Posted on 09/19/2006 12:47:05 PM PDT by lizol
Ronald Reagan Statue in Poland — What About Gorby? September 19, 2006
Vox Populi, Doug Powers
It’s commonly said, especially among the intellectualoids, that the downfall of communism in Europe was due mainly to Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Polish people aren’t buying it — at least not a group of them.
From Newsmax:
"Polish admirers of Ronald Reagan plan to raise a statue of the former U.S president in Warsaw, where he is revered for his role in the downfall of communism in Europe.
The 3.5-metre (3.8-yard) stone-and-bronze statue will stand across from the U.S. Embassy, the head of the group raising money for the memorial said on Monday. The group includes Poles living in Poland, Canada and the United States.
“Reagan was the person who defeated the communists and opened the way for freedom in Poland,” Janusz Dorosiewicz said. “The statue is a way for his legacy to live on.”
I love Ronald Reagan — always have — and it’s nice to see the man getting further recognition for what he accomplished.
I first voted for Reagan in 1984 (a small part of the reason is that I didn’t want to be known for the rest of my life as, “The guy who voted for Mondale“). Reagan got my vote because he came across, at least to me as an 18 year old, as the father figure to a nation that had spent the better part of a decade as orphans, abandoned and left for dead by Vietnam, Watergate, malaise, stagflation and disco.
The facts are simple. Reagan inherited a nation that felt like Jimmy Carter looked and got rid of the collective bags under our eyes and made us feel good about ourselves for the first time since Ike got a hole-in-one. All this was accomplished while making the Soviet Union his woman, riding horses, eating jelly beans and towing the weight of vicious comments from his pirouette-brained, ungrateful punk of a son, Ron Jr.
Sure, his presidential years had some setbacks. Reagan was shot for nothing more than some unbalanced bubble-wrap brained, uber-nerd’s attempt to impress Jodie Foster. Reagan lived, Hinckley was sent off to “Our Lady of Swatting at Imaginary Flies” hospital for a few decades, and Foster never called him. Another evil plan thwarted by Reagan.
There were many setbacks, but even more successes– Culminating with what Reagan will be remembered for best in the history books, and also recently by the Polish.
The Great Communicator headed up “Extreme Makeover: Eastern Bloc Edition,” and presided over the collapse of the Berlin Wall — a demolition which rippled right on through to Moscow, ending in the implosion of the Soviet Union. What Reagan left behind for us pales in comparison to what he didn’t leave behind.
Many in Poland understand that, and it’s time everybody did.
A hundred years from now, you’ll see many statues around the world in honor of Ronald Reagan. How many of Gorbachev will you see? There may be a few on Ebay sitting dormant, forever stuck on $1.99 minimum bids.
Sure, there are still people who think that it was mainly Gorbachev who ended the cold war. These are the folks who also believe that dead possums on the side of the highway died tragically of cancer.
Shoot him from a cannon.
I would just love for somebody to go to downtown Vilnius and suggest a Gorby statue be built there. And see long it takes before they are torn from limb to limb.
In the end, there will be more tributes to Reagan in Eastern Europe than in his own country. RR just isn't politically correct. He was a Republican, Christian, and a Whtie male. If a tribute of any kind were raised to him in most places in America today, the ACLU would sue.
Poland pwns.
Well there's an oil painting for $249.
I agree, and there will probably be more tributes to Bush in the ME than here someday as well.
The statue should be a triumvirate statue of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II. When the archives of their respective institutions are opened decades from now, we'll find that the three of them tripled-teamed the Soviets into collapse.
John Paul lit the spark, Reagan and Thatcher provided the oxygen.
Gorby only did what he did because he simply had no other choice, he was a dedicated Communist, but even he knew the writing was on the wall.
Gorbachev deserves some credit -- he couldn't have stopped the fall of Communism but he could have made it a bloody mess.
The more I read about Poland, the more I want to go visit.
Gorbychev was at Reagan's funeral. Where, inevitably, the talk was about Reagan's influence and the end of the Cold War.Give Gorbychev credit for understanding that it was a credit to anyone to be priveledged to be there.
"I should have been as tough as Putin": Gorbachev ----Doesn't this Gorby quote put the lie to the "Gorby was the great statesman" argument? He was defeated by Reagan plain and simple. Conservatism triumphed in the titanic cold war struggle while the liberals tried to pretend Reagan shouldn't get the credit.
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