Moats, decades
Random thought while listening to 1942 radio programs. For a long time it was believed that the Atlantic and Pacific protected America from attacks coming from Europe and Asia. In '42 many commentators "had to admit" that the moat theory was invalid. In 2001 when we were attacked again, commentators again "had to admit" that the moats no longer worked.

Nonsense. Look at actual events.

1941: Pearl Harbor is way out in the middle of the Pacific. Hawaii was not part of America at the time; it was a colony that we had acquired during McKinley and TR's period of imperial aggression. The Japs never did attack the mainland.

2001: We were not attacked from Afghanistan as the neocons like to believe. We were attacked from Florida and Oklahoma. Those Saudi boys had entered the country earlier and had overstayed their visas. We knew who they were and what they were doing. If we had been defending our own boundaries instead of fucking around everywhere else, we could have kicked those Saudi boys out, and could have ferociously stopped all Arab and Muslim immigrants.

Conclusion: We still have moats. It's still comparatively hard to get across an ocean. We still have plenty of time and plenty of methods to detect and repel an attack, whether it's by boat or plane or missile or internet. If we wanted to protect our country, we could.

The problem is not the "small world" or Tom Friedman's "flat world". The problem is vicious blood-soaked treason by Satanic governments and corporations, who intentionally make the nation vulnerable to attacks in order to maximize their power and profits.

Oceans also protect South and Central America, which were completely untouched by the Jap and Kraut imperial aggressions. After we decided to enter WW2, we tried to get South America involved in the fight, but they politely declined.

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Another random thought: I wonder if the nameless decade from 2000 to 2009 has broken the long-standing habit of naming decades. We never did settle on a name for the Aughties or Naughties or Pre-Teens or Zeroties. Now we're three years into a new decade that has a known and definite name, but I haven't heard anyone describe the current period as the Teens.
  ¶ 4:35 AM