What Cost? « POWIP

23Jul/1036

What Cost?

My father was a Sgt. Major in the United States Army, and because of that I lived in some not so boring places. For instance, when I was 7 we moved to Berlin, Germany. Which, in 1972 (yes..I'm that old), was 114 miles inside of East Germany and there was this:

The Berlin Wall

A cold, gray, and for a 7 year old, scary monument to tyranny. It snaked through that city, dividing its citizens from each other, dividing families from each other. It was not designed or built to keep people out, but to keep them in. It was designed and built to force a population to submit to its government. A government not of their own choosing. It was designed and built to force a population to obey when its government decided who should live where, and have what job, and told them there was no God and forced them to abandon, at least publicly, those beliefs. It was the place where I, a tiny 7 year old girl, holding her soldier Daddy's hand, learned about freedom. It is the place, thousands of miles from the place of my birth in Augusta, Georgia, USA, where I learned what a privilege it is to be an American, where power is transferred without guns and tanks and the People, when the mood strikes them, can, without fear of government reprisals, speak out when they think it's being done wrong. It was the place where I learned that governments, given the opportunity either by circumstance or by the People, will run roughshod over those same people, taking from them whatever liberties and freedoms the People are not strong enough or vigilant enough to keep. It was the place where I learned that freedom isn't free and that once you have it, it is up to you to keep it. It is the place where I learned that it is in our very core, at the heart of what it is to be human, that we desire freedom. It is the place where I learned that when freedom has been stolen, humans will always fight to take it back, and they will always choose to die in that fight, rather than live as slaves.
What would you do, what would you give, what would you risk to be free? Free to choose your own path, your child's school, to choose to try and fail and then try again?
Would you attempt the things these women did:

Escape from East Berlin

Or would you be willing to risk it all, and just run, full on for freedom, hoping to outrun the bullets?

Peter Fechter, made it to the base of the wall before dying of multiple gunshot wounds.

Even the year the wall came down, people were dying to get across it. Across to the West Side. To the Free Side.

If he had just waited.....a few months.

That is where I learned I was free. It's where I learned what I would be willing to risk to stay that way.

Dede

Sometimes stuff rumbles around in my brain that's longer than 140 characters and, well......twitlonger just seems like cheating. :)

Tagged as: berlin, freedom, liberty, tryanny Leave a comment

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jefferson101
July 23rd, 2010 - 18:58

I can relate. Like you, my Daddy was Career Military. I’m a bit older than you, but had some of the same experiences, at least in part.

I began to realize that my world view was a whole lot different than most people’s was in about 1957. I was at Toul AFB, in France, in First Grade.

They brought some French Resistance guy in to talk to us, and I spent about five minutes quizzing him about how he could manage to stay in France under German Rule instead of just leaving and fighting from England.

(Yeah, I may have been a bit precocious that way, but I knew that a lot of the French had left, and come back. I met a couple of LeClerk’s Officers before that, and knew what they’d said about it all.)

‘Course, I was also the kid who was totally hacked off in ’58 when that crisis blew up, because my Daddy had a helmet and an M2 and a 1911, and nobody would give me anything to shoot at the farging Russian Commies with if they showed up.

It may have warped my childhood, but I knew then which side I was on, and I still do. And I’ve eliminated any notable problems about having something to shoot back with, should it be necessary.

I can understand wanting out. What I can’t understand is why everyone didn’t just leave en-masse, as it were. But as an American, I’m used to a whole lot of freedom that most of the world can only dream of.

But I do plan on keeping it that way, too.

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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:24
  
  I plan on keeping it that way too. I think the time is coming when people are going to have to decide what being an American truly means. It’s going to be interesting to say the least.
  
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- Jesus, Forever A Commie
  July 25th, 2010 - 03:09
  
  But as an American, I’m used to a whole lot of freedom that most of the world can only dream of.
  
  Actually, Francis, you could have scaled the Berlin wall and taken on the mighty Russian bear with your bare hands.
  
  You were so free back then, and all, as you are now, free to freedom fight.
  
  I suppose you were to busy at the time verbally sparring with Flaubert’s parrot to, you know, take matters into your own hands, to change the course of the world, to rid mankind of all enemies, revenge the crucifixion of Christ, etc…
  
  I’m glad you have gun now. Know what I’m going to do right now? I’m going to go to war against the fish. Cuba isn’t that far from where I’m battling fish, large and small. You should tag along someday, just a bunch of happy warriors! We’ll radio a Cuban trawler for ya, send you straight into Havana, with your gun!
  
  Mutherfuckin’ Cubans don’t know freedom, not like you do, Francis. You’ll have to point show them way by pointing your gun and barking a few orders at ‘em. Something in the order of “Get Free, and Quit Speaking Spanish!”
  
  Why sit there smack-talking like that smarmy French Resistance phony back in ’57 when there’s freedom to be won? There’s statues of Jose Marti, and surely they’ll be a statue of you too. Charge of the Light Brigade, my man, whenever you’re ready. Don’t forget money for gas, beer and ice.
  
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Don
July 23rd, 2010 - 20:32

I saw first hand the fear in the eyes of the South Vietnamese. There desire for freedom was great but the fear of reprisal kept them from competely trusting their government.
This was an absolutely well portrayed description of freedom. Complacency with your own freedoms will allow others to take control. We must continue preaching love for our country at all costs. Not Democrats or Republicans, not Black or White not any race, but the American Race

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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:25
  
  My dad and grandfather saw that same thing. Thank you for your service sir. You have my eternal gratitude. :)
  
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enoch_root
July 23rd, 2010 - 21:10

Dede – absolutely excellent.

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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:20
  
  Thank you very much. :)
  
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Xian Do
July 23rd, 2010 - 21:29

Poignant and sobering….but an excellent perspective for all of us, Dede.
Well done.
Thanks for sharing!

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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:19
  
  Thank you my honey!
  
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Bob Reed
July 23rd, 2010 - 23:55

I too traveled extensively in eastern Europe following the collapse of their Soviet overlords; but this is about your fine post, and not me.

You are correct about, and blessed by, the experience of seeing people yearn for, and strive to achieve, what so many here seem to take for granted. It is a most excellent lesson to take with you throughout life in an almost “count your blessings” fashion.

It has been said that, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”; but I also believe that there must also be a willingness to act when the circumstances demand it.

To preserve that precious liberty, that so few share, and that so many here at home take for granted.

Regards

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- Jesus, Forever A Commie
  July 24th, 2010 - 00:39
  
  C’mon Boob, on your military pension Eastern Europe was all you could afford.
  
  The fallen angels of Moscow, the luxurious pussy of Paris, the mountainous boobs in Barcelona, the relentless sexual appetite of German lasses, all beyond you meager Yankee military means.
  
  The free market hath rendered ye nose pressed against window. And the Commie bitches simply hated the smell of ya. Marx got laid in London, maybe try there next time.
  
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  - happyfeet
    July 24th, 2010 - 00:56
    
    hi thor how are you I am fine I hope you are having a nice summer
    
    I think a free market would be neat we should at least try.
    
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    - Jesus, Forever A Commie
      July 24th, 2010 - 01:47
      
      I’m doing alright, thanks for asking. Our free market has worked out especially well for the Chinese Communists, and our petro dollars certainly have enriched the White Gods of Russia, which is OK by me, since I just recently began worshiping Jesus of Siberia.
      
      How about those Texas Rangers. Suddenly we’re the new Devil Rays.
      
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  - Bob Reed
    July 24th, 2010 - 08:48
    
    I wasn’t retired at the time, Hoss. And I never had much problem making, er, fiends among the pulchritudinous local ladies.
    
    Maybe it was the North Carolina accent, wit, my roguish charm, and my comportment.
    
    I was a gentleman long before it was expected of me.
    
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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:18
  
  You’re right…people who were born here and lived here all their lives don’t really know what they have. I don’t mean that in a condescending way, It’s like having a baby I guess…until you do it..you have no idea. You think you do…but until you experience it..well, you don’t. I think this is the same thing. Until you have been somewhere that is less free and see people struggle to get what you were born to….you have no idea. :)
  
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Jesus, Forever A Commie
July 23rd, 2010 - 23:56

Agusta, Georgia, you don’t say. The famous heart of racist America. Georgia is where American fascism is bred alongside pigs and parrots.

That wall in beautiful Berlin had a purpose, Dede, and it was to keep racist American human trash, like you, from entering, and it worked!

In your once youthful gaze, the greatest military power in all the world lay behind Berlin’s brick wall of victory, it’s called Russia. Ever heard of Russia, Dede? It’s where God lives. Vivid and full of color and beauty, Mother Russia births life to ballet and poetry and aqua blue skies, so unlike the gray dank air that chokes those huge depleted slave cemeteries (you probably were taught to call ‘em cotton fields) of Agusta, Georgia.

Bob Reed says he’s been all over the world, but he’s never been to Russia, I guarantee you that. Sperm junkies aren’t exactly in vogue in Russian, especially not Moscow. I’m sure you probably recently read about the evil Russians denying Gays a gay pride parade down Tallinskaya. In some ways it’s as if Dan Collins had his own country, heavely Russia. Books, pretty white people, poets, dancing bears, unimaginable quantities of vodka and cheap cigarettes, yep, if only Dan weren’t afraid to face God, the creator of the universe. You see, God knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good and it’s Dan Collins we’re talking about for goodness sake.

Well, Dede, thank God you were there to hold your Daddy’s hand on the fateful day you stared and the pearly gates. He may have been tempted to breach the wall and enter heaven. Spontaneous smoke and ashes, poor guy wouldn’t have suffered much, but seeing Pops evaporate from God’s bullet-ridden wrath surely would have ruined your precious freedom loving day.

Let’s all give thanks to bountiful Russia, and to God, and his son, Jesus, who lives on the old Arbat and still walks on the ageless snow of winter.

Amen.

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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 06:14
  
  Georgia is where American fascism is bred alongside pigs and parrots. You forgot the peaches.
  
  That wall in beautiful Berlin had a purpose, Dede, and it was to keep racist American human trash, like you, from entering, and it worked! Actually, the racist human trash, like me went into East Berlin all the time. See, if you had actually read the post…( I know, that’s why I included pictures) you would have noticed that I said it wasn’t designed or built to keep people out. There’s actually a funny story about that. Teh Mother and her friends went shopping in the East all the time (things were cheaper there). Of course the money was different and you were supposed to change your West Marks for East Marks AFTER you passed through the checkpoint and were in East Berlin. However, the banks in West Berlin, because they didn’t like the wall or ….I guess according to you..God, would give a better exchange rate. But you weren’t supposed to do that and the racist human trash American Military personnel and their dependents were EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN to. And if you were caught with East German Marks during the search of your car by the East German border guards on your way IN to East Berlin…well, let’s just say that wouldn’t be pretty. (please remember for the next part of the story, it was the 1970′s and most women wore them) So what Teh Mother did was exchange her Marks in West Berlin and then hide them under her wig because she didn’t think the Border Guards, while searching her car and her purse, would think to look under her hair. So, Mr. Troll, you see, the Wall may have had a purpose…but it wasn’t to keep anyone out.
  
  Yes, there were cotton fields in Georgia and yes there were slaves that picked that cotton…..they were all freed by a really big war about a century before I was born…so I don’t bear or assume any responsibility for it….and you can’t make me pffffffft. Not you, or the Great Obama can make me feel guilty about being white.
  
  Yes I’ve heard of Russia…..of course when I was a kid it was much bigger and stronger…..but then along came an American Patriot named Reagan and the rest…..well the rest you can read in a history book… well until the soulless liberal progressive crazypants nutjobs have him removed from all the text books..so you might what to hurry that up.
  
  Don’t talk about my Daddy. You aren’t fit to lick his boots.
  
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  - enoch_root
    July 24th, 2010 - 07:07
    
    tohr dessicated – the humiliation will be too much for his zombie ego to tolerate. being so, you know, tolerant and all. Tohr bomb in 3-2-1
    
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    - Jesus, Forever A Commie
      July 24th, 2010 - 07:40
      
      good call that
      
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  - Jesus, Forever A Commie
    July 24th, 2010 - 07:35
    
    I like your Dad, Dede girl, for he was obviously a Communist spy, a valued agent of the KGB!
    
    Your Mom? Nah, she was likely too troll-looking to be a female Russian spy.
    
    Your father was a man of God, doing God’s work, probably knew Comrade Khrushchev personally.
    
    The honorable President Obama makes you uncomfortable and I’ll tell you why: You’re a lazy, white American loafer. In your antebellum machinations Mexicans need tend to your tedious domestic chores, Blacks must raise your children to behave and Asians should stir fry your lard laden lunches.
    
    You’re not Russian, weren’t raised in God’s Siberia, not of the strong timber, lacking Tolstoyian work ethic, sans even the basic discipline to keep a svelte figure. You’re no Natasha.
    
    I’m sure your Dad tried his best to raise you honest, Communist and smart, but with American pop culture permeating your head and with Reagan salting your tongue, your father barely had a young pioneer’s chance.
    
    I salute your father, his espionage was of tremendous value to the Lord’s apparatchiks, and he was probably even Yuri Andropov’s favorite foreign informant, but who can really say.
    
    Paka.
    
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    - Dede
      July 24th, 2010 - 10:53
      
      My Daddy was a spy. It was the reason we were stationed in Germany to begin with. He was spying on the DDR and the KGB. Got captured but not killed, because my dad was made of too much American Awesome for those communist bastard morons to deal with.
      
      You can run your mouth all ya like there sparky…..my dad has been dead for 22 years…and is still 1000 times the man you are or will ever hope to be. You can’t change that with your tiresome little rants and you should probably watch your words…cuz Teh Mother…she can kick. your. ass.
      
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    - Jesus, Forever A Commie
      July 24th, 2010 - 21:29
      
      Well my Dad was OO7, but he didn’t talk.
      
      Your story smells like Reagan’s bulging diaper.
      
      And your squatty prairie Mommie probably couldn’t coax a working boner out of Grigori Rasputin.
      
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enoch_root
July 24th, 2010 - 05:44

tohr – call your doctor. you need a med check stat.

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Jesus, Forever A Commie
July 24th, 2010 - 08:08

and told them there was no God and forced them to abandon, at least publicly, those beliefs.

Here’s one clue as to Daddy’s little girl being a bastard child of ridiculous Cold War propaganda.

Hey, Dede girl, inside the walls of the Kremlin there’s a church. As well as the Christian church, Jews attended synagogues and Muslims attended mosques, all during that brief Soviet era of Russian history, because not every Russian was a God-hating Commie during the Soviet era, you delirious dolt.

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- Bob Reed
  July 24th, 2010 - 09:01
  
  The Soviets repressed religion brutally, only allowing it’s flourish when they needed it; to bolster the public’s confidence during WWII. A time when Stalin couldn’t deliver the people’s salvation, were it not for the material and intelligence aid provided by Britain and the US; and by the grace of God.
  
  Of course, once the war ended that liberal disposition did as well; and once again religion was the opiate of the masses.
  
  And Soviet Jewry? Sure, they were treated real good. That’s why most of them left the country the second they were given the opportunity.
  
  thor, you’re an OK guy, but you have an annoying revisionist streak. History is factual, and unfortunately doesn’t always correspond with your romantic flights of fancy.
  
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  - Jesus, Forever A Commie
    July 24th, 2010 - 13:39
    
    Why do you feel the need to be a brutal liar and make up fairy tales about people that are different than you? Oh yeah, because you’re a dopey Yanquitard who desperately wants to fit in with teh slobbering neo-kkkon kkkoool kiddiez.
    
    Is religion brutally suppressed in the U.S.? Silky Leather, Gov. Rick Perry, ordered hundreds of kids to be ripped from the arms of Texas Mormon cult Mommies, did he not? Their kids were threatened to be put up for adoption, all over a bogus phone call to a rape hotline. Fear, intimidation, suppression of religion! Fuck off.
    
    Get straight with God, Godtard, modern Israel is comprised of about 25% people from Russia and the former Soviet Union, about 50% of their military is the same strain. Russian Jews fly back and forth from Israel to Russia all the time, they tight, just like Russia and Israel are tight. Israel needed soldiers and Russia had soldiers who loved to kick monkey ass, and American ass, for that matter. Win-win. You can rubber-lip all you want, fatty, but come time to throw down, take away the American nuke advantage, and the U.S. gets beat like a toy drum against either Israel or Russia, and neo-kkkon punks like you know it, you just preen and prissy piss otherwise, badly trained mouth-punks is all that you neo-kkkon kkkultists are.
    
    Brutally suppressed, haha! Herr Putin went to church when he was in the KGB same as he does today, explain that, silly lie-bot.
    
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    - Bob Reed
      July 24th, 2010 - 18:59
      
      Yeah, I don’t know wher to begin thor, so I’ll start by saying Putin could do a lot of things that regular people were pressured not to. Sure, the Holy Mother Church continue during the Soviet years, but it existed underground most of that time; save for the WWII years.
      
      And the Russian Jews were the first one to get the hell out of there when the former Soviet Union allowed them to leave; and if they are commuting between Russia and Israel, like between NYC and Boca, it’s a relatively recent development and certainlt didn’t take place regularly in the good ol’ bad ol’ days.
      
      And speaking of Israel, well, until your boy O! effed up the longstanding close relationship, you know, becuase of the fairness to the Palestinians, the idea of conflict between the US and Israel was unthinkable. But, I mean, now that O! has succeeded in apologizing to our enemies and alienating our friends that kind of conflict can no longer be dismissed out of hand.
      
      But America doesn’t necessarily rely on it’s nuclear advantage; although I think that O! is essentially committing treason by trying to surrender many of our strategic initiatives.
      
      Remember when the Russians recently over-ran parts of Georgia? Their troops and equipment looked bush league thor; no tread on the AFV tires, no regular uniforms or equipment, Russian tanks getting popped by shoulder fired anti-tank missiles; they looked like amateurs. If they hadn’t outnumbered the Georgians they might have had their arses handed to them. They couldn’t stand up to the modern US military. But your boy O!, following the directives Frank Marshall Davis gave him all those years ago, is doing his best to weaken our armed forces.
      
      Back in the day I’d have put my Tomcat up against any Soviet fighter; any thor. And on neutral territory I’d still take US forces against Russians any day.
      
      So call me whatever you wish if helps you cover the reality you’re pathetically denying.
      Cheers
      
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    - Jesus, Forever A Commie
      July 24th, 2010 - 20:53
      
      Back in the day I’d have put my Tomcat up against any Soviet fighter; any thor. And on neutral territory I’d still take US forces against Russians any day.
      
      But you didn’t. And now you yelp out your tonsils like a two-bit scalded monkey hero. You fuckin’ pussy, from Moscow you’d come home in a four-man stretcher, and the fourteen year-old girls who stomped your vital organs wouldn’t even brag about taking you down, it’s not like crackin’ a joystick puller in the nose is any big deal in the Russia’s white ghettos.
      
      How long have we been in Afghanistan? They’re adorned in white flowing skirts and rubber sandals, the Taliban.
      
      Our military blows. If losing to the Fish-eyed Cong in ‘Nam wasn’t bad enough, now it’s smelly dudes in hula skirts and Birkenstocks beating our ass.
      
      America, woohoo! Go team.
      
      Can America not send in a team from the inner city or something. Until we go low-down Chicago on Allah’s goat riders we’re doomed. McCrsytal was weaker than a silent puff of pussy wind.
      
      I want my Goddamned tax moneys’ worth of artillery!
      
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    - Jesus, Forever A Commie
      July 25th, 2010 - 03:58
      
      Please stop yamming about shit you know nothing about, namely the Jews of Russia. Your dickish Russia-as-evil-Jew-as-victim shit is idiotic.
      
      Some of the richest oligarchs in Moscow today are Jews, and some of the most powerful Russian politicians Jewish. Have you not noticed Israel and Russia share many of the same Jewish mobster families as well?
      
      I did enjoy your evaluating Russian military uniforms for the starched freshness of their pleats. Those Russkiye soldats did look a little mussy while beating the living shit out of their NATO-armed Georgian counterparts, I’ll give you that.
      
      Back to the Jews, every one in Russia owns a bitch card against the Motherland, dummy. They, collectively, were the victims of a dickhead named Stalin and his minions and before that the Tsars, you see. You can’t find an ethnicity or religious group in Russia that wouldn’t like to revenge a lost battle of lore, but that’s all about their history, and those topics are beyond a know nothing American simpleton’s comprehension, especially Americans that can’t even get America’s racist past-historic straight.
      
      It’s pretty obvious you would have been a great admirer of and soldier in Hitler’s army had you been born in Germany in that era. You’re a mindless follower and sucker for empty symbolism. You’d have also likely been killed by a Russian in a frumpy uniform. Just a thought.
      
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    - Bob Reed
      July 25th, 2010 - 10:31
      
      Whatevz Dude! Are you smokin’ crack again, or what? What are you doin’ commenting at 3:58 am?
      
      Oh, and , does your MFA gove you enough credential to be an interior decorator? Maybe you should get your own show on HGTV. Develop your own new stylistic genre; early spartan socialist.
      
      You know, include all of the stuff from Castro’s Cuba and post-cold war Russia. Maybe a little Mao stuff as well, since, Obama seems to like Maoist stuff.
      
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- Dede
  July 24th, 2010 - 10:55
  
  Goodie for the Kremlin. But the Kremlin was not in East Berlin.
  
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serr8d
July 24th, 2010 - 08:33

So that’s the latest incarnation of thor, huh? Still not worth the powder and lead it’d cost to blow him away.

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serr8d
July 24th, 2010 - 20:10

Stinking Soviets were as bad as the Nazis. Worse, in some ways.

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Mike LaRoche
July 24th, 2010 - 21:54

Thor’s the same tiresome, overcompensating windbag he’s always been.

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Meep
July 25th, 2010 - 14:49

Hey, I grew up in Georgia, too. Howdy, fellow goober!

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serr8d
July 25th, 2010 - 20:14

You know, after watching that long video I posted (h/t sdferr at pw in comments btw), and reading above that lame excuse for humanity, thor, making up tales about possible Soviet agents, there’s another twist here.

thor is possibly a Russian spy.

He’s been to Russia (or so he says); he’s even had a Russian girlfriend (again: he says; he also said she was a knockout but I’m thinking more a 257 lb. sack of potatoes); he’s permanently disaffected with America; he’s a professed international Socialist. And he’s projecting that ‘spy’ role right here in comments.

Well, sure, it’s a stretch, because of what use or value to anyone could thor possibly be ?

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