Your tax dullards at work

329 comments on “Your tax dullards at work”

1. Winning now is how you HAVE a future.

   Ahh, yes, we’re already back to the ‘winning at all costs’ ideology that has lead to torture of prisoners, rendition, etc.

   It’s great to be an American when you can think so little of everybody else, yes?

   So, do I think putting our own country on the brink of ruin to defeat Soviet Russia was the way to go about it? No.

   And we’ll pay for it badly, because, obviously, that strategy isn’t going to work with Soviet China.

   And, if the USSR hadn’t come down when it did, it was only a matter of time before some minor conflict, similar to the clash in Korea, or Vietnam, or Israel, escalated into nuclear destruction

   And this is different from today how?

   Korea is still a problem. As is Israel.

   Granted, I was just a kid still when the Wall came down, but, by all accounts, it sounds like the Russians knew dámņ well that they weren’t launching nukes at anybody either.

   So, the question remains: was Reagan’s methods even necessary? I say no.

2. It’s great to be an American when you can think so little of everybody else, yes?

   It’s great that you have the freedom to be so negative about current and past events, especially since you are far removed from the action and circumstances involved.

   It’s not that Americans think so little of anybody, it is quite the opposite. We are helping others obtain freedom. Unfortunately, freedom comes with a price.

   So, the question remains: was Reagan’s methods even necessary? I say no.

   And you would be wrong. If you look at the previous twenty years, every President in that time span had to deal with the Soviet Union’s nuclear threat,because it was real, and Reagan found a way that did not threaten escalated nuclear war.

   The nuclear threat of the USSR was real and it was averted.

3. It’s great that you have the freedom to be so negative about current and past events, especially since you are far removed from the action and circumstances involved.

   Well, I’m not one of the Americans who think torture is an acceptable, that think dead Iraqis are nothing more than ‘collateral’.

   But then, Rumsfeld is just as far removed from the action and circumstances as I am, yet his comments are appropriate?

   and Reagan found a way that did not threaten escalated nuclear war.

   I’d love to take a peek in your brain and see if your logic circuits are functioning.

   Because, to most people in the sane world, a MILITARY BUILDUP would, generally speaking, escalate the potential for nuclear war.

4. “Because, to most people in the sane world, a MILITARY BUILDUP would, generally speaking, escalate the potential for nuclear war.”

   Yes, but, it didn’t….obviously. and I hate it when people try to say that Reagan was somehow resopsible for our problems today. As I said earlier, I feel that by accelerating the fall of the Soviet Union, he prevented rouge nations like Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan, all of which would have fallen under the Soviet Sphere of infulence, from getting full nuclear capability. Also, it is foolish to compare Korea to the USSR. Korea is not bent on world domination, and knows that it will never even come close to winning a nuclear exchange. I mean, They hit Seoul with one nuke, and about 300 ICBM’s from various nations land in Pyongyang. I mean, c’mon, the Russians were talking about WINNING a nuclear war. And Israel is on our side, Craig. Also, A) it has shown itself quite capable of opening up some serious whoopass on anyone who messes with it, and B) None of the nations who might attack it have nuclear capability, thanks in large part to who? Ronald Reagan.

5. Something’s wrong when I agree with Ham…

   Reagan wasn’t responsible for the MAD escalation. That was something he came into when he was elected. The Soviets were going to do it, anyway. He recognized that to not match that escalation would lead eventually to the defeat of the US. He also basically bet that the US economy could survive the shocks such spending would bring, and that the USSR would not. And he was right. Sure, he bet the farm, so to speak, but he did so on good information. And today, the biggest threat we live under is that thousands may be killed in a single event (and it’s unlikely that planes loaded with live passengers will ever be used successfully as weapons again). If Reagan had not beat the Soviets, the entire world would still be living under the threat of MAD, nuclear winter, and millions, if not billions, of deaths in a matter of hours.

   Pretty much without any direct loss of life. If that’s not one of the greatest human achievements, ever, please tell me what would be.

   And while the buildup did escalate the possibility of MAD, it reduced the possibility of a nuclear exchange.

6. Yes, but, it didn’t….obviously.

   Yeah, hindsight is great, isn’t it?

   But then, nobody could critize Reagan if the human race was dead because of his actions.

   I feel that by accelerating the fall of the Soviet Union, he prevented rouge nations like Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan, all of which would have fallen under the Soviet Sphere of infulence, from getting full nuclear capability.

   And instead of the Russians imposing their will upon those nations, America is instead.

   Does Ukraine have nukes? Uzbekistan? Khazakstan?

   Reagan prevented nothing.

   I mean, c’mon, the Russians were talking about WINNING a nuclear war

   Nobody wins a nuclear war. The Russians knew that.

   And Israel is on our side, Craig.

   So are a bunch of terrorist states such as Pakistan.

7. “And instead of the Russians imposing their will upon those nations, America is instead.”

   Yep. And, beplorable as I find that, I would much rather it be a democracy leaning on them then one of the most repressive states in the history of the world.

   “Does Ukraine have nukes? Uzbekistan? Khazakstan?
   Reagan prevented nothing.”

   What would have happened is that the Soviet Bloc, determined to have as many missile bases in as many places as possible, would have built missile silos or neuclear reactors in those places. When the Soviet Union did eventually collapse (an event we might still be waiting on, considering how long other Empires have taken to fall) that nuclear capability would have either been in the hands of rogue generals, or terrorists, either of whom would have one hëll of a barganing chip. Instead, there is no nuclear weaponry in what is the most unstable region in the world.

   “Nobody wins a nuclear war. The Russians knew that.”

   Ever see Dr. Strangelove, Craig? All it takes is one little bit of misinformation, or one random flock of geese, and it’s all over. There was at least one time where a Russian soldier recieved orders to fire, but held back, and it soon came through that it was a mistake. What if the next time, in 1995, the soldier hadn’t thought?

   “So are a bunch of terrorist states such as Pakistan.”

   And we are there to help keep their nukes under control. I would rather have them with us then against us. And if hindsight is great, foresight is even better. I think he took a risk, but a calculated one, and considering how many stand-offs we had had with the Russians or their allies, each one with the power to go nuclear, I think it was a risk worth taking. And instead of MAD, now our worst fear is a rogue nation like North Korea getting a Nuke. and even if they make an ICBM, the most that they can take out is one city. Which is aweful, but better to lose New York alone than every City in the whole dámņ world. And, since we can keep a very close watch on North Korea, we can prevent that, and they know that they could never win, or even break even. That should help keep them in check.

8. I would rather have them with us then against us.

   Yeah, we also see how well that went for Iraq.

   Reagan played Nuclear Russian Roulette.

   And no matter the results, I can’t agree with it. Nor can I support the notion that he alone is responsible for the fall of the USSR.

   You’d think Gorbachov would at least get a little more credit…

9. “And no matter the results, I can’t agree with it. Nor can I support the notion that he alone is responsible for the fall of the USSR.”

   I never said that. I did say that:
   “He was instrumental in bringing tdown the greatest threat to the very existance of the world that has ever existed”
   I never said he was the only one. Gorby and I think, Pope John Paul II both played large roles. It is debateable whose was most important, but there is no doubt a lot of it was Reagan

10. And we are there to help keep their nukes under control. I would rather have them with us then against us.

    Yeah, it does my heart good to know that one of our “allies” in the war on terror sold nuclear secrets to both Iran and North Korea. Pakistan is a military dictatorship where women are gang raped by tribal councils in order to punish their family for the transgressions of her brother and where fundamentalist schools train young men to be future suicide bombers.

    On the other hand, Pakistan’s enemy, India, is a functioning democracy with a growing educated middle class with whom software companies and engineering firms are fallin over each to do business.

    Why are we allied with Pakistan again?

11. “He was instrumental in bringing tdown the greatest threat to the very existance of the world that has ever existed”

    Spelling errors notwithstanding, you greatly overestimate the threat, and the common sense of the Soviets. There’s a reason the Soviets backed down from installing nuclear weapons in Cuba: they didn’t want world war either. Detente played to their continued success, war would merely have hastened their fall. The Nazis, on the other hand, embraced world war, so sure were they in their ultimate success.

12. “Spelling errors notwithstanding, you greatly overestimate the threat, and the common sense of the Soviets.”

    The soviets had plenty of common sense. All it takes though, is one crazy, or one misdirected order, or one plane losing its way, or one terrorist setting off a bomb. In a similar scenario to “Sum of All Fears,” one bomb, one incident could have triggered a nuclear holocaust.

    “There’s a reason the Soviets backed down from installing nuclear weapons in Cuba”

    The Soviets didn’t. Kruschev did, and he lost his job over it. (that and being nuttier than a squirrel nest) and, they simply took down the missiles we knew about. Later, we discovered that there were some there still. To put it bluntly, do you guys want the USSR back? I think life is a lot safer with only one superpower myself. Yes, we do run the risk of imperialism, Manifest Destiny, and Jingoism, but the world is a lot better off without two nations, each with the power to destroy the world many times over, facing off over little back-water countries! Do you think the world is more dangerous now? Sure there are terrorists. But I would rather be facing down a bunch off ill-equipped fanatics then a full bore nuclear super-power.

    “Detente played to their continued success, war would merely have hastened their fall.”
    War would have meant a little more than their fall, it would have been the destruction of all humanity. And yes, detente simply allowed them to keep growing, and growing more powerful, until we would have had a confrontation, most likely in Eastern Europe. We couldn’t have backed off much farther, and what Reagan did was the best way of fighting them: he supplied Groups like Bin Laden (That one kinda turned on us, yeah) and the Contras (ok, so he should have been more open about it, but it was the only way to avoid another Vietnam.) Instead of a show down, he weakened them with rebellion, and then out spent them. Why? Cause in a Capitalistic nation, government spending is a good thing, as is government debt. And, not to point fingers, but if Eisenhower had given the Hungarians a little support in ‘56, the entire thing might have ended earlier. One last thing. What happened when the US and USSR faced off was the only time in history two superpowers faced off without a direct war. Be it Greeks and Persians, Romans and Carthaginians, British and French, or German and Anglo-American, Ronald Reagan brought about the only peaceful destruction of a superpower in history. And, he was a key player in the destruction of one of the worst dictatorships in recent history

13. “The soviets had plenty of common sense. All it takes though, is one crazy, or one misdirected order, or one plane losing its way, or one terrorist setting off a bomb. In a similar scenario to “Sum of All Fears,” one bomb, one incident could have triggered a nuclear holocaust.”

    Goes both ways, jack. You’ve seen ‘Dr. Strangelove’, I presume? Seems to me you’re making the assumption that crazy was only on one side of the Atlantic.

    “The Soviets didn’t. Kruschev did, and he lost his job over it. (that and being nuttier than a squirrel nest) and, they simply took down the missiles we knew about. Later, we discovered that there were some there still. To put it bluntly, do you guys want the USSR back?”

    Khruschev did it knowing the US would come to blows over it. He lost his job because the Politburo thought he was full of šhìŧ. Khruschev was not a raving loon. He was actually a very astute politician who had the best interests of his nation at heart. He wanted the Soviet Union to succeed, he did NOT want the Soviet Union to destroy the world.

    If you’ll recall, the US was closest to nuclear war twice in it’s history: October of 1962 (one minute to midnight), and 1984 (three minutes to midnight). So you could also say that Khruschev and Reagan are the two world leaders that led us closest to absolute annhiliation.

    “…he supplied Groups like Bin Laden (That one kinda turned on us, yeah) and the Contras (ok, so he should have been more open about it, but it was the only way to avoid another Vietnam.)”

    The assertion that Nicaragua turning to Communism was somehow a threat to domestic security is every bit as ridiculous as the assertion that Vietnam turning Communist somehow portended the inevitable fall of all Asian nations into the thrall of the Soviet Empire. Funding the Contras should have led to Reagan’s impeachment and removal from office.

    ” War would have meant a little more than their fall, it would have been the destruction of all humanity.”

    You’re assuming that war would have meant nuclear war. I’m not willing to make that assumption.

    “And yes, detente simply allowed them to keep growing, and growing more powerful, until we would have had a confrontation, most likely in Eastern Europe.”

    No, detente made the Soviet Union spend to keep up with the US, making it possible for Reagan to work his blessed miracle of “peaceful revolution”. What worked for Reagan in the 80’s would simply not have worked in the 60’s. Hëll, Eisenhower, JFK and LBJ all tried it and it didn’t work.

    What did the USSR in, finally, was not Reagan. It was an economic model that simply wouldn’t work over an extended period of time (and no, sixty years does not constitute an extended period of time).

    And Eisenhower couldn’t help the Hungarians in ’56 without actual US military intervention. That’s some ridiculous Monday morning quarterbacking that has little basis in reality, and potentially would have led to a military confrontation (sort of like the Soviets being in Cuba).

    As you can tell, your interpretation of history simply doesn’t wash with me.

14. To put it bluntly, do you guys want the USSR back?

    No.

    Do have it back? Essentially, yes – the way Putin runs things, Russia is no better off now than just before the fall of the USSR.

    The only different is that Putin can’t yank quite as many strings around in the other former-Soviet bloc nations.

    And, true to form, the US has tried pulling strings of their own in these countries (Ukraine, for example), just like we used to do in the Cold War.

15. “Seems to me you’re making the assumption that crazy was only on one side of the Atlantic.”

    Good point. One of the reasons I hate JFK so much is that he was on hard drugs while in the White house, including Speed and marijuana. This might account for his willingness to go toe to toe with the Soviets.

    “Khrushchev did it knowing the US would come to blows over it. He lost his job because the Politburo thought he was full of šhìŧ.”

    Not according to my sources. I checked Wikipedia, and it was a major factor. As for his political genius, I kinda lost trust in that when he started banging shoes on podiums. He was a reformer compared only to Stalin.

    “You’re assuming that war would have meant nuclear war. I’m not willing to make that assumption.”

    I assume that any full blown war would have turned into a nuclear war rather swiftly, as that was what most of the response plans called for.

    “No, detente made the Soviet Union spend to keep up with the US”

    What the Soviets were doing is throwing all their money to the military and space programs. They could go on quite a while that way, but Reagan forced them to spend on other fronts, thus pushing them over the brink. The failure of previous Presidents was in just trying to outspend them militarily. We would have won, but it would be several years and several billion dollars in the future as of today.

    “And Eisenhower couldn’t help the Hungarians in ’56 without actual US military intervention.”

    This would have been no different from Korea, Vietnam, or Israel, with Soviet back forces fighting US backed forces, the difference being that a battle there would have done what later caused the fall, a hole in the iron curtain, with refugees fleeing Soviet oppression. It would have at least been a major blow to the USSR.

    As for the Doomsday clock: it was set to two minutes. in 1953, (Soviet/American Thermonuclear tests) 3 minutes in 1949 (soviet nuclear test) not to mention that when they signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty it went back to 6.
    I am not saying that Reagan acted perfectly, but in this case, the ends might not fully justify the means, but they come close.

    Oh, and sorry about the spelling errors, I was in a great hurry.

16. “This would have been no different from Korea…”

    For clarification: the Soviets sold the North Koreans weapons. They did NOT, in any way, support military confrontation with the United States-backed South Vietnamese. The North Koreans pulled that one off solely on their own. Even the Chinese were incredibly pìššëd, and ONLY got involved when that jáçkášš MacArthur got too close to the border.

    “…Vietnam…”

    All I’ll say on this is that the US picked up where the French left off. The military intervention in Vietnam on the part of the US was an incredible drain on the economy as well as our national morale. I’m all for fighting wars that need fighting (Afghanistan, for instance), but Vietnam was ludicrous at the time.

    “One of the reasons I hate JFK so much is that he was on hard drugs while in the White house, including Speed and marijuana. This might account for his willingness to go toe to toe with the Soviets.”

    Bushwah. JFK was one of the most brilliant internationalists (and fairly šhìŧŧÿ on the domestic front) that has occupied the office of the presidency (I would also include Nixon in this list). Hate him all you want, but that hooey about him being high for his presidency is both unsupported, and irrelavent. Some would argue that Nixon was drunk for his, and Reagan was completely off his rocker due to ALS. You’ll get none of that from me. I’d love to see proof on that from a responsible historian. You’re suggesting he should have knuckled under and allowed the missiles on Cuba? Didn’t think so.

    What I’m saying in regards to Hungary is that the US would have had to put troops on the ground. In essence, what happened in Hungary was civil war. Communists v. Stalinists. The Stalinists won. If the US had truly wanted the communists (as opposed to the Communists) to win, they would have had to put troops on the ground. The small ‘c’ communists did not have the military to truly go up against the Soviet military. All the guns the US could have supplied them in the world woud not have helped.

17. Dammit, James, these paragraphs read like crap. Oh, for an editing utility…

18. Craig, you say you were a child when the Berlin Wall fell. You may not have an appreciation for what it meant to grow up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud (to borrow a phrase from Queen).

    When the Wall fell, I was a nuclear planner with USAF Strategic Air Command. I can’t go into it here, but take my word – most of the strategic planners over 40 at the time thought a nuclear war was actually winnable. No matter how many lectures they got on physics and nuclear medicine, they still thought of nukes as just bigger, badder bombs. There is no reason to think the Soviet leadership was any better at accepting new concepts, and as I recall, they didn’t have any senior military personnel under 40 – Gorbachev, at 57, was considered a young buck by the Politburo.

    Yes, Mutually Assured Destruction was a serious threat – up until the day Gorbachev officially dissolved the Supreme Soviet, and the USSR faded into (as Krushchev might have said) the dustbin of history…

    (One of my favorite quotes from the ’60s was from Robert McNamara, the day he was appointed Secretary of Defense and was briefed on MAD: “My God, General! What you have here isn’t a war plan – it’s some kind of horrible spasm!”)

19. Dangit, one other question.

    “What the Soviets were doing is throwing all their money to the military and space programs. They could go on quite a while that way, but Reagan forced them to spend on other fronts, thus pushing them over the brink.”

    What did Reagan force them to spend on? The thing that really screwed them over in the 80s was Afghanistan (1979-1989 for the record), which was a mess of their own making. Sure, you could argue the Reagan administration supported the revolutionaries keeping the Soviets busier there than perhaps they would be, but you could also argue that the Cubans and the Soviets were keeping us just as busy in ridiculous places like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Angola. What brought them down was a faulty economic model. Not Reagan.

20. “Oh, for an editing utility…”
    I hear ya. Or if the preview function worked…or some other way to add emphasis without capitalizing or adding ***.

    Anyway.

    “but Vietnam was ludicrous at the time.”
    exactly, but it was a sign of American willingness to go anywhere to fight the Big Bad Commies. In Hungary, however, it could have had an effect. Due to the proximity of Hungary to the Soviet Bloc, it would most likely have provided a refugee stream. I believe that something similar happened at the end, where the USSR just basically opened the borders, the Wall fell, and that was that. A fight in Hungary could have pushed that issue 40 years earlier, or at the very least put a check on Soviet expansionism.

    As for what Reagan outspent them on, there I misspoke. He could not DIRECTLY outspend them on the domestic front, so he acted more to depress the value of their goods, and generally cut their resources. Sooner or later they would have to give up the race, which would take them out of the running as a Hyper-power, and sooner or later make them no threat, or they could fall apart. As it it happened, they fell apart.
    I would also like to see your reasoning on Communism falling apart. I mean, on a long term scale, it will fall apart, and obviously, it tends to weaken from internal pressure, but the USSR lasted about 80 years, and the only reason it fell apart was that it outspent its resources. (thanks to Reagan.) Cuba is still going strong, and if they can switch power when Castro buys it, there is no reason why they can’t keep going. The reason most Soviet states fall apart is internal revolution (hungary), external pressure (USSR), or a combination of both. Alternatly, some (like China) simply change till they are no longer really communist.

21. Well, this thread has become very informative. Impressive, Ham (and James Carter, as well)! And I’d forgotten Happy Fun Ball! I might still have the “Saturday Night Live Goes Commercial” compilation special on tape somewhere ….

    At this point, my feelings towards Ronald Reagan may be overly negative in counterreaction to how overrated he is in some circles. People calling for him to be put on Mt. Rushmore? Preposterous. Showing up in the top 5 of the “Greatest Americans” list was a surprise, too, and an idea with which I disagree. Perhaps he was a key in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but yes, Mikhail Gorbechov had a lot to do with it, too. (As far as mutually assured destruction being over: okay, so we don’t have enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone on Earth seven times over [an actual estimation from the peak of nuclear proliferation, broadcast on NBC Nightly News iirc, not me being hyperbolic] anymore, but have we really eliminated so many that a confrontation, or a mistake as described above, couldn’t still MAD the planet out?) “Trickle-down” economics was stupid, and crippled the senior Bush’s presidency – he was left holding the bag, dealing with the consequences of the previous administration’s financial policies. And the Iran-Contra dealings – and dealings with Bin Laden? Don’t think I even knew about that one – proclude him from being one of THE greatest Americans, at least IMHO. (Indications that he may have been getting senile towards the end of his presidency are worrysome, also. I will assume that there was no actual Alzthimer’s (sp?) diagnosis while he was in office, though. Not to say that people should be discriminated against on the basis of a disease, but I think that it’s fair to hope that someone diagnosed with a serious [and eventually fatal, for all intents and purposes] impairment of their mental facilities would step down from as serious, powerful – and potentially dangerous – a position as President of the United States.)

    On the other hand, VH-1’s special “When Star Wars Ruled the World” does show Mr. Reagan saying at a press conference, “The Force … is with us,” so he can’t have been all bad 😉

22. [b]As for what Reagan outspent them on, there I misspoke. He could not DIRECTLY outspend them on the domestic front, so he acted more to depress the value of their goods, and generally cut their resources.[/b]

    Here’s hoping this site uses the same bold/italics/whatever code that most others do.

    How can you give Reagan sole credit for the fruition of economic policies that had been in place literally since 1946?

23. You may not have an appreciation for what it meant to grow up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud (to borrow a phrase from Queen).

    Maybe that “appreciation” isn’t necessary in light of the fact that I didn’t grow up on training to go to a bomb shelter, etc, unlike my parents.

    That alone should tell you the state of the Cold War when I was a child.

    A generation that thinks we could win a nuclear war was a gullible one indeed.

24. I am worried that any time now, someone is gonna stop in here, crouch down, look up at me and say…. “this thread…..He’s dead, Jim.”

    anyway.

    “How can you give Reagan sole credit for the fruition of economic policies that had been in place literally since 1946?”

    Because they weren’t in place the whole time. The whole idea of Detante was to just co-exist. There are really three levels to the cold war.
    1) Containment, as suggested by Kennan. This consisted of fighting communism (IE them there Ruskies.) anywhere they appear. This is the era of Korea and Vietnam.

    2) Detante. This started in ’72 under Nixon with SALT I and continued up till Reagan. It consisted primarily of a “Live and Let live” philosophy, and bolstered up the USSR’s own failings by selling them massive amounts of grain. Vietnam continued, as did the idea of “war by proxy” an idea first seen in the Peloponnesian war, where Athens and Sparta fought more by supporting the smaller states, and by drawing them under their “Sphere of influence.” The same idea applied to Detente. The US and Soviet Union would support smaller nations, or factions within those nations. The espionage war continued unabated.

    3) Reagan era. This consisted of a full blown arms race, as well as surpressing Russia’s access to resources, as well as ending grain sales. This, combined with internal and a few other outside forces (most notably Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, and Boris Yeltsin.) led to the ultimate fall of the USSR.

    Now, if the direct, arms/space/peace race that was first instituted in 1946 had gone straight through, then the USSR would have collapsed, most likely around the Nixon administration (and then HE would be the hero. Ugh.) however, Nixon started Detante, which included, most notably with the grain sales, direct support of the USSR and bolstering its weaknesses (such as the failure of the collective farm idea) This was supported by Ford and Carter. and the USSR tottered along, and would have kept on going and going like some sort of Dictatorial Energizer Bunny. It was Reagan who had the raw genius to realize that we had to outspend them, and STOP supporting them. And what happens? without the help of sucessful, capitalistic nations to fix its failures, it collapses.

    I look forward to your response.

25. “I would also like to see your reasoning on Communism falling apart.”

    Big ‘C’ (aka Soviet Style) Communism falls apart because their economic model could not sustain the expenses the model incurred (model meaning heavy military/industrial spending and deficit lending to friendly nations). Part of the problem was scale (as in the USSR was freakin’ huge), and the other part was the attempt to centrally plan an economy for an entire nation of 100 million plus across all kinds of geographic/topographic/environmental variances. From scratch.

    The USSR had an economy based primarily around heavy industry (technology, military, agricultural, etc) and agriculture. Sure they manufactured consumer goods, but those took second priority behind the others. To top it off, almost all the consumer goods manufactured (and a dámņ good chunk of the industrial) were far inferior to those produced in the West. Actually, a big part of the problems we see in Russia today are due to those who became rich off the black market, and those who became rich as members of the oligarchy.

    My utter dismay at your hero worship of Reagan notwithstanding, I’m actually a firm believer in the free market. A free market leads to competition, competition leads to innovation. Lack of competition leads to inferior products and economic stagnation (see: Union; Soviet). The USSR was able to muscle itself along for years and years, primarily on things like oil and agricultural revenues, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep their house from slowly collapsing in on itself.

    It’s really basic to me. Sure, it took 69 years for the Soviet empire to fall, but it did fall. It fell, yes, thanks to the economic policies put into place by Harry Truman, and carried on through successive administrations (including St. Reagan’s).

    Saying that Cuba is going strong is a bit like saying all the Infrastructure guys I work with don’t piss on the floor in front of the urinal (what the hëll is it with those morons?). Cuba is going, but it ain’t strong. Castro is pretty much carrying that nation along through sheer force of will. One day, yes, it will fall. Personally, I think the United States should resume trade with Cuba, as it will only work positively for us once Castro kicks the bucket. Don’t expect that threatening Communist regime to be carrying the banner of the hammer and sickle for long after he dies.

    Now that said, I always envisioned WWIII as ocurring more along the lines that Tom Clancy envisioned in “Red Storm Rising”. A conventional war, but fought under the threat of nuclear confrontation at all times.

26. “My utter dismay at your hero worship of Reagan notwithstanding”

    I don’t worship him, I just think he was a dámņ good president who had the brains to play a large part in the destruction of the Soviet Union.

    “the economic policies put into place by Harry Truman,”

    exactamundo. Like I said, if we had carried on with those polices straight through, the USSR would have gone down in the early ’70’s. However, those policies of economic compitition/arms race/(later on) Space race would have brought the bear to it’s knees. I agree with ever point you made about big C communism. However, starting in the late 60’s, when Russia was feeling the strain, (I feel that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a bit of a move of desperation) we backed off, really starting with Tricky Ðìçk. Then, to add really stupid error to mere error, we helped them, help shore up that faulty Military-industrial complex the USSR had going. Now, I like what Truman did, but Detente gave them a big boost. Add in the Aid (primarily in Grain sales) and we basically gave them a loooong rest. With Detente alone, they would have lasted into Reagan, but the aid sent them into the early 90’s. Reagan’s real genius lay in seeing that Truman was right, and that Nixon-Ford-Carter were all wrong. He applied Truman’s ideas, and the USSR fell.

    As for Cuba, they are just running along, and I feel that, if when Castro kicks off, they can a sufficently strong dictator in place of him, they could keep going.

    As for WWIII, I always pictured a local conflict, like Vietnam, or Hungary, simply sprialing up, rather like the start of WWI. I was always fascinated by the resembelance between the cold war and the Peloponnesian war. Someone should write a book on that.

    As for the Infrastructure guys, put a little sign on the floor: Stand here for Urinal. Put it 6 inches to far forward, and they SHOULD stand in the right spot.

27. Don’t mistake my jibes about Reagan as anything more than that. I’m just giving you a hard time.

    My point about Cuba is that dictator just isn’t there.

28. Don’t mistake my jibes about Reagan as anything more than that. I’m just giving you a hard time.

    My point about Cuba is that dictator just isn’t there.

    I gotcha. Don’t worry. after you go two rounds with X-ray, not much else can touch ya.

    I agree with what you say about Cuba. There is no obvious sucessor to Castro. It will be interesting to see what happens when he dies though. I mean, you are gonna have a power vacuum like you won’t believe. I think there might be a few guys just biding their chances, or else there is gonna be a nasty power stuggle. Nothing would surprise me, including a Facist government like they had under Franco in Spain. Power doesn’t change hands nicely after that much repression.

29. after you go two rounds with X-ray, not much else can touch ya.’

    True. I am a heavyweight.

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