Time to break out some classic Rawk.
"A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade."
I have Polish and Czech ancestry, among others. I hate imperialism and I probably do have a special personal dislike for Russian chauvinism. But a conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not even secondarily a test of the USA's ability to control events. It is frankly shocking that this should be anything less than obvious. If the increasing frequency of rebellion and street protest worldwide tells us anything, it's that there is really no such thing as anyone being strong enough to control events.
I suspect that the cult of Reagan, in addition to serving its partisan ends, also allows certain people to believe that the Cold War was won primarily with action, self-belief and a superior power that comes as the natural reward for being the good guy; while papering over the fact that the US won the Cold War in spite of being helpless (yes that's right) to intervene against the repressions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia earlier in the conflict, and then of course the overreach in Vietnam. But I digress as per useh.
"A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade."
I have Polish and Czech ancestry, among others. I hate imperialism and I probably do have a special personal dislike for Russian chauvinism. But a conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not even secondarily a test of the USA's ability to control events. It is frankly shocking that this should be anything less than obvious. If the increasing frequency of rebellion and street protest worldwide tells us anything, it's that there is really no such thing as anyone being strong enough to control events.
I suspect that the cult of Reagan, in addition to serving its partisan ends, also allows certain people to believe that the Cold War was won primarily with action, self-belief and a superior power that comes as the natural reward for being the good guy; while papering over the fact that the US won the Cold War in spite of being helpless (yes that's right) to intervene against the repressions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia earlier in the conflict, and then of course the overreach in Vietnam. But I digress as per useh.
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