The American (USians) Existential Crisis

[August1991]

Because of Kennedy, Reagan and guys in Vietnam, Americans won the Cold War in 1990 or so.

Make no mistake: America won the Cold War. (Gorbachev and XioPeng/Singapore, America won.) 

But what next?

In 1991, Bush Snr defended Kuwait. WTF?

====

I reckon that since Americans won the Cold War, they have no idea what to do next with their lives.

Edited August 30, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

Prior to Lincoln, you were an idea/invention.

Lincoln gave you a purpose.

With Wilson and the Fed, you began to understand the ideas of the guys who wrote your constitution.

Edited August 30, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

IME, Americans are loud and competitive. Both women and men.

====

Since 1990 or so, America has won. And Americans are largely clueless about what to do next.

Americans nowadays (Tucker Carlson to Rachel  Madson) are like the dog that catches the car.

Edited August 30, 2022 by August1991

[August1991]

Years ago, when talking to an American abroad, I realised that as a Canadian, I was someone with all the benefits of being American - without the burden of being American.

I lived like Americans - but unlike Americans, I didn't have to answer for everything their government did.

====

I fear that people like Matt Damon, Robert Redford, John Brennan, John Kerry - even Barack Obama - made a similar conclusion as I did.

And yet. They had no other country! 

Edited August 30, 2022 by August1991

[Yzermandius19]

4 hours ago, August1991 said:

Prior to Lincoln, you were an idea/invention.

Lincoln gave you a purpose.

With Wilson and the Fed, you began to understand the ideas of the guys who wrote your constitution.

Woodrow Wilson is hot trash

you'd be hard pressed to find another President who understood the Constitution less

also Nixon did far more to win the Cold War than Kennedy

and chasing after phantom dominoes in Vietnam didn't help America's cause

Edited August 30, 2022 by Yzermandius19

[August1991]

11 minutes ago, Yzermandius19 said:

Woodrow Wilson is hot trash

.....

also Nixon did far more to win the Cold War than Kennedy...

Give it a partisan break.

====

By 1910, Americans were struggling to understand their wealth despite a civil war a few decades before.

Against their nature, they were drawn in to the end of a European war.

 By the 1940s, Americans realised their significance. And by 1990, they had won.

As JFK said, "We choose to put a man on the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard."

America once had a purpose. Since 1990, it doesn't.

 

[Yzermandius19]

11 minutes ago, August1991 said:

Give it a partisan break.

====

By 1910, Americans were struggling to understand their wealth despite a civil war a few decades before.

Against their nature, they were drawn in to the end of a European war.

 By the 1940s, Americans realised their significance. And by 1990, they had won.

As JFK said, "We choose to put a man on the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard."

America once had a purpose. Since 1990, it doesn't.

Wilson and JFK are two of the most overrated POTUS's

Teddy Roosevelt > Woodrow Wilson

Richard Nixon > JFK

[Michael Hardner]

5 hours ago, Yzermandius19 said:

 

Richard Nixon > JFK

Agreed to this.

I also think that Augustus has nailed the problem with USA post 1990

[eyeball]

On 8/30/2022 at 1:42 AM, Yzermandius19 said:

...chasing after phantom dominoes in Vietnam didn't help America's cause

It wasn't just in Vietnam that America turned it's back on its own principles in pursuit of its values. That started years before in Iran.

On 8/30/2022 at 2:06 AM, August1991 said:

As JFK said, "We choose to put a man on the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard."

America once had a purpose. Since 1990, it doesn't.

They could have gotten behind and carried the ball on the environment and climate change but by the 90's it was already way to late to turn things around and America's purpose was feeding greed.

The dark side of the force isn't more powerful it's just easier.

[herbie]

My mother in law grew up in Scotland next to an American submarine base. I once asked her opinion of Americans.

Well meaning boors...

[August1991]

9 hours ago, herbie said:

My mother in law grew up in Scotland next to an American submarine base. I once asked her opinion of Americans.

Well meaning boors...

I lived in the UK in the mid-1980s. I recall my landlord's comment about Americans: "We were starving and this American stubbed his cigarette in the meat bone."

Fortunately, I was not American. Unfortunately, the Brits figured my accent.

Since then, I am in entire agreement with Ernest Hemingway about the British.

 

[August1991]

19 hours ago, eyeball said:

It wasn't just in Vietnam that America turned it's back on its own principles in pursuit of its values. That started years before in Iran.

....

Eyeball, I have a different view of the Vietnam war. To me, the fight in Vietnam was one battle among many that America eventually won. 

To me, America was fighting the Soviet Union and Communism. That's what JFK wanted. That's what Reagan wanted.

By 1990, America won.

====

Since 1990, you guys are like the dog that catches the car. 

[Yzermandius19]

8 minutes ago, August1991 said:

Eyeball, I have a different view of the Vietnam war. To me, the fight in Vietnam was one battle among many that America eventually won. 

To me, America was fighting the Soviet Union and Communism. That's what JFK wanted. That's what Reagan wanted.

By 1990, America won.

====

Since 1990, you guys are like the dog that catches the car. 

Vietnam was a counterproductive way to fight communism and delayed the victory

chasing after dominoes for the fail

pitting the commies against each other is what won the Cold War

domino theory backfired spectacularly

Edited September 1, 2022 by Yzermandius19

[August1991]

28 minutes ago, Yzermandius19 said:

Vietnam was a counterproductive way to fight communism and delayed the victory

...

True, America could have done this better but make no mistake - you won.

(I recently watched a documentary about Dieppe. To me, it's like Vietnam.)

=====

The far greater question is what you guys have done since 1991 - when the Wall fell and people were free to travel.

I fear that Bush (both) and Clinton made a mess of the 1990s. I lived through those times close by. There was good will but the so-called experts really screwed it up.

I'm reminded of Versailles in 1919 and Wilson. Another screw-up. That foolish woman wrote a book about it yet Versailles decided nothing. In part because of Wilson, Potsdam was the significant meeting - not Versailles. 

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

12 minutes ago, August1991 said:

 

I fear that Bush (both) and Clinton made a mess of the 1990s. I lived through those times close by. There was good will but the so-called experts really screwed it up.

 

 

Hmmm ?  How so ?

[August1991]

Michael,

Hindsight is 20/20. But in August 1998, oil fell to $10/barrel.

And remember that guy in front of the tank in 1989?

=====

People like Churchill, Trudeau Snr, Deng Xiao Peng, Reagan have a broader view.

They don't simply see the future - they know how to get us there.  

[Michael Hardner]

10 minutes ago, August1991 said:

Michael,

Hindsight is 20/20. But in August 1998, oil fell to $10/barrel.

And remember that guy in front of the tank in 1989?

=====

People like Churchill, Trudeau Snr, Deng Xiao Peng, Reagan have a broader view.

They don't simply see the future - they know how to get us there.  

I still don't follow what they "screwed up" ?  Do you mean that they failed to bring Russia into the fold ?

I guess that's what you mean.  Ok, on the surface I agree but what happened there ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations#:~:text=On Nov.,be part of western Europe.

 

Quote

On Nov. 4, 2021 George Robertson, a former UK Labour defence secretary who led NATO between 1999 and 2003, told The Guardian that Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’...They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said. The account agrees with what Putin said in an interview with David Frost in a BBC interview just before Putin was inaugurated as President of Russia for the first time in 2000. He told Frost it was hard for him to visualize NATO as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilized world.”^[172]

Some discussion here as to why this didn't happen but at least a few of the commenters interviewed seem to think it was a US failing.

[sharkman]

2 hours ago, August1991 said:

True, America could have done this better but make no mistake - you won.

(I recently watched a documentary about Dieppe. To me, it's like Vietnam.)

=====

The far greater question is what you guys have done since 1991 - when the Wall fell and people were free to travel.

I fear that Bush (both) and Clinton made a mess of the 1990s. I lived through those times close by. There was good will but the so-called experts really screwed it up.

… 

 

The nineties was not a train wreck or a car without a driver.  Kuwait happened and Bush was summoned to clean it up.

JFK and Reagan had one thing in common, they were outsiders to the establishment.  Both were shot by crazy people, isn’t that interesting.   There has only been one other outsider in modern history.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, sharkman said:

 There has only been one other outsider in modern history.

I don't disagree ... entirely.  But Obama was also an extreme example of someone popping in relatively unknown... and winning to much surprise.  People forget that he was in a lot of ways less qualified than Trump, and an upstart in certain obvious ways, perhaps forboding that American voters were sick of the same-old...

[eyeball]

4 hours ago, August1991 said:

Eyeball, I have a different view of the Vietnam war. To me, the fight in Vietnam was one battle among many that America eventually won. 

To me, America was fighting the Soviet Union and Communism. That's what JFK wanted. That's what Reagan wanted.

By 1990, America won.

====

Since 1990, you guys are like the dog that catches the car. 

And now most of you guys believe Communists along with their Nazi kissing cousins are governing America.

[sharkman]

49 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

I don't disagree ... entirely.  But Obama was also an extreme example of someone popping in relatively unknown... and winning to much surprise.  People forget that he was in a lot of ways less qualified than Trump, and an upstart in certain obvious ways, perhaps forboding that American voters were sick of the same-old...

I can’t disagree with your assessment on Obama.  But I would suggest he had the blessing of the establishment.

[Michael Hardner]

19 minutes ago, sharkman said:

I can’t disagree with your assessment on Obama.  But I would suggest he had the blessing of the establishment.

Yes of course.  The flip side was that the populists really really hated him, which also makes sense given his lack of qualification and so on.

[August1991]

On 9/1/2022 at 12:18 PM, eyeball said:

And now most of you guys believe Communists along with their Nazi kissing cousins are governing America.

No, I don't.

====

I'm generally pro-American: Clinton, Bush both, Obama, Trump, Biden. Whatever.

You Americans have a remarkable way to solve your problems.

[August1991]

On 8/31/2022 at 12:26 PM, eyeball said:

....

They could have gotten behind and carried the ball on the environment and climate change but by the 90's it was already way to late to turn things around and America's purpose was feeding greed.

.....

Watermelons. Green on the outside but red on the inside.

=====

Like Mulroney, I happen to care about the environment. But the Left has hijacked this problem.

 

[Aristides]

On 9/1/2022 at 5:11 AM, August1991 said:

Eyeball, I have a different view of the Vietnam war. To me, the fight in Vietnam was one battle among many that America eventually won. 

To me, America was fighting the Soviet Union and Communism. That's what JFK wanted. That's what Reagan wanted.

By 1990, America won.

====

Since 1990, you guys are like the dog that catches the car. 

At the cost of 1.4 million Vietnamese lives.