Reagen Dying

[Daemon Spawn]

I got more accomplished in this statement than all the blathering above (well, behind, anyways).

 

[Sander]

Can't you two talk to each other as sensible adults? Jeesh.

As if either of us is an adult.

Sander, calm the fuck down and get off your fucking high horse.

No. He's given me no reason to actually get off that high horse. I've made it quite clear that I refuse to debate with someone who does not read what is said and uses a bunch of silly one-liners and manipulative techniques to get somewhere in a debate. In short, I refuse to debate with someone who does not debate.

 

[quietfanatic]

No. He's given me no reason to actually get off that high horse. I've made it quite clear that I refuse to debate with someone who does not read what is said and uses a bunch of silly one-liners and manipulative techniques to get somewhere in a debate. In short, I refuse to debate with someone who does not debate.

This seems quite petty. From my experience on this forum you have appeared to be the level headed and (relatively) mature debater. You know better than to suffer from an offensive outburst in which you say f**k you, (ah, the power of language) instead of continuing to reason. It is clear that you have reacted in this way for a reason.

CCR, you appear to be a man taken straight out of the conservative America of the 50s. That retro style can get tiresome though, in spite of the love of Fallout. You provide a balance to the more liberal people here, but that can only go so far. I have pointed out before that you are not balanced in your arguments and ignore contradictory evidence but this is justifiable to win an argument. But then what is the point of thinking you are 'right' when you might not be? Don't you want to try to have a balanced world view, instead of being the 'opposition'? Arguing with you sometimes seems to be like talking to a brick wall as you ignore some comments. A response is gained if you are goaded with extreme and untrue pronouncements such as 'America has no welfare' but your response is usually just as extreme and without qualification. One liners are not enough. However, in spite of these behaviors you are an intelligent human being with a good general knowledge.

This means one of two things.

1. You are a stubborn and arrogant child who doesn't want to risk his precious view of the world being challenged.

or

2. You are a dangerous fundamentalist. An extremist is a threat to society in general but does not have the intellect required to do much damage as they are not put in positions of authority. But you are a smart guy who has access to a wide pool of knowledge and yet you still make foolish statements and remain blind to the truth. The intelligent extremist is truly dangerous because they can abuse their responsibilities and actually cause serious change for the worst. An example of this is through their influence on other people. How much damage did Goebbels and Speer do by working with extremists?

So which option do you choose? Or can you provide a better description without one liners, changing the subject or ignoring statements?

Sander, you should give CCR a break for not playing fair, as I am sure that he will try to be more polite and open minded in future (or we will lynch him ). You should be nice to get this to happen. I value the discussions you two have very much, although CCR is biased, because he still has relevant points and interesting facts that support his opinion. Tell me how many detailed political discussions you have had with people other than CCR? Suggest to everyone how to debate and they will oblige (or look like fools). I would be saddened if the discussions were discontinued. I have confidence that CCR has the maturity to debate properly just as you have the maturity to not swear at people in a sudden explosive outburst.

I myself am inexperienced in debating and fairly ignorant, but I can see when people are being childish and unfair. I am more of a rabble rousing extremist myself on NMA than in day to day life (to be heard), but I do not seriously think that people should stop talking just because of a difference in opinion. If we did that we would be temperamental, bitchy girls or terrorists. My view is that we should always try to have balance and a moderate view in life, while we should fight oppression, conflict and extremism. (yes, I am obsessed with balance) If you do not agree with something, provide an argument and be happy if someone is kind enough to tear it apart.

In regards to Reagan, I will study his effect in the Cold War later and get back to you.

Please, be nice and not like Islamo-hippy-fascistic-girly-extremists.

Read, think, think again and respond.

/end pleading of quietfanatic

 

[Sander]

Quietfanatic, you should realise one thing: I have had a great many debates with CCR, and I have confronted him about such things before. I am sick and tired of talking to someone, coming up with actual arguments, making points and (shocker) actually acknowledging when he is right without getting any such courtesy in return. I have yet to see CCR make a single concession in this thread, and after I told him about things multiple times in a row he still continues down the same irrelevant path. Take the bit where he reacted to someone saying the economy was bad. I confronted him and said that the economy still wasn't good, and that if he were to say "but oil prices will go down" or something like that he should keep in mind that we are talking about the present. The first response I get is something along the lines of "the economy is growing", I tell him again that we are talking about present and not future. But yet again he comes back with "the economy is getting better." It's these kinds of things that piss me off and make me do this. Please note that it's not because I disagree with CCR's opinions, I happen to like disagreeing with him, or that I think he's an idiot (I don't). It's the fact that he continues to go along the same mindless path which should not be classified as debating or even discussing at all. It's the fact that he acts as if the world would end if he were to ever concede any kind of minute point in any debate, no matter how logical or small.
You see, I am tired of telling him these things and him not listening, because apparently, he does not listen. So now I"m doing this.
Anyone may think that this is petty of me, or that I'm playing with CCR, or whatever, but I do not care. I have stated my reasons and opinion at least three times in this thread now, and I will not pick up this debate again until CCR learns how to properly think and debate.

 

[quietfanatic]

If at first you don't succeed then try, try and try again.

If it is still to no avail.

Then the ball is in your court CCR.

I hope that you will still try to "negotiate with terrorists", I mean, talk to CCR Sander.

/end cliche barrage

 

[welsh]

Nice intervention QuietFanatic-

Both Sander and CCR are taking a higher position it seems. It's part of their argument style- seize the high ground. Of the two options for CCR, I hope it's (1) and not (2).

OF course both are young.

LEt me add about Reagan- few people will say bad things about a dead president, especially not in an election year.

 

[John Uskglass]

Both Sander and CCR are taking a higher position it seems. It's part of their argument style- seize the high ground. Of the two options for CCR, I hope it's (1) and not (2).

Bit of both, key point being that

OF course both are young.

and with youth comes extremeism.

 

[Brother None]

Who says adults are sensible? I know plenty enough who aren’t.

Which is why I added "sensible". I could've said sensible people too, but that's not enough esperit de core, n'est pas?

No. He's given me no reason to actually get off that high horse.

Your high horses, high-ground, arrogant attitudes or however the hell you want to stamp it are not the responsibility of the opposing party. It's not the responsibility of another person to act sensibly in your eyes so that you don't have to feel superior to him. No, you should not feel superior to anyone and, if you do, you should not show it. That attitude will serve nobody. But that's not the most important bit.

Quietfanatic, you should realise one thing: I have had a great many debates with CCR, and I have confronted him about such things before. I am sick and tired of talking to someone, coming up with actual arguments, making points and (shocker) actually acknowledging when he is right without getting any such courtesy in return.

I would contend that this is at least as much your problem as it is CC's.

Understand, Sander, that these are no sheltered academic debates and that even if they were, no sheltered academic debate can force a person into a certain mode of debating. If you want to be "a serious debater" (hah), then you're going to have to live with the fact that "the opposite side" (hah again) will not use the methods of debating that *you* prefer. It's CC's good right to use these trickeries to gain "victory" (third hah) and quite frankly I'm more annoyed by.your.stipulation.of.words than by his dodging.

But the above again displays the problem. You're viewing this as some kind of honerary contest, as is illustrated by the part above I highlighted. If you cease to view this as a matter of right or wrong, of courtesies, winner and losers, good debaters and bad debaters, maybe you could enter a debate with a clear head and come out a wiser person. Obviously, your current method of approaching this is not working too well.

OF course both are young.

I kind of resent the age card period, and certainly resent it being used on the internet. For all we know, both of them could be 50. It wouldn't make a damn difference, how reasonable or petty they are is in their hands, no matter their age.

 

[Sander]

Your high horses, high-ground, arrogant attitudes or however the hell you want to stamp it are not the responsibility of the opposing party. It's not the responsibility of another person to act sensibly in your eyes so that you don't have to feel superior to him. No, you should not feel superior to anyone and, if you do, you should not show it. That attitude will serve nobody. But that's not the most important bit.

Whether or not I feel superior to CCR is beside the point, because that's not why I am doing his.

I would contend that this is at least as much your problem as it is CC's.

It is, yes, and I realise that. Courtesy is not something that comes automatically, but posting does't come automatically either.

Understand, Sander, that these are no sheltered academic debates and that even if they were, no sheltered academic debate can force a person into a certain mode of debating.

No, it can't. And I don't want to force him into a mode of debating. But I have tired of this way of debating, and I am extremely tired of his one-liners. Whether or not he changes his habits is now not my problem anymore: I do not debate with him.
Understand that it's not about this needing to be a sheltered academic debate (it shouldn't be, that'd take a lot of fun out of it), it IS about me being tired of it. I am tired of making point after point after valid point, and making no progress whatsoever. I am tired of seemingly losing ground simply because my opponent refuses to ever back down from any viewpoint, no matter how stupid or obviously faulty.
The point is: I am tired.

If you want to be "a serious debater" (hah), then you're going to have to live with the fact that "the opposite side" (hah again) will not use the methods of debating that *you* prefer. It's CC's good right to use these trickeries to gain "victory" (third hah)

It's not about victory, being a serious debater or an opposite side. Some terms related to this must be used at times to describe what's happening, but that's not what it's about. It's about me being tired of this way of debating.

and quite frankly I'm more annoyed by.your.stipulation.of.words than by his dodging.

In case you hadn't noticed that only resurfaced in my last post I made for him. That's also why they resurfaced: I wanted to make myself very clear. Whether that works or not, it gives an appearance of emphasis. I've stopped it altogether though, and I've used bolding lately.

But the above again displays the problem. You're viewing this as some kind of honerary contest, as is illustrated by the part above I highlighted. If you cease to view this as a matter of right or wrong, of courtesies, winner and losers, good debaters and bad debaters, maybe you could enter a debate with a clear head and come out a wiser person. Obviously, your current method of approaching this is not working too well.

No, this is not about contest, nor about right or wrong, winners and losers and whatnot. It is about me being tired. Tired of him.

I kind of resent the age card period, and certainly resent it being used on the internet. For all we know, both of them could be 50. It wouldn't make a damn difference, how reasonable or petty they are is in their hands, no matter their age.

Well then I'd be an awfully young looking 50-year-old, wouldn't I?

Personally, though, one should not be judged by one's age, but by one's actions.

 

[John Uskglass]

From Something Awful
Yet Another Ronald Reagan Retrospective

http://www.somethingawful.com/

Au revoir cher ami.
Nothing brings the United States together like the death of a popular ex-president and as far as the "could die any minute" list of ex-presidents goes Ronald Reagan was at the top. Imagine my surprise, on the heels of an announcement that he was going to die any minute, when he actually died! Hours of D-Day memorializing fell by the wayside on every 24 hour news channel and network presentation so that anchors could solemnly recite the good parts of the legacy of Ronald Reagan. It was (and still is) impossible to turn on almost any channel without seeing footage and announcements about Ronald Reagan. Before my Sunday was over I saw the cast of Reno 911 reading a heartfelt letter from Michael Reagan and witnessed Carson Daley actually tearing up as he watched file footage of Ron and Nancy.

Conservatives around the country fondled sacks of jellybeans like they were rosaries and spat venom at anyone who seemed disinterested by the news that their political hero had just expired. Personally, I was glad he died, because Alzheimer's is a fucking horrible way to decline and these last few years must have been nothing but suffering for his family and even him during his increasingly rare lucid moments. Alzheimer's is a funny disease that way. It leaves the body basically intact, but as it chews it way through the brain it will take and take, until there is only that body left. The pain, the anguish, comes from those brief moments when the real person inside that husk surfaces. For a few minutes, maybe just a few seconds, they see what they have become, remember what they have done.

I want to devote this article to the Ronald Reagan that I knew. The guy who wasn't very good at kickball and wasn't shy about watering his lawn while underdressed.

The Reagan I knew was affable and always had a nice - and honest - thing to say to everyone, even if he hated their guts. I'll never forget the time he took me for a ride in his brand new El Camino. He was so proud of that damn car and no one on the block was mean-spirited enough to tell him it was retarded. His was cherry red, "firecracker red" as he called it, and the day he bought it he saw me looking at it and asked if I wanted to go for a spin. I politely declined but Ron wouldn't hear of it and ushered me onto the pleather seat, reminding me to buckle my safety belt and straightening the mirror as we backed out of his driveway. He went on and on about how it was a new class of car. He felt certain that it would revolutionize the automotive industry. You know, I think he still had that car, looking showroom fresh, on the day he died. I'd like to think that once in a while Nancy got a particularly nice Secret Service guy to take Reagan out for a spin.


Reagan and Nancy were quite a couple.
Ron and Nancy had such an amazing relationship too. I remember for a while Nancy was crazy about cats. I'm talking absolutely nuts about them. She would take in any stray and every Sunday she would drag Ron to the animal shelter and come home with an armload of mewling tabbies. Reagan just smiled and took it, although he learned to lock the door to his study after one of the male cats sprayed every square inch of the room in the middle of July. I vividly remember drinking lemonade on the porch with Reagan talking about the Giants' chances to make the playoffs. Cats just kept opening the screen door and sitting on him. By the time I left he actually had a cat sitting on his head. It was surreal.

Not to say that Nancy didn't do her share of putting up with Ron's antics as well. One spring Ron asked me to come over to his backyard and have a look at something. He was watering this big patch of dirt with the garden hose and I saw all of these shovels and spades lying around. He told me that he had decided to dig a hole. I asked him why and he told me that he was doing it because he had never dug a really big hole before. Every day he would be out there digging that hole in a sweat-streaked tank top. The guy had some serious muscles at the time and Nancy would just watch him from the kitchen window. She would shake her head in fake disappointment at how much time he was wasting digging that hole, but I could tell from the far-off stare that she just fell in love with him even more every time he raised a shovel full of dirt over his shoulder.

By mid-summer that hole was almost thirty feet deep. He had sandbags and wooden slats to keep it from collapsing. I think he ended up making it into some sort of weird subterranean apiary. I clearly recall him spending hours looking at all sorts of seed kits he could buy for bee colonies and he totally filled the backyard with flowers.

When I was friends with Ron he didn't care for rap music very much, instead preferring big band stuff and poppy love ballads like the kind of shit Bryan Adams sings. All the same, Reagan would go to great lengths to make you feel liked. I remember when Ice Cube's "Predator" album came out I couldn't resist talking it up to Ron. He was so nice that he acted like he loved the album too. I asked him what his favorite song was and he said "oh, well, I like all of them equally just about". So I asked "even 'When Will They Shoot?'" and of course he said he liked it and then I just made up a title, I think it was "Rapper's DeLorean", and he said he loved that one.

So Reagan may not like rap music much, but I think he can appreciate good poetry, and what is rap music but the poetry of the street? With that in mind I have written a rap song to dedicate to the loving memory of Ronald Reagan.

The Ronald Reagan Rap
Laying flowers on the grave of the Waffen SS,
Straight playing Jimmy Carter and cleanin up his mess,
You're an old school shoota,
Central America booty loota,
Poppin collas and stabbin Y,
Droppin' dollas on SDI.

Cuz you was a crowd pleasa,
Straight squeeza,
If you was a liberal we didn't needja,

Secret wars in eighty trizzay,
Runnin' up in Nicarizzay,
Orderin' M1s to keep the communizzays bizzay,
Pullin' more voters than Proposition: Free Money,
Got corporate niggas thinkin' you the Easter Bunny,
Niggas know Reaganomics got they up side sunny.

Cuz you was a shot calla,
Big balla,
Fuck term limitations and let me hear yah holla

Got more Tech 9s than a plane full a crips,
You the one dealin and winnin' all the chips,
Mondale bought it,
Ferraro's husband got an audit,
While you be smokin' up a tree,
Olly North be swingin' on it.

Cuz you loved you some jelly beans,
Nancy's helpin' troubled teens,
Had your niggas runnin' up in House Ways and Means


Shout out to Gingrich and the Hardballas,
Big ups to Froze Out Bush Senior,
And straight out love to all my niggas in the Camp David in the sky.

I'm not sure if Ron would particularly care for the music or lyrics, but I know he would still appreciate the sentiment behind my rap and have nothing but nice things to say about it.

Ruler of the world or owner of a broken heart?
Years after I moved away from Ron's neighborhood I bumped into Ron on the streets of Austin, Texas. I think it was around the time he got shot by John Hinckley, although I can't remember if it was before or after. He was eating this weird juevos rancheros in a rolled up cone of crisped tortilla that looked like a really disgusting ice cream cone. He practically threw the thing on the ground when he saw me and he just came over and gave me a big fucking bear hug. I asked him how things were and he said "fine, fine", but as we reminisced a little I could see this look in his eyes. He was different. Harder. Washington had changed him, and not much of it was for the better. The same old demeanor was there, but in a way I felt that loss - that disconnect - that wouldn't come for many years for most Americans. I had lost the real Ronald Reagan. The guy who would punch your shoulder if he saw a Volkswagen and would eagerly volunteer to help if you said you were moving.

Here was this other Reagan, this foreign land of Ronald Reagan. He looked the same, but the words were all different and scary. We parted ways that day and I never saw him in person again. Oh, he sent the usual Christmas cards with him and Nancy next to a tree and all fifteen of their cats in sweaters, but it was different. I could sense it was perfunctory. I could imagine him taking a break from reading a briefing on a SEAL raid in El Salvador to sign his name next to Nancy's on 500 identical Christmas cards. Before it was with love, but by that point the love was gone. Washington took it, ate it alive. It does that to everyone.

 

[John Uskglass]

http://www.reason.com/0311/cr.gg.the.shtml



The Gipper and the Hedgehog

How an "amiable dunce" outsmarted the world.

Glenn Garvin




Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism, by Peter Schweizer, New York: Doubleday, 339 pages, $26

The innate and possibly genetically mandated stupidity of Republicans has long been treated as established scientific fact; it is so utterly beyond dispute that even a ninth-grade dropout like Cher, who once thought Mount Rushmore’s heads were natural formations, can publicly declare George W. Bush "lazy and stupid" without fear of embarrassment. But however great a moron the current president is said to be, his dimwittedness pales beside that of Ronald Reagan. Even hardened journalists and academics, long resigned to their toil among the ignorant, have recoiled before the feeble-mindedness of Reagan.

Haynes Johnson, for one, was so struck by Reagan’s vegetable-level intelligence that he put it in the title of his history of the Reagan presidency, Sleepwalking Through History. Frances Fitzgerald took the title for her account of Reagan’s Star Wars program, Way Out There in the Blue, from a crack in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman about the simpleton Willie Loman: "way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine." Former JFK/LBJ whiz kid Clark Clifford called Reagan an "amiable dunce," and historian Edmund Morris found Reagan’s life so vapid that he actually made up characters and anecdotes in hopes of producing a more compelling biography.

Yet if there was an eggplant where Reagan’s brain should have been, how did he manage to win the Cold War? How did he bring a victorious end to an ideological and military deadlock that defied Kennedy’s best and brightest, Johnson’s political cunning, Carter’s brilliance (certified not only by his nuclear physics degree but also by an Evelyn Wood speed reading diploma), Eisenhower’s strategic prowess, and even Nixon’s widely acknowledged (if not always admired) skills as a back-alley fighter?

he general response among America’s chattering classes has been that Reagan was the political equivalent of the millionth customer at Bloomingdale’s. He was the guy lucky enough to walk through the door as the prize was handed out, as if everything was pre-ordained and would have happened the same way no matter whether the White House had been occupied by Michael Dukakis or George McGovern or Susan Sarandon. An alternative theory posits that Gorbachev was some sort of Jeffersonian kamikaze pilot, taking his whole nation over the cliff for the thrill of being proclaimed Time’s Man of the Decade.

Oddly, that’s not the way the Russians see it. Says Genrikh Grofimenko, a former adviser to Leonid Brezhnev, "Ninety-nine percent of the Russian people believe that you won the Cold War because of your president’s insistence on SDI," the Strategic Defense Initiative, as Star Wars was formally called. Grofimenko marvels that the Nobel Peace Prize went to "the greatest flimflam man of all time," Mikhail Gorbachev, while Western intellectuals ignore Reagan -- who, he says, "was tackling world gangsters of the first order of magnitude."

So how did Reagan do it? The answer, suggests Hoover Institution researcher and Cold War historian Peter Schweizer in his new book, Reagan’s War, can probably be found in Isaiah Berlin’s essay "The Fox and the Hedgehog." Berlin, musing on an obscure line penned by the Greek poet Archilochus, argued it was a modern typology. Archilochus wrote that the fox knows many things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing. Berlin characterized foxes as running hither and yon, taking actions that are unconnected by any guiding principle and that may even be at odds with one another. "Hedgehogs, on the other hand," writes Schweizer, "relate everything to a single central vision."



Schweizer is not so unkind as to say so, but when it came to foreign policy, Jimmy Carter was the archetypal fox. Pulling the rug out from under right-wing regimes in Nicaragua and Guatemala, then arming theocratic fascist guerrillas in Afghanistan, he could never translate his supposedly superior intellect into coherent policy.

Unlike Carter, Reagan was never invited to contribute to foreign policy journals. But he knew one big thing: that freedom is the defining value of mankind, and communism was its antithesis. It was that, and not the arcana of missile throw weights or U.N. treaties, that defined Reagan’s policy toward the Soviet Union. "Details that animate so many in the world of politics, academe, and journalism did not interest him so much as the ‘metaphysics’ of the Cold War," observes Schweizer. "He was, in short, a hedgehog living in a world populated with foxes."

Reagan’s War is not a biography, not a history of the Reagan administration, not even an examination of its foreign policy. It is, rather, a history of Reagan’s one big thing: his lifelong confrontation with communism, which began on Hollywood’s backlots and ended in a post-presidential visit to Germany, where he personally knocked a brick out of the defunct Berlin Wall. Working with White House documents (some declassified, some still secret), Reagan’s own correspondence, and a wealth of material released from Soviet bloc archives, Schweizer argues persuasively that the collapse of the Soviet Union was no accident; it was the result of a strategy that Reagan had been advocating for nearly 20 years.

As early as 1963, Reagan argued that the arms race should be not reined in but accelerated. "If we truly believe that our way of life is best, aren’t the Russians more likely to recognize that fact and modify their stand if we let their economy come unhinged, so the contrast is apparent?" he asked in a speech that year. "In an all-out race our system is strong," said Reagan, "and eventually the enemy gives up the race as a hopeless cause."

He wanted to use American technology to leverage an arms race that would force Moscow’s wheezing command economy into a Hobson’s choice between guns and butter. Either way, Reagan believed, the Soviets would lose: They could never keep up with the United States in an arms race, but abandoning it would be suicidal for a state that conducted all its business at gunpoint.

Reagan finally got to test his theory when he entered the White House in 1981. His defense team drew up a plan, later expanded into National Security Decision Directive 11-82, that explicitly made U.S. defense spending a form of economic warfare against the Soviets. The United States would "exploit and demonstrate the enduring economic advantages of the West to develop a variety of [arms] systems that are difficult for the Soviets to counter, impose disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition and obsolesce previous Soviet investment or employ sophisticated strategic options to achieve this end." The objective was to make arms spending a "rising burden on the Soviet economy."

In retrospect, Reagan’s point that the Soviet economy was on life support seems obvious to the point of banality. In fact, that’s one of the arguments his critics use against him: that the Soviet economy would have imploded anyway, even without Reagan’s defense buildup. But that’s not the way foreign policy intellectuals saw it in 1982.

"It is a vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable," declared economist Lester Thurow, adding that the Soviet Union was "a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." (I wonder if Thurow had ever flown on a Soviet airliner?) John Kenneth Galbraith went further, insisting that in many respects the Soviet economy was superior to ours: "In contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower."

Arthur Schlesinger, just back from a trip to Moscow in 1982, said Reagan was delusional. "I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street -- more of almost everything," he said, adding his contempt for "those in the U.S. who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink." (By the way, Schlesinger, who has spent his life in praise of JFK’s adventures in Vietnam and Cuba but foamed at the mouth over every other American military action of the Cold War, proves Isaiah Berlin wrong: In addition to foxes and hedgehogs, there are also chameleons.)

Reagan nonetheless persisted. He boosted production of conventional arms and borrowed a play from the Soviet book by backing anti-communist insurgencies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Most controversially, he poured billions of dollars into his missile defense program.

Whether SDI will ever work (20 years later, it’s still mostly theoretical) and whether, even if it does work, it’s a wise strategic choice in a world where America’s most implacable enemies are not superpowers with hundreds of ICBMs but terrorists with suitcases, are arguments for another time. But what has largely been overlooked in the debate is that the Soviets had no doubt whatsoever that it would work.

At arms summits, Gorbachev frantically offered increasingly gigantic cuts in strategic missiles -- first 50 percent, then all of them -- if Reagan would just abandon SDI. Schweizer, mining Soviet archives and memoirs still unpublished in the West, shows that Gorbachev’s fears echoed throughout the Politburo. SDI "played a powerful psychological role," admitted KGB Gen. Nikolai Leonev. "It underlined still more our technological backwardness." Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko understood exactly what Reagan was up to: "Behind all this lies the clear calculation that the USSR will exhaust its material resources before the USA and therefore be forced to surrender." Most tellingly of all, the East German-backed terrorist group known as the Red Army Faction began systematically murdering executives of West German companies doing SDI research.

Reagan, unmoved, stiff-armed the Soviets on SDI while winning huge concessions on other weapons. When Gorbachev complained, Reagan needled him with jokes. (Sample: Two Russians are standing in line at the vodka store. Time passed -- 30 minutes, an hour, two -- and they were no closer to the door. "I’ve had it," one of the men finally snarled. "I’m going over to the Kremlin to shoot that son of a bitch Gorbachev!" He stormed up the street. Half an hour later, he returned. "What happened?" asked his friend. "Did you shoot Gorbachev?" Replied the other man in disgust: "Hell, no. The line over there is even longer than this one.")

The arms buildup (and a little-appreciated corollary, Reagan’s jawboning of the Saudis to open their oil spigots and depress the value of Soviet petroleum exports) quickly took its toll. The Soviet economy began shrinking in 1982 and never recovered. By Schweizer’s accounting, the various Reagan initiatives were costing Moscow as much as $45 billion a year, a devastating sum for a nation with only $32 billion a year in hard-currency earnings. Meanwhile, Reagan’s rhetoric (the "evil empire" and "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speeches in particular) emboldened opposition movements in Eastern Europe. Less than a year after Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall fell; the Soviet Union itself disappeared a little later.

Neither Reagan’s strategy nor Schweizer’s book are without flaws. Regarding the latter, it makes me a little nervous that, in areas where I have firsthand knowledge, Schweizer is sometimes a mite sloppy with the details. He writes, for instance, that Moscow gave Nicaragua’s Sandinista government two squadrons of MiG fighters. Actually, despite their endless pleading, the Sandinistas never got a single MiG -- Schweizer apparently has them confused with Soviet-made HIND helicopters, which were much less upsetting to the arms equilibrium in Central America. And I scratched my head over his contention that Grenada’s Marxist government permitted the Soviets to use the island as a transit point for arms shipments to El Salvador. Why bother, when Cuba and Nicaragua were so much closer?

As for Reagan’s strategy, it came with both costs and risks, all of which Schweizer brushes past. The defense spending binge (coupled with increased domestic spending that Reagan wouldn’t or couldn’t block) saddled the country with a trillion dollars in debt, which is real money even by Washington’s standards. The U.S. government has always thrown money around like a drunken sailor, but enshrining the practice as a standard weapon in our military arsenal is a little scary.Even scarier is the risk that, when you draw lines in the sand, someone will cross them -- or worse, obliterate them. Schweizer describes a chilling scene at a Moscow party where Hungary’s foreign minister listened in horror as a group of drunken Soviet generals slammed shots of vodka and bellowed that the imperialists were about to gain military superiority and the time had come to push the button. We weren’t the only country with Strangelovian elements.

Schweizer’s narrative, nonetheless, is important -- and not just to settle historical scores with the Schlesingers of the world. The flipside of his argument about Reagan’s role in the fall of the Soviet Union is that detente was a dismal failure: that the Soviets responded to U.S. restraint with increased troublemaking in the Third World; that arms-control agreements actually destabilized the world by allowing Moscow to catch up with us; that, had we taken a firmer hand, the Cold War could have ended a decade or more earlier, at the cost of much less blood and money.

Those are sobering thoughts as we confront a new enemy that is as antithetical to freedom as was Soviet communism but much less predictable: Islamist terrorism. We once measured the threat to our security in easily quantifiable terms: the number and location of the enemy’s soldiers and tanks, the aim of his missiles. As we learned on September 11, 2001, that way of reckoning has joined blimps and the Maginot Line on the scrap heap of military history. Reasonable persons may differ over whether George Bush chose the right target when he invaded Iraq. But it seems clear that Bill Clinton’s tentative response to earlier Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and U.S. embassies in Africa only served to embolden Osama bin Laden. The 9/11 attacks taught us that if we wait around until the first punch is thrown, we’re going to get a bloody nose and worse.

If only we could bring Ronald Reagan back from the fog into which he’s vanished, I’d love to hear what he’d have to say on the subject.

 

[welsh]

Frankly, I am glad the guy is finally dead. I am also sick of all the hoopla over the poor dearly departed president. I mean really.... bury the guy already.

Reagan, who came up with what Bush called Voodoo Economics, who did to the national budget what a crack whore does with a credit card, who gave us the Iran-Contra Affair, who gave money and guns to the former National Guard of Nicaragua who we can call Contras, who Reagan called Freedom Fighters, but most of us can call former death squad members. Yeah, Ronbow. Gave us SDI because he liked the movie? Made the MX missile and called it the Peacekeeper. ALl this while his wife read his fortune with her astrological insight and thus planned his schedule. "Jeesh Ronnie, maybe today is not the day we should dust moscow."

Personally, Ronnie stands out in my mind as the guy who got a lot of marines killed in Lebanon. First they go in as neutral peacekeepers, then the Navy starts sending shells the size of volkwagens into Druze villages and we're supporting the Phalange Party (which got their ideas from German Facists of the 1930 creed) and no surprise our kids get his with a truck bomb that drops the roof of the airport on them. An old friend of mine, is better testiment to Ronnie. In the marines by 17, cut his first man in half with an M-60 by 18, digs up the bodies of his buddies by 19, head case for life.

From the Economist-

The first post-Enlightenment president?

Or the first persident that made being a dipship popular?

Ronald Reagan’s presidency brought the end of Soviet-block communism and changed most people’s views of how a market economy should be run. These achievements owed as much to gut feeling as to reason
Reuters

WHEN Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the United States’ 40th president, most clear-thinking people clearly saw that he was not going to be the right man for the job. Only a fortnight from 70 when he became president, the one-time minor film actor often glazed over in cabinet meetings. He disliked painful arguments with awkward colleagues. He could fail to notice curious things going on behind his back. He was a definite non-intellectual. He was bound, in short, to be a bumbler of a president.

Asleep at the wheel. Ronnie was a forgetful grandfather. Crazy ideas too. Fight them commies Ronnie!

Instead of which, the Reagan presidency of 1981-89 brought the end of Soviet-block communism, changed most people’s views about how a free-market economy should be run, and gave another generation of self-confident life to the American idea. Mr Reagan, who died on Saturday June 5th aged 93, turned out to be one of the two or three most effective presidents of the past half-century; some would say the best of them all. Now the intellectuals can start musing about the hidden strengths that overcame all those too-evident weaknesses.

Meaning that he gave us new ideas about deficit spending?

WOuld the Soviets have fallen apart even without Ronnie? True, I will give him credit for an alliance with the Pope to bring down the commies in Poland, but I recall the Solidarity Movement had something to do with that too.

Oh and we kicked Grenada's Ass! Yeah Baby!

To be sure, the weaknesses sometimes prevailed. The darkest episode of the Reagan presidency was the Iran-contra affair. The president secretly authorised the sale of American-made weapons to some supposed “moderates” in the Iranian government; part of the money raised by the sale was then given to the contras, the American-backed rebels fighting the communist government of Nicaragua.

Let's see, lie about having a chick suck your dick / CLinton, or lie to COngress, break the law, sell guns to to Iranians, and use the money to support a war despite Congress telling you not to.

Congress- "did you know about Ollie North?"

Ronnie - "I forgot...."

Yeah.... right.

Reagan’s motives were, up to a point, respectable. The grateful Iranians were supposed to arrange the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon (though America had sworn it would never bargain with hostage-takers). But the whole thing involved much lying, some blush-making quibbles when the lies were found out, and—if you believe the official story—a president who did not know what his officials were up to with the contras. Here was woolly, hands-off, prevaricating Reagan at his worst.

Hey it was his last term! Give the guy a break!

His instincts worked better with the economy, but even here things did not happen as he wanted when he wanted. The dramatic tax cuts of his first year did not bring the swift soaring of production, and therefore of revenues, that he had been led to expect; instead, it was the budget and trade deficits that soared—a trend that is once again fashionable under George W Bush. Reagan’s presidency ended with inflation down but public spending taking almost as big a share of GDP as eight years earlier. No Reagan revolution here, it seemed.

Note kids, you adopt the legacy of this when you vote for George Bush. Happy paying taxes and getting less services.

Yet in fact the seeds of the revolution had been sown. Reagan persuaded his opponents that his goals should be their goals too—an economy wedded to enterprise, not corporatism, a flexible labour force, and a welfare policy the next generation would be able to afford. The revolution had come, after all, and had converted its enemies. Reagan made safe the way for Bill Clinton, just as in Britain Margaret Thatcher did for Tony Blair. And now the green shoots of the same revolution can be seen in Italy and Spain, and tomorrow may shyly show themselves even in Germany and France.

How exactly does Ronnie get credit for this?

Luckily for the world, Reagan’s instincts produced swifter results in foreign policy. He came into office convinced that America stood for a good idea, the Soviet Union for a bad one; that the notion of a balance of power between them—“mutually assured destruction”—was thus morally wrong; that the Russians’ bulging military muscle had no real economic power behind it; and so that, if a rearmed America stood nose-to-nose with its adversary, and politely refused to budge, it would win the day.

Or victory through bankruptcy. Lets scare the Jesus out of the Russians by telling them about SDI/Star Wars, fly our bombers up to their boarders, call them an evil empire, and adopt Carter's defense program.... remember it was Carter that authorized the defense build up. DOD works on 5 year plans. Carter initiated the plans that took place during Reagan's first term.

Of course George Kennan said the same thing in 1949.

He was right. By the year he left office the Russians had lost Eastern Europe; two years later they abandoned communism. And here too Reagan suddenly found the converts crowding round. A large part of the chin-stroking classes of America and Europe had thought the clumsy fellow’s cold-war policy unnecessary and dangerous. When it worked, it became retrospectively obvious. In geopolitics, at least, Reagan suddenly collected a lot of supporters.

Or the USSR was an empire stretched too far to control itself, slowly sinking into bankruptcy and the Communist Party was desperately trying to save it's ass. One story I have heard is that Gorbachev had know that the Soviet Union was in trouble back when he was head of the KGB and that this cutbacks were part of that plan.

How did he do it? By being primally American: nonchalant, ever-hopeful, tough as an old boot when necessary. By plucking the heart, in speeches written for him by speechwriters who knew what phrases—“the surly bonds of earth”, “the boys of Pointe du Hoc”—would flow naturally off his lips. But above all by knowing that mere reason, essential though it is, is only half of the business of reaching momentous decisions: you also need fine-tuned instincts. “I have a gut feeling,” he said again and again in his diaries. Ronald Reagan, those intellectuals may decide, was the first post-Enlightenment president.

And so stupid presidents became fashionable.

 

[John Uskglass]

Or the first persident that made being a dipship popular?

Dipship? What, do you mean he was on a Submarine or something?

Asleep at the wheel. Ronnie was a forgetful grandfather. Crazy ideas too. Fight them commies Ronnie!

Pretty ignorant considering he proved all of them wrong.

Meaning that he gave us new ideas about deficit spending?

WOuld the Soviets have fallen apart even without Ronnie? True, I will give him credit for an alliance with the Pope to bring down the commies in Poland, but I recall the Solidarity Movement had something to do with that too.

Oh and we kicked Grenada's Ass! Yeah Baby!

90% of Russians would disagree with you there, as well as almost the entire population of Eastern Europe (in Poland the two most popular presidents are Woodrow Wilson and "Ronnie")

Anyway, you're not proving anything. No statistics or events. What on earth makes you think that SDI did nothing? Hell, I'd give Carter credit for starting the arms build up.......can't you give him credit for at least helping the USSR into the annals of history and off the map?

Let's see, lie about having a chick suck your dick / CLinton, or lie to COngress, break the law, sell guns to to Iranians, and use the money to support a war despite Congress telling you not to.

Congress- "did you know about Ollie North?"

Ronnie - "I forgot...."

Yeah.... right.

See, thing is, Clinton lied to not just Congress, but everybody, under oath (thus breaking the law), and had a fetish for bombing pharmacutical factoris in the Sudan to prove that he was'nt just lying and oral sex-he's also for killing innocent people!

Hey it was his last term! Give the guy a break!

Yeah. NOTHING like that EVER happend under LBJ or CLINTON, did it?

Note kids, you adopt the legacy of this when you vote for George Bush. Happy paying taxes and getting less services.

And toppoling the greatest evils in the world!

How exactly does Ronnie get credit for this?

How exactly does clinton get credit for almost exactly the same thing? Double standard can you say?

Or victory through bankruptcy. Lets scare the Jesus out of the Russians by telling them about SDI/Star Wars, fly our bombers up to their boarders, call them an evil empire, and adopt Carter's defense program.... remember it was Carter that authorized the defense build up. DOD works on 5 year plans. Carter initiated the plans that took place during Reagan's first term.

SDI was important, face it. I don't even know how you can get around that. It scared the bejeesus out of the Russkies, and his support of the Mujahhadeen was also just as important as SDI, Carter's Build up program or anything else Reagen did.

Or the USSR was an empire stretched too far to control itself, slowly sinking into bankruptcy and the Communist Party was desperately trying to save it's ass. One story I have heard is that Gorbachev had know that the Soviet Union was in trouble back when he was head of the KGB and that this cutbacks were part of that plan.

One story.....you heard......is supposed to concince us all that the USSR's collapse was inevitable from the, what, 60's?

There's an old joke in the military.....

There are two Soviet tank commanders in Paris. One says to the other "So who won the air war?"

The Soviets was not some drunk black bear. It was still an extremely dangerous state, that needed to be dealt with before soem hardliner wanted to make a new kind of Venetian glass.

And so stupid presidents became fashionable.

The notion that Bush is some kind of idiot is not just wrong in every sense of the word, it's tremendously insulting.

You know what he has? Dyslexia. So does Bush Sr. And Jeb. Ever wonder why they all have problems pronouncing certain things, even some very, very obvious things?

He went to Yale, welsh. Stupid people don't go there, even if he was'nt at the top of his class.

 

[welsh]

Or the first persident that made being a dipship popular?

Dipship? What, do you mean he was on a Submarine or something?

Is that a reference to Jimmy Carter who was on a submarine?
And yes, he was a dipshit.

Asleep at the wheel. Ronnie was a forgetful grandfather. Crazy ideas too. Fight them commies Ronnie!

Pretty ignorant considering he proved all of them wrong.

Bullshit. You are forgetting about that deficit, aren't you? ANd what happened to the Sandinistas? They got voted out of office.

Meaning that he gave us new ideas about deficit spending?

WOuld the Soviets have fallen apart even without Ronnie? True, I will give him credit for an alliance with the Pope to bring down the commies in Poland, but I recall the Solidarity Movement had something to do with that too.

Oh and we kicked Grenada's Ass! Yeah Baby!

90% of Russians would disagree with you there, as well as almost the entire population of Eastern Europe (in Poland the two most popular presidents are Woodrow Wilson and "Ronnie")

We should ask the Russians about this. But the whole US-Vatican alliance on Poland hasn't worked out so well. A lot of Poles are pissed about the Vatican's policies in Poland.

Anyway, you're not proving anything. No statistics or events. What on earth makes you think that SDI did nothing? Hell, I'd give Carter credit for starting the arms build up.......can't you give him credit for at least helping the USSR into the annals of history and off the map?

I do give him some credit. He did push the Russian into bankruptcy and that's what killed the Russians. But was the plan that original? No. Look at early containment and you see the same policies. Keenan wrote that- let the USSR do what it will, in the end it will bankrupt itself.

Let's see, lie about having a chick suck your dick / CLinton, or lie to COngress, break the law, sell guns to to Iranians, and use the money to support a war despite Congress telling you not to.

Congress- "did you know about Ollie North?"

Ronnie - "I forgot...."

Yeah.... right.

See, thing is, Clinton lied to not just Congress, but everybody, under oath (thus breaking the law), and had a fetish for bombing pharmacutical factoris in the Sudan to prove that he was'nt just lying and oral sex-he's also for killing innocent people!

Bullshit. You lie and that's it. Ronnie got out because he was an old geezer and people could think that, yeah, he probably doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

ANd stop bringing up the bombing of the pharmaceutical thing as an excuse. Come on CC, you got to prove it. Just because there's a domestic issue doesn't mean that the bombing was prompted by it. As for facts and figures, ha! you should talk!

Honestly, I would rather the whole damn thing about Clinton had been left out. So he got his dick sucked. Big deal! And I have said he should have resigned after he lied to the country. Had I been President I would have said, "Shit yeah, I got blown. I'mm the fucking President, most powerful man in the world. And mind your own fucking business. It's a private matter.

But Ronnie was a president who (1) dealt with terrorists, (2) armed the contras after the Congress said no, (3) was sleeping at the wheel.

Yeah. NOTHING like that EVER happend under LBJ or CLINTON, did it?

Pointless.

And toppoling the greatest evils in the world!

You know when people say "greatest evil" you got to worry that maybe God is whispering in their ear. Ok, so Ronnie oversees a defense build up, comes up with Star Wars 1 (we got Star Wars 2 with the current dipshit). But the Russians were already tittering. Did it matter?

You are perhaps giving Ronnie a lot more credit for something that he deserves, where as I will admit that I might be giving him less.

Maybe. Did Ronnie make a difference? Probably not. The Defense budget had been ratcheted up. The Soviets were in trouble. Did the individual president matter? No. Would the Soviets had pulled back anyway? Yes. Why? The empire was too expensive.

How exactly does clinton get credit for almost exactly the same thing? Double standard can you say?

Pointless 2

SDI was important, face it. I don't even know how you can get around that. It scared the bejeesus out of the Russkies, and his support of the Mujahhadeen was also just as important as SDI, Carter's Build up program or anything else Reagen did.

SDI was a fraud. It never existed and never woudl have worked. Yes it scared the Russians with somethign they couldn't do and would have forced them invest when they lacked the capital. But do you think that SDI was more important than the events in Poland, Eastern Europe, the Baltic States? The defeat in Afghanistan? The expense of Vietnam and Cuba? The fact that the Russians ruled an empire but had failed to create a national state, but only an empire?

Do you think SDI mattered that much? Hell, I had friends who went to Russia and traveled to the Ukraine and Georgia and it was clear that no one liked the Russians and those people were looking to get away.

One story.....you heard......is supposed to concince us all that the USSR's collapse was inevitable from the, what, 60's?

You are such a Reagan-head. The US had predicted the Russians would fold as early as the 1950s. Keenan's articles in Foreign Policy, the X-Article and others. If you doubt read his memoirs.

But the Russias knew they were in trouble during the Brezhnev years. Andropov was to be an early reformer and Gorbachev came in after.

Giving Ronnie the credit also fails to give Gorbachev the credit he's due, although admittedly those were desperate acts to save his party.

The notion that Bush is some kind of idiot is not just wrong in every sense of the word, it's tremendously insulting.

This is a guy who was cheerleader for Yale? Fuck him. He insults me that he's President.

You know what he has? Dyslexia. So does Bush Sr. And Jeb. Ever wonder why they all have problems pronouncing certain things, even some very, very obvious things?

And that does what? Justifies them?

He went to Yale, welsh. Stupid people don't go there, even if he was'nt at the top of his class.

Then you don't know much about the Legacy system of going to college or who often gets into the Ivy League schools in the US, or the idea that students are often recruited because of the willingness of family members to make generous donations?

 

[John Uskglass]

Is that a reference to Jimmy Carter who was on a submarine?
And yes, he was a dipshit.

Eeeehhhh......you know, I don't understand while Liberals think it proves something when they call someone a name.

Bullshit. You are forgetting about that deficit, aren't you? ANd what happened to the Sandinistas? They got voted out of office.

It was a war time deficit. That simple. The American government was at war with the Soviet Union.

Anyway, American policy was leftist in Latin America=wrong. And you're forgetting that Reagen could'nt see into the future, how was he supposed to know that Sandanista's days where numbed without the Contras? In his opinon another South American dictator was better then another Cuba-and he was right. Just look at Che's years in Africa, all the shit he caused there...

We should ask the Russians about this. But the whole US-Vatican alliance on Poland hasn't worked out so well. A lot of Poles are pissed about the Vatican's policies in Poland.

A poll on NPR said that about Russia. And Poland is still 99% Catholic.

I do give him some credit. He did push the Russian into bankruptcy and that's what killed the Russians. But was the plan that original? No. Look at early containment and you see the same policies. Keenan wrote that- let the USSR do what it will, in the end it will bankrupt itself.

Containment? Reagen did'nt contain. He tried to open up the USSR, and that's what brought it down. Containment just prolonged it's exsistance.

Bullshit. You lie and that's it. Ronnie got out because he was an old geezer and people could think that, yeah, he probably doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

ANd stop bringing up the bombing of the pharmaceutical thing as an excuse. Come on CC, you got to prove it. Just because there's a domestic issue doesn't mean that the bombing was prompted by it. As for facts and figures, ha! you should talk!

Honestly, I would rather the whole damn thing about Clinton had been left out. So he got his dick sucked. Big deal! And I have said he should have resigned after he lied to the country. Had I been President I would have said, "Shit yeah, I got blown. I'mm the fucking President, most powerful man in the world. And mind your own fucking business. It's a private matter.

But Ronnie was a president who (1) dealt with terrorists, (2) armed the contras after the Congress said no, (3) was sleeping at the wheel.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/23news.html

1) To free Americans
2) You don't have evidence of that, and it goes against
3) I could'nt care less about without Nixon-level badness because he did alot of good

Pointless.

welsh, this was American forieng policy, weather it was the genius (yet overall bad president) Carter or Reagen or GB Sr.

You know when people say "greatest evil" you got to worry that maybe God is whispering in their ear. Ok, so Ronnie oversees a defense build up, comes up with Star Wars 1 (we got Star Wars 2 with the current dipshit). But the Russians were already tittering. Did it matter?

You are perhaps giving Ronnie a lot more credit for something that he deserves, where as I will admit that I might be giving him less.

Maybe. Did Ronnie make a difference? Probably not. The Defense budget had been ratcheted up. The Soviets were in trouble. Did the individual president matter? No. Would the Soviets had pulled back anyway? Yes. Why? The empire was too expensive.

I am giving him more credit then he deserves. Why? He died the wost death I can imagine.

Would they have pulled back? Yep. Would they have fallen? Nope. They would have ended up like China, major economic reforms and all, and be more dangerous then they where before (lke now, only color Putin red).

Pointless 2

Actually, there is a point. You seem to forgive Clinton like he was you're father, while you act like the Inspector General when dealing with Reagen.

SDI was a fraud. It never existed and never woudl have worked. Yes it scared the Russians with somethign they couldn't do and would have forced them invest when they lacked the capital. But do you think that SDI was more important than the events in Poland, Eastern Europe, the Baltic States? The defeat in Afghanistan? The expense of Vietnam and Cuba? The fact that the Russians ruled an empire but had failed to create a national state, but only an empire?

Do you think SDI mattered that much? Hell, I had friends who went to Russia and traveled to the Ukraine and Georgia and it was clear that no one liked the Russians and those people were looking to get away.

Ukraine had been a part of Russia sense it was freed from the cruel grip of Poland-Lithuania, Georgia for almost as long. They had'nt succedid before.

No, I don't. But Reagen was important in those as well.

You are such a Reagan-head. The US had predicted the Russians would fold as early as the 1950s. Keenan's articles in Foreign Policy, the X-Article and others. If you doubt read his memoirs.

But the Russias knew they were in trouble during the Brezhnev years. Andropov was to be an early reformer and Gorbachev came in after.

Giving Ronnie the credit also fails to give Gorbachev the credit he's due, although admittedly those were desperate acts to save his party.

I give Gorbachev alot of credit. But I doubt Gorbachev would have been as able to succed without a guy like Reagen, willing to deal openly and talk to and engage the USSR.

This is a guy who was cheerleader for Yale? Fuck him. He insults me that he's President.

How does he insult you. Did he cheer "FUCK YOU WELSH YOU GAY ASS LIBERAL" at Yale? He was elected by the American Government for the people (thru a legal quirk).

And that does what? Justifies them?

YES. 100%. TRY LIVING WITH DYSLEXIA WELSH.

Then you don't know much about the Legacy system of going to college or who often gets into the Ivy League schools in the US, or the idea that students are often recruited because of the willingness of family members to make generous donations?

Yeah.......so? It's not like he came close to flunking out.

EDIT: again no offence welsh

 

[John Uskglass]

Just some quotes of Kerry on Reagan in the past:

Reagan's deployment of the MX missile is 'destabilizing' and that it increases the chances that the Soviets will launch a nuclear strike." (John Ellement, States News Service, 3/19/95)

President Reagan should reorder his priorities. We don't need expensive and exotic weapons systems." (Lt. Gov. John Kerry, Letter To Constituent, April 1983)

The defense expenditures of the Reagan Administration are without any relevancy to the threat this nation is currently facing...." ("Kerry Asks $54 Billion Cut In Reagan Defense Budget," Berkshire Eagle, 5/30/84)

We don't need another Ronald Reagan type in Washington. Let me tell you that." (PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, 6/5/96)

I'm proud that I stood against Ronald Reagan, not with him." (Deborah Orin, "Real Reason I Want To Be A Dem: Clark," New York Post, 10/4/03)

'We've seen governors come to Washington who don't have the experience with Washington and they get in trouble real fast. And they don't have the experience in foreign policy, and they get in trouble pretty fast,' Kerry said. 'Look at Ronald Reagan. Look at Jimmy Carter and now, obviously, George Bush.'" (Ron Fournier, "Kerry Seeks Shift Amid War Funds Request," Associated Press, 9/8/03)

Of the Reagan White House, "They were willing to literally put the Constitution at risk because they believed there was somehow a higher order of things, that the ends do in fact justify the means. That's the most Marxist, totalitarian doctrine I've ever heard of in my life.... You've done the very thing that James Madison and others feared when they were struggling to put the Constitution together, which was to create an unaccountable system with runaway power . . . running off against the will of the American people." ("Not Too Late For A War Crimes Trial," OC Weekly, 2/1/02)

I think it was a silly and rather immature approach," of Reagan's dismissal of a "peace offer" from Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega.

More Kerry: "I am willing...to take the risk in the effort to put to test the good faith of the Sandinistas." (John F. Kerry, The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, p.217) Days later, Ortega went to Moscow to collect a $200 million loan from the Soviets, leaving Democrats "embarrassed," in the words of then-Speaker Tip O'Neill.

When Reagan bombed Libya in response to a Berlin disco bombing (killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 51): "It is obvious that our response was not proportional to the disco bombing and even violated the Administration's own guidelines to hit clearly defined terrorist targets, thereby minimizing the risk to innocent civilians.... We are not going to solve the problem of terrorism with this kind of retaliation. There are numerous other actions we can take, in concert with our allies, to bring significant pressure to bear on countries supporting or harboring terrorists."

When American troops invaded Grenada, Kerry denounced the action as "a bully's show of force."

While ripping Wesley Clark in a Democratic debate: "I'm not going to characterize other people, but while he (Clark) was voting for Richard Nixon and for Ronald Reagan, I was fighting against both of their policies and what they did, frankly, to the average working person in this country and to some of our hopes and dreams."

In November 2002, U.S. News & World Report carried this Kerry assessment of Reagan's presidency: "You roll out the president one time a day. One exposure to all of you [the media]. No big in-depth inquiries. Put him in his brown jacket and his blue jeans, put him on a ranch, let him cock his head, give you a smile, and it looks like America's OK."

In 1992 Kerry said this: "Ronald Reagan certainly was never in combat. I mean, many of his movies depicted him there. And he may have believed he was, but he never was. And the fact is that he sent Americans off to die."

 

[Wooz]

But the whole US-Vatican alliance on Poland hasn't worked out so well. A lot of Poles are pissed about the Vatican's policies in Poland.

Hear, hear.

A poll on NPR said that about Russia. And Poland is still 99% Catholic.

I'm Catholic as well, at least in theory. Doesn't mean it stops me from thinking some parts of this religion are fundamentally flawed, not to mention the Vatican's international politics. Poland? Look at South/Central America.

Hm, I'm beggining to like some of this Kerry fellow's quotes.
Shame there isn't a "Writhe in hell, you worthless sack of lying, murderous shit" one.

 

[welsh]

[It was a war time deficit. That simple. The American government was at war with the Soviet Union.

That's a lot of drama CC. Yes, the Cold War involved a massive military build-up. But it was a Cold War, not a hot one. Saying the US was at war, meaning hot war, is a bit overdramatic.

Anyway, American policy was leftist in Latin America=wrong. And you're forgetting that Reagen could'nt see into the future, how was he supposed to know that Sandanista's days where numbed without the Contras? In his opinon another South American dictator was better then another Cuba-and he was right. Just look at Che's years in Africa, all the shit he caused there...

Because the Carter regime refused to support Samoza, a man who utilized death squads to kill nuns? Please. Carter brought back the notion of human rights as being part of what US foreign policy should be about, not the mere pursuit of national objective.

Che did little in Africa. His involvement in Congo was a diaster because he found the Africans were unreceptive to his ideas.

As for supporting dictators in South America, this was part of Jean Kirkpatrick's ideas, that were adopted by Reagan. And what did we create in the process? Is it a surprise that the only peaceful country in Central American has been Costa Rica, a democracy without an army? Did we have to support repressive dictators or did they merely serve our national interest in a cheaper more effective way.

A poll on NPR said that about Russia. And Poland is still 99% Catholic.

Cite!

Containment? Reagen did'nt contain. He tried to open up the USSR, and that's what brought it down. Containment just prolonged it's exsistance.

Indeed, Reagan was provocative. He came up with the whole strategy in which the US would engage the Soviet Union in any theatre should a conflict begin in one. He also brought back the idea of winnable nuclear war. One can understand why the Russians, and many Americans, thought the guy was nuts.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/23news.html

Love those republican Op-eds.

1) To free Americans
2) You don't have evidence of that, and it goes against
3) I could'nt care less about without Nixon-level badness because he did alot of good

The US will not negotiate with Terrorists.
Iran is under an arms embargo.

And Nixon abused his powers of President.

welsh, this was American forieng policy, weather it was the genius (yet overall bad president) Carter or Reagen or GB Sr.

Not sure what this refers to.

You are perhaps giving Ronnie a lot more credit for something that he deserves, where as I will admit that I might be giving him less.

Maybe. Did Ronnie make a difference? Probably not. The Defense budget had been ratcheted up. The Soviets were in trouble. Did the individual president matter? No. Would the Soviets had pulled back anyway? Yes. Why? The empire was too expensive.

I am giving him more credit then he deserves. Why? He died the wost death I can imagine.

You are giving him causal credit because you sympathize? Come on CCR. Yes, it's unfortunate he died a bad way. Perhaps it would have been better for him, and all of us, if he had died 25 years earlier. The guy lived a long life, great. But by making a causal judgment based on sympathy is pretty damn shallow a view of history.

The fact that the guy died a terrible death does not give him sole credit for a historical event that evolved over 40 years, when domestic problems were the primary causes. Did Reagan matter? Maybe. Perhaps as a catalyst. But would the Soviets had fallen anyway, yes.

Would they have pulled back? Yep. Would they have fallen? Nope. They would have ended up like China, major economic reforms and all, and be more dangerous then they where before (lke now, only color Putin red).

Lots of speculation there. By the early 1980s the Soviets were in big trouble and were falling terribly behind. What the Chinese have that the Soviets didn't was a national state. China is unified by common language, history and culture. The provinces of China are firstly Chinese, secondly provincials. Also the Chinese began their reforms a long time before the Russians and by 1988 were undertaking massive reforms. I know, I was there in 1988.

The Russians didn't have that option. Why? Because they had a huge empire that they had trouble controlling. Even the stretch to the Pacific was barely controlled. They had failed to develop sufficient infrastructure of rule and had not legitimized their rule over provinces. Georgians were Georgians first and Russians second.

In that sense Russia was an empire, China had made it to national state. The Chinese had also gone through the Cultural Revolution, the trial of the Gang of Four and the death of Cho En Lai- major shakes to the system and large questions about the propriety of the Maoist regime, that Deng was able to take advantage of. Using the communisty party as a bourgeoisie, they were able to undertake reform at the grassroots. But in Russia despotic rule had failed nor had they created the political infrastructure necessary to undertake those kinds of reform.

Actually, there is a point. You seem to forgive Clinton like he was you're father, while you act like the Inspector General when dealing with Reagen.

Actually I am pissed with Clinton for staying in power when he should have resigned. Had he done that Gore would probably have won against Bush. Clinton, who was always beseiged, stayed in power under vanity and the country has paid for it.

But you are idolizing Reagan when in fact his single success was in communicating to the public. But in terms of policies he got credit for international events he had only marginal relations too. His international mistakes are forgotten and we tend to forget that the man drove us into debt.

Ukraine had been a part of Russia sense it was freed from the cruel grip of Poland-Lithuania, Georgia for almost as long. They had'nt succedid before.

No, I don't. But Reagen was important in those as well.

First Poland goes, then the Baltic states want to go. When Gorbachev decides not to intervene into Poland to stop that country's transitions, it means the Brezhnev Doctrine (we will intervene to preserve communist states) has been abandoned. Then people are willing to go. When Gorbachev doesn't go into the Baltic states it means that he is restrained on the use of force. Those are probably the key moves of the end of the Cold War.

I give Gorbachev alot of credit. But I doubt Gorbachev would have been as able to succed without a guy like Reagen, willing to deal openly and talk to and engage the USSR.

Perhaps. I think you are giving a lot of credit to an individual leader when historical changes were moving faster than the leaders would have liked them.

How does he insult you. Did he cheer "FUCK YOU WELSH YOU GAY ASS LIBERAL" at Yale? He was elected by the American Government for the people (thru a legal quirk).

Not yet but that would be fucking great. And he was elected because of Florida shennagins- thanks to his brother. So yes, he's an insult. He has taken the US from a position of leadership, from a time it was embraced as a leader to a point where our allies are looking the other way. He has led us to war based on false premises and has led to the death of hundreds of Americans. He had fucked us in domestic policies.

For example- he has cut programs for urban kids for jobs in the summer, after-school programs and has forced larger classrooms. He did so because "there's just not enough money". Yet he is trying to maintain tax cuts to the rich, capital gains and the estate tax so that rich kids can inherit from their dead parents without paying taxes (unearned income by virtue of birthright).

The guy is fucking our country. That's why he insults me. I want a President I can be proud of. Not one who wanted to call McDonald's a manufacturing Job. Not one who wears a military uniform (like Sadam) and declares a war over last May so that more of our guys die in peace.

YES. 100%. TRY LIVING WITH DYSLEXIA WELSH.

Oh so we should give every leader a break because they suffer an illness or handicap. Before I made an argument about the New Deal that you ignored. Well are you going to give FDR a lot of love because he was in a wheel chair or because it actually did something important for the country.

Fuck it CC. Bush was born into wealth. A Texan (born in that dusty town of New Haven, Connecticutt) he is making sure that the weath stay wealthy and the rest of us get fucked. I thinkl that makes up more than enough for his Dyslexia.

 

[Karkow]

Bush Jr has dyslexia? Is that a fact or just an excuse for being slow?
Even so, it’s not a very good one.

Check out this list of people who suffers that same handicap:

http://www.dyslexia.com/qafame.htm

A large quantity of people, like myself, have certain degrees of dyslexia. That doesn’t make them idiots. And it certainly is not an excuse! If he was brain dead… well, that would be a good excuse, but then he wouldn’t be President in the first place, or would he?

 

[Big T]

A large quantity of people, like myself, have certain degrees of dyslexia. That doesn’t make them idiots.

Far from it, there's some very smart people on that list:
# Alexander Graham Bell.
# Thomas Edison.
# Albert Einstein.
# Michael Faraday.

And it certainly is not an excuse! If he was brain dead… well, that would be a good excuse, but then he wouldn’t be President in the first place, or would he?

If only...