Word: union
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...entirely. For the specific historical events the film narrates -- the formation, training and terrible blooding in battle of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black fighting unit enlisted in the Union cause -- are little known yet resonant with high symbolic significance. The 54th, led by an idealistic 25-year-old white man, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick skillfully blending shyness and tenacity), had to fight to fight. Their white comrades-in-arms were full of contemptuous prejudice against them, and the high command was afraid to arm black men who had their own bitter racial grievances (many were runaway...
...example, in the ten years of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, the per capita income of the Chinese people has doubled. In the five years of Gorbachev's rule, the per capita income of the Russian people has gone down. But while Gorbachev has only marginally changed the Soviet Union, he has profoundly changed the world, simply by saying what many in the West want to hear after generations of Soviet intransigence...
...power. He still spends 20% of his gross national product on defense, compared with 6% in the U.S. He has modernized all three legs of the Soviet strategic nuclear triad. Soviet superiority in tanks, chemical weapons and combat aircraft has been maintained and in some cases increased. The Soviet Union's military might is greater now than when Gorbachev came to power. Even if he has been sounding to some hopeful ears like a dove, his bristling talons still make him look like a hawk...
...leading foreign policy analyst concluded bluntly, "We should help those in the Soviet Union who are doing the right thing." But is Gorbachev really a convert to those ideals we consider the "right things" -- political pluralism, individual rights and a free-market economy? Whoever believes that will believe Santa Claus is bringing my grandchildren the $150 Nintendo sets I am buying them for Christmas...
...principle. If his ultimate goal is to make life better for the Soviet people, we should help him. But we should not help him if his ultimate goal is to make life more difficult for the West by using Western subsidies to build an economically and militarily stronger Soviet Union with the same aggressive foreign policy...