Posted on 01/26/2011 10:09:58 AM PST by Nachum
I keep a list of historical analogies — derived from years of grading papers — that tell me that the individual using them is (to be polite) more interested in rhetorical impact than historical accuracy. Before last night, the list began with “we need a Marshall Plan for X,” where X usually equals Africa or the Middle East, and ended with “the United States is a young country.” Both are fallacies: the Marshall Plan was a pump-priming program, not an effort to rebuild the infrastructure and remake the culture of half a continent; and while European settlement of North America is fairly recent, the U.S.’s political institutions have a longer continuous existence than those of any other country except, arguably, the United Kingdom.
Now, thanks to President Obama, I’ve got a third analogy to add to the list: “Sputnik moment.” To be fair, I should have added it years ago. The phrase, according to Google, has popped in and out of the news regularly over the past decade, with the president himself beginning to use it last June, in a speech in North Carolina. The analogy has the advantage of being an example of government spending — we now call it “investment,” I am told — that has not been utterly discredited by succeeding events. But that doesn’t make it correct.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
“Hi, I’m Uri Gagarin, and I’ve had my own ‘Sputnik Moment’.
I don’t know about sputnik moments, but the governor of Hawaii saying there is no birth certificate is definitely what I would call a “blue dress” moment.
Let’s see, did Sputnik happen right after the Depression or was it the end of WWII? Since they quit teaching history, things get mixed up a lot. Didn’t sputnik have something to do with the Holocaust?
Yeah. Why isn't it an "Apollo moment?"
I know that you know the truth about Sputnik ... we’re old enough to have witnessed the events of that era. But you’ve posed it the way one would expect for progressives deliberate omission of heritage from childrens’ development ... teach them the real History of this nation and they might develeop patriotic attitudes and that just wouldn’t leave room for the agenda of the enemies of America that the current crop of progressives are.
Sputnik 10 was the first man in space—launched April 12, 1961:
>>>>the first human launched into in outer space, Yuri Gagarin, made his spaceflight on Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961.<<<
A time when the USSR surpassed the US in technology, among other things. And when Obama was born.
“Sputnik” is probably code to his Soviet handlers.
Google “Omnicron and the Sputnik” from Mellotunes. A “New World Prodution” to boot. It’s some homegrown agitprop. Maybe that’s why Obama remembers it so fondly.
I remember ‘Love Missile F1-11’ from Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
(It was featured at the beginning of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
Er... no they didn't. They just were far more willing to take chances in order to beat the US to some goal only a matter of weeks or months before they knew the US would do the same thing. The entire 'missile gap' and technology gap were part of a propaganda campaign by the Soviets and abetted by the US Areo-Sapce industry looking for ever larger government contracts.
A Sputnik Moment is a bad thing, and a bad analogy for the president to use. The original Sputniks moment occurred in October of 57’ when the American public realized that we are open to a surprise nuclear missile attack from the Soviet Union and there is not a thing that can be done to stop it once the missile is launched. This oh Sh!t moment, spurred the Federal government to fund missile development to counter the threat (close the missile gap).
“Funny Obama keeps using Communism high point “Sputnik” instead of our high point landing a man on the moon
Yeah. Why isn’t it an “Apollo moment?”
Communist is as communist does....it just comes naturally for him.
Can't remember, did he fight with or against Genereal Buttnaked?
Good point. The Soviet “lead” was never that great, and we soon surpassed them. But Democrats used the opportunity to bash the Eisenhower-Nixon administration as being unprepared and behind the times. In other words they didn’t let a crisis go to waste, even back then.
Now for our 2011 Sputnik moment, whatever that means, there will be no bold new space initiatives and as the shuttle program winds down, tens of thousands will lose their jobs.
Politics is certainly the lowest of all professions.
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