The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [288]
In the war on terror, the atomic bomb changes everything. Now a small and otherwise inconsequential nation can literally destroy millions at one blow. If Iran or North Korea were unable to gain atomic weapons how much of a threat would they comprise? Without atomic weapons, the terrorist’s threat is much less viable. With atomic weapons a terrorist state can shake the world to its foundations. All this puts the entire world on a razor’s edge because there are so many nations controlled by leaders who would use atomic weapons without compunction.
Lack of political will to fight the long wars of insurgency is the most significant threat to the survival of the Western Democracies. As monolithic religious sects take over nation after nation in the Middle East, and elsewhere, the challenge to the West becomes ever greater. Meanwhile, the Western Democracies will debate the morality, cost, effectiveness, and sacrifice necessary to win these wars and will most often decide to pull out after a few years or high casualties—if history is any guide. The citizen of the Western Democracies hold their military to the highest standards of warfare, while their enemies of are held to no standard whatsoever. From a “political will” point of view the West is in trouble. Contrary to many views on the subject, the United States and the West can lose the war against terrorism, and the consequences would be devastating for the world.
US Civil Rights Movement
1955 to present day (2010)
The civil rights movement that began before the US Civil War, and ended with the nadir of Reconstruction, would return in the late 1950s and continue through the 1960s and beyond as the Reverend Martin Luther King and others began nonviolent opposition to laws in southern US states relegating blacks to inferior citizenship. A series of laws enacted by Congress, with substantial backing from people of all races in areas outside and inside the South, reinforced the political rights of blacks throughout the United States of America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were just a few of the laws passed to insure civil rights for minorities. In addition, the blacks demanded social equality and equality in employment. Backed by the US Congress and the federal courts, the blacks managed to achieve substantial progress by the end of the 1970s. The civil rights movement continues in 2010, expanding to nonblack minorities, women, and homosexuals who now claim the US is an evil and unfair society.
For reasons difficult to comprehend, after the blacks had gained numerous laws protecting the civil rights of all minorities and numerous laws, regulations, and court decisions giving opportunities that even went so far as to discriminate against whites, the blacks still argued for more. Worse, the leaders of blacks and other minorities began contending that the United States was a fascist nation unworthy of their support. This contention of an evil United States spread and became a commonly held belief in many minority groups throughout the country. For example, black churches openly teach that the Federal Government invented the AIDS virus to kill black people, and under so called “Liberation Theology” black and minority churches openly call for violence against the white race and the overthrow of the US government.
What has been forgotten by a substantial number of blacks and other minorities