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The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia was so strong mid-century that a certain kind of self promotion propelled someone into CIA decision making. Agents cou
by ttyprintk 2y ago
The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia was so strong mid-century that a certain kind of self promotion propelled someone into CIA decision making. Agents could dose LSD to random workers, in public. Agents could take LSD on the job. The same government which tolerated that also needed to emphasize the importance of diplomacy to avoid a nuclear first strike. Even though Russian radar specialists avoided war by remaining calm, it’s true that global revolution was a widespread priority and tropical leaders who wanted favors tended not to be calm.
The objectives and contradictions are very different now. The first 14 James Bond movies were trying to avert a madman obsessed with triggering a nuclear first strike. The next 13 were not. The cool Russians who avoided hysteria devoted a generation of resources on real bad decisions made in Afghanistan. The only constant is how you’re treated if you get in the way of profit.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago>The way I see it, anti-Communist paranoia Ironically, the anti-communist paranoia is also what brought a lot of rights and perks to workers in the US and Europe. The ruling elite had to concede some demands to the working class to prevent the read scare from spreading. Now that threat is gone, we're seeing a claw-back (defanging unions, etc).
- ttyprintk 2y agoI like the labor lens for seeing turning points in the Cold War. The oil crisis delegitimized socialist and communist plans. So I’m not sure those plans mattered in union gains. Polish Solidarity is a great example.
- dylan604 2y agoread scare? I know some books are scary, but quite the typo from red scare. just in case someone wasn't familiar with the term.
- cess11 2y agoParanoia? Not at all, the global left at the time was actually into things like racial and gender equality and so on, it was not just a paranoid delusion among elites in the USA. So called communist states actually built people's armies, actually brought people out of poverty and taught them to read and write and study, actually sent soldiers to colonies to fight the colonisers. The anti-left propaganda obviously did not want to put these things into focus, since it had clearly inspired rather successful revolutions and reform projects in Europe and elsewhere. Instead we got these medicalised narratives where socialism or communism is presented as a viral epidemic, or leftist leaders described as profoundly evil persons bent on subjugating the world under tyranny.