Ex-girlfriend's picture, showing off her business school graduation present, 1985.
Posted on 06/10/2004 12:03:41 PM PDT by quidnunc
Where Ronald Reagan's role in the fall of the Soviet Union is concerned, most obituaries mention the re-armament of America, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and the resistance to Soviet expansion in the Third World. These policies, the story goes, had dramatically increased the cost of global military and political competition with the United States, forcing the Soviet leadership to change its policies.
True enough, as far as it goes. However, this précis leaves out the most important dimension of Reagan's contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union: the deep impact he had on the self-perception and self-confidence of the Soviet regime.
In the end, every great revolution is about morality and legitimacy. Impoverishment, military defeat or famine alone is never enough. To take only the most recent examples, neither starvation nor food rationing nor a crushing military defeat stopped North Korea, Cuba or Saddam Hussein's Iraq from persisting in irrational and inhumane policies. The change comes only when elites begin to lose faith in the country's direction and their right to rule, and the people soon join in, first in doubt, then in anger and protest.
Reagan did more than anyone to delegitimize and demoralize the Soviet Union. Where the arms race, in general, and SDI (a planned space-based anti-ballistic missile system), in particular, are concerned, far more important than the costs was the realization by the Soviet Union's unelected rulers that their science and industry were incapable of matching U.S. technology. Contrary to what the Soviet propaganda stridently asserted at the time, the problem had little to do with their fear of nuclear annihilation.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at aei.org ...
What is obvious in the general media reaction to Reagan's death is that the last thing they want to touch on is ideology. The word "freedom" is anathema to any liberal when discussing politics.
Ex-girlfriend's picture, showing off her business school graduation present, 1985.
Seriously ?
My friend, shown above next to the lady holding the abacus, poses in front of some of the Donbas's notoriously dangerous coal mines in 1989. Note the nice waste piles, called terakony:
Ten years later, with the discovery of color, she looks much healthier. Just wish that Hillary haircut never made it over there:
Seriously. They had color film and cash registers - in theory - but most people and stores were stuck with B&W and abacuses. I saw cashiers using the abacus in St. Petersburg in 1998
True, people were using them in Ivanovo when I was there this Feb. (2004) Their fingers fly on them. I hoped we were'nt getting ripped of at the rinok because I certainly could'nt follow it.
The word "freedom" is anathema to any liberal when discussing politics.
The artical brings out the hope of freedom the people under Soviet communism hoped for. They though President Reagan represented it.Is'nt it ironic that President Reagan believed there was no such word as "freedom" in the Russian language! There is! It is svobodna and many people in the ussr hoped for it!
While I can agree with this, to a point. It seems to take forever for this to happen, because when the people do this, it tends to earn them a bullet to the back of the head, but the point is well taken.
irony:
in my apt. building are 20+ russian immigrant families, all on welfare.
one guy is still openly communist.
Next to Ivanovo was "I've a Pinto" ;-)
Next to Ivanovo was "I've a Pinto" ;-)
?? I'm a little confused?
Ivanovo = "I've a (Chevy) Nova" (if you mispronouce it) ;-)
Ivanovo = "I've a (Chevy) Nova" (if you mispronouce it) ;-)
I got it! LOL!
By the way, why was Ivanovo circled on the map? Was it a target? That's where my husband's family comes from. It use to be called a "Old Maid Town" because women came to work in the mills there and almost no men. And after WW2, most of the men that did live there were gone. so it was almost impossible to get a husband. Even now-a-days there are more women then men so I wondered what strategical value it had?
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