The New Think – America and Russia Are the Same

NavyTrump is suggesting that there is little difference in values between America and Russia and those in his chorus have suddenly taken up his chant.  Who do you think Ronald Reagan was referring to when he said: “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

Ronald Reagan had no interest in going it alone. He was not leaving Europe and the allies in the Far East to their own devices. He never put a price on free people by asking if they were paying enough money. How on earth did the Republican fall so low.

Some of today’s trumpeteers blowing the horn for Russia would certainly have to wonder what Reagan meant when he said: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr.Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'”

Now I would expect those newfound lovers of Putin to say: “why is he complaining about that wall. We have walls in this country. What about that wall in Washington, D.C. with those 60,000 names on it? ” Pretty soon there’ll be really confused when we get the Trump Wall on the Mexican border. I don’t know how they’ll figure out the difference between the wall that separated Berlin and the one separating America from Mexico.   

Let me quote President Obama at his news conference last week: “There was a survey some of you saw where ­­ not this just one poll, but pretty credible source, 37 percent of Republican voters approve of Putin. Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave. And how did that happen? ” 

It happened because a guy without values lied his way to the presidency. It happened because the Trump era is the post-truth era where many can say there is no difference between America and Russia. There is no difference between an individual athlete using banned substances and a nation having a national policy developed by the KGB to use banned substances on over a thousand individual athletes and having its top officials conspire to cover it up. It happens because some cannot see there is a difference in the willful bombing of civilians in a clear terrorist campaign against the civilian population in Aleppo and the accidental killings of civilians in Mosul where the first mandate is to spare as many civilians as possible. They fail to see any difference between a country that people flock to and one that they run away from. No difference between a country that gives 2 billion dollars to the World Food Fund and one that gives 48 million.

Let me quote what Obama said about the Russians at the same press conference: “They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate. But they can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values.” He’s talking to those Americans who accept the false Trump position of Russia being like America.

The president said: “It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices,” because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority.”

The president who said those last words quoted was Ronald Reagan.

6 Comments

  1. The Russian system won’t work for the USA. It’s doesn’t even work for Russia, beyond a handful. Being a free and open society sustains us, not only culturally but economically. Authoritarians are able to perpetuate their system of rule in societies with oil economies like Russia and the Gulf states (for now). But the USA relies on its incredible ability to innovate, its capacity to translate big ideas into products and services, jobs and prosperity. This rare and wonderful thing is our edge, it’s the world’s edge, but it’s fragile.

    Last week, Trump told the high tech executives he gathered at Trump Tower, “I am here to help you folks.” Oh joy! The Keebler elves of Silicon Valley, the “folks” who brought our economy back from the brink, a near disaster, brought on by the moral lapses, of a highly privileged sector of our society; these rescuers of our todays and the hope for tomorrows of prosperity, have a new benefactor, President-elect Donald J. Trump.

    Trump is going to help these folks, he thinks, by subordinating them to himself, along with those of his acquaintance who prevailed in the outmoded 20th century economy, with whom he has surrounded himself. People who made their way to to the top of their static economic sectors through mental faculties, highly developed, yet far, far down on the lower regions of the brain stem. And many dare to claim they are devotees of Ayn Rand.

    Our flirtation with authoritarianism may well kill the golden goose, this highly complex and responsive engine of prosperity, we take for granted at our peril. Getting it back may not be so simple as reversing incursions into our civil liberties, like a stop and frisk policy, might be. I don’t claim to understand it, but I know there is a lot more to its good working order than tax rates and regulatory reform, and that our freedom is a cornerstone of our prosperity.

  2. ugh!
    http://russia-insider.com/en/all-news-thats-fit-print-former-bbc-boss-who-covered-decades-child-abuse-now-ceo-nyt/ri18135

    New York Times ocks PizzaGate as Impossible, But Its CEO Covered up Jimmy Savile Scandal
    The former BBC director who tried to keep decades of child abuse under wraps is now CEO of the New York Times — an outspoken defender of elites implicated in PizzaGate
    Matthew Allen Sun, Dec 11, 2016

    Friends in high places
    This is not an article attempting to support or debunk the claims made by the popular “PizzaGate” theory which, despite censorship on platforms such as Reddit and YouTube, continues to gain traction. Although yes, we plan on “going there”, just not right now.
    Instead, we would simply like to remind our dear readers that selecting “all the news that’s fit to print” is by no means an exercise in objectivity.
    The New York Times has now run numerous stories in an attempt to debunk PizzaGate and shame anyone who thinks such a theory could even be possible.
    The claims made by PizzaGate are serious and deserve close scrutiny. But is the New York Times really the correct outlet for an impartial investigation into an elite pedo ring?
    Report Ad
    While the Times has reached out to those implicated in the theory for their comments and retorts — standard operating procedure for any competent journalist — it’s important to remember that the CEO of the fabled newspaper is none other than Mark Thompson, the former BBC director who “lied” during the Jimmy Savile investigation, and is at least partly to blame for allowing a monster like Savile to operate within the BBC for so long “undetected”.
    15 years ago, anyone who alleged that the BBC was covering up widespread child abuse would have been called a nutter.
    Not so nutty today, is it?
    Let’s just come out and say it: If Mark Thompson was willing to help cover up disgusting crimes that were committed

    • People are really shocked at the so-called ‘pizza-gate affair. Obvious farcical ‘fake’ news.

      A few days ago today here in Ireland they were discussing ‘pizzagate’ on the radio and a caller wondered how could anyone believe such a preposterous tale.

      Another caller then noted that in Massachusetts not too long ago, people made their careers on allegedly believing and promoting such stories, lives were destroyed and people went to prison. Some are still forbidden to discuss the case by penalty of future imprisonment.

      The caller then reminded us of Fells Acres.

      Remember the elephant stabbed to death in the ‘Magic Room’ by Tookie? The tunnels under the school where children were murdered by the paedophile ring, which included teachers, cops and politicians? The rest of the sordid (and false) details brought out at the trials?

      Later MA Attorney General Martha Coakley along with thousands of other citizens sure did, and she made a career out of the elephant in the magic room.

  3. Matt:
    Contributions to the World Food Fund: Russia contributes 20% more than France, about twice as much as Italy and about five times as much as China.
    Among about 100 listed contributors (countries, plus European Union)for 2015, Russia ranks 17th.
    http://www.wfp.org/funding/year/2015
    So, lets be fair to Russia.
    In terms of per capita income, Russia ranks about 70th out of 200 countries as I recall.
    Merry Christmas, “with charity towards all, and malice towards none.”

  4. Matt: Reagan once called the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire”. When he visited Moscow in 1988, he was asked if he still thought it was an evil empire, he said no, that was another time. Some folks are stuck in another time, stuck in a time warp. Russia has changed; it has progressed. The Berlin Wall fell; the Iron Curtain fell; the Soviet Empire dissolved. Is Russia perfect, no! Is it a dictatorship? Yes! Does the US deal with dictatorships around the world? Yes! Can we forge better relations with Russia? Yes! Can we reduce tensions with Russia, and maybe in doing so, benefit all countries in Eastern Europe? Yes.
    Can Russia be an invaluable ally in fighting radical Islam. Yes?
    SYRIA: You know, ISIS and Al-Nustra and American-backed rebels staged and waged a bloody civil war in Syria. (I’ve read the CIA helped instigate it; I’ve read Hillary’s promise of a no-fly zone fueled the rebels’ uprising, emboldened them). I’ve read reports of American-backed rebels in Aleppo sending suicide bombers, children with bomb vests, against Syrian troops. You don’t read about the horrors perpetrated by the rebels, civilians killed by the rebels, atrocities of the rebels. Why not? There are horrors on both sides. A Dartmouth professor, Kinzer, has stated that the West’s reporting is terribly slanted. The Western Press says Assad and the Russians are targeting playgrounds. Is that so? Or was it a stray bomb, an inadvertent shelling? We’re not sure! Chemical weapons? Who used them? I’ve read exhaustive studies exculpating Assad’s government and blaming the rebels, and vice-versa. The Western press portrays the rebels who swap arms with ISIS as good guys. The Western Press and our UN Ambassador rightfully condemn the killing of civilians but pretends the rebels’ bombs, shells and bullets don’t kill civilians; we feign surprise that some soldiers killed civilians (we don’t know the facts or circumstances) but we all forget My Lai! In Vietnam, children did not wear suicide vests packed with bombs. Before we instigate the next war, let’s remember that innocents will be slaughtered. War is hell!
    One thing is certain: If the rebels win, there will be wholesale massacres of Shia, Christians and Yzidis in Syria.
    2. Russia is a relatively poor country, its per capita income is modest at $25,000 per year; of course it contributes less to the World Food Fund compared to the wealthiest nation on earth the US.
    Russia’s oil and gas keeps much of Europe warm during the winters.
    3. At least you recognize Trump’s goal of rebuilding our military is a worthy goal and similar to Reagan’s. Arguably, Democrats like Carter and Obama have diminished our military strength and made it inferior.
    As for those who would put America in a position of moral inferiority, I’d place those who devalue human life, who advocate ceaseless intervention in other nations’ affairs, who escalate tensions, who endorse endless wars and plot endlessly for “regime change” worldwide near the top of the list.

  5. I dont listen to Obama anymore, he betrayed the American people with promises of unity and transparency now we have the most strained political and race relations since the 60s and the NSA was monitoring all Americans. Obama doesnt walk the talk of President. Good riddance. Russia is a strain, but China is a cancer. I meet Europeans all the time who brag about their “health care” and “cradle to grave” welfare state all the while the Americans have been keeping them free from Communism and the supposed Russian threat. Europe should pay more for our “protection” if they helped us in Iraq this whole problem with Isis never would of happened. America first and if that means making amends with Russia so be it.