct or so exhaust itself in internecine conflict that other nations will no longer be threatened." A Wall Street analyst who misjudged a stock so badly would find himself living under a bridge, if not sharing a cell with Martha Stewart. But Talbott instead became Bill Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, where he could apply his perspicacious geopolitical perceptual powers to Osama bin Laden. ............... |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #5 "The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with a very stable, conservative, immobile government" Robert F Byrnes and his associates proclaimed in 1983" |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-10 12:02:32 PM |
| #4 Sometimes you can stare them down Zenster. |
| Posted by: Fury one 2004-05-10 7:23:57 AM |
| #3 "It is tragic in the extreme that America's captains of industry did not step forward during the Vietnam era and make clear for once and all the right and proper reasons why free market capitalism is the only functional economic system this world has ever seen." What are you talking about, ZucchiniStick? If anyone came forward to stand up for free market capitalism and democracy it was the United States of America, backed by her "captains of industry," by fighting the good fight for a democratic Vietnam during the "Vietnam era." We lost almost 60,000 men over 12 years trying to keep Vietnam free from Communism. And while we may have "lost" the war, we stopped Communism from spreading to most of South East Asia and the Pacific, places like India and Thailand. Where do you get these scrambled ideas, Zabaglione for brains? Betcha you're a keeper at cocktail parties with your patter! |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-10 2:44:14 AM |
| #2 It is tragic in the extreme that America's captains of industry did not step forward during the Vietnam era and make clear for once and all the right and proper reasons why free market capitalism is the only functional economic system this world has ever seen. That the United States then went on to prove how Yankee wage slaves were the only ones who could safely return an astronaut from a lunar landing was a critical high water mark for our nation's economic and political ascendancy. It is difficult to imagine another single program that has spun off so many vital commercial and military technology applications. The mind-death philosophical masturbation that has spewn from our academic institutions is not just an enduring embarassment, it has directly contributed to the stunning degree of prevailing ignorance that continues to cripple America's technological might. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-10 1:43:55 AM |
| #1 Pardon my irreverence: replace Journalism, academia, policy wonkery: with: Journalism, academia, policy wankery: |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-05-10 1:17:59 AM |