As soon as the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, the U.S. treated that nation as an enemy. Although the Soviet Union was an ally with the U.S. in opposing Nazi Germany, when Japan was ready to surrender in 1945, the U.S. unnecessarily dropped two atomic bombs on Japan — partly in order to intimidate the Soviet Union. For many decades from 1945 until the USSR collapsed in 1991, the U.S. kept treating that nation as an enemy with whom we were locked in a Cold War that was ready at any moment to destroy the entire world with nuclear weapons. The U.S. provoked each step in the nuclear arms race, and the USSR matched each step.
After 1991 we had the opportunity to significantly reduce military spending and use MANY TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS for useful purposes. We could have ended poverty, provided good housing and high quality health care for everybody, cleaned up our environment, and so forth. But the military-industrial complex did not want to sacrifice the goose that kept laying golden eggs, so we fought wars in Central Europe, Central America, Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other places that the mainstream news media don’t even bother to inform the American people about.
Now politicians find they can get elected by provoking fear of Muslims, fear of China, and fear of Russia, and the military-industrial complex — which lavishes enormous amounts of money to fund federal candidates’ electoral campaigns — is cheer-leading new possible wars with China and Russia and building horrendously expensive and dangerous new nuclear weapons.
Is Russia Really Our Enemy?
In April 2021, Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, spoke, and his speech was recorded. You can watch it at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaGvFHBcGqY
Learn more about the dangers of weapons and nuclear power in space through the organization’s website, http://www.space4peace.org and its blog, http://space4peace.blogspot.com
To make peace, we must appreciate the humanity of the persons in other countries!
After 9-11-2001 the U.S.’s war-hawks tried hard to whip up fears of Muslims so we would support George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in launching utterly stupid, futile, cruel wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in a mindless and dangerous “Global War on Terror.” This was VERY CONVENIENT as a replacement for the decades-long Cold War because the Soviet Union was collapsing at that time and the U.S.’s war hawks and the military-industrial complex needed a scary new enemy so they could make the taxpayers pay for new generations of military weapons.
All of us who lived through the Cold War remember how we were taught to mindlessly fear and hate Russians. We were not supposed to see them as human beings. So it was a stroke of genius for a very funny comedy movie — “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” to be produced during the Cold War. It was brilliant at humanizing sailors in the Russian Navy.
Nowadays the peace movement — and other progressive movements — could make more progress if we were to use humor to expose the ridiculous fear-mongering that is exploited in order to fool people into thinking that nuclear weapons are reasonable and to support wars. Decades ago the very funny film titled, “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” satirized the fears and humanized Russian submarine crew members. The film’s end humanizes them by showing that they can be helpful and save a child who was in danger.
Here is a link to watch it online for FREE with no obligation to do anything else: https://freemoviesfull.com/watch-movie/watch-the-russians-are-coming-the-russians-are-coming-62606.2850943
