I am no repressed puritan and if a president or first lady wants to bada bing bada boom with a consenting adult, so be it, it has no impact on policy. Donnie, Melania, Clinton or JFK can bang whoever they want if the other party is willing. But, extra marital banging can have consequences and they could end up in divorce court. It should not be a impeachable offense or anything of that sort.
So if Melania wanted to have gigolos on call because the orange lardass couldn't get it up, that's fine with me. But,. I also said earlier that i have nothing against that profession. I believe that prostitution should be completely legal and many vulnerable women who practice that profession every day should have safety and full protection of the law (there are many deviants out there who do terrible things to prostitutes and the women have very li't recourse)
Let's get to the topic of the USSR. What was the most diverse country that existed in the history of mankind? Ah yes, it was the Soviet Union (literally most of Asia).
Let's see, the entire West wanted it gone and ganged up against it. At some point, the sanctions against the USSR were so severe that almost 85% of the world economy was locked away from it. And still, that country managed to remain a superpower. If sanctions of that magnitude were implemented against a Brit in capitalist Britain, for instance, he would've eaten his dog outta hunger too. So this is the kool-aid history you were always told after the entire west ganged up with economics sanctions, embargoes, etc to make life as miserable as for the common Soviet citizen. And then, they told you it was all because of communism correct? mmhmm.
I am a old school aerospace engineer and i've known many a engineer, professer, etc who grew up in the Soviet Union. Yes, many were displaced, got jobs elsewhere in Europe, N.America etc and i got my scoop from very smart people who grew up there. In fact, when a people's referendum was given to Soviet citizens on whether they should break up or not, more than 80% of Soviet citizens voted to keep it intact. If their lives were so miserable because of communism, they wouldn't have done so, would they? IF you went to Russia now, life is miserable anywhere outside of a couple of major cities. Ask any old person there if life was better under the Soviet Union, they would say so and they would also tell your that Gorbachev was the ultimate traitor who broke up their country after he was bought by the West.
It is the victors of a war that always write history. The ones who lost the war don't get to write it. So, there will always be many factual inaccuracies in history books (primarily glorifying the victor and completely demonizing the side that lost).
I know for a fact that if the United States and the Soviets had become friends instead and cooperated in the sciences/tech/etc, a solution to most global problems (starvation, pollution, whatever) would have been achieved by now. They were highly educated and had some of the sharpest minds. It's a shame really.
I have a friend who came here from Kiev and his customer base is largely Russian- the ones who left wanted a different system, the ones who wanted it to remain either had some kind of higher skill set/education level and benefited in ways the lower classes didn't. He went back for a vacation and said that he was very surprised- the people were a lot happier and much more helpful than when he lived there. Said the crime is still bad, but generally, it was much better.
I agree about the education, but that wasn't only in the former USSR- it was better (especially better than what the US is providing the majority of students now) from what I have seen, in all former Communist countries. My friend and I were talking about the sad state of US education and he told me that when he was there, the expectation wasn't that most students would go on to college, they would go to work and because they didn't want people without adequate education, they learned more by the time they left than many US schools teach in high school and rather than test in the way the US does (and teach for the tests), they went up to the front of the class for one on one exams with the teachers asking the questions- no notes, covering all subjects and they would do the work needed for Math & Physics/Chemistry, etc on the chalkboard. A woman who had a cell phone/tablet repair business in this same store had come from USSR and couldn't get a job in her degreed discipline- Mechanical Engineering. She said the reason she couldn't get a job is because the colleges wouldn't give her credit for the courses she had taken, regardless of the fact that she could demonstrate her knowledge and because of the fact that she couldn't get a diploma from a US-based college/university, she decided "Screw it- I'll start a business".
They aren't the only ones I know who came from Communist countries- in freshman high school Algebra, the kid next to me had come to the US from Prague in '69- he and his brother were freaking brilliant, too. They were clearly not fans of the Communist regime- we had a Q&A session and after someone asked about life in Prague, he sneered and said "We didn't live, we existed". The school wouldn't let him test out of this class, apparently because they thought his education was inferior to what he would have received here, but he toughed it out and finally convinced them to find out what he knew. When they saw the results, they sheepishly said "We're sorry, we have nothing for you , here". He finished his Math & Science classes at Marquette University and tutored or did independent study at our school.
As usual, it's not the people who don't get along, it's the governments. While the Cold War was the biggest waste in history, it also brought some amazing technical advances. We wouldn't be communicating now with the same ease, if DARPA hadn't developed IT. It would have come along but maybe not when it did.
I'm under no illusions about how wrong we and much of the rest of the World has been- as you wrote, we should have cooperated instead of fighting- if we had, we wouldn't have a single empty stomach. I do, however, think that if everyone received the same from governments, I doubt we would have seen the advances that have come from people with better ideas but I don't like rampant greed, either.
WRT the moral lapses of Presidents, etc- I think that people who act like they're on a high moral plane should demonstrate it. I would prefer that they not do this in office- let them do it on their own time.
Can you say where you worked, or did you have security agreements that prevent it?
