Angela Merkel hits back at Donald Trump
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SamSpade
Well-Known Member
Chicken - egg.
Reagan brought about the end of the Cold War by dropping oil production around the world, ramping up military expenses, and countering the Soviets in communist uprising around the world.
Gorbachev's ideas of perestroika and glasnost wiped out the pointless policy of "detente".
I have never read a history of the Cold War that DOESN'T say we pushed the Soviet Union into dealing with their economy in a way where they realized
"dammit, we can't do this anymore - let's try something else". Without the willful intentional effort to bring them to their knees - they could have gone
on like North Korea - endlessly impoverished nations limping along, putting all their effort into the cold war effort.
The Eastern Bloc had tried revolts before - maybe you don't remember the Hungarian Revolution or the Prague Spring - but pretty much it was Tiananmen Square - with Russians.
When the Russians couldn't do it anymore, it emboldened the population.
I don't just credit Reagan - John Paul II and the Poles and Lech Walesa and Solidarity were inspiration.
I'm sorry but it is just simply unlikely the economics alone collapsed simultaneously across a dozen nations, culminating in revolutions.
It happened because the Russians couldn't back up their satellites.
Chris's lame and discredited "source" aside, that is correct. The only valid arguments I've seen go to the matter of degree...how much this or that factor mattered more.
Hijinx
Well-Known Member
History has a way of changing when the liberals and America haters write it.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't dismiss Martin Armstrong altogether - the truth is, he's right, the economic model of the Soviet Union was always a shambles.
But until it faced direct confrontation, we could have limped along for decades with them facing us across the ocean.
The argument he's making is, the economic fails - and it does. But it's not the right argument.
It's like saying you got knocked out by a fist - when you were knocked out by a person swinging a fist.
The economics failed, because it was forced into it. Russians got by on oil - and Reagan drove down the price of oil
Russians got by on gold - and Reagan drove down the price of gold. On every front, the idea was to take away
all their money and scare the living sh*t out of them with our military. They blinked. They had to.
Economically - they could not match us and still survive.
Chris0nllyn
Well-Known Member
Those convictions 15 years before this piece was written has what, exactly, to do with the evidence put forth in the article?
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
He's trying to make the argument that the man is likely a quack. And I am not seeing that.
On the other hand, it makes no difference.
We won the Cold War because we fought the Cold War.
Chris0nllyn
Well-Known Member
And if Brezhnev hadn't squandered USSR's oil profits on an arms race with the US, who knows. The US didn't even want the Soviet Union to break up but they knew that economically, the Soviets couldn't keep up.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union
Here's a white paper by the CIA on it.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/20080229.pdf
History.com makes no mention of Reagan contributing to the fall of the Soviet Union
https://www.history.com/news/why-did-the-soviet-union-fall
The Cold War Museum likens the fall to their economic collapse.
http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp
Chris0nllyn
Well-Known Member
Gilligan isn't trying to make an argument, he never does. He's trying to simply be "right" in any way that he can. If attacking the source, but not the material, makes him feel like a winner, good for him.
Which is why Reagan told him to tear down that wall and worked with him to make it feasible.
Hater.
Bot.
Posts the child that tried to bolster his failed argument with a freak source. You really suck at this, kid.
Which is why Reagan told him to tear down that wall and worked with him to make it feasible.
Hater.
Bot.
Chris can't give him credit because the jackhammers didn't start while Reagan was at the podium.
Not once -EVER - did I offer an argument to the contrary. Of course it was always a failed model. Not the point of the current discussion. I simply pointed to how the Reagan approach caused the inevitable to occur more rapidly. Good times they were, too.
Which is why Reagan told him to tear down that wall and worked with him to make it feasible.
Hater.
Bot.
Whiney little bitch he is, too. Watch..I predict he'll call me "Bill" in the next post or two because the juvenile thinks that's somehow "edgy". What a POS.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
It's not a bad approach - if I had looked up that you source wasn't Martin Armstrong but Herbert Armstrong, I would have laughed myself to death.
If it had been Samuelson - ROBERT Samuelson instead of Paul Samuelson - then, I might have doubts.
Trans does this all the time but doesn't go from there. She simply dismisses the source without going to the argument.
But it IS valid if the source lacks credibility - it's one of the crucial tactics in a jury trial - cast doubt on the credibility of witnesses and experts.
It's true that the U.S. didn't want the Soviet Union to collapse into member states - I listened to Brian Mulroney - then very recently the former
Prime Minister of Canada speak at my mom's graduation about the dangers of new nuclear states forming out of the former Soviet Union,
MAINLY because you just can't have - as he explained it - having nuclear scientists get paid a garbageman's wages, when a new nuclear
state would LOVE to pay them a fortune. This was in 1991. So yeah. I get it.
You can say that the Soviet Union was wasteful. Communist nations are corrupt. It goes with the territory.
But they had limped along for 70 years and still managed to survive. Popular uprisings in the past were put down.
Sometimes by killing dozens, hundreds, thousands. I guess if you count Stalin - *millions*. They could have gone along for much longer.
We HAVE despotic regimes in the world - and they're still going on.
The difference with many of them is, their continued existence isn't threatened by a worldwide super power.
IF WE HAD DONE in the 80's what we had always done - dance around the issues but never commit to defeating them -
I think they could have gone on for a couple more decades - we'd have talks, and discuss disarmament, and pretend
we were making progress against their interference with communist regimes around the world - and continue to do nothing.
BOP
Well-Known Member
Here's the thing: Trump is absolutely correct. Germany's energy dependence on Russia is, according to Trump in the 60-70 percent range, and that's a problem.
Merkel: Mr. Putin, you shouldn't be involved in Ukraine; those are human rights violations.
Putin: how much oil and natural gas did you need again, Mrs. Merkel?
Merkel: *crickets*
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SamSpade
Well-Known Member
I read a book back in the 70's called "The Russians" by Hedrick Smith (I believe he was a NYT reporter but this is memory).
THAT very scenario is described in the book - Western Europe gets indignant over Russia doing something - they throttle back the spigot - Western Europe capitulates.
Scary to think in forty years, they learned nothing.
Chris is like it's his career to hate President Trump. Or maybe he thinks it makes him hipster and kewlie, and he's getting older and needs that youth affirmation.
It gets him invited to the millennial's parties.
BOP
Well-Known Member
I bought a Harley...much easier on my stress levels than all that hate.