Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War, dies aged 92 -agencies

https://finance.yahoo.com/ ^ | 8/30/2022 | David Lljunggren

[jroehl]

Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 92, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying on Tuesday.

[Degaston]

Gorbachev didn’t “end the Cold War”. The Soviet Union became such an unworkable system full of shortages, long lines at stores, infrastructure gridlock, decadance, corruption, and obvious failure as a system. Just study up on the transformation of East Germany in the 1990s to see why it collapsed.

[Phoenix8]

This is a good and very appropriate time to share this.

McCarthy is probably the most smeared man in US history , including even Trump.

(Gorbachev is discussed in paragraph 7)

https://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2009/04/joseph-mccarthy-american-hero-to-barack.html

[MrLucky1966]

I think it was Alexis de Tocqueville who says that the most dangerous time for a bad regime is when it begins to reform. The decrepit Soviet Union might have continued longer without “perestroika” or “glasnost” and if the leaders were willing to use whatever force was necessary to maintain control.

We figured as juniors in high school in 1983/84, the USSR would last until 2020 or 2030 at least. We figured at some point it would have to reform, get tough or die. During my high school career from 1882 to 1985, we saw Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev. The world is a stage as they say and the actors who ended the Cold War then were Reagan, Thatcher, Pope JPII, and Gorbachev" with a minor role by Helmut Kohl and others. The plays so to speak that helped was the low oil prices on one hand and Chernobyl on the other. (It's the other hand that really gets you)

Gorby was right, we should have not tried or invited Ukraine into NATO. My heart is with the Ukraine, Russia is wrong to invade a sovereign nation without a good reason but this is the hill not to die on nor get our headed, or the world's heads hoisted on our own petards.

[Verginius Rufus]

Nixon wrote a book entitled 1999. He had no inkling when he wrote the book that the Soviet Union would no longer be in existence in 1999.

I don't know if the US ever invited Ukraine to join NATO. Of course it would have required the other NATO countries to agree--any one could veto it.

Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union, or at least the Slavic parts of it. He has already occupied part of Georgia, and the Russian presence in Moldova in support of separatists there even predates Putin's rise to power. Garry Kasparov has an excellent book Winter in Coming (published in 2015, after the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine) in which he castigates Western leaders for their appeasement of Putin.

[Verginius Rufus]

That last title should be Winter is Coming.

[MercyFlush]

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!
NEWS FLASH!!!!!!!!

DOCTORS REPORT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV IS STILL DEAD BUT HIS CONDITION IS STABLE!!!!

/s

[dfwgator]

[talking on the phone]
What is the condition of Mikhail Gorbachev?

Very well, let me know if there is any change in his condition.
[Hangs up]

He’s dead.

[Eleutheria5]

I once saved a woman from rape by changing my mind. Didn’t Ronald Reagan have something to do with ending the cold war without bloodshed, too?

[Vigilanteman]

Correct. Romania’s leadership provided a fine case study in what NOT to do. It didn’t end well for Nicky and Elena.

[Elsie]

Being dead is a LONGtime thing.

Make your plans.

[Elsie]

The Soviet Union became such an unworkable system full of shortages, long lines at stores, infrastructure gridlock, decadance, corruption, and obvious failure as a system.

Got chips for your vehicles?

Formula for your babies??

Queers and transvestities in your government???

Lack of reliable power in California??

Snail darters and Spotted owls slowing your progress?

[Elsie]

If they were honest with the public, the democrap party of today would be voted out of existence.

Oh?

I have doubts as to whether it would get as far as voting!