USE GOP MYTH about how Reagan beat Soviets to show Bush damage

[yurbud]

Republican mythology claims Reagan did in the Soviet Union by cranking up defense spending to a level the Soviets couldn't keep up with and essentially giving them the choice of going bankrupt or giving up.

Bush is now doing to us with defense spending what Reagan did to the Soviets--bankrupting us.

The difference is the US and Soviet Union had rough parity in technology and size of forces. Bush is breaking the bank supposedly to fight terrorists and insurgents who can't put a single aircraft in the air, and if they want to deliver a bomb here, they have to buy a ticket on someone else's plane or boat. The most people who were ever in al Qaeda was 20,000.

You can make an argument for aggressively fighting terrorism, but it does not equal the level of defense spending we are doing now.

[aquart]

1. Did Reverend Moon tell him that if he destroyed the US, he could be a god?

Because George would be cool with that.

[thereismore]

2. yes, bush* continues the arms race with a strawman. Can't be good. nt

[yurbud]

10. It's a good thing the Geico caveman commercials weren't running in 2000

or we'd be in Iraq as part of the "War on Cave Dwelling"

[theoldman]

3. The Soviet Union went under because the Communist system

does not work. The biggest killer was that they depended on the price of oil to fund their military build up. When the price of oil went down their economy collapsed. Fortunately for us our economy was able to survive Reagan's military spending. We may not be able to survive Bush's military spending.

[R_M]

4. I agree with your assesment.

Though it was not just the oil, the communist system, just like the lazze-faire capitalist system on the other end, is too extreme and unbalanced to be sustainable.

[louis-t]

6. Afghan war was equally as resposible for their demise.

I mean 'responsible'.

[depakid]

5. Yep, Sheikh Yamani brought the Soviet Union down

AND historians will look back at his efforts to keep the USA addicted to cheap oil as one of the fundamental reasons for its collapse.

[mudesi]

8. The Soviet Union did not go bankrupt

This is a lie perpetuated by the neo conservatives in order to prop up their agenda and keep the Godlike status of Reagan intact. The Soviet Union collapsed because the Russian people finally rebelled against their authoritative dictatorship government and demanded freedom. The actual economic system of Communism, believe it or not, had little to do with it.

[MN ChimpH8R]

13. The Soviet system ultimately fell apart

because Mikhail Gorbachev realized that it could not continue as it was. I doubt he had any clue as to the eventual end result, but he did not stand in the way of the changes once they began. Gorby drove the final nails in the USSR's coffin, not King Ronald the Simple.

[yurbud]

11. my point was simply the irony of past rhetoric and present action

[WinkyDink]

7. No can do! Reagan's name needs to be placed in its accurate historical place.

[juno jones]

9. I found a great quote....

...in a 1990 Granta article, "Looking for Jiri Wolf", about the 'velvet revolution' of communist Czechoslovakia. I am away from the computer that I copied it to but the gist was that the reason so much collapsed there at the time was because "In a totalitarian society stupidity floats to the top...." Nothing could be accomplished anymore because knowledgeable people had been replaced at all levels with party hacks who did nothing more than parrot communist doctrine: at a certain point it just ceased to function. Very good issue and worth finding to read at this time...

[yurbud]

12. how do you explain our CEOs who hollow out corporations, fill the pockets of cronies, then bail with

golden parachutes?

I guess that's not stupid, just sociopathic.