Some of the biggest reasons the US won the (not-so) Cold War are:
1) We were rather not-fucked after WWII, compared to everyone else, which leads to
2) our almost-constantly-active military industrial complex having a HUGE advantage over any would-be nemeses, which Eisenhower (or at least his advisors) realized and took full advantage of, not to mention our
3) amazingly resource-rich homeland, ESPECIALLY compared to Mother Russia (they wouldn’t even have had enough food to feed themselves without taking over the Ukraine and Poland - the breadbasket of Europe, and coincidentally (?) where the PIE culture settled).

I mean, as Ron pointed out, Russian Communism was doomed by itself, not by us. Their biggest mistake by far was alienating Mao and (later) other East Asian countries - can you imagine how fucked the neocons would’ve been if the USSR had had the CCP’s factories behind it? Most probably the neocons wouldn’t have been able to keep up their charade for so long, and the emergent fascism that we see in this regime would’ve surfaced long ago, causing at least serious economic repression and loss of international holdings, eventually spiraling into the defeat of Western unity (e.g., NATO) and the loss of our Western European allies’ sovereignty. Basically, Mao’s pompousness and refusal to place nice with the other kids led to the defeat (or at least set back of) Stalinism, while, as Ron suggested, it appears the CCP is going to succeed us as the dominant force in the world economy.

All your neocons are belong to Deng*.

* - For those ignorant of modern Chinese history, Deng Xiaoping was Mao’s economic adviser, and the (de facto) ruler of China after Mao. He’s the reason that cheap labor and economic partnerships with China exist today, as well as the mastermind of more liberal economic policies (e.g., special commercial districts like Hong Kong and Shanghai, which are allowed to be slightly autonomous and thus can be quicker on their feet to seduce foreign investors than the more faithfully-communist provinces) - basically, no Deng = no Wal Mart –> Americans getting off their asses –> Americans not complacently destroying the world whilst under the spell of consumerism

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Ronald Reagan is no more responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union than was Jimmy Carter.

I read an article a few years ago (I can no longer remember where), that credited Eisenhower with the collapse. It was Eisenhower who instituted the massive military spending program that was continued by every president since.

The Soviet Union collapsed on Reagan’s watch, but that doesn’t make Reagan the great conqueror any more than the quarterback who scores the winning goal in the last seconds of the game is the reason a football team wins. If it weren’t for the hard work of the entire team, that one goal at the end would have been meaningless.

That also doesn’t change the fact that this was an extremely dangerous game to play that almost led to nuclear disaster on several occasions. It also accomplished the near-bankruptcy of the United States.

Further, let’s not forget that Ronald Reagan is the reason the world still has an overabundance of nukes, and that many of Russia’s nukes are still pointed at us. Mikhail Gorbachev proposed total nuclear disarmament at the Reykjavík summit. Maybe that wouldn’t have led to total disarmament, but it probably would have led to much lower levels than we have today. We’ll never know. Reagan flat-out rejected the proposal without any consideration at all. He should have at least pursued the negotiation to see where it would have led. If any country on Earth ever detonates a nuke as an act of war, you can thank Saint Reagan for making that possible.

1. I can buy that! Similar to Poetry.com, it sounds.

2. The Soviet Union was going bankrupt without Reagan. They had fracking wooden fake bombers for years to “fool” satellite photos of their air fields. The only thing Reagan did was maybe speed it up a little bit (and I’m not convinced about that). End result would have been the same. It was not Reagan that ended communism, it was Gorbachev and his supporters. I’m not saying the USA should have done no military spending, but we overdid it again and again and again. So the defense contractors got rich, the nation got in MASSIVE debt, and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be footing the bill. But we can thank COMMUNIST CHINA for loaning us money in the meantime. Deep Thought: Does that mean communism actually did win?

3. Apparently you do not follow any internet memes. It’s not supposed to be “devastating mockery,” it’s just fun with blog language, where misspellings and lousy grammar are very frequent.

Praise to the Lulz!

2. Much as I loath Reagan, he was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. His military spending program spending program had to be matched by the Soviets, putting both countries in a race to bankruptcy, which the weaker Soviet economy reached first.

3. Why do so many people on the internet think it a devastating form of mockery to replace any letter in an objectional word with a ‘b’ (’ebil’ here but more commonly ‘Jeebus’)? It isn’t.

The pledge is ABSOLUTELY a propoganda tool. It only became massively popular (and godded) when we were in a planetary struggle for the One True Way Of Capitalism Against The Ebil Communists! Somehow, though, I don’t think the pledge was in any way responsible for Soviet communism going bankrupt…

…I knew it. I find it amusing that in my English class we used to read stuff like Animal Farm (Junior High) and Ayn Rand (10th grade) that’d tell us about the dangers of conformity, and yet we were being subtly brainwashed by “I pledge allegiance, to my evil overlords, of the United States of Capitalism, for the Republic(ans) for which it stands, one nation, under God (And Jesus!), indivisible, with Liberty (for none) and Justice (for some.)

Funny I never spotted the irony of it until now. :p

I like my “edited” version. It’s more honest. *snerk*

Somehow, though, I don’t think the pledge was in any way responsible for Soviet communism going bankrupt…

No. Ronald Reagan did that all by hisself!

If anything kids should have to memorize and recite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not some jingoistic propaganda from the United States of Jesus.

I like this idea.

I think maybe on some level, the Pledge of Allegiance is a propaganda tool. It was madatory for us to recite it every morning in school, drilled into us since Kindergarten. It just seemed like it was there to program us into being good little patriots, and encourage unquestioning, blind loyalty that we’re the “best” country in the world.

But then, I am a fierce individualist, and probably too paranoid for my own good.

The colors on the American flag may not run, but bumperstickers do…*snicker*

However, when it comes to modernizations, I think the government should only become more separated from religion, not less. Therefore, I avidly support changing the pledge back, although I think a pledge of allegiance to anything is retarded. If anything kids should have to memorize and recite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not some jingoistic propaganda from the United States of Jesus.

I guess I need to be escorted back to my padded cell.

Oh, btw, helium sounds like a poor implementation of Digg (except, I’m guessing, with “original” content instead of links?). Well, honestly, Digg is a poor implementation of Digg, but I digress. The “voting for best content” sounds all democratic and positive, but honestly, you get just about the same content we’ve been getting on the teevee for all these years: tabloid. Now, of course, Digg and Helium have topics, so presumably if you are a tech junkie, you won’t run into the latest information on Britney Spears. But, as our fearless blogger has pointed out, the topic is only as good as those voting in it.

Well, I can’t really bash it because it’s not like there’s an excellent alternative (except blogs like BoF ), but it is kind of sad that those are the “best of breed” articles on the subject at hand there. I’m hoping it’s just an unpopular subject and the rest of the site doesn’t suffer quite as much from every! sentence! ending! in! an! exclamation! point!