My favorite NYE fireworks are Berlin

[davidinalameda]

watching them explode over the Brandenburg Gate

to me, it symbolizes the fact that the communists lost and democracy won

Mr. Gorbachev-he did tear down that wall

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Mr. Gorbachev actually wanted to institute a lot of reforms...

But Reagan, with his refusal to negotiate or compromise, scared the hell out of the Soviet hardliners and so they thwarted a lot of Gorbachev's more (relatively) progressive ideas. I was in the USSR at the end of Reagan's last term and the Russian people weren't at all fond of him. As for President Carter, they admired him much more. Most people forget, but his grain embargo was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet Union, and there was his boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan...

Happy New Year, davidinalameda! :hi:

[wtmusic]

2. That was when Reagan made the "joke" about nuking the Soviet Union

Very funny. That kind of arrogance really paid off with W's "axis of evil" bullshit too.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Exactly...

The Soviets weren't exactly known for their sense of humor... And Reagan began the era of "the culture of fear" which every Republican administration has carried on, Bush* being the latest and best example with "the Bush* Doctrine" of preemptive war... :(

[davidinalameda]

4. communism is no more in Europe

I'm sure people in North Korea and Cuba wish their countries were free too

[TBF]

5. If you do a search on You Tube the London fireworks were great too -

the beginning with the Big Ben tolling was terrific.