In article ,
longwave wrote:
Telamon wrote:
In article ,
longwave wrote:
Telamon wrote:
In article , John Barnard
wrote:
Go back and take a look at history, Telamon. Eastern Europeans have a
history of standing up to the Russians. Budapest in 1956 and
Czechoslovakia in 1968 come to mind and it was a shame that the USA
decided to abandon those countries and do nothing. The Solidarity
revolution was a Polish revolution which had NOTHING AT ALL to do
with Reagan or the USA. Brenda Ann quite rightly pointed out that the
Poles and the East Germans stood up to the Russians of their own
accord. Poland, out of all the Eastern European block, has always had
the stones to fight back a little and retain some measure of
autonomy.
I've always liked Reagan but he sure as hell didn't have anything to
do with the Solidarity revolution.
Sorry go back and read it yourself. We outspent Russia in the arms race
bankrupting them. When Russia lost the arms race Gorby negotiated the
current state of affairs with Reagan. That's why things changed. The
Polish Solidarity was a help but not the reason. Besides Reagan gave aid
and assistance to the Solidarity union and other opposition groups in
eastern europe.
Neither you nor anyone else can pull this revisionist bull**** on me. I
saw this happen in real time.
You saw what you wanted to see. No single president should get the
credit for winning the arms race. We outspent the USSR for more than
forty years. Every president since Truman contributed to the ultimate
collapse of the USSR. Reagan happened to be president when the end came.
How can you say that I saw what I wanted to see? No one knew how things
were going to turn out. Stinking Liberals were calling Reagan an out of
control cowboy "Ronald Ray Guns" because they though he would start WW3
confronting the Russians. Reagan built up the military and forced the
Russians into bankruptcy trying to keep up. The eastern europeans saw
their chance to throw off the yoke of communism with the Russians in
their weakened state.
I meant you see it now how you want to see it. There was never any
guarantee that confronting the Russians would not start WW3. Reagan was
fortunate to have a counterpart in the Soviet Union (Gorbechev) who was
willing to negotiate honestly. If it had been a hard liner like Stalin,
he would have laughed in Reagan's face, no matter how much we spent on
defense.
I see things the way they are not how I want to see them no matter how
strongly I feel about something. My emotions do not influence my
internal view of reality to the point that I do not recognize the facts
of a situation.
The discussion now departs from the actual past but I would have to
speculate that the outcome of Reagans efforts would remain unchanged if
a hard liner like Stalin were the Soviet premier at the time because
their economy could not keep up with ours. The Russians would fail and
their economy collapse regardless of who was in charge.
Reagan didn't just "happen to be there." He had a sense of destiny and
a job to do that took guts facing down the Russians and the left wing
in this country like Kerry that just wanted to give up and negotiate
with the Russians from a weak position.
You are right that it did not start with Reagan but he did finnish it.
If Kennedy was not assassinated he might have done it but Johnson,
Nixon, Ford and Carter didn't do it. Clinton would not have done it
either.
All of those presidents continued the nation's commitment to stand up
against communism but they couldn't have caused the collapse of the USSR
during their presidency because the Russians were still too strong to be
bankrupted by an increase in our defense budget. Reagan came along at a
time when the USSR was experiencing serious domestic problems both
economic and political, mainly caused by the war in Afghanistan, which
turned out to be their 'Vietnam'.
Through will and conviction he challenged the Russians forcing them to
focus on us in the arms race. It was world class poker game and Reagan
didn't bluff. The Russians finally ran out of money with a economy that
could not keep up with ours. Weakened from the effort they gave up the
hold they had on eastern europe since WW2 and the cold war was
basically ended.
The Russian's finally ran out of money after decades of the cold war,
not just the Reagan years.
Let me put words in your mouth and say that the other presidents or
someone else elected in Reagan's place would have accomplished the same
thing he did if elected to his term and I believe you to be wrong.
Someone else would not have done what he did because they do not have
the optimism, conviction and just plain guts it took to face down an
evil empire that had thousands of ballistic missiles pointed at us and
issue a ultimatum to them that they must acquiesce to a verifiable
nuclear reduction treaty or face an escalation that they could not
afford.
There is no higher stakes poker game than that and we all know who
blinked first.
Reagan faced great odds in his presidency and navigated this country
through many great perils with an optimism and conviction that this is
the greatest nation on earth and by the grace of God will preserver;
thrive even, in the face of adversity.
Reagan is a one of a kind. I have missed hearing from him this last
decade and now he is gone forever. You are not likely to come across
the sense of humor he had in any other politician. Not likely that you
will ever have another president be such a father figure to this
country who knows what he wants and how to get it driven by a deep
sense of faith and belief in the principles that this country was
founded on. He was solid as a rock and a true conservative.
--
Telamon
Ventura, California
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