Reagan

[Ned]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
ned, don't generalize. it puts you in the same class as all the rabid leftists, just on the other end of the spectrum.

reagan has some damn good speeches, particularly the one in front of the former berlin wall.

that does not change the fact that reagan didn't have much to do with the soviet collapse.

Well he did, Q Cubed. He supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan and that bleed the USSR dry. He also militarily resisted communism across the globe. This certainly did not help Gorbachev.

But I agree, the primary problem the USSR had was coming out of Poland and the Vatican.

[Q Classic]

well, if you wish to believe that.

the fact is that by the time gorby came into power, the soviet system had already suffered from at least twenty years of dry rot from within. unable to match the growing technological and economic might of the west, gorby tried to modernize soviet russia to compete. it was a bold gamble, trying to allow some free reforms in order to help breed a new generation of scientists and thinkers to create the same miracle in the eastern bloc. what he failed to realize was that democracy is a contagious thing: glasnost and perestroika, once they gave a voice to the people, brought down the soviet empire from within.

it wasn't reagan, ned. it was the people who put the final blow to communism. it was the freedom-loving citizens of the democratic west using their drive to outpace their stalinist and communist eastern brothers. reagan was just one man in it, who just happened to be in charge of america at the time.

[Nubclear]

[Sikander]

Originally posted by MRT144


quoting famous men doesnt make a man any wiser.

Good one. Who said it?

[Q Classic]

well, the part he quoted includes the name...? :

Originally posted by Ned
Churchill had a saying that went something like this. If a man in his twenties was not a liberal, he had no heart. If a man in his thirties was not a conservative, he had no brain.

quoting famous men doesnt make a man any wiser.

[The Vagabond]

Thanks for citing the evil-empire speech, Ned. Read it with interest.

Well, so many persistent references to God make his speech look, at places, as a speech of a fundamentalist leader, rather than the leader of the free world.

On the other hand, I see that the words "evil empire" are mentioned only in passing. This is quite unlike Bush's recent "axis of evil", which was accentuated boldly and persistently. Nonetheless, the words "evil empire" were noticed, singled out, and brought into political jargon. Thus an extremely successful propagandistic cliche was born.

[MrFun]

Didn't Raegan declare once, that trees cause pollution??

[notyoueither]

Ladies and gentlemen, we begin bombing in five minutes... Oops.

Gotta wonder if that really was a mistake, or was it calculated to let the people in the Kremlin know just how much of a hardass they were dealing with?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
well, if you wish to believe that.

the fact is that by the time gorby came into power, the soviet system had already suffered from at least twenty years of dry rot from within. unable to match the growing technological and economic might of the west, gorby tried to modernize soviet russia to compete. it was a bold gamble, trying to allow some free reforms in order to help breed a new generation of scientists and thinkers to create the same miracle in the eastern bloc. what he failed to realize was that democracy is a contagious thing: glasnost and perestroika, once they gave a voice to the people, brought down the soviet empire from within.

it wasn't reagan, ned. it was the people who put the final blow to communism. it was the freedom-loving citizens of the democratic west using their drive to outpace their stalinist and communist eastern brothers. reagan was just one man in it, who just happened to be in charge of america at the time.

Read some of the earlier posts. Their recollection agrees with mine (as an outsider). Reagan revitalised a beaten and demoralised population. People who can do great things often do not for want of leadership.

[The Vagabond]

His name is spelled "Reagan", MrFun. I just noticed on another thread that you write "Raegan" all the time.

[notyoueither]

... of course I think Americans were certainly ready for it. I don't pick Yanks to be too enthusiastic about taking second place to anyone for very long. After Vietnam and Watergate they were generally beat though. Carter was a very good man, but he didn't have the stuff to make Americans forget. Reagan was the right man at the right time.

At least that's what it looked like to me from where I sit.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Ladies and gentlemen, we begin bombing in five minutes... Oops.

Gotta wonder if that really was a mistake, or was it calculated to let the people in the Kremlin know just how much of a hardass they were dealing with?

It might well be so.

[The Vagabond]

It is certainly amazing how Reagan managed to raise the spirits of a demoralized America. But I should insist that this could have never happened if it was not for a completely bizarre and accidental victory of the US hockey team in 1980.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union was doomed well before Reagan came to power. Momentum was irreversibly lost in the mid-1960s. The Brezhnev leadership preferred a couple of decades of pseudo-stability to modernizing the country. In the 1960s, such a modernization was yet possible.

[Alexander's Horse]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

NOONE predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. It came as a complete surprise.

And I don't think you can credit Reagan with that.

[notyoueither]

On the Soviets bit... what would have happened if nobody pushed at the house of cards? Can't say can you? Neither can I. All I can say is that Reagan (and like-minded allies) did push. A lot. That is why they get credit in my books.