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OfflineTao
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Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
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How did he do it?
    #2770402 - 06/06/04 10:21 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

I know there's a lot of reagan threads already on this board, but here's a more focused question. To those who believe that Reagan specifically played a large role in the fall of communism, what was it exactly that he did? Funding proxy wars and creating a modern mccarthyist attitude?

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OfflineBaby_Hitler
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2770507 - 06/06/04 11:20 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

I think the arms race / cold war was a financial burden to both countries, and certainly helped to bring about the collapse.


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"America: Fuck yeah!" -- Alexthegreat

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”  -- Thomas Jefferson

The greatest sin of mankind is ignorance.

The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. --Salena Zeto (9/23/16)

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OfflineTao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Baby_Hitler]
    #2770559 - 06/06/04 11:42 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

of course, the arms race, i meant to include that.

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Offlineunbeliever
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2770678 - 06/07/04 12:43 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

I want to start a small communist community in the middle of wyoming or one of those kinds of states. That'd rule.


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Happiness is a warm gun...

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OfflineJesusChrist
Son Of God
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 1,459
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: unbeliever]
    #2770742 - 06/07/04 01:54 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

unbeliever said:
I want to start a small communist community in the middle of wyoming or one of those kinds of states. That'd rule.




I would be interested to know how many communists that we have posting on this board. I am not red baiting, just interested.


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Tastes just like chicken

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Invisiblevampirism
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Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 8,120
Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771022 - 06/07/04 08:16 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

He speeded up the collapse by resisting the Soviets and with stuff like the star wars program. Russia tried to compete, but its economy collapsed because of that. Arms race + political resistance.

Reagan supported Poland staunchly - the Soviets were going to crush the Solidarnosc movement but he supported it. Without that support, Communism would have lingered on for a long while longer. No, he didn't take out his shining sword of freedom and cut communism down. Yes, he was an abnormally large straw which broke that camel's back

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771026 - 06/07/04 08:17 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

> To those who believe that Reagan specifically played a large role in the fall of communism, what was it exactly that he did?

I was still in high school during the reagan years... I remember my world history teacher talking about Reagan claiming that his policies would end soviet communism. He claimed that Reagan was in a spending war with the soviets... that the soviet mindset could not allow the US to have more weapons... and that the massive spending both sides were doing would force one side or the other to run out of money... which, if the soviets ran out first, would end communism. My parents laughed at the idea that communism was on its way out when I told them about this... a few years later the berlin wall came down.

> I would be interested to know how many communists that we have posting on this board.

Were energy free, I would probably be a communist... the theory behind communism is sound, but corruption and greed will always doom it unless there is so much 'stuff' that everybody can have anything they want. Star Trek is a good example of working communism, in a fictional setting.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Invisibleafoaf
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771300 - 06/07/04 10:37 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

in poker, it's called a bluff....you raise your opponent into submission.

luckily they folded first.


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All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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InvisibleXlea321
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771316 - 06/07/04 10:42 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

The russians were never anywhere near the US in terms of the arms race since way back in the 50's. The idea that somehow Reagan made them spend more is bollocks.

The "arms race" was always simply a good way of transferring money from the poor to the rich - just like "the war on drugs" or "the war on terror" is today.


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

Edited by Alex123 (06/07/04 10:52 AM)

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Invisiblewhiterasta
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771371 - 06/07/04 11:01 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

When a country such as the former USSR must purchase it's food( the wheat shipments,etc) from it's purported enemy how long did they have with ANY fool in office? From the first time we sold such a basic necessity as food due to ther own inability to fill the demand of their own country, we had "won" the contest(?)Reagan was lucky enough to be in place when the burden of purchasing basic foodstuff,the arms race, the afghanistan war(WARNING SIGN!),and civil unrest reached a point which all it took was a nudge and down she fell.
We should really have payed closer attention to the fall of the soviet empire,it could become VERY relevant in our own future.
WR:wexican:


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To old for this place

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Xlea321]
    #2771461 - 06/07/04 11:29 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

> The "arms race" was always simply a good way of transferring money from the poor to the rich

I disagree.  A lot of money went into R&D and manufacturing during the cold war... Start with the super bomb (fusion bombs, early 50's) and progress through the space race/moon missions through the massive spending and buildup during the Reagan years...

The arms race may have helped line a lot of rich pockets, and it may have emptied futher a lot of poor pockets, but to claim that it was simply a way to play at R obin Hood, and nothing more, is stretching...  :smile:


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Just another spore in the wind.

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InvisibleEvolving
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Registered: 10/01/02
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Seuss]
    #2771480 - 06/07/04 11:35 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
... the theory behind communism is sound



How do you figure? Everywhere it has been tried (other than in an agrarian, close knit community) it has been a complete failure. Communism will not work in a large modern society where there is a highly specialized division of labor and vast numbers of people who do not know each other. People respond to incentives, communism so severly distorts incentives that it leads to chronic shortages and misallocation of resources. Tell me, how hard will the average man work if it will bring him no greater rewards than the shiftless who try to live off the system? Do you realize that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" translates in real life to, "from each according to his production, to each according to his consumption" ?

Quote:

Star Trek is a good example of working communism, in a fictional setting.



Star Trek is fiction, it is an example that working communism IS fiction. Nothing more can be inferred from it.


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To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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OfflinePhred
Fred's son
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Xlea321]
    #2771569 - 06/07/04 11:57 AM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Alex123 writes:

Quote:

The russians were never anywhere near the US in terms of the arms race since way back in the 50's. The idea that somehow Reagan made them spend more is bollocks.




Incorrect. The Soviets were ahead of the US in rocket (hence missile) technology right up until the time they dropped out of the race to the moon. There are several excellent histories of the space programs of both powers that confirm this.

As for Reagan making them spend more, the Soviets themselves admit this was the case. Some excerpts (boldface by pinky) from an excellent article at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005181

"That strategy rested on six pillars: support internal disruption in Soviet satellites, especially Poland; dry up sources of hard currency; overload the Soviet economy with a technology-based arms race; slow the flow of Western technology to Moscow; raise the cost of the wars it was fighting; and demoralize the Soviets by generating pressure for change."

"On June 7, 1982, the day before Reagan gave his 'ash heap' speech at Westminster Abbey, he met alone with the pope in the Vatican. Richard Allen, Reagan's first national security adviser, says the two men 'agreed to undertake a clandestine campaign to hasten the dissolution of the communist empire.' Until it was legalized in 1989, Poland's Solidarity union was kept alive by the U.S. and the Vatican. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, who later became president of free Poland, has said that 'we owe our freedom to their unstinting efforts.' "

"A new book by former Air Force secretary Thomas Reed reveals that the Reagan administration allowed a Soviet agent to steal gas-pipeline software that had been secretly designed to go haywire on a catastrophic scale. The ruse led to a June 1982 explosion in the Siberian wilderness that Mr. Reed says was 'the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.' It crippled the Soviet's secret techno-piracy operation because they could longer be sure if what they were buying or stealing was similarly booby-trapped. They had reason to worry: Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted chemical plants and tractor factories."

"Reagan's arms buildup also unhinged the Kremlin. His clarion call for a missile-based defense system against nuclear weapons in 1983 helped convince the Politburo to select Mikhail Gorbachev as a less hard-line Soviet leader in 1985. 'Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail,' says Gennady Gerasimov, the Soviet Foreign Ministry's top spokesman during the 1980s. 'The Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition.' Mr. Gorbachev himself agrees the U.S. exhausted his country economically and acknowledges Reagan's place in history. 'Who knows what would have happened if he wasn't there?' he told the History Channel in 2002."

pinky


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OfflineTao
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Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Evolving]
    #2771585 - 06/07/04 12:00 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

you have to admit, that food synthesizer thingy would help out a lot :wink:


My point of this thread (probably transparent) is that why is it so respectable that he built more and more threatening weapons until the threatened country was starving its own people trying to keep up and then collapsed? And of course, how is funding non-democratic sides of proxy wars respectable?  And the form of McCarthysim he used, simplistically calling Russia the 'evil empire' (now who does that remind me of?:smirk:) rather than formally debate the failings of communism (as evolving eloquently did there) inspiring zealous patriotism and hatred of other countries. 

but to evolving's point, i would add that IMO democratic (not revolutionary) socialism has been pretty successful in western Europe and after china's pragmatist coup, china's percentage GDP growth has been the highest in the world over the past decade(if memory serves correctly).  its not communism, but it has public education, healthcare and welfare safety nets (though it still fails in civil liberties and other human rights).  As some chinese have said, socialism is still in its relatively early stages and is adapting to problems it encounters just as capitalism has.

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OfflineJesusChrist
Son Of God
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 1,459
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Phred]
    #2771617 - 06/07/04 12:09 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Fantastic read. Thank you.


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Tastes just like chicken

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Evolving]
    #2771659 - 06/07/04 12:26 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Evolving said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
... the theory behind communism is sound



How do you figure?  Everywhere it has been tried (other than in an agrarian, close knit community) it has been a complete failure.





You took my statement out of context (do you work for Fox news by chance? :grin:)  The entire thing reads:

Quote:


the theory behind communism is sound, but corruption and greed will always doom it unless there is so much 'stuff' that everybody can have anything they want.





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Just another spore in the wind.

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OfflineAncalagon
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Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: How did he do it? [Re: Seuss]
    #2771704 - 06/07/04 12:43 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Star Trek is a good example of working communism, in a fictional setting.



Is it? Seems good enough I guess for everyone with the fun job of living equally on a space ship. What about those living equally in a factory making food synthesizers?


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: How did he do it? [Re: Seuss]
    #2771743 - 06/07/04 01:02 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

This reminds me of something you might find in the S&P forum like... The theory behind human levitation is sound, but the inherent incapability of the human body and insufficient belief in it will always doom it.

So, what is sound about the theory of communism?


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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OfflineTao
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Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
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Re: How did he do it? [Re: Ancalagon]
    #2771769 - 06/07/04 01:10 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Ancalagon said:
Quote:

Star Trek is a good example of working communism, in a fictional setting.



Is it?  Seems good enough I guess for everyone with the fun job of living equally on a space ship.  What about those living equally in a factory making food synthesizers?





well you see, there are food synthesizer synthesizers...:grin:

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OfflineJesusChrist
Son Of God
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 1,459
Last seen: 11 years, 6 months
Re: How did he do it? [Re: Tao]
    #2771818 - 06/07/04 01:29 PM (19 years, 9 months ago)

That Star Trek stuff is more than amusing. What about the holograph stuff in the later series? That would really appeal to us around here. No need for mushies anymore when you can create your own reality!

I would be all for communism is you gave me a food/beer synthesizer and and one of those vitural reality chambers. I would spend all my time in there. I would by laying all the hot chicks, fighting and winning all the great battles, and climbing Mount Everest whenever I wanted.

Too bad the commies never had those things.


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Tastes just like chicken

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