MAGA is Dead. Signed: America First.

[BonzaiDuck]

Here's an insightful article from The Atlantic.

A Confederacy Of Toddlers

Perhaps certain "generations" should study it carefully. I'm studying it carefully, but I've written my own analyses which sort of fit with this one, like facets of a gemstone or different perspectives going after the same thing.

After that, I recommend speeches and biography from and about Dwight David Eisenhower, and the 1946 movie release "The Best Years Of Our Lives" -- free with ads on YouTube. And my question is "What happened?"

 

[BoomerD]

Makes me want to paraphrase Jim Morrison in a Florida Doors concert when he said to Floridians: "EV-ery-thing is better in Cal-i-forn-ya!" I think it was better in the 20th century. Did I mention walking home from school during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when two, loud, smoke-spewing B-47s had taken off from March AFB flying low over the city? I felt safer during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a KID than I do now. I also thought I could become deaf from the noise above.

Paratus said something to which I can react: "Cold War was over." I believe I dreamed up this observation before the millennium, but it might have been later. The Cold War never ended. Oh, sure, Yeltsin was their President and he was a good ol' guy. We thought that after descending into the transitional trough, their economy would begin to blossom.

However. Look at the flash points of conflict after the collapse of the USSR. Afghanistan. Iran, Iraq, Syria. You can probably name a few more. But once Putin was back in the game, the Cold War posturing continued. We wanted to believe that the Cold War was over -- perhaps out of hubris, or just weary and wishful thinking. Remember that de Tocqueville prophesied the emerging rivalry between two great powers -- USA and Russia. We certainly had to declare victory. This -- even though the Russia of the 19th century might not have seemed such a "great power", but it commanded a large land mass. Yet, the notion of the Cold War is anchored in the ideological conflict between capitalism and communism.

The defense budget was supposed to decrease after the emergence of the Russian Commonwealth, but it never did. Clinton closed some air bases or turned them into reserve bases. The defense budget just kept growing.

During the Cuban Missle Crisis and Bay of Pigs fiasco, I was a kid living on a USAF base (Westover) in Mass that was a major SAC base. my dad was always on alert during those years...even though he was "just" the NCOIC over a sheet metal shop. The ChromeDome B-52s, fully loaded with nukes, would be lined up on/next to the runways, power carts connected and ready to go on a minute's notice. Things were...tense, to say the least.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

During the Cuban Missle Crisis and Bay of Pigs fiasco, I was a kid living on a USAF base (Westover) in Mass that was a major SAC base. my dad was always on alert during those years...even though he was "just" the NCOIC over a sheet metal shop. The ChromeDome B-52s, fully loaded with nukes, would be lined up on/next to the runways, power carts connected and ready to go on a minute's notice. Things were...tense, to say the least.

Maybe I already said this. Comparing the state of things in 1962 and 2025, I felt safer then than I do now. I felt much safer then. What I know now has nothing to do as directly with adversaries in other countries as it does with the the loose cannon rolling around in our own. People should be quaking in their boots!

 

[BoomerD]

Maybe I already said this. Comparing the state of things in 1962 and 2025, I felt safer then than I do now. I felt much safer then. What I know now has nothing to do as directly with adversaries in other countries as it does with the the loose cannon rolling around in our own. People should be quaking in their boots!

Well...people back then were building fallout shelters in their backyards, we had the "drop, duck, and roll" drills in grade schools...hiding under our desks and shit...yet, I suppose, in a way, yeah, it still felt safer somehow.

 

[cytg111]

It seems the divide is straight down the middle, think: Shapiro(maga) <> Tucker/Fuentes (america first).

This is GREAT. Sprinkle some Mamdani++ on this and... lets goooooo

 

[misuspita]

Well...people back then were building fallout shelters in their backyards, we had the "drop, duck, and roll" drills in grade schools...hiding under our desks and shit...yet, I suppose, in a way, yeah, it still felt safer somehow.

Because world wasn't digitally interconnected. Now you know about a fart 20.000 km away in the moment is happening and people are overwhelmed by the amount of stupid, dangerous, childish leaders the world has. Then, you'd get filtered info, curated. Maybe some snippets broke through, but most people knew only very broad things about geo politics and the minutiae of the moment

 

[hal2kilo]

Maybe I already said this. Comparing the state of things in 1962 and 2025, I felt safer then than I do now. I felt much safer then. What I know now has nothing to do as directly with adversaries in other countries as it does with the the loose cannon rolling around in our own. People should be quaking in their boots!

Well, my dad worked at "The Agency" as a document analyst. The USS Pueblo was captured. For the first time in my life, my dad was working all kinds of overtime. Hmm, junior detective thinks to himself, well at least I know one area, he was working in. Then, I remembered that a few years earlier, he flew to the Philadelphia shipyard, probably where the USS Pueblo was probably fitted out for its "mission".

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well...people back then were building fallout shelters in their backyards, we had the "drop, duck, and roll" drills in grade schools...hiding under our desks and shit...yet, I suppose, in a way, yeah, it still felt safer somehow.

It seems strange just looking at what I said. But I was about 15 years old, and I knew that the entire weight of the American defense establishment and a government of rational and serious men stood between me and vaporization. Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense had been CEO of General Motors, selected for some sound reasons. Kennedy's had been CEO of Ford Motor, with similar considerations in mind. The fact that Johnson with McNamara were being misled by Curtis LeMay and Ted Shackley's CIA station in Saigon just shows how someone who'd applied statistical methods to World War II saturation bombing could be caught up in a Grand Mistake, even if we owe the invention of seat-belts to McNamara.

I think Hegseth is probably just as dangerous as Trump. We will see how strong our traditions are in the American military as we seek to get through this chaos.

 

[hal2kilo]

It seems strange just looking at what I said. But I was about 15 years old, and I knew that the entire weight of the American defense establishment and a government of rational and serious men stood between me and vaporization. Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense had been CEO of General Motors, selected for some sound reasons. Kennedy's had been CEO of Ford Motor, with similar considerations in mind. The fact that Johnson with McNamara were being misled by Curtis LeMay and Ted Shackley's CIA station in Saigon just shows how someone who'd applied statistical methods to World War II saturation bombing could be caught up in a Grand Mistake, even if we owe the invention of seat-belts to McNamara.

I think Hegseth is probably just as dangerous as Trump. We will see how strong our traditions are in the American military as we seek to get through this chaos.

Yep. I bet he didn't know his registration number. I knew my draft number, but fortunately, tech school rated a 1-H. Then, within the year, the draft threat was over anyway.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Well...people back then were building fallout shelters in their backyards, we had the "drop, duck, and roll" drills in grade schools...hiding under our desks and shit...yet, I suppose, in a way, yeah, it still felt safer somehow.

Well now you get active shooter drills in grade school.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Maybe I already said this. Comparing the state of things in 1962 and 2025, I felt safer then than I do now. I felt much safer then. What I know now has nothing to do as directly with adversaries in other countries as it does with the the loose cannon rolling around in our own. People should be quaking in their boots!

You seen A House of Dynamite? That's a fun watch when you replace the president in the movie with the actual president in your head.