Once upon the time, on flat earth saw there existed two superpowers, both sporting nuclear weapons, both having paranoid elements in their governments, and both suffering from the idea that a first, overwhelming strike against their foe on the other side of the planet, would once and for all create peace here (of course, solely under the winner’s benevolent, wise, and far more moral leadership than the enemy could provide). Both, in their minds, were right, and their major foe was a horrible enemy, an idea continually impressed upon unsuspecting children and adults until just the mention of the enemy would cause crowds to boo and hiss. Today’s “Iran” has the same effect on naive Americans today. Fear is such a great way to manipulate your own people, and make policy that rewards the military, certain corporations, and revolting pols who would rather “war, war, than jaw, jaw.”
During the Cold War, we had in the west, massive military budgets, secret overthrows of Greece, Iran, various South American countries, and more. The list of countries whose governments we overthrew, destroyed, or attacked is unbelievably long.
In the east, the USSR played major havoc of its own, in the Koreas, Viet Nam, Turkey, Cuba, and more. It was little more than a gigantic game of nuclear chess/checkers/poker and liars’ bluff, with the safety of the world as the game board, and civilization as the most likely victim.
The USA and USSR had something else in common. Never would their leaders admit failure, or mistakes, or errors in judgment, while today’s historians have uncovered a ever growing number of mind-boggling failures and misunderstandings.
As part of this “We Are Correct and Perfect” mentality, we let the CIA invade Cuba and others. And we suffered greatly in Viet Nam, even as we won the Tet Offensive.
As part of this “We are Correct and Perfect” mentality, USSR had a massive failure in Egypt, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and lastly, in a futile, deadly and magnificent failure, they repeated the British mistake of invading Afghanistan. It was as deadly for the Soviets as it was for the Brits a generation earlier (and for the US a generation after the failed Soviet invasion).
But, in one news controlling effort, the Soviets managed to do something that fully reflected their Potemkin mentality — Leonid Brezhnev. They made him appear alive, well, sane, stable, and full of leadership qualities.
From 1964 through 1982, Brezhnev held the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), second only to Uncle Joe, ie Josef Stalin. (Who was eventually replaced by Kruzchev, and then by Leonid himself).
Even before1977, the General Secretary was suffering from a variety of severe mental and physical problems. His health and mental capacity only grew worse year by year. Still, the Politburo was afraid of the chaos that his removal would entail, as differing factions (some moderate, some conservative, and others ready to attack the decadent west ASAP) such as those led by Gromyko, Suslov, Andropov, and Ustinov, could never gather enough individual support to rid the aging Politburo and the Central Committee of Brezhnev.
Instead, they propped him up just because it seems to be the least risky step for their country, just as the US kept investing in Star Wars, bigger bombs, and ever more deadly technology.
Still, secrets popped out. Brezhnev fishing. Brezhnev playing sports. Brezhnev giving rousing 4 hour speeches to the loving population, Brezhnev doing this, that, and the other. Yet, among the general population, it was an open secret that he was senile, incompetent, and incapable of dealing with reality, unable to even speak coherently, babbling nonsence, getting into screaming rages, and having little or no attention span.
When I studied in the USSR in 1976, one of the funniest stories was how Special Forces divers would find his specially marked fishing pole, while one aide propped him up in a boat. The dead fish was affixed to his line, and another aide would help in reel in a huge, but clearly dead fish. The show and tell was as hollow as the bread lines and clothing availability as the USSR economy stagnated and actually fell. The military budget continued to grow, encompassing 15% of the estimated GNP at one point. The upcoming economic collapse was missed by almost all US intel agencies, except State’s tiny, strange, and really creative and perceptive Intel Agency (closed by GWB after 9/11) The only person to argue against the Missile Gap, the Tank Gap, the FIghter and Bomber Gaps (each which led to more military investment by the US) was a weird Polish born dude named Zbignew. But his voice was readily drowned out by the conventional wisdumb of the NSA、CIA, DIA, and others. Even he did not realize how weak, infirm, and mentally deranged Brezhnev was in reality.
Today’s bizarre video performance by Donald Trump was reminiscent of what I saw during my studies in the USSR. Hollow, ridiculous, fake, and scary. He is today as incompetent as Leonid was in 1976. And his aides are protecting him as strongly as Brezhnev’s did 40 years ago.
Reportedly, a group of our Legislators, including a high ranking GOP senator received a recent briefing of how sick and incapable Trump is. Yet, despite a growing number of pols and news outlets who get it, most of the House and Senate keep helping the White House Staff keep propping Trump up, in ways as shortsighted and foolish as the USSR propping up their own dotard, Leonid.
I only hope we can survive as well as the USSR did. They transferred power away from Brezhnev, prevented world wars, as Baltics left, Poland escaped, and the Berlin Wall fell. True, the USSR died, but it did it without killing off the planet. I don’t think Trump and his cronies will show the same restraint.