Shot in the Dark

Anniversary

Want to show a kid today what a real leader is?  Because God knows our current President isn’t teaching them anything.

Tell them what happened in Poland in 1981.  Read this bit from a few years back, about the defection of the Polish ambassador to the US in protest against the Communist repression in his country).

(See around 4:10 as Reagan begins to speak about Poland.  Between there and the “yellow ribbon” moment, around 11:00)

Reagan did more than just have people light candles – read Jay Nordlinger’s excellent “Yellow Ribbon Culture” for all the reasons the “symbolic message” has become meaningless today – he followed up the symbolic message with a mountain of work in public and behind the scenes to undermine the Polish and Soviet regimes, and build up Solidarity and other resistance in the Eastern Bloc, work which eventually brought Communism crashing down.

This, children, is how leadership was done.

Compare that with the wan empty suit that is frittering away his last year in the White House today, and lament.

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Mitch Berg

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6 responses to “Anniversary”

  1. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    Reagan is the empty suit; his legacy is deteriorating. For example, the claim he was responsible for the tearing down of the Berlin wall has been thoroughly debunked. In point of fact, we wouldn’t be having the problems we are in Afghanistan with the Taliban as just one example, were it not for Reagan’s aid to them. You might want to refresh your memory of Ronnie hosting the Taliban in the oval office, where he referred to the MUSLIM EXTREMISTS and terrorists as the moral equivalent of our founding fathers:

    http://www.billdietrich.me/reagan-taliban.jpg

    Reagan did nothing much more than explode the national debt. His grasp of foreign policy was pathetic at best, and any credit owing to him for the demise of the communist bloc is negligible – and that is being charitable. Our current leader is far better than ol’ Ronnie Ray-gun. http://reaganbushdebt.org/

    Your celebration of the demise of the communist bloc would be more impressive were it not for the huge fan club on the right of authoritarian communist thug Vlad Putin, or the support of right wing fascists for the leading Republican candidate, Trump. Certainly Putti doesn’t support your claims about Reagan and the communist bloc, rather he correctly acknowledges that they were their own worst enemy in the USSR:

    “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”
    – Putin, 2009, speaking at Davos

    That of course hasn’t stopped Putin from trying to rehab the legacy of Stalin.

    One more example of an attempt on the right to float revisionist history, Mitch.

    But then, the right does that rather a lot, don’t they? My topic for today, after taking some time off: how conservatives like to make up shit, like phony attributions to the founding fathers, while attacking actual freedom. When history does not serve you conservatives, you lie/ make up shit. The facts are rarely on your side.

    http://freethinker.co.uk/2015/12/23/texas-governor-orders-removal-of-ffrf-bill-of-rights-display/

    Happy New Year to you, the belle Bun, and Zam.

  2. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    DG,

    Well, Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you, too!

    Good to see your fantasy life is undimmed:

    Reagan is the empty suit; his legacy is deteriorating.

    Right. Our country is being run by a moral midget. Legacies need upkeep.

    For example, the claim he was responsible for the tearing down of the Berlin wall has been thoroughly debunked.

    No it hasn’t. It’s been questioned by people who can’t bear the thought that Reagan brought freedom to hundreds of millions.

    The usual line is “Gorbachev did it” – which ignores the fact that Gorbachev was a response to Reagan. Without Reagan, there’d have been no Gorby.

    In point of fact, we wouldn’t be having the problems we are in Afghanistan with the Taliban as just one example, were it not for Reagan’s aid to them.

    In the same way that the Greeks wouldn’t have had a civil war had we not supplied both sides…

    …against the Nazis.

    The way that the Democrats were trying to claim their share of credit (remember Charlie Wilson’s War?) can be most charitably interpreted as “they are no more clairvoyant than anyone else, including Reagan”.

    So even your hindsight is 20/400.

    Reagan did nothing much more than explode the national debt.

    In the same way that Lincoln and FDR did; he had major conflicts to fight. BTW, most of the debt was a result of Tip O’Neil reneging on his promises on social spending.

    But here’s the part that the left, being utterly innumerate, never gets; Reagan’s deficits more than paid for themselves. The “Peace Dividend” that Bill Clinton cashed? It wouldn’t have been possible had a Cold War been underway. And while you may quibble that Reagan was instrumental in ending the Cold War, you’ll be wrong – and millions in Eastern Europe will be happy be say so.

    His grasp of foreign policy was pathetic at best,

    She who lives in houses made of glass chanting points had best not throw stones.

    Your celebration of the demise of the communist bloc would be more impressive were it not for the huge fan club on the right of authoritarian communist thug Vlad Putin, or the support of right wing fascists for the leading Republican candidate, Trump.

    Thank you for the gift of non-sequitur. There is no “huge fan club” on the American right. And how is Trump related either way?

    Certainly Putti doesn’t support your claims about Reagan

    That would be kinda a statement against interest, now, wouldn’t it?

    Anyway, Merry Christmas, from all of us in the real world, to all of you wherever you are!

  3. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    MBerg seems to gloss over Iran/Contra.

    Here are some things Mr. Reagan did while president:
    –advanced sensible immigration reform
    –supported pollution control
    –curbed nuclear arms
    –closed tax loopholes for the wealthy
    –advocating gun background checks.
    –raised taxes 11 times.
    There’s zero chance conservatives would ever nominate a RINO like him anymore.

  4. TriggerWarning:Swiftee Avatar
    TriggerWarning:Swiftee

    I was going to offer a contrast with Reagan’s hope filled, world shaping Christmas speech with Obmama’s “I’m the Greatest” Christmas message for 2015. But now I see that dg has taken a big, steaming, liquid shit on Mitch’s head again, and Emery has arrived to moosh it around a little….and Mitch comments that it doesn’t smell good, but he appreciates the effort.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have anything good to say, so in the spirit of Christmas, I’ll say nothing at all.

  5. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to All!

    One of my favorite poems …

    Out through the fields and the woods
    And over the walls I have wended;
    I have climbed the hills of view
    And looked at the world, and descended;
    I have come by the highway home,
    And lo, it is ended.

    The leaves are all dead on the ground,
    Save those that the oak is keeping
    To ravel them one by one
    And let them go scraping and creeping
    Out over the crusted snow,
    When others are sleeping.

    And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
    No longer blown hither and thither;
    The last lone aster is gone;
    The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
    The heart is still aching to seek,
    But the feet question ‘Whither?’

    Ah, when to the heart of man
    Was it ever less than a treason
    To go with the drift of things,
    To yield with a grace to reason,
    And bow and accept the end
    Of a love or a season?

    Reluctance by Robert Frost From A Boy’s Will, 1913.

  6. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    I’ve been traveling around Hungary and the Czech Republic the last 6 weeks. DG might find the trip interesting. Next to the Hungarian Parliament is a bigger than life statue of Ronald Reagan, looking toward the Russian embassy – “so as to keep an eye on them,” our driver said.

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