I remember sitting there under my desk looking about the room thinking that this stupid desk might prevent something from hitting you on the head, but there was no way it could protect me from what I had seen in film. The blast always hit the building from the side, taking out it’s walls as the blast swept across the land and I was wide open.
A sixth grader is not that damn dumb.
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Actually I remember the Goldwater campaign well. The voting age was still 21 at that time. But his mixture of aggressive anti-communism and willingness to consider use of WMD’d was scary even to underage citizens. Any ad that keeps Trump’s hands off the codes is welcome.
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I think Goldwater himself confirmed that impression: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” I know he scared me.
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Absolutely. I was 18 and couldn’t vote yet in 1964, but I was certainly paying attention to what was going on in the world at the time. Many of us Boomers went to high school when Civics was a required class.
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I remember feeling exactly the same way in elementary school…Catholic school so it was duck, cover, and pray.
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I always remember how the nuns never got under the desks. God was protecting them I guess. Little children not so much.
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[quote=“hornblower, post:26, topic:46062”]
always remember how the nuns never got under the desks.
[/quote]You’re right and now I’m laughing.
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But he was not out of touch with reality nor erratic, unlike Trump. Goldwater was opposed to nuclear proliferation and knew that mutual assured destruction was why we did not use nukes, again unlike Trump. He also believed in NATO and standing up to the Soviets, unlike Trump, whose unpredictability could lead Putin to the miscalculation that destroys the world. Goldwater’s temperament was model presidential demeanor compared to Trump’s.
(Edit) I agree his rhetoric was over the top for such s dangerous time.
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Yes. And the nuns told us Catholic kids to watch the color of the light. If it was red or darker colored we’d be good because that meant the blast was far away. The brighter it was well… it would be that way for only a millisecond anyway so no more worries. This also was in the sixth grade, and we knew we would all be ashes at that point.
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Nobody is more insane than Trump, but like Trump, Goldwater advocated for greater use of nuclear weapons over conventional weapons in Vietnam, giving field commanders authority over use of nukes, and joked about dropping one on the Kremlin. Goldwaters nuke statements were the premise for the Daisy ad, and for the Johnson campaign to twist Goldwater’s slogan “In your heart, you know he’s right” to “In your guts, you know he’s nuts” and “In your heart, you know he might”.
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I’m not disputing that. In fact, that was one of the things that made him so scary. Perhaps he didn’t mean himself to be taken literally, but it was a bad time for it.
In any case, he was more rational after his presidential campaign. He did try to warn the Republican Party about getting into bed with the Christian Fundamentalists:
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
Unfortunately, his advice was rejected and we see the results today.
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@frankly_my_dear, I must have blocked this stuff out. Sure enough a Senator Pastore quoted Goldwater thusly in his keynote address to the 1964 Dem convention: “by one impulse act you could press a button and wipe out 300 million people before sundown.” Goldwater contended that the media blew the issue out of proportion, though it was reported that Goldwater suggested the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, if necessary.
I could not find any quotes of him saying what “reports” said. Maybe these are in a book someone read.
I stand corrected on my memory of what Goldwater said, but I still maintain he was not crazy, while Trump is demonstrably so.
Maybe, but the nuclear explosion was a big part of the controversy, and the effectiveness of the ad. To include it here would be superfluous, or even distracting. Anyone who knows anything about the Daisy ad knows that part too.
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Trump is a classic psychopath. The psychopath profile:
- no conscience
- no empathy
- pathological liar
- manipulative
- charming
- intuitive
- attention-seeking
- easily bored
- narcissistic
- turns very nasty when thwarted in any way
Does any of this sound familiar? Anyone?
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Trump’s hands are too small to grasp his inadequacies.
But he has the best words.
Donald Trump finally shared the name of someone he consults on foreign policy: himself.
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he talks with consistently about foreign policy, Trump responded, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things."
Honestly, wouldn't a Trump election stir more than a few people to explore citizenship requirements in another nation? How would you co-exist among a population that elected him? It would be like discovering your neighbors to the front, back and either side were in order a rapist, a pedophile, an arsonist and a bank robber. You'd have to move, right?Exactly. Do we want to live next door or even one state over from that Trump rally guy who chanted “Jew-S-A, Jew-S-A”?
I’ve seen no figures breaking down the sentiment or loyalty of Trump’s supporters. I gather roughly 40% of the people in the country intending to vote want him as President, per polling. I’ll be generous and allow that 1/4 of those are reluctant supporters with serious reservations about his qualifications, or those that hate Hillary so much they feel he’s their only option, or lifelong, committed Republicans that vote GOP regardless the candidate, so strong are their party loyalties. The other 3/4 of his supporters genuinely think he’s Presidential material. That leaves 3 in 10 adults you encounter every day are truly mentally ill people. Comforting, no?
And they are all armed while on the edge of insanity. No. Not comforting in the least.
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