âHe has little political experience, but, maybe, itâs good,â he said.
He says wistfully, looking down at a fist filled with maggots.
I view Gorbachev as a fairly level-headed, common sense guy who we were fortunate enough to have been in the seat of power at that time in history. He is correct, initiating an armed power struggle in the USSR/Russia at that time would not have ended well for the worldâin particular the Russians and their closest neighbors. The world would be likely be a vastly different place if he had resisted Yeltsin and the others. I also think he is correct in castigating the West for the meager to none outreach and assistance to the former USSR, helping them transition. Obviously, his memories of Reagan would be kind, considering they very likely colluded on different situations without including other interested parties. I do not have fond memories of Ronald Reagan, nor do I believe he was an overly positive character in American or world politics.
There is little doubt that the Ukrainian crisis was mishandled badly, and also very little doubt that Putin sees himself fully justified in his asymmetric disinformation war against the US, which he has been winning so far.
Despite his age Reagan had enough flexibility of mind to develop a trusting relationship with Gorbachev. Just as only Nixon was able to go to China, only a cold war GOP warrior could have engaged the Soviet Union in that manner. So despite his otherwise terrible track record he got that bit right.
True. I agree, it was in all our best interests that he and Gorbachev have a good working relationship, one where they had a mutual understanding and (by all appearances) trust â and Iâll actually give Reagan a rare tip of the hat for that.
Holy Fuck. Anyone read Joshâs most-recent blog? In part:
Thereâs a brief write-up here from the local ABC affiliate with this from Daily Stormer website.
The publisher of the Daily Stormer writes:
"We are planning an armed protest in Whitefish.
âMontana has extremely liberal open carry laws, so my lawyer is telling me we can easily march through the center of the town carrying high-powered rifles.
âI myself am planning on being there to lead the protest, which has been dubbed âMarch on Whitefish.â
âCurrently, my guys say we are going to be able to put together about 200 people to participate in the march, which will be against Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either.
WTH? In 21st Century America, we have idiots marching âagainst Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either.â Good fucking god, if I lived near Whitefish, Iâd be out there counter-protesting.
I agree with Gorbachevâs assessment. But it was Strobe Talbottâs Czarist jewel-crazed people under Clinton who muffed itâŚ
I agree with Gorbachev that the US squandered a chance to construct a more cooperative relationship with Russia. While Russia was weak, the US drove NATOâs borders right up to Russiaâs in Estonia. This appeared to violate an understanding that Russia thought it had with NATO.
As Russia regained some strength, it worked to prevent further NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine. That shouldnât have surprised anybody.
But, water under the bridge. NATO isnât going to abandon Estonia. But it could defuse the issue somewhat by reversing the forward deployments of US and other troops to Estonia. Also, further NATO expansion Eastward should be called off. That could be what Russia needs to back-off from Georgia and Ukraine. But I doubt that Trump could wrap his head around such a complex deal; he doesnât have the background to understand the trade-offs.
Whatever you may think about Nixonâs and Reaganâs engagements with these commie rivals, as an American progressive/liberal, I will never ever give them any special âonly theyâ credit for doing so. To do so is to succumb to a kind of American Liberal Stockholm Syndrome. The Right Wing Red Bating, liberal are commies tropes are the foundation of Republican Party post-WWII politics and they have and still retard our countryâs ability to debate and solve domestic and foreign policy issues. The ignorance, stupidity and venality of these politics has been baked in the cake my entire life.- from Nixonâs very first campaign for office in CA, the McCarty Era, to Nixonâs Southern Strategy, Reaganâs joking about starting nuclear war to the gazillion times they called Obama a âsocialistâ for signing Republican originated health care legislation. And today we have fascists Sieg Heil-ing blocks from the White House and armed anti-Semites marching in the west.
So please, say what you will about how the world somehow became safer, but DONâT tell me âonly theyâ could have âgone thereâ. PahLeez!
I am agnostic on this point, but I would like to point out that Carter is underappreciated as a global villain, for entangling the US in Afghanistan, supporting the Mujahadeenâand we know what came of that.
Democrats donât have a great record in foreign policy since WWII: Johnson, Carter, ObamaâŚ
Iâm pretty certain that even though the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began in 1979, we didnât begin arming the mujahideen until Reaganâs term. And he funded them the entire 8 years of his presidency. You also might want to check Russiaâs complicity for invading Afghanistan.
Revisionist much?
The plowsharing work with nuclear arms was most definitely not short-sighted. Nukes were dismantled, some sort of control on fissionable material. The people at Los Alamos and Krasnoyarsk were all over this. The work was directly responsible for keeping nukes off the black market and forcing rogue states to make weapons-grade plutonium themselves.
Neo-Nazis marching and carrying guns in opposition to âJews and Jewish businessesâ⌠The good news: At least there may be 10 among the 200 who are not certifiable.
Kennedy engaged with Khrushchev, and got the first nuclear arms control deal, the 1963 treaty banning above ground nuclear tests. Kennedyâs great Strategy of Peace address at American University in June 1963 remains the most important statement of a generous American foreign policy in the post World War II era.
I have great respect for Gorbachev, and I can sympathyze with his world view, but American policy toward Russia in the post- Soviet era looks quite different from our side of the divide than from Russiaâs. After the USSR collapsed we sought no Russian territory, no reparations and no recriminations. We set the stage for Russia joining all the economic and social mechanisms of the west. We did not create the Great Russian Kleptocracy that has stolen wealth from the Russian people. We did nothing to justify the Russian decision to reemerge as a great power through a military buildup, rather than economic modernization. It was Putin, not us, who has caused conflict and danger in relations between Russia and the west.
Thatâs very debatable. When Gorbachev took office, the Soviet Unionâs economy was in extremely dire straits, and it couldnât sustain itself, let alone its empire, under the current situation. He took office as part of an effort to turn that around,and the methods he used, âliberalization of the economyâ resulted in the break away of various Soviet satellites as various nationalists movementsâŚwith years of resentment towards Moscow⌠popped up ,and ultimately led to the dissolution of the union. By the time it came for him to hand over the reigns to Yeltsin, most of the other former Soviet territories had already broken away and had declared the end of the Soviet Union.
He didnât make that happenâŚthe forces that made if happen were already fully under way. Indeed, his selection as the Prime Minster was a bit of a âHail Maryâ attempt to negotiate those forces.
And as far as Gorbachev having fond memories of Reagan, what he is essentially saying here is that Reagan kicked him when he was down, instead of offering to help ease the transition and create a longer lasting working relationship between the USA and Russia. The USA had been bleeding the Soviet Union dry for decades in an economic/military build up race. Gorbachevâs efforts were too little too late to stop that, but he did try and ease the tensionsâŚbecause he knew they had lost. And while Reagan didnât âbomb the evil empireâ, the USA did a lot more gloating than was necessary to ease the transition. Indeed, the âReagan won the Cold Warâ meme is a regular part of GOP gloating on the domestic scene, almost 30 years after the fact.
Actually, it was under Reagan that we started supporting the Mujahadeen, and as far as great records in foreign policyâŚcompare those to the records of W, HW, Reagan and Nixon. Johnson escalated our involvement in Vietnam, but so did Nixon before he finally threw in the towel in his second termâŚafter expanding the war both in numbers and countries. Grenada, Panama, escalations with Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, AfghanistanâŚthose are all republican adventures. Not to mention the tons of covert operations sponsored by republican Presidents. Hell, republicans treated South and Central America like their own private playground for coups and CIA backed overthrows, for decades.
Thereâs another view. I was living in Europe at the time the USSR bit the dust. The pundits at the rime didnât hail Gorby as a hero with a new way but a beaten man forced to deal with realty. Russia was broke. It had a bunch of equally broke client states to feed. Gorby ditched all that because he had to. Just after the fall I was in Prague and Pest. No one there then wanted the USA to join hands with Russia and prop it up. Thatâs what Gorbachev is talking about. They hated the Russians. They relished itâs fall and went about creating the new Eastern Europe sans the diktat. They still hate the shit out of them.
The Russians were cruel and vicious with the Soviet States. I experienced it personally in East Berlin in the late 1960âs. They were major assholes and horribly cruel. When the USSR fell apart the USA engaged the new Russia with âtrust but verifyâ caution. The verify almost never came about. There was a new Europe to build. One that never threatened America with doomsday. Thatâs where the USA put itâs efforts. It wanted a new wall, made of democracies wrapped around Russiaâs western frontier. In Europe we call the Russia of the USSR days âold Russiaâ. Ask Europeans today and theyâll tell you its still old Russia with a new name. There was never a reason to do what Gorbyâs yakking about other than to strengthen Russia which when strong enough would bite the USA in its ass.
Iâm just a nobody American thatâs lived in Europe, Latin America and Asia for about 35 years. Iâve been to the USSR and Iâve been to the Russian Federation. From my point of view there is nothing in what Gorbyâs spewing that wouldâve been good for the USA. Thatâs why a generation of American thinkers rejected it. Gorby lives in a world where truth is manufactured and thatâs a normal thing. Unless youâve been in that world itâs a bit hard to grasp the concept. But the USA is getting there. Itâs the most frightening thing about America today.
Vlad. Putin has a near 80 % approval rating in Russia. Heâs an authoritarian maniac with world conquest in mind. The Russian people are cool with that. He invades his neighboring countries and the Russian people are cool with that. Itâs a different place over there. Obama, but more so HRC, had Putinâs number. Thatâs a long story ( its been covered in many places ) and itâs why Putin jacked with our election. Clinton would have iced Putin. Now he has what the Russian papers openly call a âuseful idiotâ coming to the White House. Itâs sad things went down that way. Gorby needs to STFU though. Trump will do Russiaâs bidding unless the word gets out.
The US is on the same exact path the USSR was in the 80âs. Itâs headed for collapse and dissolution which will be the #1 item people will remember from a Trump Presidency.