I May Not Be Terribly Bright, But How, Exactly ...

[Andrew D]

(Ignoring of course the fact that we have been over this, and over this, numerous times before...)

I do not recall having previously posted that Reagan's military buildup extended the life of the Soviet Union by giving the Soviet government a way to divert the Soviet public's attention from the things that caused the Soviet Union to collapse. (That does not mean that I have never posted such a thing; I do not claim anything like perfect recall.)

I such a posting exists, perhaps Lord Jim will be kind enough to point us to it ....

[Andrew D]

"Absurd" would mean that it falls outside the realm of realistic possibility. Since history is replete with examples of dictatorial regimes attempting to shore up their support among the populace by propagandizing an external "threat", then the notion that this was the case in the last years of the Soviet Union is hardly "absurd".

Even you were recently speculating that this was precisely the motivation behind the recent actions of the nutjob from North Korea. Why is it "absurd" that Soviet leaders would use the perception of external threats to the regime to the same end?

Because it contradicts pathological worship of Reagan.

[Andrew D]

As a matter of prudence, I did some searches. I found no posting of mine, other than in this thread, to the effect that Reagan's military buildup extended the life of the Soviet Union.

I did, however, rediscover this:

Here is a perspective well worth considering:

Between Iran-Contra and the Robert Bork nomination, Ronald Reagan's back nine [second term] is often seen as something of a failure. But the fallout from the worst scandal since Watergate helped to purge the administration of ideological zealots, empowering his moderate Secretary of State, George Shultz, who steered Reagan away from his first-term posture of Strangelovean apocalypticism. Rambo rhetoric gave way to liberal reasonableness as Reagan recognized the reformist intentions of Mikhail Gorbachev. By 1987, a new age of detente -- or better -- was at hand. If Reagan deserves any credit for helping to end the cold war, it was because he pirouetted from hawk to dove.

(David Greenberg, "The Myth of Second-Term Failure," The New Republic 6 December 2012 at p. 20. [(emphasis added)].)

I am evidently not alone in concluding from the evidence that Reagan's military buildup did not "win the Cold War".

[Lord Jim]

Lord Jim's use of "pathological" to describe anyone's other than his own opinions of Reagan is not an assertion meriting consideration.

Could I please have a show of hands of anyone here besides Andrew, (who's pathology is obvious; he continues to provide more evidence of this...) who has disagreed with me about Mr. Reagan, (this would be a goodly number of folks) who I have ever described as having a "pathological hatred" for him?


Anyone?


Anyone at all?


(It's possible I've characterized rube that way....Afterall, rube is the fellow who blamed Mr. Reagan for the Oklahoma City Bombing...But I'll be amazed if there's anyone else.)

[Lord Jim]

Of course maybe the issue with Andrew isn't a pathological hatred for Reagan...

Perhaps it's a pathological need to troll me....

He really seems to have a hunger for my attention, and gets badly out of sorts if he doesn't feel he's getting it...

That's obviously why he revived this deservedly dead thread out of the blue...(anyone who looks at all his multiple posts here since yesterday can see this easily.)

He seems to do this trolling in spasms every few weeks or so....

Perhaps it's a medication adjustment issue....

[Lord Jim]

Scooter, I will respond to your point a little later, (it will take a little time to respond properly)

Also, in thinking about it further, I've decided to put Andrew back on ignore...this pattern of bursts of trolling has been has been going on for months, and it doesn't appear that it's going to get any better.

Life is just too short to waste any of it dealing with his baiting, harassing crap. (he will now of course accuse me of "cowardice" and do his "Who me?" and "I know you are but what am I" routines, and/or spout some other such nonsense, but frankly I'm long past caring about what he thinks or says)

[Andrew D]

Lord Jim's accusing anyone else of trolling is just more comic relief.

How long has he been trolling rubato? A year? Three years? Since the dawn of time?

As to his putting me on ignore, I will assume that it is, as it has been in the past, mere pretense. He has demonstrated in the past that when he supposedly has me on "ignore," he actually reads my postings. I see no reason to think that it will be any different this time.

[Andrew D]

I'm long past caring about what he thinks or says ....

Except, of course, when he does.

That's good work, Andrew.

I'm almost coming around to Andrew's view on the filibuster....

Andrew has made a very detailed and well thought out argument ....

Andrew, you have obviously given this an enormous amount of thought....

In fairness to Andrew ....

Etc., etc., etc.

By the way, contrary to Lord Jim's egocentric assertion, I did not start this thread in order to provoke any response from him at all. It would have been fine with me if he had not responded at all.

(I do not understand why a person's first posting in a thread -- although I do understand it as a person's later posting in a thread -- would be to the effect that that person is not going to respond. If one's response from the beginning is that that person is not going to respond, why does that person not just not respond?)

After all, I already knew what Lord Jim's response, had he chosen to make a substantive response would be: The same as it always is.

I was hoping to generate responses from others -- from people whose responses would not be so eye-glazing tedious as Lord Jim's responses always are whenever something connected to Reagan comes up. And, to a fairly happy extent, my hope came true.

[Andrew D]

Week 1.

[Crackpot]

Really.

Are you that needy of outside validation?

[Andrew D]

Try reading the thread.

Unless you'd rather just whine ....

[Crackpot]

Coming from you? That's rich.

[rubato]

After a Google search I cannot find anyone other than the pure polemicsts (DInesh D'Sousa, George Will. et al.) who argue that Reagan caused or accelerated the Soviet collapse.

Apparently, the Soviets knew that SDI didn't work and so they didn't care about it. Gorbachev even dropped the condition that the US stop work on SDI when his advisers said it was worthless. ( Our own rocket scientists said it wouldn't work either. )

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan- ... 19445.html

The Historical consensus is that the fluke that both Andropov and Chernenko died within 15 months of attaining office was the single most important fact in the rise of (the relatively younger) Gorbachev; and it was Gorbachev who initiated the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Reagan might get some credit for recognizing that Gorbachev is "someone he can do business with" but that is about it.

As a side note, the sharp decline in world oil prices set in motion by the 2nd oil 'crisis', and Carter's deregulating US oil markets, was one of the biggest drivers in the Soviet collapse.

In the end both Reagan and Bush I threw away a historic opportunity by failing to put in place an Iron Curtain Marshall Plan which would have helped the Russians transition to a modern state without the eventual embrace of "Putinism"; a combination of oil oligarchy and pure power politics. Totalitarianism by a different name.

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

rubbish

[Rick]

http://harvardnsj.org/2011/12/the-colla ... iet-union/

The Empire Crubles: 1989-91

James Mann argues persuasively that Ronald Reagan defied the advice of his more hard line advisers and skillfully led the negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the fall of the Soviet Union (“The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan”). I would agree. In fact, the President was constantly told by his chief intelligence experts, principally then Deputy Director of the CIA, Bob Gates, most Pentagon officials, and many State Department experts, that the General Secretary was not seeking fundamental change of the Soviet system and that at any rate it remained strong and impervious to outside leverage. Reagan disagreed and on many occasions overruled his advisors and directed that we engage the Soviet leadership in negotiations while continuing to exert pressure on the USSR’s economy. I believe that history has shown Reagan to be right in the course he chose.

By 1989 Moscow was faced with increasing challenges. Afghanistan was clearly a failure, and the regime agreed to withdraw Soviet forces that year. Confronted with large street demonstrations in East Europe against the puppet regimes, Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze refused repeated pleas from their Warsaw pact allies to intervene militarily—as they had done in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. As a result the Berlin Wall tumbled down, Germany was reunited, and Solidarity assumed power in Poland and Vaclev Havel’s “Velvet revolution” succeeded in Prague. And in 1991, following a failed coup attempt, the USSR itself dissolved.

In the end, the combination of greater political and social freedoms instituted by Gorbachev and the proactive policies implemented under Reagan to impose severe economic and political burdens on Moscow together led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, on Christmas Day, 1991.