Smile, Wrinkle and thick black helmet of hair:Looking back at Reagan

Well, I know some Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians who would disagree strongly with that statement. All three of those countries are doing pretty well economically right now, thank you.

As for Poland, the resistance to the Soviets had as much to do with cultural imperialism as it did with economic imperialism. Remember that at least some portion of Poland had been dominated by the Russians for most of the period between 1790 and 1989, that the Polish-Russian rivalry/hostility predates even that, and the Poles and the Soviets had fought a bloody war in 1920 (which the Poles won, BTW). Then there's also the inherent cultural clash between the Poles (pro- Western, Roman Catholic, parliamentary republic/monarch) and the Russians (anti-Western European, Eastern Orthodox, autocratic regime).

That's going a bit afield of this thread's topic, tho'. And Ronnie Raygun still SUCKED.

"Domino" theory, Mike. Once you let one go, it's that much easier for the next one. And if they all go, then who are we supposed to sell things to? :) That's sarcasm -- and the "domino" theory does sound paranoid in retrospect -- but I think the root urge was perfectly valid: we believed in our ideology and wanted the world to be "right." Not to mention that we never actually "got into" Vietnam -- our hard-line posturing dragged us into something which, had we known beforehand how it would turn out, we would have thought thrice about.

And we did have the ultimate unassailable argument, which was that we supposedly supported basic democracy in every land. Ingenious in that it's not an argument against any particular ideological route -- only an argument that said route should be dictated by the public. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, there is one very cynical argument in support of our propping up fairly awful regimes: a good stretch of stable democratic-looking rule, corrupt or oppressive as it might be, is a step toward the sort of normalized rule that's necessary for the introduction of a decently-functioning democracy. I'm not saying I agree with that, only that I follow the logic being employed.

Total, total DUD. Official.

Maybe as far as human beings do, but not as far as politicians go (see Chimpanzee squatting in the Oval Office presently).

> He was a phony liberal--

Um, Clinton never really claimed to be a liberal; he was always pretty upfront about being a moderate. And anyone (other than those who listen to Rush Limbaugh) who thinks otherwise was in a coma from 1993-2001.

> he pretended to care while he filled his pockets,

Um, how exactly did Clinton "fill his pockets"? And would you like to have his his legal bills (fighting off Ken Pornstarr wasn't cheap, ya know)?

> manipulated people shamelessly, and liedliedlied.

As to the first, he was a politician ... it was his job (and the job of any politician) to manipulate people. As for being a "liar," other than lying about not getting head from Monica what else did Clinton lie about?

Nitsuh on globalisation: *word for word* what I feel. The simplification of all these issues (not least by Blair who condemns all protestors as an "anarchist circus" and refuses to discuss any of the issues at length or in depth *at all*) is perhaps the most shameful thing about the media in the last few years, and that's some fucking achievement.

Didn't Reagan turn the US from being the world's biggest creditor to the world's biggest debtor? I think I read that somewhere - quite an "achievement".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/94/Contra_flyer.jpg/451px-Contra_flyer.jpg

haw!

A quote from our beloved veep, Mr. Richeard Cheney: "Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

Boy howdy, are we going to pay for that sterling bit of wisdom. Big time!

Why the hell were we in Vietnam? Like it would matter that it became communist. Like it would harm the US in some way.

Interesting article on the topic:

The Old Revolutionaries of Vietnam, by Tom Hayden

As for being a "liar," other than lying about not getting head from Monica what else did Clinton lie about?

-- Tadeusz Suchodolski, Saturday, July 28, 2001 8:00 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

lol democrats

i guess hitchens was wrong, bill actually did have one person left to lie to

on RR and Alzheimers

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39561/bill-oreilly-reagan-alzheimers/

ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1985, a short article appeared on page A12 of the Washington Post under the headline “Managua Said to Get Military Copters.”

The article stated that “Recently stepped-up shipments from Warsaw Pact countries to Nicaragua include at least two Polish Mi2 helicopters that can be used as gunships,” attributing this to “government officials with access to the latest intelligence reports.”

The last of the story’s seven paragraphs clarified that just one of the Polish helicopters actually was “equipped with launchers for air-to-ground rockets.”

This was about the hottest of hot political topics at the time: the battle between Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista government and the U.S.-backed Contra brigades trying to overthrow it. While the Contras had been directly financed by the U.S. starting in 1981, the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, after several years public pressure eventually forced Congress to cut off all military aid....

When National Security Agency analyst Deborah Maklowski got into work the Monday after the Post’s article appeared, her branch chief jokingly asked her how much money she’d gotten for it.

That’s because, as Maklowski recounted in 2004 for SIDtoday, the NSA’s internal newsletter, she’d just written a report on this subject and distributed it internally. “The only change” in the Post article from her analysis, according to Maklowski, “was the lack of classification. … The Post had not seen fit to edit my text at all!” (The Intercept is publishing Maklowski’s account today alongside 261 other articles from SIDtoday.)

As Maklowski told the story, she had “been following a deal in the making between Cenzin, the Polish government entity that handled foreign military sales, and the pro-Soviet Sandinista government of Nicaragua. … When I got the specs on this one [helicopter] and saw that it would be equipped with rocket launchers, I put out a report.”

Maklowski continued: “My guess is that the White House, which was looking for anything that would help make a case with Congress for support for the Contras, just unilaterally decided to release the SIGINT [signals intelligence] to the press, without asking and without sanitization, as yet one more piece of evidence of Soviet (well, sort of) support for the Sandinistas.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/07/reagan-administration-cavalierly-leaked-nsa-signals-intelligence-apparently-without-informing-the-agency/