Posted on 06/07/2009 5:05:55 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called for a perestroika, or top-to-bottom reform, in the West, arguing that its current economic model was "unsustainable" and needed replacement.
Commenting on the current global economic crisis, the ex-Soviet president who presided over the collapse of his country, said that it was now clear to him "that the new Western model was an illusion that benefited chiefly the very rich.
"The model that emerged during the final decades of the 20th century has turned out to be unsustainable," Gorbachev wrote in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. "It was based on a drive for super-profits and hyper-consumption for a few, on unrestrained exploitation of resources and on social and environmental irresponsibility."
Gorbachev predicted "perhaps even greater upheaval down the road" and insisted that the current economic and social model existing in the West needed replacing.
"I have no ready-made prescriptions," Gorbachev said. "But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasize public needs and public goods, such as a cleaner environment, well-functioning infrastructure and public transportation, sound education and health systems and affordable housing."
From the mid-1980s, Gorbachev was the initiator of a series of fundamental reforms in the Soviet Union.
Sounds like he is advocating the same old tired socialism with a bit of eco-freak crap tossed into the mix.
Yeah, that’s the guy we should be taking advice from: A has-been, washed up communist tyrant!
Why would we take advice from the guy who LOST the cold war?
The old communist can’t help but view the world from within the confines of his failed ideology.
Like we should take advice from a GREENIE Communist....
Sounds like someone looking to vindicate his life viewpoints; looking to rescue his legacy. If he can claim that Reagan’s model was no better, that makes his own catastrophic failure seem less so. Beware this ‘new model,’ however, for it bares a striking resemblance to an old one. It’s called socialism.
That is a lie.
Socialists always use class warfare to promote their agenda.
The “resemblance” should be clear to everyone. We are looking at it. Communism will control our country if changes are made and made fast.
Do the eco extremists know how bad pollution was in the old Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc? My God, they would blank in their blank if they knew the carbon footprint of communism.
Now we’ll have TWO Jimmy Carters?
Both over-the-hill LOSERS touted as demi-Gods, blathering to no end and slumming around on college campi.
OH GREAT...!
America taking economic advice from a failed leader of a backward country with a despotic past and a failed economic theory. What’s next? Clyde Barrow advising bank examiners? Jeffrey Dahmer given his own cooking show?
Yeah, it only sustained itself for 230 years or so. It finally started to show signs of faltering when, interestingly enough, idiot socialist politicians started messing with it.
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