The Cold War and Macgyver

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Philippa M
Posts: 307
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:14 am
Location: East Cannington, Perth - Western Australia

The Cold War and Macgyver

Post by Philippa M »

I see that quite a few of my buddies are from Germany, France and the Netherlands and i was wondering with the first season of Macgyver devoting the early part of the serious to the Cold War and espionage. How much of the cold war do you all remember. Most of the cold war occured when i was a little girl and i can vaguely remember the 'Star Wars' programme this USA v Russia... The eastern bloc and the wall. Sadly countries like Australia (The Petrov Affair), New Zealand (Green peaces Rainbow Warrior terrorism in Auckland Harbour) and the South Pacific, nations that weren't even remotely involved were dragged in to kicking and screaming by other, more powerful nations, using my nation as a pawns... treating our beautiful south pacific as a dumping ground for nuclear testing.


What do you all remember from that time period? What was it like living under communism.
Last edited by Philippa M on Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Richard Dean Anderson is Macgyver! .... *my hearts duet*
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tvero80
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Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:29 pm

Re: The Cold War and Macgyver

Post by tvero80 »

Talking about war isn't that easy ,Philippa.Either people are far away and don't understand or simply don't care or they are close and it's very painful (in Europe ,WW1,WW2,in Germany,France,my country,we paid the price... dearly...).For many years there were (past, finished,over ?) stereotypes in the movies and maybe in MacGyver too (?) Americans vs Russians , I mean the goodies against the baddies. So let's say, they correspond to a period (the cold war) that's over (I hope). To me ,no country is totally 'clean'.There are always 'skeletons in the cupboards'.
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Caty
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Location: Near the North Sea, Germany

Re: The Cold War and Macgyver

Post by Caty »

I don't remember the wars, but I still remember August 13th, 1961, when the wall through Germany was build.
I was a very little girl of 2 years, so I'm not expected to remember such a incident, but that day my parents and me were sleeping on our matresses on the floor, cause they were rebuilding some rooms in our house.
That night the tanks drove through our street, very fast and many of them. I can still recall the fear I could empathize of my parents. They were very afraid, that there would be war again. Thankfully we lived in Western Germany.
We had relatives in the German Democratic Republic, but never visited them cause my parents were afraid they never come back.

Many years later, when I went to school, it was usual for the last class, to go to Berlin for a week or so - Berlin, the devided city.
It was very disturbing to see this border, going through streets and houses and to know that the people on the other side are the same as we were.
When I was married we often visited friends in GDR, but I never felt comfortable there. It was very depressing that you had to take care of every word, you speak in public. When we visited our friends we had to change money, a specific sum for every day we stay there.

When finally the wall went down, the next morning we drove to our baker, bought lots of biscuits or what we say "Broetchen" and visited our friends - the first time after many years just for fun, not exchange, no depressing border.
It was so unsusual - when we came to the border it was the first time in many years that I saw the costoms officer of the GDR smile!!!! They never did it
before!

And to speak of Mac - the episode when he was carried in a coffin over a bridge - on that particular bridge there where some exchanges of people. West Germany "bought" some prisoners of the GDR to let them free.

And some prejudice is still found on Stargate - to the Russians. I remember Jack saying, when he was supposed to take a russian officer to SG1 "Over my rotting corpse, sir!" :lol: :lol:

To be true, the russian president Putin is not someone, I would trust. Not as far as I can throw him, ;)
See? Prejudice on my side, too.

I hope you find not so much mistakes, it came just out of my heart and I didn't thought much over my text.

Love, Caty
"No matter how hard the past,
you can always begin again.
"

(Buddha)
Philippa M
Posts: 307
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:14 am
Location: East Cannington, Perth - Western Australia

Re: The Cold War and Macgyver

Post by Philippa M »

I am no fan of Putin either, especially after what happened with Malaysia airlines attack MH-70. It killed 33 Australians on that flight... and even our then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott wanted to shirt front the sod...


Both our southern nations and the south pacific were treated like we didn't matter and that's how i felt at the time. Here were these two 'super power' nations having this fight over who was better than who, who had more weapons etc Forgot that there were other countries, other peoples govt's that wanted nothing to do with this silliness. But as usual we got caught up into a fight that wasn't ours to start with. See Australia and New Zealand are two nations that have never started a war, been involved in so we could continue being free. But never started and we fought so that future generations wouldn't have to feel this threat of death hanging over our heads. Truth is i felt quite sad for countries like Germany, Ukraine etc and for the people who were living that threat day in and day out. Thing is we need to remember that these actions of the threat of one side wanting to nuke the other side was primarily the fault arrogantness and selfish whims of the govt's running the show at the time, and not the millions of innocent peoples in Russia and other nations

But i guess in Macgyvers case, i never saw the first series when it aired on Australian TV all those years ago. And so I never knew that Mac, originally started life as a DXS agent for the American govt, before he moved on to the Phoenix Foundation. Looking back at the show and the work that Mac did, the risks that an agent like mac took to help people. And i think does derive from some truth of how life was reflected for people living and trying to survive in Russia, Germany and the other Eastern bloc countries. And the hell those who fought for freedom and democracy went thru, the many that died to obtain the same freedoms that most of us enjoy in the 21st century.
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Richard Dean Anderson is Macgyver! .... *my hearts duet*
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