03-20-2020, 11:00 AM
(03-19-2020, 06:07 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:(03-18-2020, 11:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(03-18-2020, 11:08 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(03-18-2020, 10:13 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Might be fun to reverse course and speculate on what the reaction to the energy crisis and gasoline shortages might be if they occurred in the present time frame.
We'd be bombing and invading oil producers and taking over the oil, without a doubt.
Would we? We have learned better than to put boots on the ground in the Middle East. The Middle East is Asia, almost, sorta, and they might have figured out that starting a land war in Asia is a bad idea. We are working internal supplies of oil, so how would the energy crisis come about? Early on in this Crisis we came up with an alternative solution to the energy problem. While they might not put it that way, changing a culture by force is no longer seen as easy.
The failed regeneracy of Bush 43's wars did produce some important lessons learned after all.
But the coronavirus is accomplishing that very notion of changing a culture by force. Am curious to what you mean in closing paragraph.
Mostly it is already covered above. Bush 43 gave 3 primary reasons for his wars, two loudly spoken for propaganda, and the one unwritten. Supposedly at first he was after WMDs, but it later turned out that this was smoke. Later he was out to impose the supposedly superior Western culture, only to have locals cling to the past Agricultural Age religious values.
Unspoken was neocolonialism, the war for oil. That was what he was really doing, but not speaking of. The world recognized and stonewalled it.
I guess what I meant by changing a culture by force is military force. The North can win the US Civil War, but can you defeat Jim Crow that way? In World War II the Allies can defeat the Axis, but did they convince all autocratic forces to avoid aggression? To some degree victory in a Crisis does create some push back. Slavery was abolished. Germany, Italy and Japan did reject war of aggression. It does not go far enough or convince everybody. There was still a need for example for the Civil Rights movement and the Domino Theory.
With the Coronavirus, we are fighting nature run amok rather than a military force.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.