Happy 100th Birthday Ronald Reagan and thank you.

[ghettopalmetto]

here is the darling of the neocons and chenettes...his policies hurt the poor and advanced a culture of I have mine you get yours; not saying he didn't have his qualities...but to canonize him is ridiculous.

...especially when Reagan's would-be canonizers falsely attribute certain qualities to him. Has the Tea Party no respect for the ability of people to think?

[maxx]

Meddle:
And No, I don't get the idolization of RayGun or why anyone is even taking note of his buffoonery now.

It's the gospel according to the Republican party and Reagan is their great white daddy.

[gdogslim]

re: "ghetto palmetto: The downfall of communism in Eastern Europe had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan. In the 1970s, there were several enormous and sudd en increases in the price of food. There was unrest among the laboring classes, manifesting in strikes."
100% incorrect
Reagan had very much directly to do with the fall of communism. Along with Britain and others.
It is well known Reagan's administration alliance with the Vatican helped to orchestrate the destabilization of the polish government, helped fund and supply the the union via the church.
"A free, non-communist Poland, they were convinced, would be a dagger to the heart of the Soviet empire; and if Poland became democratic, other East European states would follow."
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_holy_alliance.php

Tear down that wall you commies.

[firstandten]

First of all the statement 100% incorrect is 100% incorrect. There were many factors that brought about the fall of the Soviet Union most of which was the realization by Gorbachev that the economy could not sustain itself. But to your point Reagan thru the Reagan Doctrines worked behind the scenes to destabilize communism especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America and also worked as you stated in Poland. Sounds great so far doesn it

Well you can directly tie the support the US gave the Contra's under this Reagan Doctrine to the Cocaine/Crack explosion in the US during this time. A lot of the violent drug gangs of the day in Detroit and LA got there supply from Ricky Ross who had a direct connect with the Contra's with the help of the CIA. This crack explosion hit the inner cities hard and we are still feeling the effects of it today.

So yes, like I stated Reagan may have good intentions but he didn't care how his policies would affect the average working class or poor black folks in the inner city. Remember Ronny didn't get the nicname Ray-gun for no reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_R...rug_trafficker)

[ghettopalmetto]

It is well known Reagan's administration alliance with the Vatican helped to orchestrate the destabilization of the polish government, helped fund and supply the the union via the church.
"A free, non-communist Poland, they were convinced, would be a dagger to the heart of the Soviet empire; and if Poland became democratic, other East European states would follow."
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_holy_alliance.php

Tear down that wall you commies.

Read a book once in a while. The events in Poland were set in motion long before Ronald Reagan occupied the White House. If you think the Poles were just sitting around waiting for Reagan to funnel money to them, then you have no knowledge of their history, and severely underestimate the character of the people. The Poles were experts in underground rebellion by the time Solidarnosc was forced underground in the 1980s [[Jan Pawel II did his seminary studies underground at a so-called "flying" university during Nazi occupation), and it reasons that the Church would have provided assistance regardless of Reagan.

You're not going to convince me that a washed-up B-movie actor from America had more influence over the Poles than the first Polish Pontiff, in a nation that had been practicing Catholicism for over 1000 years. Do you think any of the American assistance had a chance in hell of reaching the Poles without connections from the local parish priests?

Then, of course, there are these passages from your own source:

According to Solidarity leaders, Walesa and his lieutenants were aware that both Reagan and John Paul II were committed to Solidarity's survival, but they could only guess at the extent of the collaboration. "Officially I didn't know the church was working with the U.S.," says Wojciech Adamiecki, the organizer and editor of underground Solidarity newspapers and now a counselor at the Polish embassy in Washington. "We were told the Pope had warned the Soviets that if they entered Poland he would fly to Poland and stay with the Polish people. The church was of primary assistance. It was half open, half secret. Open as far as humanitarian aid -- food, money, medicine, doctors' consultations held in churches, for instance -- and secret as far as supporting political activities: distributing printing machines of all kinds, giving us a place for underground meetings, organizing special demonstrations."

Yet in 1982 neither Reagan nor the Pope could anticipate the accession of a Soviet leader like Mikhail Gorbachev, the father of glasnost and perestroika; his efforts at reform unleashed powerful forces that spun out of his control and led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Washington-Vatican alliance "didn't cause the fall of communism," observes a U.S. official familiar with the details of the plot to keep Solidarity alive. "Like all great and lucky leaders, the Pope and the President exploited the forces of history to their own ends."

The main street in downtown Warszawa isn't named Ronald Reagan Boulevard. I'm just sayin....

[canuck]

My favorite clip from Capitulate-ism a Love Story by my favorite Michiganstan Pinko; Michael Moore.
My question to you is; Was that Reagan-Regan thing animated 3D? See for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcL6...eature=related

[Danny]

Thank you Reagan lifting this nation from a stag-inflation.

Thank you Reagan for saving this nation from global communism.

Thank you Reagan destroying the Soviet Union.

Thank you Reagan for telling Gorbachev to "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"

Thank you Reagan for keeping American Spirit alive!

[Detroitej72]

The downfall of communism in Eastern Europe had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan. In the 1970s, there were several enormous and sudden increases in the price of food. There was unrest among the laboring classes, manifesting in strikes.

This all came to a head when Pope John Paul II visited his native Poland in 1979, and urged his countrymen to be strong in the face of communist oppression. This sparked the strikes at the "Lenin" shipyard in Gdansk the following year. The strikes, led by Lech Walesa, became the labor movement Solidarnosc in September 1980. This all happened well before Reagan was elected in November 1980, and long before his summits with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Once communism fell in Poland in 1989, the rest of the Eastern Bloc fell like dominoes.

There are statues, and roads, and parks all over Poland named for Jan Pawel II. Not a single fucking tribute to St. Ronnie, though.

And Reagan tripled the national debt during his two terms--he never came close to balancing the budget.

Excellent post. It's good to see someone who not only knows, but also exposes the myth that "Reagan saved the world from communism" with the real facts.

[Omaha]

Wow, the debates continue just as hot and heavy as before. I love it. Keep it up. I should come back and lurk more often. There is some great back and forth, with someone occasionally trying to get the thread back from where it was hijacked.

Just wanted to say thanks to Lowell for his years of service. I became a smarter, more informed person as a result of reading, thinking and posting here as a "Colbert Conservative." It's great to see some old names and see some new ones too. Bless you all...even Cc wherever he went.

[canuck]

Here's a fun article to read about Reagan and Thatcher from a columnist who considers him a hero for something Ghettopalmetto dismissed as hogwash. His description of him as an avid movie fan is particularly funny but touching at the same time. I never liked Reagan but he was hard to hate.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...me-heroes.html

[gazhekwe]

Don't forget poor little Granada, which we invaded because?

[gdogslim]

^ because we could ? It was a good practice for the army.?

I didn't say Reagan was THE only cause, He was instrumental in a large part of the fall as my link to a book by a liberal writer shows.


Now Obama tells the Chamber of Commerce corporations need to share profits, how JFK of him.

[canuck]

Granada must have been really rough for the army. Think of the way Reagan managed to pull down the evil empire with the threat of Star Wars and sending commandos to fight a coupla hundred guys with sticks and machetes.

[old guy]

Let's not forget that Nancy coined the term "Just Say No!" and put an end to drug addiction in the U.S.

[canuck]

Let's not forget that Nancy coined the term "Just Say No!" and put an end to drug addiction in the U.S.

Yes, that and I think wagging her scrawny finger probably did the trick

[Django]

Funny thing is I dont think Regan had much of a clue as to what he was doing, and not because of Alzheimer's, He just wasn't a very bright cat, a C student.

I remember one of his peers from his acting days referring to him as "an amiable dunce"

I heard all the wonderful things he was doing at our dinner table growing up in grade school. In college I read everything debunked.

I swear I read that the hostages were freed within the first few days of him taking office, and the release was postponed to correlate with Regans reign for the history books, and not in Carters.

It amazes me how much Carter obviously cares about this country, the man is still going as far as I know, trying to make a difference, a public servant to the core. Very little recognition.

[Papasito]

Carter obviously cares about this country

It rings loud and true when he insults the United States when palling around with his buddies Chavez and in the past with Castro. A real patriot. Yeah, when I think red when and blue, I think of energy rationing, economy killing, double digit interest rate and double digit unemployment Jimmy Carter. Best President ever.

[Jimaz]

I swear I read that the hostages were freed within the first few days of him taking office, and the release was postponed to correlate with Regans reign for the history books, and not in Carters.

Even more remarkably it was within minutes.

[ejames01]

What did Chavez & Castro do to the United States?

It rings loud and true when he insults the United States when palling around with his buddies Chavez and in the past with Castro. A real patriot. Yeah, when I think red when and blue, I think of energy rationing, economy killing, double digit interest rate and double digit unemployment Jimmy Carter. Best President ever.

[Meddle]

Thank you Reagan lifting this nation from a stag-inflation.

Thank you Reagan for saving this nation from global communism.

Thank you Reagan destroying the Soviet Union.

Thank you Reagan for telling Gorbachev to "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"

Thank you Reagan for keeping American Spirit alive!

Dude, not one single word of that has any truth to it at all.

[maxx]

Django: I swear I read that the hostages were freed within the first few days of him taking office, and the release was postponed to correlate with Regans reign for the history books, and not in Carters.

And Reagan lied everyday of his campaign when he said the U.S. would never negotiate with terrorists while his people were making deals with the hostage takers.

Originally Posted by gdogslim
It is well known Reagan's administration alliance with the Vatican helped to orchestrate the destabilization of the polish government, helped fund and supply the the union via the church.

Reagan was strengthening the Polish unions while he was destroying the unions at home. There goes my irony meter!

[canuck]

And Reagan lied everyday of his campaign when he said the U.S. would never negotiate with terrorists while his people were making deals with the hostage takers.


Reagan was strengthening the Polish unions while he was destroying the unions at home. There goes my irony meter!

Yes, and if Egyptians had to wait on the US and western countries to help overthrow the dick-tator,
the pyramids would probably be de-icing our roads 5000 years from now... A polish canadian friend was studying film at Lodz school of cinema in the eighties, was caught smuggling secret Solidarity documents and got all his films taken from the police. Never got them back, gave up on film altogether...I think that the people of Poland were the principal heroes in all this, no doubt. So with the Hungarians and the Czechs earlier. Poland was a big piece of the soviet empire.

[canuck]

Anybody bake a cake for Ronnie?

[PlymouthRes]

There is no doubt that Reagan was a complete incompetent in regard to diplomacy, as evidenced by his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair and his use of Oliver North as his tool in military intervention throughout El-Salvador and Central America as a whole. But “poor little GRENADA”? You really can’t be serious calling it that? You would do well to study a bit of history before making that kind of comment. “Heartbreak Ridge” was fiction, just as most accounts by the many journalists that followed were.

Perhaps reading a book called “Operation Urgent Fury” [[I believe penned by Roger Cole) would change your mind a bit. Also, you must have forgotten the fact that they [[re: Communists, led by Cuba and the U.S.S.R.), had constructed a 9,000 foot runway on the island [[which would have allowed Tupelov-88 “BEARS” to take off and land within 1,000 miles of the southern American border), along with overthrowing and murdering the Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, additionally imprisoning then Governor-General Paul Scoon and finally trapping over 280 American citizens who were attending medical school at St. Georges University in the midst of a bloody coup organized by Bernard Coard, a friend of both Castro and the Soviet Union, and I can assure you that this was anything but an innocent little “Spice Island” at the time.

The coup leaders emptied Richmond Prison and allowed roving bands of hard core criminals to roam the island at will, which, in turn, led to a revolution that the Grenadians and other visitors to the island were forced to endure without any hope of the freedoms that they once enjoyed ever returning.

Lastly, it was anything BUT easy, as we lost some very good people there [[19 KIA and over 116 wounded). It was not a “cakewalk” as some would believe, and there were many innocent people facing very grave danger, which the book I reference spells out pretty appropriately. Had Castro and the U.S.S.R. not ordered their forces there not to engage the Americans, it would have been a hell of a lot worse. In the event you didn’t know it, there were over 1,500 Grenadian overthrow forces on the island, along with and additional 722 Cuban Special Force members, in addition to 68 Soviet military advisors who “oversaw” the construction of the runway that was being built. All that to try to take control of an island with a population of only 100,000, most of whom were terrified of the actions that were escalating very rapidly.

Although the United Nations General Assembly voted 108 to 9 AGAINST any military intervention, Reagan arrogantly went ahead with his plans, and on October 25, 1983, at 0500, we commenced what is arguably one of the most significant operations since the end of the Vietnam War. Only those that were not there would have thought otherwise after having seen the terror on the islander’s faces and the fear and later gratitude expressed to us by the Americans who thought their pursuit of studies on the island would be over with their imminent deaths at the hands of criminals and thugs.

How do I know about all of this? I was actually there, on the ground, when it occurred, having gone in with the 1st Special Forces, Operational attachment Delta, a unit charged with securing Richmond Hill prison and later moving on to St. Georges to secure our citizens. I felt then, and still do now, that the POTENTIAL for something much worse loomed large, and, although I am no Reagan apologist in any way, shape or form, our intervention at the time, was a necessary and wholly appropriate for the threat that nobody could have imagined not having been there and seen it.

[canuck]

Pardon my ignorance PlymouthRes, sounds like this wasnt an easy mission after all. Thanks indeed for clarifying what actually went down.