Dallas didn't do squat, it was the wild music of Gorky Park that destroyed capitalism.

He couldn't ever beat the Bulls when it mattered.

Yeah right. How could an actor end communism?

The man who really destroyed anything in the socialism spectrum was Marx. To channel a cat macro: unsustainable idea is unsustainable.

Borscht farts. Those'll destroy anything.

Reagan didn't do shiat. There's a reason old Russians hate Gorby to this day.

Yeah right,

And some Catholic Priest named Georges Lemaitre came up with the idea of the "Big Bang".

/Is that trolling?
//"Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, BANG, BANG.
///Still a metalhead
////And blames "Tipper" for the loss of Headbangers Ball
//If it is wrong to be a Catholic and a Metalhead, then I don't wanna be right. Striper sucked.

Berserker!!

I'm so gods-damned tired of nobody having a clue what killed the soviet empire. Its about money. Its ALWAYS about money.

Crediting the downfall to Reagan comes close, his ramping up the arms race certainly didn't help the USSR's already-failing economy but in all likelihood it would have fell anyways. Check the price of oil during those years and check how much of the USSR's budget came from selling that oil. The USSR was *broke* and the international banking community pretty much dictated "if you go after any of the splitting-off replublics, Moscow gets no money for food and you starve this winter".

We're damn lucky the world didn't end in a Red Storm Rising scenario. You know there were hardliners pushing for taking everyone else down with them.

One of the Dallas reruns I was watching the other day, JR told Bobby, "Bobby, if all goes well, I think we can get close to $20 a barrel for the oil."

David wants his credit back.

Everybody knows that David Hasselhoff brought down the Berlin Wall.

I can't believe that someone was paid to write something that stupid.

CBFLATLINE: Yeah right,

And some Catholic Priest named Georges Lemaitre came up with the idea of the "Big Bang".

/Is that trolling?
//"Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, BANG, BANG.
///Still a metalhead
////And blames "Tipper" for the loss of Headbangers Ball
//If it is wrong to be a Catholic and a Metalhead, then I don't wanna be right. Striper sucked.

Tom Araya is that you?

I never understood the Reagan argument. I guess it would qualify as "standing on the shoulders of your very talented predecessors and subsequently stealing credit." The fact that certain Republicans literally seem to have a crush on the man is both dumbfounding and disturbing.

Communism destroyed communism because communism sucks. The Soviet Union would have collapsed with or without external factors like Reagan. Collectivism doesn't work as people are not interchangeable parts to be arranged and manipulated as the "benevolent" state sees fit.

Ronald Reagan really had nothing to do with communism's fall.

I thought it was Chuck Barris.

TFA is not complete bull; when I was growing up in Hungary, quite literally everybody watched Dallas.

wait wait wait, then this means that T. Cullen Davis, by allegedly shooting his wife and serving as the possible inspiration for J.R. Ewing, is the one that really brought down Communism.

Reagan had as much to do with the fall as Clinton had to do with the tech boom.

WFern: I never understood the Reagan argument. I guess it would qualify as "standing on the shoulders of your very talented predecessors and subsequently stealing credit." The fact that certain Republicans literally seem to have a crush on the man is both dumbfounding and disturbing.

Just curious which talented predecessors are you talking about out of the following?

Carter
Ford
Nixon
Johnson

and this comment...
certain Republicans literally seem to have a crush on the man

Have you ever seen the results and demographics of the 1984 elections?

40oz_A_Knight: Communism destroyed communism because communism sucks. The Soviet Union would have collapsed with or without external factors like Reagan. Collectivism doesn't work as people are not interchangeable parts to be arranged and manipulated as the "benevolent" state sees fit.

This.

But if we give Reagan all the credit, we can turn a failure into a hero to mobilize the right and see how good Romney is at doing imitations...

Does this mean in a few years, Pam is gonna wake up and find Gorbachev in her shower?

Reagan's cowboy diplomacy only further prolonged the downfall of the USSR

Beave0101: Reagan's cowboy diplomacy only further prolonged the downfall of the USSR

Why do you say that?

Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors." -- Ann Coulter

Ronald Reagan can be blamed for the beginning of the fall of middle class. communism? uh no

WFern: I never understood the Reagan argument. I guess it would qualify as "standing on the shoulders of your very talented predecessors and subsequently stealing credit." The fact that certain Republicans literally seem to have a crush on the man is both dumbfounding and disturbing.


It is infinitely more dumbfounding to have a crush on Barack Obama.

chu2dogg: Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors." -- Ann Coulter

I am pretty sure the author is going to be ridiculed extensively here while the substance of the quote is ignored or dismissed offhandedly.

Reagan had a plan to defeat the communists
1- keep oil prices low
2- work with the Pope to destabilize Eastern Europe
3- bankrupt the soviets through military expansion, technology

For some reason it really bothers leftists to admit the obvious. This leads them to pull up any extraneous cause, such as "Dallas" or some other ridiculous reason.

Internet Disease: Ronald Reagan really had nothing to do with communism's fall.


500 times over. No Republican, or media pundit, can manage to grasp this.

johnny_vegas: chu2dogg: Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors." -- Ann Coulter

I am pretty sure the author is going to be ridiculed extensively here while the substance of the quote is ignored or dismissed offhandedly.

lol... yeah.. i knew that when posting. Still, these discussions always bring that qoute to mind. Can't really be said any better.

I was a peace corps volenteer in Africa during the 1980's. The biggest complaint PCV's got from the government was that we didn't dress like the actors in Dallas. They actually thought most americans lived like that.

Really, we had to have a big meeting with a government minister on the subject.

johnny_vegas: Just curious which talented predecessors are you talking about out of the following?

Carter
Ford
Nixon
Johnson

Carter didn't accomplish much (Mid-East works aside), but the others did their share. And if you don't believe that Nixon's opening of relations with China alone had an impact on Communist spread, you may be delusional. Decades of poor economic choices, rampant imperialism, foreign pressure, and infighting led to the fall of the USSR. One man didn't finish it on his own, and especially not a senile leader who fell asleep during an audience with the Pope and discussed space aliens with befuddled Soviet leaders.

Any person who sincerely believes that a bumper sticker soundbyte like "Tear down this wall" helped to close our Cold War is just too stupid for consideration.

Have you ever seen the results and demographics of the 1984 elections?

Because the results of that election have anything to do with the rather creepy and, frankly, skin crawling worship from the neo-conservative movement.

Liberals have their own icons, like FDR (four elections in a row), yet we don't fellate their corpse at any given opportunity. The man had his faults and made mistakes, something the far right refuses to admit about Ronald Reagan.

Give Communism a chance

Charlene Titton NSFW and Victoria Principal NSFW were the only good things about Dallas. Well that and the shower scene that inspired a funny ending to Family Guy so many years later.

Reagan was suffering Alzheimer's for most of his tenure as president. If you want to credit someone/thing in the US, give it to the military industrial complex that pulled his strings. Or give yourself credit, because you'll be you'll be paying the bill Regan ran up on your account. And since you all like giving Regan posthumous BJ's you can pay my portion too.

The USSR would have fell regardless, they had to keep their MIC running just like we do now. It has little or nothing to do an actual threat and every thing to do with corporate/industrial welfare.

TFA, Reagan and all this we're better because of our pop culture crap is just silly.

Perestroika ended the USSR. get over it.

johnny_vegas: chu2dogg: Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors." -- Ann Coulter

I am pretty sure the author is going to be ridiculed extensively here while the substance of the quote is ignored or dismissed offhandedly.

That may be in part because her quotes, this included, are entirely unsubstantiated.

The_Sponge: It is infinitely more dumbfounding to have a crush on Barack Obama.

That's a nice moving of the goalposts.

"B-b-but Barack!"

Smellvin: The man who really destroyed anything in the socialism spectrum was Marx. To channel a cat macro: unsustainable idea is unsustainable.

I'm not a Marxist, but even I know that the most the USSR had to do with Karl Marx and communism was a lot of name-dropping and putting his face on everything.

Soviet Union=state capitalism, not communism.
Also, communism not=most other kinds of socialism.

Actually, it was me.

No,No,NO!

It was Jimmy Carter!!

That's why he got the Nobel Peace Prize!!!

dbaggins: Perestroika Vodak ended the USSR. get over it.

Sorry. Pet peeve.

johnny_vegas: chu2dogg: Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors." -- Ann Coulter

I am pretty sure the author is going to be ridiculed extensively here while the substance of the quote is ignored or dismissed offhandedly.

I will do both.
1. she is an idiot
2. To wit, he thought we should win. No they all did
3.At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. His actions almost got us all killed.
4. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors. It did not work, the USSR would have fallen just the same.

the opposite of charity is justice: I'm so gods-damned tired of nobody having a clue what killed the soviet empire. Its about money. Its ALWAYS about money.

Crediting the downfall to Reagan comes close, his ramping up the arms race certainly didn't help the USSR's already-failing economy but in all likelihood it would have fell anyways. Check the price of oil during those years and check how much of the USSR's budget came from selling that oil. The USSR was *broke* and the international banking community pretty much dictated "if you go after any of the splitting-off replublics, Moscow gets no money for food and you starve this winter".

We're damn lucky the world didn't end in a Red Storm Rising scenario. You know there were hardliners pushing for taking everyone else down with them.


I would say you pretty much nailed it. The USSR was poorly managed, economically speaking, and when the price of oil crashed, the country was basically done for.

I think that the argument that, because the USSR fell, American-style capitalism was The True Solution to Everything, might yet be proved false. As fun as it is to be an alarmist, the Rich/Poor divide in our country has been growing steadily, and our government is on increasingly shakier ground economically speaking.

Picture 15-20 years from now: The price of oil stays high, the government keeps spending ~10-15% more than it takes in, competition from cheaper countries keeps growing...how long can we sustain our current lifestyles (both on a personal and government-wide level)?

WFern: something the far right refuses to admit about Ronald Reagan

I agree with that, and with Nixon's overtures with China. However none of that addresses what they did for "communism"

quiet_american: Reagan had a plan to defeat the communists
1- keep oil prices low
2- work with the Pope to destabilize Eastern Europe
3- bankrupt the soviets through military expansion, technology

For some reason it really bothers leftists to admit the obvious. This leads them to pull up any extraneous cause, such as "Dallas" or some other ridiculous reason.

Oh please...

Everyone knows that Brezhnev developed an inexplicable allergy to peanuts in early 1977. After that, Tass outed him as being less than a man and even poked fun at his unibrow. If not for that event, a man with a birthmark the size of China on his forehead would never have come to power.

Carter deserves all of the credit.

Thread over.

I USED to think that Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union but the BBC did a special broadcast when Reagan died. The BBC interviewed every former Soviet they could and EVERY ONE OF THEM TO A MAN Put the fall of the Soviet Union squarely in the lap of Ronald Reagan. Who would know better what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union than the folks who used to run it?
If they all say Reagan caused the collapse of the U.S.S.R. who am I to disagree?

Shaggy_C: Vodak ended the USSR

In a way, yes. disruptions in central distribution of vodka was a part of Gorbachev's downfall. This led to demonstrations and strikes, which resulted in his economic reforms all getting derailed, resulting in the August Coup by the marxist hardliners, which resulted in Yeltsin grabbing power. this shifted a lot of political power to the USSR republics. That was all they needed to start declaring independence.


...or Reagan something or other. Take your pick.