Reagan got far too much credit for "winning" the cold war. In truth the cold war is still going on and Gorbachev should be the one that gets the most credit. He wanted to veer the USSR towards democracy regardless of what we were doing. He started Glasnost and that is what started the break. I guess everyone here forgot the record homelessness and poverty rates we suffered under Reagan. Or about the record crime rate. Not to mention that he wouldn't even say the word "AIDS" for years. What else? He should have been sent to prison for the Iran-Contra affair among other things. His cold war spending everyone cites as brilliant caused social programs to be sliced and virtually all the problems Bush Sr got stuck with. All that being said he was still ten times a better president than Dubya. Here's a song about Reagan and Thatcher called Ronnie and Mags. Lyrics included. Awesomeness. "Feed a slice of cake to Bobby Sands" is the best line heh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP5oM-Txbts
The homeless/poverty situation under Reagan depending on where one was living at the time my take is that many probably didn't even notice it. Yes that does sound odd but in the 80's there was that big oil bust that sent a number of major cities such as Houston, Dallas and Denver into severe recessions while in other places such as Virginia and North Carolina at the same time it was the best of times. I can still remember visiting Denver in the mid 80's seeing a line of people ( well over 200 of them ) applying for a job at a PIZZA HUT !! Oh the families on the streets who couldn't pay the rent, even the family I knew at the time if I had wanted to call them I had to hang up after three rings and wait 5 minutes to call them back for them to answer because they were getting so many calls from collection agencies because both parents were laid off from their oil jobs. It was that bad.......now at the same time in Virginia I can still remember telling folks what I had seen in Denver and they just did not believe it. I can actually see why they felt that way as in the summer of 1987 I was staying in Virginia Beach and it seemed like in just about every store or restaurant I had went to I was asked if I was interested in working for them as they were VERY desperate to find workers.
Last edited by choff; 06-11-2014 at 07:47 PM.
Ronald Reagan was a big time no good son of a Bitch.
(that is all) who cheated on his wife Nancy.
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
I once flipped off Ronnie Raygun in Ashland, Ohio ca. 1982. He almost certainly couldn't see me through the tinted panzerglas of his limo, but I'll bet they still have a photo of me on file somewhere in Washington.
For God's sake Dad, don't dig up the back yard: that's where all the guns are buried! (My parents need to get some gardening done. If the NSA is listening, maybe the National Guard will roll out and do the tilling for free.)
As a peacenik of long standing, I reviled Reagan in my youth, and not just for his actions as president, but also for his earlier political stance as Governor of California. Still not loving what the US did under his leadership in Central America. However, I have since come to see him as a historical necessity. He had his role to play and I had mine. But all of his "tear down this wall" bluster and "evil empire" bravado would have been fruitless without the other side (and helped bring us to the brink of nuclear war in several incidents that most Americans know nothing about).
Reagan pushed and Willy Brandt pulled, and in the end, the walls came tumbling down.
I am a sick puppy....woof woof!!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Carping the living shit out of the Diem. - Me!!
http://www.pinterest.com/neilmpenny
I think Reagan actually scared himself when the NATO exercise "Able Archer" nearly resulted in a nuclear war because the Soviets mistook it for preparations for a real first strike. NATO changed all of the nuclear weapons codes and the exercise originally called for Western heads of state to participate from their secret command bunkers. At one point, the Soviets had nuclear-armed bombers on runway alert in East Germany with the engines running! Luckily, US intelligence got wind of this and used their double-agents to help calm Moscow's nerves. The plans for the exercise were hastily changed, and the White House made certain that Reagan was prominently featured on the evening news riding his horse at his ranch in California. I remember thinking at the time "so the President is riding horses at his ranch, why is this news?".
Around the same time, after he and Nancy had a private screening of "The Day After", Reagan wrote in his diary that the felt "very depressed". AFAIK, that is the only time he ever used that word in his diaries. Soon after followed Rekjavik, etc., and the rest we know.
For me, Gorbachev does have something of a tragic hero about him.
The biggest reason the Wall came tumbling down is that the Soviet economy was imploding, and the Soviets could no longer afford to maintain the empire they had acquired in World War II. Two years after that, the rot cost them the empire they had inherited from the Czars.
For the record, both George H. W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher tried frantically to save the Soviet Union in its last days, and I suspect Reagan would have done the same.
I don't have the balance sheets or annual reports for the last 50 years of the Soviet Union at hand (although that would be a surprisingly interesting read if any such documents exist ), but I strongly suspect that one main reason for the implosion of the Soviet economy was the drain of having to keep up in the armaments race. Investing a lot of your labor and resources in a military organization and conventional and nuclear weapons that you really, respectively, really really really don't want to use is probably not a good recipie for a sound national economy. I'm willing to concede that Reagan helped bring that about by keeping the pressure on, but the peace movement and detente played an essential role by ensuring that the pressure didn't reach the bursting point.
Last edited by Rosebud666; 06-14-2014 at 09:56 AM. Reason: French is HARD.
Well, all modern time presidents have been merely temporary managers...employees, if you will...of those who are the wealthiest of the wealthy around the world who seem to have a never ending hunger for more profits (primarily by war...consider what's happening in Iran today as a result of making Halliburton boat-loads of money) and with that comes influence, more so since Kennedy was eliminated and thus old Joe's aspirations.
Candidates are selected, winners picked, the media molds public emotion, and we believe there are two distinct major parties.
After Gore Vidal died, I was amused at one of his opinions of Reagan being "the acting president".
Hinckley is staying at his mother's house 17 days a month, there is talk of letting him out altogether.
http://news.yahoo.com/reagan-shooter...080626266.html
[SIGPIC]Morgan[/SIGPIC]
Fuck Ronald Reagan.
That's necrophilia, another thread.
Stay in Drugs. Eat your School. Don't do Vegetables.
It was necrophilia for the last 60 years of his life.
Just read in the Daily Mail that according to a book about UFO's that has been published, Ronald truly believed we were gonna be invaded by aliens and asked Gorbachev? for help.
http://http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...-invasion.html
Also Hinckley could be released permanently soon. There is gonna be a hearing on Wednesday.
http://news.sky.com/story/1468136/ma...ld-be-released
[QUOTE=shellc;1495873]Just read in the Daily Mail that according to a book about UFO's that has been published, Ronald truly believed we were gonna be invaded by aliens and asked Gorbachev? for help.
http://http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...-invasion.html
As long as the aliens stayed away from his Jelly beans
President Reagan's second election was the first time I was old enough to vote. I'm glad he was my first. Too bad he couldn't have run a third time!!
To understand the living, you got to commune with the dead.
Minerva
Gold!
I am apolitical, but I always likeed Reagen's defense policies because they kept me in a job in federal defense.
The only one before him that I liked was JFK and I think that may have been based on his death since I was so young when he was in office, and haven't liked another since Reagan left. Mama loved Clinton, but I'm not mama.
Reagan's last public speech from February 1994 - tough to watch as his mental faculties were deteriorating. He lived for another 10 years:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c452680...-public-speech
[QUOTE=cash;1517507]Reagan's last public speech from February 1994 - tough to watch as his mental faculties were deteriorating. He lived for another 10 years:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c452680...-public-speech[/QUOTET
True, he was a old fool for years.
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
Reagan was a great American. Did he have flaws as President? Who hasn't. I read a Variety article about a "black" script trying to be shopped around where they will be making fun of Reagan's Alzheimers. Will Ferrell is supposed to play Reagan during his 2nd term. His staff tries to tell him he's an actor playing the role of President. Like him or not as President a movie making fun of his disease is a slap in the face to the Reagan family and anyone who has or has ever had someone in their family devastated by this slow death. Does Ferrell know what it's like standing in a room saying hi to your mother and she doesn't know who you are? Does he know what it's like to have someone in the late stages stop speaking? Do they know what it's like having your son sit in the same room as your mother and not want him in the house because she doesn't know who he is? Did he ever have to tell his kids that grandma held a knife to her live in nurses throat?
When you lose a parent you lose your past. When you lose a spouse you lose your present. When you lose a child you lose your future.
R.I.P Kim: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...336317&df=all&
R.I.P Dad http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...&GRid=93315851
R.I.P Mom http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...&GRid=97780420
Of course I can not fine the article now. One of those late night Link chasing things, but Reagan was one who did not cheat on his wife. In Modern times JFK takes that honor. He was a busy rascal.
Stay in Drugs. Eat your School. Don't do Vegetables.
Will Ferrell has pulled out of Reagan movie
http://pagesix.com/2016/04/29/will-f...eimers-comedy/
Probably not what you're talking about, but recently i saw the beginning of clip with some guy who looked like Farrell made up as Reagan in the Oval Office. I clicked it off. I don't like stuff like that either. I loved Reagan. My great grandfather had Alzheimer, and yes, mocking someone with it cheapens all the victims.
His Bel Air home has sold for $15M
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...bel-air-910243
Hinckley to be released August 5th.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Wo..._35_years.html
VCNJ~
Professional Thread-Killer
Ronald Reagan Made Racist Remarks in Newly-Released Audio, Called African Diplomats ‘Monkeys’
https://www.mediaite.com/news/busted...omats-monkeys/
People said for years he was racist but it was always denied. His daughter Patti Davis wrote an article about the tape in the Washington Post. She said she was originally going to refute it until she heard the tapes and now can't defend him. She does call him out but also says that isn't the man she knew as in the past he stood up against segregation and refused to join a club in LA as Jewish and African Americans weren't allowed in.
What's the big deal?
All the Presidents do it, right?
A faulty hypothesis forming:
A German scientist using Iranian physics and French mathematics.
Dude! Thatā??s tomorrow.
Heā??s 61, and going home to live with his mom.
Deemed to no longer be a threat to society.
Letā??s hope so. Reminds me of the thread on this forum about the old man who spent ages in prison for murdering his wife, was released only to murder a women he met and stalked at a shelter.
I don't like what he said but from what I read and heard about him he was a good president, unlike that moron we have now.