June 12

[PoliticalChic]

On this day, in 1987

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, President Ronald Reagan declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It took two years before the wall came down.


With vision and strength of will, this President defeated the 'Evil Empire' without firing a shot.

Ronald Reagan knew days in advance of the official announcement that Mikhail Gorbachev planned to declare Glasnost and remove the Berlin Wall. As soon as the CIA informed him of it he called a press conference in which he made the now famous, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" statement, thereby assuming the status of a crowing rooster taking credit for causing the sun to rise.

If Reagan deserves credit for anything it's the dramatic enrichment of the Military Industrial Complex. But credit for deciding to re-unite Germany goes to Mr. Gorbachev -- a true Twentieth Century statesman who never has received the recognition he deserves.

Really?

See if this sounds like "Mikhail Gorbachev planned to declare Glasnost and remove the Berlin Wall."

"The 1980s were a dangerous time for the world. The Soviet Union stood at the peak of its military and political power, its nuclear forces ranged from pole to pole. The globe stood at the brink of World War III, with a final countdown of 25 minutes from launch to total thermonuclear combat.

The Soviet Union led the world with an extraordinary increase in nuclear and conventional arms. The Soviet Union had 4.9 million active soldiers, 42,000 tanks, 2,200 warships, 15,000 combat planes, 1,500 long-range nuclear-tipped missiles, 1,000 short-range nuclear missiles and 900 sub-based nuclear missiles.

Soviet bombers equipped with nuclear weapons frequently flew off the U.S. coast. Soviet submarines armed with nuclear-tipped missiles prowled off both U.S. coastlines, within 100 miles of the most populated coastal American cities.

In Europe, the Soviets had 10 tank divisions in East Germany alone, backed by another 20 tank divisions poised across the border in Poland and Russia. Thousands of armored vehicles were ready to pour across the Fulda Gap and flow into West Germany.

During one Soviet armored exercise in East Germany, an Army general once commented to me that he could walk from the East German border to Poland on Soviet tanks, never touching the earth beneath them.

All evidence pointed to the Soviet intent to achieve total world domination in every dimension of military power."
The Legacy of Ronald Reagan – Peace


Again?
"All evidence pointed to the Soviet intent to achieve total world domination[/B] in every dimension of military power."

Wise up.

 

[PoliticalChic]

On this day, in 1987

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, President Ronald Reagan declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It took two years before the wall came down.


With vision and strength of will, this President defeated the 'Evil Empire' without firing a shot.


Put Ron on the Rock.

He had little, or nothing, to do with the end of Communism...

Your post pretty much proves that you have little, or nothing, to do with scholarship.

 

[Dr Grump]

On this day, in 1987

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, President Ronald Reagan declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It took two years before the wall came down.


With vision and strength of will, this President defeated the 'Evil Empire' without firing a shot.


Put Ron on the Rock.

He had little, or nothing, to do with the end of Communism...

Your post pretty much proves that you have little, or nothing, to do with scholarship.

In 2007, or thereabouts, a woman who had lived in the Soviet Union in the late 60s and 70s posted on here. She gave a long, and detailed, account of how Communism failed. It's decline started in the 1930s and got steadily worse.

If you have a mind, go back and find it. It's on here somewhere, but I can't remember her name unfortunately. It was a while ago.

Interesting to hear a first-hand account than some mindless links and ramblings from partisan hack sites.

Seriously, try and find it. You might actually learn something, even if you haven't shown the predilection to do so since you joined the board.

 

[Peach]

On this day, in 1987

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, President Ronald Reagan declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It took two years before the wall came down.


With vision and strength of will, this President defeated the 'Evil Empire' without firing a shot.

Ronald Reagan knew days in advance of the official announcement that Mikhail Gorbachev planned to declare Glasnost and remove the Berlin Wall. As soon as the CIA informed him of it he called a press conference in which he made the now famous, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" statement, thereby assuming the status of a crowing rooster taking credit for causing the sun to rise.

If Reagan deserves credit for anything it's the dramatic enrichment of the Military Industrial Complex. But credit for deciding to re-unite Germany goes to Mr. Gorbachev -- a true Twentieth Century statesman who never has received the recognition he deserves.

Yes, Nixon began the process with detente. But the poorly informed will credit whoever they saw on TV, posing. Nixon allowed the Soviets, and then the Chinese, to see how much better our system was; after that there was no turning back.

More actual history:

Detente

 

[MikeK]

Disgusting the way you on the Left refer to the President who changed the economy of the United States and the history of the world.

What is truly disgusting is the way you on the right have been thoroughly beguiled by the legend which the man from General Electric has become. Ronald Reagan was first and foremost a corporate puppet who, as you've said, changed the U.S. economy. But the way he changed it is to prepare the groundwork for its ultimate ruin -- beginning with the Savings and Loan industry scandal.

Reaganomics is responsible for the economic disaster we are suffering from today. The nonsensical "trickle down" scam he was assigned to impose upon us has in fact resulted in a monumental siphoning up of wealth resources which has occurred like a cancer on the middle class.

By far the most enduring damage inflicted on this Nation by the Reagan presidency has been the escalation of Nixon's insanely counterproductive War On Drugs, an administrative disaster which has created a Law-enforcement Industrial Complex, given rise to massive criminal syndicates, resulted in a national prison census exceeding those of China and the former Soviet Union, and represents a major drain on our economy.

 

[Peach]

gosh, you're a crank after all.

No, I know much about US history, and don't buy photo ads as truth. Thus, I knew Reagan was a lightweight, and think Obama may be also. George W. Bush I did not see through until after the election, I did not think any President could be that bad; I am thankful I voted for Gore, and McCain, by the way.

first he had first class sppt from and gave sppt to John Paul ( remember him) and Maggie...

so to cases;

1) everyone is smart after the fact.



2) arthur Schlesinger and 9 of ten of the trendy faux intellectuals academia said the ussr was not going anywhere just- 5 years short of it actually going out of biz.....did you know that? revision is a growth biz always, amongst academia when they have egg on their faces..


3) so photos tell you who are light weights and who aren't I see

4) every historian, newspaper and intellectual were aghast at Reagan's words/deeds, to wit; evil empire, threatening to walk from Reykjavik and not concede issues to Gorbachev, Europe went complety looney when he sent Perchings to Germany etc etc etc .

did you READ any of those books because this should not be news.

Many on the right were 'aghast' at Nixon with DETENTE, which began the downfall of the Soviet Union; the remarks after Reagan's photo op were mostly jokes, the USSR was falling long before he made his one sentence commercial. Note, Nixon and Ford deserve most of the credit, Carter a bit. But Reagan did next to nothing, the Wall was coming down the day Nixon first visited with Brezhnev. Reagan's military build up put tax dollars in the defense industry, which gave his campaign big chunks of money, but little else. If you look at the numbers escaping over the Wall from 1970-1980, you will see Nixon's work.

Nixon Had Some Successes, Before His Disgrace - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

More historical fact:

http://find.galegroup.com/gic/infom...on=1.0&searchType=BasicSearchForm&source=gale

 

[PoliticalChic]

Disgusting the way you on the Left refer to the President who changed the economy of the United States and the history of the world.

What is truly disgusting is the way you on the right have been thoroughly beguiled by the legend which the man from General Electric has become. Ronald Reagan was first and foremost a corporate puppet who, as you've said, changed the U.S. economy. But the way he changed it is to prepare the groundwork for its ultimate ruin -- beginning with the Savings and Loan industry scandal.

Reaganomics is responsible for the economic disaster we are suffering from today. The nonsensical "trickle down" scam he was assigned to impose upon us has in fact resulted in a monumental siphoning up of wealth resources which has occurred like a cancer on the middle class.

By far the most enduring damage inflicted on this Nation by the Reagan presidency has been the escalation of Nixon's insanely counterproductive War On Drugs, an administrative disaster which has created a Law-enforcement Industrial Complex, resulted in a national prison census exceeding those of China and the former Soviet Union, and represents a major drain on our economy.

"Reaganomics is responsible for the economic disaster we are suffering from today."

1. The tax cuts of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 stimulated economic growth. “As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.” http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm

“As inflation came down and as more and more of the tax cuts from the 1981 Act went into effect, the economic began a strong and sustained pattern of growth.” US Department of the Treasury

2. The benefits from Reaganomics:

a. The economy grew at a 3.4% average rate…compared with 2.9% for the previous eight years, and 2.7% for the next eight.(Table B-4)
b. Inflation rate dropped from 12.5% to 4.4%. (Table B-63)
c. Unemployment fell to 5.5% from 7.1% (Table B-35)
d. Prime interest rate fell by one-third.(Table B-73)
e. The S & P 500 jumped 124% (Table B-95) FDsys - Browse ERP
f. Charitable contributions rose 57% faster than inflation. Dinesh D’Souza, “Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary May Became an Extraordinary Leader,” p. 116



I guess 'wising up' is out of the question for you, huh?

 

[Dr Grump]

Raygun was easily the worst president in my life time. There is no way it could get any worse..

Then along came Dumbya...

 

[daveman]

Some actual history of the downfall of the USSR; NIXON began the process, Ford, Carter, and GHWB continued the work. The senile Reagan 'declared' many things, his pose at the Berlin wall did -0- to end the Soviet system, I will post book cites at a later time:

Causes of the Soviet Collapse (1979-1991)

Nixon also began the slow process that now has China 'experimenting' with small scale free markets. Give credit where credit is due; Ronnie R. did nothing but drive up debt, and become the first blank brained grade Z actor to be elected President.

Disgusting the way you on the Left refer to the President who changed the economy of the United States and the history of the world.


"Many forces contributed to the fall of the "Evil Empire", but foremost among them was the deployment of those 464 cruise and 108 Pershing II missiles slated to offset triple-warhead Soviet SS-20s and Backfire bombers that could reach all of Western Europe (but not the American homeland). Needless to say, it was not the "theo-logic" of deterrence that drove the counter-deployment. The drama was not really about "circular-errors probable" or "hard-target kill capabilities." The name of the game was as old as Thucydides' disquisitions on Peloponnesian power politics. It was a pure test of will and strength, and on its outcome hung, as it turned out, history. Yet what a slender thread it was.


THE EUROMISSILES played a staring role in the final act of the Cold War. Militarily, they were but pawns in a nuclear world defined by 10,000 strategic warheads on either side. But on the Cold War's central chessboard, they looked like kings and queens that would complete the irresistible thrust of Soviet power lanched in the 1970s. One Soviet surrogate, North Vietnam, had beaten the United States in Southeast Asia. Another, Cuba, had anchored Soviet-bloc power in the darkest heart of Africa, in Angola. America had just lost Iran to the Islamists led by Ayatollah Khomeini, and with it, one of Washington's key allies in the Middle East. Finally, as Carter's America was being humiliated by Iranian hostage-takers and held up to ridicule by botched rescue gambits, the Soviets were forging into Afghanistan--as Alexander the Great had done on his imperial march to India. To complete the degradation of America, only two key allies--Turkey and West Germany--heeded Washington's call to boycott the Moscow Olympics of 1980. And the economy was wallowing in stagflation.


What would have happened had Western Europe finally buckled, had it refused to station INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) ? Moscow's boldest dream would have come true: to separate Western Europe from its transatlantic protector, to create zones of inferior security and, thus, to end up dominating the entire continent. Detente and Ostpolitik had already driven a sizeable wedge into the Atlantic Alliance, pushing Western Europe, and especially West Germany, closer toward the Soviet orbit. Now imagine that hundreds of Soviet SS-20s and Backfires had remained unmatched and unbalanced. Posing a separate threat, they would have consecrated Soviet strategic superiority on the Old Continent while silently reminding the West Europeans to remain on their best behavior. NATO would have collapsed de facto right then and there, and not twenty years later, when Berlin and Paris joined with Moscow in 2003 to try to derail the American war against Saddam Hussein.


"I didn't understand", recalls Time's Joe Klein, "how truly monumental, and morally important, Reagan's anti-communism was until I visited the Soviet Union in 1987." He continues with a seemingly trivial vignette. Attending the Bolshoi Ballet, he was nudged by his minder: "'Ronald Reagan. Evil empire', he whispered with dramatic intensity and shot a glance toward his lap where he had hidden two enthusiastic thumbs up. 'Yes!'"

When an American president manages to pluck the soul strings of those who have been raised to fear and despise what he represents, he surely deserves the honorific 'great.' "
The "amazing and mysterious" life of Ronald Reagan - page 6 | National Interest, The

What the left hates most about Reagan was that after the Carter years, when the government actually measured how miserable people were, Reagan told everyone that it was okay to be proud to be an American.

The left absolutely hates that.

 

[daveman]

Ronald Reagan knew days in advance of the official announcement that Mikhail Gorbachev planned to declare Glasnost and remove the Berlin Wall. As soon as the CIA informed him of it he called a press conference in which he made the now famous, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" statement, thereby assuming the status of a crowing rooster taking credit for causing the sun to rise.

If Reagan deserves credit for anything it's the dramatic enrichment of the Military Industrial Complex. But credit for deciding to re-unite Germany goes to Mr. Gorbachev -- a true Twentieth Century statesman who never has received the recognition he deserves.

He had little, or nothing, to do with the end of Communism...

See?

I've been told by liberals elsewhere that Gorbachev dissolved the USSR for the good of his people, out of the goodness of his heart.

Such is the left's need to ignore reality and rewrite history.

 

[tinydancer]

Reagan said it, but did Gorbachev do it? I recall it being done by the German people, themselves. Give credit where credit is due. They had no idea whether they'd succeed or be shot. They're the real heroes.

So....Obama shouldn't get credit for killing OBL.

OK.

one has nothing to do with the other. Is that the same day that Reagan put the reeth on the nazi soldier burial spot?

Here is the saddest. You won't let it go will you? You don't even understand what you are promoting do you silly thing?

By the way, it's called a wreath. One can always catch you out.

 

[tinydancer]

one has nothing to do with the other. Is that the same day that Reagan put the reeth on the nazi soldier burial spot?

The soldiers were not Nazis. They were just German soldiers. Most of them coerced by threat of death to their families if they did not "serve" Hitler as a soldier.

The controversy occurred because of the SS soldiers buried there, hardly ones who could be called coerced. Even regular Wehrmacht soldiers were rarely coerced. They served proudly.

They were not Nazis. They were German soldiers.

I'm very picky on history. I make no leeway. None at all. I'm an idiot that way

 

[tinydancer]

St Ronnie defeated communism all by himself, did he?



Sure he did, kid.

"SO ON WHOM or what do we bestow the title of the "evil empire's" killer? Was it Mikhail Gorbachev himself who pulled down what Lenin and Stalin had built up? It is tempting to finger Gorbachev, but this would ascribe too much wisdom and foresight to a man who wanted merely to reform, but not to relinquish, the empire. At no point, however, did Gorbachev want to yield Moscow's pride of place as the number two superpower. And he was blissfully confident that the risks were tolerable: "There is no reason to fear the collapse or the end of socialism", Gorbachev assured Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu three weeks after the Berlin Wall had been breached and three weeks before the Romanian dictator was executed by his own people.

Reagan was made from far sterner stuff than was his Soviet counterpart. His genial grin and wise-cracking demeanor concealed a spine of steel when push came to shove. Yet at their next meeting in Reykjavik in 1986, where Gorbachev would not budge on the "Star Wars" question, Reagan was decisive and unforgiving. He recalls in An American Life how he stood up from the table to proclaim that the meeting was over. Then he turned to his Secretary of State: "Let's go, George. We're leaving." Like any good diplomat, Shultz was crushed by so much roughness, but Reagan was completely unfazed. Later on, he explained: "I went to Reykjavik determined that everything was negotiable except two things, our freedom and our future."
The "amazing and mysterious" life of Ronald Reagan - page 6 | National Interest, The

Just one minute just one minute to be in the same room as Thatcher and Reagan. Breathe just one breath with them.

If only for a moment.

 

[Trajan]

Raygun was easily the worst president in my life time. There is no way it could get any worse..

Then along came Dumbya...

really? did you vote for mondale?

 

[Trajan]

No, I know much about US history, and don't buy photo ads as truth. Thus, I knew Reagan was a lightweight, and think Obama may be also. George W. Bush I did not see through until after the election, I did not think any President could be that bad; I am thankful I voted for Gore, and McCain, by the way.

first he had first class sppt from and gave sppt to John Paul ( remember him) and Maggie...

so to cases;

1) everyone is smart after the fact.



2) arthur Schlesinger and 9 of ten of the trendy faux intellectuals academia said the ussr was not going anywhere just- 5 years short of it actually going out of biz.....did you know that? revision is a growth biz always, amongst academia when they have egg on their faces..


3) so photos tell you who are light weights and who aren't I see

4) every historian, newspaper and intellectual were aghast at Reagan's words/deeds, to wit; evil empire, threatening to walk from Reykjavik and not concede issues to Gorbachev, Europe went complety looney when he sent Perchings to Germany etc etc etc .

did you READ any of those books because this should not be news.

Many on the right were 'aghast' at Nixon with DETENTE, which began the downfall of the Soviet Union; the remarks after Reagan's photo op were mostly jokes, the USSR was falling long before he made his one sentence commercial. Note, Nixon and Ford deserve most of the credit, Carter a bit. But Reagan did next to nothing, the Wall was coming down the day Nixon first visited with Brezhnev. Reagan's military build up put tax dollars in the defense industry, which gave his campaign big chunks of money, but little else. If you look at the numbers escaping over the Wall from 1970-1980, you will see Nixon's work.

Nixon Had Some Successes, Before His Disgrace - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

More historical fact:

GIC | Article

thx for ignoring basically everything I said.....

 

[Trajan]

He had little, or nothing, to do with the end of Communism...

Your post pretty much proves that you have little, or nothing, to do with scholarship.

In 2007, or thereabouts, a woman who had lived in the Soviet Union in the late 60s and 70s posted on here. She gave a long, and detailed, account of how Communism failed. It's decline started in the 1930s and got steadily worse.

If you have a mind, go back and find it. It's on here somewhere, but I can't remember her name unfortunately. It was a while ago.

Interesting to hear a first-hand account than some mindless links and ramblings from partisan hack sites.

Seriously, try and find it. You might actually learn something, even if you haven't shown the predilection to do so since you joined the board.

so, you're willing to take her at her word, would you take Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's?

 

[konradv]

The soldiers were not Nazis. They were just German soldiers. Most of them coerced by threat of death to their families if they did not "serve" Hitler as a soldier.

The controversy occurred because of the SS soldiers buried there, hardly ones who could be called coerced. Even regular Wehrmacht soldiers were rarely coerced. They served proudly.

They were not Nazis. They were German soldiers.

I'm very picky on history. I make no leeway. None at all. I'm an idiot that way

So am I. You have absolutely no evidence to declare "they were not Nazis". As a matter of fact, since you're being absolute about it, I only have to find one. This doesn't sound like pickiness, but apologia.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Raygun was easily the worst president in my life time. There is no way it could get any worse..

Then along came Dumbya...

While it is certainly rare to see such a clear documentation of ignorance, of such sciolism...

...it is truly remarkable when said documentation is presented by the individual himself.

 

[del]

Raygun was easily the worst president in my life time. There is no way it could get any worse..

Then along came Dumbya...

While it is certainly rare to see such a clear documentation of ignorance, of such sciolism...

...it is truly remarkable when said documentation is presented by the individual himself.

yet you do it almost every day

odd, that

 

[Old Rocks]

The Soviet Union was rotting from within, Reagan hastened it only by making them believe they had to increase their military spending. And Reagan tripled our National Debt.