Sowing The Seeds of Destruction
The results of an undefended rear flank
A note to my readers,
Today’s post came from an unpublished draft I started in 2023. Starting a new position, travel and a minor, yet annoying, head cold have zapped my creative writing time this past week. However, with less then 90 days to elections in the Untitled States and all out socialism being one of our primary choices, perhaps this post is timely after all.
Strangely enough, the United States' blueprint for destruction was sown by Ronald Reagan.
When did the Russians (and subsequent other worldly bad actors) start the process of actively aiding America's current and seemingly unstoppable destruction? November 9, 1989! That was the day the Berlin Wall came down. Eight years of Reagan calling out the "evil empire" effected the psyche of the former CCCP. I would like to think the first seeds of doubt sown into the former USSR fabric occurred at the 1980 Winter Olympics games. It was there, dubbed the “Miracle on Ice,” that a rag-tag bunch of American college students, coached by the great Herb Brooks, defeated the Russian Hockey juggernaut at Lake Placid. For the Russians, the fact that an amateur team of 20-year-old men that train together for one year and logged only 61 practice games defeated the best trained professional Russian hockey team in the 80’s Olympics, simply could not be ignored. But for now, I will stick with my aforementioned date of 1989.
Not only calling out evil, but Ronald Reagan also set out to crush the Russian economy by drawing them into a defense spending contest that their GDP simply could not support nor ever sustain. One of the most effective Reagan battlefronts that brought down the former Soviet Union without firing a shot was to create division between the people and their government. Radio free Europe blasted western music and freedom ideals over the Iron Curtain. American students, who forayed into Russian, peddled Levi jeans along with covert copies of The Gulag Archipelago and The Wealth of Nations. Russia fell because the people no longer trusted that their government told the truth. Pravda, along with the KGB, could not keep a lid on the reality of bread lines and the knowledge that other countries were enjoying the fruits of freedom and prosperity.
The fall of the USSR in 1991 should have been a warning to our great Nation that freedom is paramount while at the same time illuminating that governments are only as strong as the freedom they preserve or the tip of the sword they are willing to press upon their own people.
I remember Reagan saying, despite the strict warnings from his security advisers not to do so, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I remember Gorbachev's Glasnost policies of slowing pulling back the iron curtain of USSR wizardry and sheading a glimmer of openness upon the Russian people. I remember the same media that said Reagan's tone and demeaner in addressing the Soviet leadership so harshly would usher in WWIII; than praising the communist Gorbachev for promoting perestroika as if that notion sprung full grown out of his head! I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall and flood of East Germans rushing over the DMZ to be embraced by their fellow Western countrymen for the first time in over 4 decades. Finally, I remember thinking, what would life be like without our arch "evil" enemy Russia to kick around?
In 1991, we wondered what our new post-USSR world would look like? Would we pound our swords into plowshares? Would we finally be able to follow the advice of Timothy Leary and "tune in and drop out?' Could we achieve the nirvana sought by the 60's generation and make love, not war? Well, the answer of what we ought to have done in 1991 was before us if we would have cared to look at history.
Great Britain found themselves in the same situation 46 years prior. When the Germans released the hounds of hell on Europe and the British Isles, the English went to their kennel to install a bulldog and protector as Prime Minister. Winston Churchill led Great Britain through her darkest hours by maintaining a stiff upper lip and never missing an opportunity to call evil, evil. Yet no sooner than the Allies defeated Germany and with the ink still wet on the Potsdam Agreement the British people put their bulldog back in his doghouse and elected Clament Attlee as Prime Minister. While attempting to contain Joseph Stalin during the buildup of the cold War, Attlee diverted most of Britain economic resources inward. Using Keynesian style employment for all models, Attlee is responsible for turning Great Britain into a welfare state by adopting the National Insurance Act, the National Assistant Act and the National Health Service. Attlee's leadership did more to strip the greatness from Great Britain than any number of German bombs.
America should have studied history because, apparently, the best way to weaken a superpower is in fact to apply ample amounts of socialism. Afterall, who learned that lesson better than the former Soviet Union? But instead of remaining a stalwart to freedom and the Constitution, America decided it was time to party like it was 1999! Like Great Britain, we put away our bulldog and elected our own "Attlee." Well, it was more like an Attlee couple as we got two Clinton's for the incredibly inflated price of one. When we should have been maintaining our freedoms and protecting our country from foreign enemies, America elected a saxophone playing - intern fiddling president. And, that self-aggrandizing couple were the leaders of our post-USSR orgy of relaxed standards as well as ushering in the era of double standards! The Clintons ignored the lessons learned from the Soviet Union's collapse and from Great Britain post WWII swing leftward and set about inflicting as many welfare state policies on the American people as possible!
Abraham Lincoln said it best in his Lyceum Address delivered in1838, titled, The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions:
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction is our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide."
So in the 1990's, while the US was transitioning into the digital age and Dot.com fever spread across the land, the former Soviet leadership studied their failures. Communists learned the harsh lesson that some form of capitalism is required to create exploitable wealth. Communists China opened its markets and adopted a command-control economy. The former USSR transitioned to an oligarchy of financial kingpins of which Vladimir Putin became their Godfather. What these communist states learned is that there is far more power in exploiting citizens economic means of survival then their actual needs for survival. Starving a citizen to control them only works if they have something to live for. Playing puppet master over the economic means for sustaining life carries far more power because it maintains the illusion that individuals control their destiny. Just look at how our own country's little state dictators have leveraged Covid-19 to that "Simon says" mentality!
Our enemies knew that we could never be conquered from the outside. I am not sure there is a army on earth that could take Texas, much less the whole of the US. Our enemies knew that applying social welfare to a state weekend it from within. Our enemies knew that a collapsed dollar through massive debt and welfare spending limited our military readiness. Our enemies knew that dividing a nation into those who trust, and distrust governments sows the seeds of discontent. Finally, our enemies know that if Americans no longer trusted their country's legislative, executive, judicial and voting systems, they would separate into civil disharmony.
So, when did the Great Nation of the United States of America begin its current decline? November 10th, 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall! Ronald Reagan laid out the blueprint for collapsing an enemy country without firing a shot. Our communist enemies are merely falling that script to a tee, or should I say spoon feeding socialist sugar into our discontented tea!