Reply #7: exactly like today's "war on terrorism" [View All]

[ithacan]

greatly exaggerated in many ways, all for domestic political purposes.

we can begin with the beginning, when the right, including the infamous Sen. Mccarthy, used an extremely exaggerated image of the soviet threat in order to destroy the social democrats and new dealers who the right and the republicans especially hated so much. Conservative Dems also used this to their advantage as well.

Within the labor unions too more conservative forces used the image of the soviet threat in order to liquidate the more leftist, progressive (and often communist party affiliated) union leaders and unions themselves.

the parallels between the cold war and the "war" on terrorism are very good, but there is one difference. The Soviet Union did exist, it did have a military and nukes. The threat was greatly exaggerated, and US allies like South Africa under apartheid, Guatemala, etc. were much much more repressive than post-Stalin Soviet Union.

The current "war" however, is much more of a fantasy, and it will take I think the right to constantly manufacture crises and terror "alerts" and if they are desperate even terrorist "attacks" à la Operation Northwoods to use this same strategy over the long term.

Anyway, the "standard" view of the Cold War is a myth.