I wonder how things might have been different in this debate had
we had a REAL enemy…
God, I miss Nikita Khrushchev!
During the Cold War, the ultimate conflict hung in the air,
every day, catastrophe seeming a real and immediate possibility. The sides were lined up. “Us” (self-defined by “us” as the
right-thinking, democratic and God-fearing people in the world) versus Them
(again defined by “us” as the evil toadies of atheistic Communism). How delicious!
Consider for a moment how the West benefitted from this
Manichean struggle. At no previous time
in American history and, proportionately, at no time since, has there been this
level of public investment from the Federal government. The interstate highway system began, enabling
the transformation of American society.
Suburban life for everyone was suddenly available (as long as we
subtract minorities, gays and lesbians, single women, immigrants, and the poor
from the definition of “everyone”). The
justification, however, for such a public investment, of course, was NOT to
facilitate the good life. That would be socialism. Instead, we NEEDED those highways to make
sure we could get weapons and troops to the front quickly…assuming the front
was, maybe, New Jersey.
And don’t forget about science!
Never before or since has there been such an emphasis on making sure
little Johnny and Susie could join the army of children learning how to combat
and overcome projects like Sputnik, which enabled the Commies to spy on us ever
day or so, even possibly attacking us from outer space! We knew very well that little Ivan and Natasha
were learning how to kill us in their schools.
We had to respond! Our way of
life depended on it! And we didn’t have
the luxury of debating theories of creation.
Hadn’t Khrushchev come to the United Nations, banging his shoe
on the lectern, threatening us by saying “We will bury you!”? Never mind he was referring to economic
superiority at the time. The imagery and
the language couldn’t have been scripted better. We needed an enemy. We had one.
And by our willingness to engage the Soviet bear, we allowed our
European friends to amass the means to invest in things like…universal health
care. We were taking care of their
worries for them and paying them some serious money to boot to remain passively
under our protection. All because of
that bad man from Moscow.
And now, who is our enemy?
Vladimir Putin? Oh, come
now! Sure, he presides over a corrupt economy
of cronyism, but this makes him no more culpable nor threatening than your
average multinational bank CEO. It’s
Russian, but it’s just business, not personal.
And to sufficiently scare us, it MUST be personal.
Hugo Chavez? PLEASE! You can’t have your enemy be the punch-line
of a joke. Fidel? He’s down to the last few puffs on his
Cohiba, with few weapons other than some excellent rum. Red China?
Now our biggest business partner.
Even Al-Qaeda, pernicious and evil it may be, hasn’t seemed to
mobilize us in the end. It’s not a
country and has no public leader to come rant at a World Economic Forum. It cannot maintain the sense of threat 24/7
like the Soviets did. A few poorly
recorded audiotapes and grainy videos will not serve the purpose.
No. We need a REAL enemy…
Someone who will force us to cut the crap and engage real reform.
Someone who will scare us into making educational achievement a
priority.
An enemy that will cause us to strengthen an economy to benefit
all of our citizens, to engage science meaningfully, and to educate our
children without paralyzing that reform with the dreaded charge of “socialism.”
We need Nikita Khrushchev and his shoe!
Apparently, it doesn’t cut it to encourage public policy reform
just because it’s necessary and smart.
