Dr. Forbush Thinks

When I grew up in the middle of the Cold War the fear of nuclear war came to mind from time to time. This was mainly because the Soviet Union and the United States had so many nuclear weapons that they could destroy each other, and the innocent bystanders many times over. The “many times over” phrase was always puzzling. Actually the motivation itself was puzzling.

I tried many times to understand why two countries would like to destroy each other and the world, civilization as we know it rather than let the other side “win.” Something was so important that civilization could not go on with the “other side” surviving.

One time I asked my dad what the Soviet Union would do that was so bad that it would be worth living. Of course my dad tried to explain the horrors of living under the rule of the Soviet Union. “For example, he said, you would not be able to have a car that you liked. Instead, everyone in the country would have exactly the same kind of car. And, it would be black!” Oh, horrors, I could never be seen in a BLACK car.

Obviously, my dad didn’t know that very few people in the Soviet Union had a black car, and they were in the Communist Party. I was young and I was trying to understand the world. Surely people wouldn’t want to destroy the Soviet Union, and risk being destroyed ourselves because they might make us all drive around in black cars.

Some time later I pointed out to my dad that there was inherent unfairness in the American economic system. Some people down the street had a boat and went water skiing every weekend in the summer, and they went snow skiing every weekend in the winter. We were lucky to get a steak on Sundays. I pointed out that some people who lived in the poor section of town would pull a knife on you if you looked like you might be carrying cash. Why would they risk being put in jail just to get a few bucks for a six pack of beer? I pointed out that there were plenty of things that needed to be repaired in their area of town, and if we just paid them to fix up their section of town they would have their money for their beer and they would be living in a nicer section of town. Of course, my dad told me I was talking like a Communist. And this made me wonder once again, what is so wrong about helping the poor that our country would risk nuclear war and the destruction of the planet?

Well, I was listening to an old time radio program from the 1950s. The show was called, “I Was a Communist for the FBI.” It was about a guy who went under cover to infiltrate the Communists in America so they couldn’t spread their evil Communism around our county. In one episode they portrayed the Communists simply as anti-American. One plan was to use a Red Cross blood drive to recruit new members to the Communist Party. But, the Communists were against the Red Cross, and therefore they could not help the Red Cross because of principle alone. So, after the blood was collected they needed to find a way to destroy the blood so the Red Cross couldn’t use it. They came up with an elaborate plan to hijack the blood truck. Of course, the guy working as an under cover agent was caught in the moral dilemma between blowing his cover and destroying the blood. But was it really worth destroying the world in order to prevent the Communists from destroying the Red Cross? And, was the Red Cross really working against the principles of Communism where the goal was merely to redistribute the wealth?

Then I was thinking about the old cry of “Godless Communist.” I actually thought of this when Ann Coulter brought up the accusation of liberals being “Godless.” Was the Cold War really a religious war? Obviously America wouldn’t wage a purely religious war, but maybe the threat of the Communists was two-fold. Maybe the wealthy didn’t like the idea of redistribution of wealth, and the religious thought that they were fighting the Godless Communists. Maybe this is why the coalition of the Right Wing Extremists has become so strong after the fall of Communism. They no longer have the evil Communists, so they redirected their hatred toward the godless liberals that offer the same fear factor. Like anything else this was just an insight into our world that doesn’t really make much sense on the surface.

But, I am not the only one thinking along these lines. The other day I was listening to a political talk show. An expert on Middle East strategy was explaining how the threat of Islamic Fascism grew during the Cold War. She said that we supported them in Afghanistan and in Saudi Arabia and around the world. I knew that we had supported the insurgents in Afghanistan, because they were fighting the Soviets. But, as the speaker told us, I didn’t know that we supported these religious sects around the world because they had religion, not like those Godless Communists. Apparently, during the 1950s and 1960s the United States had calculated that religion was better than Communism, so we sent money top these groups in any country that we feared might fall to the Godless Communists. And since we feared Communism in just about any country we might have been sending money to these groups in Italy and Germany as well.

But, now it finally makes sense. The Cold War was a religious war and it brought the extreme religious conservatives in the US into a tight union with the wealthy. It was worth risking the entire world in a nuclear battle, because it was about religion, which covers both life and death. And, the victory in the Cold War freed up the imagination of these people to attack the liberals in the United States with the same anti-Communist rhetoric. And groups of people who are willing to risk nuclear war that could destroy the world certainly are dangerous, and even worse when you are their enemy.

It is about time that this country takes the risk of the Religious Conservative Threat seriously.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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