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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2675)	6/2/2006 3:00:13 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 224717

The rightwing myth that Reagan ended the Cold War is cockapooey. He had a role in it, sure, and deserves some credit, but he stepped into a situation where the Soviets were already falling down, couldn't feed their people, and the Europeans (anti-nuke liberals all) were seducing the Soviets more and more with all kinds of generous offers. Plus the young people were greatly influenced by the hippies and rock n' roll. They wanted freedom. And the Pope and Jews made powerful religious inroads. Lech Walesa stood up for the labor movement. The Mujeheddin beat the red Army in Afghanistan in very humiliating fashion and Gorbachev risked his life several times to end communism. Gorby was #1 in ending Soviet communism. Without him, it might not have happened. But without Reagan it would have happened anyway. Reagan stepped in and did a good job of using all of that to finalize things, but his outrageous MX Missiles and Star Wars and huge deficit military spending were not anywhere near as influential as the peoples' yearning for freedom itself, and that existed before Reagan was elected. Remember too when Reagan said "tear down this wall!" Soviet communism had already ended. That was more of a symbolic thing. Very effective though. Reagan was one of our great presidents, though he was terrible on the environment, energy, S+L deregulation, Nicaragua and deficit spending. Most of all he was likeable as a person. But his whole second term Alzheimers was hitting him and he wasn't really in charge. They covered that up effectively.