{"id":1216,"date":"2015-12-07T12:38:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T12:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/12\/a-blast-from-the-cold-war-past.html"},"modified":"2015-12-07T12:38:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T12:38:00","slug":"a-blast-from-the-cold-war-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/12\/a-blast-from-the-cold-war-past.html","title":{"rendered":"A blast from the Cold War past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You know society sucks when you hear people start reminiscing about the good old days in the Cold War. \u00a0Though, in fairness, when I hear people do that \u2013 and I have in recent years \u2013 they usually mean the 80s. \u00a0Now 1980 is when I first became interested in politics. \u00a0In fact, I initially thought of going into politics (behind the scenes) in college, but decided I didn\u2019t have the dorsal fins for that living. \u00a0Still, I became interested because of the rhetoric I heard about Ronald Reagan. <\/p>\n

You see, it\u2019s not just today. \u00a0Heated rhetoric, demagoguery. \u00a0These things didn\u2019t pop up because of the Internet or Facebook. \u00a0They\u2019ve always been there. \u00a0And back then, while official political commentators may have couched their language,in restrained terminology, there was an undercurrent among more hyped up pundit sources that Reagan was, like all Conservatives, a wacked out warmonger who was going to nuke the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hollywood\u2019s appraisal of the outcome of Reagan\u2019s policies<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We were already skating on precariously thin ice by then. \u00a0After all, by Carter\u2019s time, we had settled in on detente. And that manifested itself as two powers able to destroy humanity forever facing off until someday they inevitably destroyed humanity. \u00a0Reagan was going to put an end to it. \u00a0But the Left, of course, saw this as he was going to destroy the world. \u00a0So while the 50s and 60s believed that a nuclear war could<\/i> happen at any moment, in the early days of Reagan, the talking heads told us it would <\/i>happen at any moment. Better go get laid now. \u00a0You won\u2019t have another chance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often wondered if that was a reason that my generation was so impatient. \u00a0At a formative point in our lives (middle school, early high school), people who were supposed to be credible were spinning scenarios in which our doom was inevitable, and soon. <\/p>\n

Anyway, much to the disappointment of Reagan\u2019s detractors, by 1985, two things hadn\u2019t happened. \u00a0The economy had not collapsed. \u00a0In fact, it was rebounding better than it had in over a decade. \u00a0And we were still here. \u00a0He hadn\u2019t caused the nuclear annihilation of humanity. <\/p>\n

Now, that didn\u2019t stop the detractors. \u00a0And today, the liberal media and academia simply dismiss Reagan\u2019s role in things, or simply ban mentioning him in connection to the events in any way. \u00a0Like it or not, however, things were getting better and we were beginning to believe we might actually come through this long, dark Cold War unscathed. \u00a0As a jock student at OSU responded to a professor who lamented our lack of outrage in the later 80s: we\u2019re happy. \u00a0Things are going well. <\/p>\n

So when we reminisce about those old Cold War days, I can\u2019t help but notice most mean when we knew we were going to win, and there wasn\u2019t going to be an end to humanity. \u00a0And like it or not, even for us non-Republicans, we had to admit it seemed to have something to do with Reagan.<\/p>\n

Anyway, all of this is to set up what we did last night. \u00a0As I wrote here many years ago<\/a>, it\u2019s a ritual for me to lift a cold one, and watch the old 80s comedy Spies Like Us<\/i>. \u00a0Much of it is mocking Reagan and Reagan\u2019s conservatism to be sure. \u00a0It was SNL alumni Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd and director John Landis after all. \u00a0The whole thing is a giant mockery of Reagan\u2019s fabled Star Wars strategy, which some assume was simply a bluff he used against the USSR. \u00a0Detractors, of course, know better. And Spies Like Us<\/i> is a look into just how the Left saw Reagan, his ideas, and those who supported him. \u00a0Comedy though it is, the heavy handed stereotypes of military ready to nuke the world for the American way seemed over the top even then.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Another movie we watch every year was the sequel to 1984\u2019s romantic adventure Romancing the Stone<\/i>. \u00a0The sequel, The Jewel of the Nile<\/i>, wouldn\u2019t be able to be made today. \u00a0Not that Spies would either. \u00a0In our dark days of censorship and oppression supported by the very institutions that once fought the same, there is much that was that could never be today. <\/p>\n

The Jewel of the Nile<\/i> is what is known as an inferior sequel. \u00a0Though Romancing was charged with being a Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/i> knock off, it was still an enjoyable, and well received, film. \u00a0Fresh, with good performances, a fun story line, a nice mix of comedy and action, and three breakout performances with the main stars,<\/p>\n

Jewel, however, was half of it a train wreck. \u00a0Not all of it. \u00a0In fact, there are theories that part of the movie was written and filmed when something went horribly wrong with the lead actors; the rest of the movie ended up being a patchwork thrown together. \u00a0There are good parts that hearken to the best of the first film, and other parts that are almost excruciating \u2013 bad humor, cheesy, lame, shallow. \u00a0Almost as if the actors couldn\u2019t\u2019 wait to get it over with. \u00a0We watch it, for the same reason we watch Spies: because I first saw it after that first quarter of my Freshman year of college, and the good memories that accompany that remembrance. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s interesting in thinking about both of these. \u00a0They both take place in areas of the world that were, for the most part, unknown in those days. \u00a0The Cold War focused most Americans on the USSR, and its European satellites. \u00a0These pictures take place in Pakistan, and in a vague, fictional region of the Nile. \u00a0So fictionalized in fact, that it would not be able to be seriously made today apart from a Seth Rogen romp without being laughed off the screen.<\/p>\n

Yet it showed just how much of the world was still unknown back then, or at least not cared about. \u00a080s though they were, it\u2019s amazing how little of the world people knew. \u00a0Our sights were to the East, to the Iron Curtain\u2019s western borders. \u00a0We knew Vietnam, and were aware of Korea, due to the two wars of the same names. \u00a0But apart from being aware of Africa and the Middle East in general, I\u2019d wager most audiences then wouldn\u2019t have had a view of Pakistan or the Nile regions of Africa to bounce off of the movies\u2019 narratives. <\/p>\n

And the films no doubt benefit from that fact. \u00a0Not that either was particularly well received in the day. \u00a0But can you imagine them made today? \u00a0And yet, it makes me wonder as well. \u00a0How much of the world we think we know will be revealed in the future? \u00a0What are those parts that we aren\u2019t paying attention to now that will dominate the world of our children and their children? \u00a0For instance, many are keenly
\naware of the plight of Christians in the Middle East in light of our Iraqi invasion. \u00a0But how many are aware of the plight in other areas of the world? \u00a0Is there plight in other areas of the world? \u00a0Heck, what other parts of the world are we still ignorant of? \u00a0It isn\u2019t as if we hadn\u2019t heard of Pakistan or the Nile Valley. \u00a0But we knew so little, a movie could say what it wanted, or even make up an entire fictional region, in those crazy, hazy mid 80s, and most audiences simply would have moved on and not noticed or give it a second thought. Try it in Pakistan or the Nile Valley today, in light of Isis and Islamic Terror, and see how it would be received. \u00a0Just a thought after one of our yearly rituals comes and goes. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know society sucks when you hear people start reminiscing about the good old days in the Cold War. \u00a0Though, in fairness, when I hear people do that \u2013 and I have in recent years \u2013 they usually mean the 80s. \u00a0Now 1980 is when I first became interested in politics. \u00a0In fact, I initially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA blast from the Cold War past<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You know society sucks when you hear people start reminiscing about the good old days in the Cold War.  Though, in fairness, when I hear people do\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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