Soviet Union was useful in keeping the US in check...

[Postman]

Domestically, the US could criticize the Soviets for being less democratic because the US had to show the world in being the example to follow.

With the Soviets gone, we are less democratic.

Internationally, the US (acting on behalf of corporations) could use the Soviet Union as the proliferator of authoritarian rule while acting as the defender of democracy (democracy being code word for predatory capitalism)- forming alliances, using international support at the UN to carry out the will of the international community.

With the Soviets gone, the US no longer has to pretend to be the defender of democracy and acts unilaterally to expand its economic control where it sees fit.

[pretzel4gore]

1. but bush despises the US...,.

i guess it's mixing apples and oranges talking about a nation state (the US) using a historical overview on one hand and partisan assessment of daily politics on the other but i really wonder (??)...history has been written on 2 different levels: the truth as known by those who examine the facts etc, and the 'truth' as promoted by hollywood and the 'conservative school' of thought (see columbus, heroic discoverer of pristine empty 'america') there's something weird about what's going on today, which a understanding of history etc simply doesn't affect, and it has to do with the pig exploiting such things as racism, sexism, the 'big lie' and so on, and doing so using modern techniques of crowd psychological control and things many of us 'civilians' simply find confusing - i think it's widely understood that junior is a rich kid's rich kid's rich kid's rich kid, and in the USA such a thing should doom anyone's political aspirations, but exactly the opposite seems to have gone on; let's call it 'ignorant bliss'....The USSR did affect the US, insofar as media wasn't able to completely ignore the rest of the world, but....nothing explains george juniorbush but almost a suicidal self hatred, or something like mass despair. People had better start waking up and getting active, or this planet, and the god who created US, is fukked....