Kinda interesting how it reflected the assumption that "normal" young people would be liberal and anti-nuke. I wonder how valid that assumption would be now? Was it more valid then? I sense that it was.
Not much in that critique to make me question the Reagan administration retrospectively. Nor, I suspect, would the millions freed from dictatorship by American policy, which Reagan maintained against "sophisticated" opinion, find much to laugh at.
But, there are some chilling prefigurements of the excessive militarism and abandonment of the working class that was to come. (I refer, of course, to the Clinton administration). Viewed historically, the thing critics of Reagan's views should find most frightening is how readily they were adapted by the "progressives".
darrelplant
· 2 years ago
The assumption about a majority of young people being "liberal and anti-nuke" was never valid.
This skit came out a month and a half after Ronald Reagan won the presidential election, after all. According to exit polls, 43% of the voters in both the 18-21 and 22-29 age groups voted for Reagan. Carter got 44% and 43% respectively. Not every Carter voter would have been a liberal. Carter was a conservative, Southern Democrat. Even in 1976, the first election after Watergate, the under-30 vote was only a few points different between the two major parties (Ford actually got more of the 18-21 vote than Carter that year).
People forget that hippies and liberals were never anywhere close to a majority of their demographic.
So Tom K., I think that your analysis may be skewed by an inaccurate grasp of the reality. Certainly the idea that Reagan "freed" anyone from dictatorship can itself be laughed at. Anyone who knew what was going on in the USSR could see that the state was collapsing of its own weight in the early '80s, but Reagan and his buddies were so blind to that fact that they were completely taken by surprise when it started falling apart. It was Iraq war planning writ large.
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
"Nor, I suspect, would the millions freed from dictatorship by American policy, which Reagan maintained against 'sophisticated' opinion, find much to laugh at."
Wow. It's amazing, but not really surprising, that this old myth lingers on. Fact was, Reagan's admin was perhaps the biggest and deadliest terror operation in the 80s.
Remember how Qaddafi was portrayed as a Global Terrorist Mastermind? Please. Compared to Reagan, Qaddafi was a Keystone Kop. Shall we go down the list? El Salvador. Nicaragua. Guatemala. Southern Africa. East Timor. The West Bank and Gaza. Lebanon. South Korea (under the generals). Backing Afghan Islamic fanatics. Backing Saddam's Iraq. Backing the Khmer Rouge in the UN. As Darrel Plant put it, the SU was falling apart by the time Reagan came in. The Gipper's true legacy is one of effective state terrorism.
This sketch doesn't get anywhere near this, since very little of the above had yet happened. The writers seemed more interested in comparing Nixon to Reagan, which missed the point altogether. But again, this was early on.
Dan Leo
· 2 years ago
Thak you, Dennis, for sharing a bit of old-time vaudeville from that long-ago age, and (as the conversation veered somewhat Gorey-esquely) for splashing some cold reality-water on the revisionist-Reagan myth.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
*Certainly the idea that Reagan “freed†anyone from dictatorship can itself be laughed at. Anyone who knew what was going on in the USSR could see that the state was collapsing of its own weight in the early ’80s, but Reagan and his buddies were so blind to that fact that they were completely taken by surprise when it started falling apart."
Thing is, Reagan was virtually the only public figure in the early 80's saying that the Soviet Union was on the brink of demise due to its internal flaws, and the intelligent opinion on the left was that the Soviet economy was on pace to outperform the West, or at the very least to compete with it vigorously.
I believe Moynahan said similar things; one of several reasons he was rejected by many on the left.
I note that you mischaractierize me as saying that Reagan "freed" the people behind the Iron Curtain, when I specifically said they were freed by "by American policy, which Reagan maintained against 'sophisticated' opinion." The word "maintained" was carefully chosen. Like anyone, Reagan had to do some new things to adjust to new times, but his critical decision was to keep doing what Truman had started vis-a-vis the Soviets (and maybe crank it up a little), when the D party and much of the country had decided we should stop.
Reagan is on record with his predictions about Soviet vulnerability. The record also shows that the left was saying quite the opposite. He was criticized for it; in fact, his statements were regarded by many in the mainstream left as irrational.
If you lived through that era (coherently), you know this to be true. If not, "you could look it up", as Casey Stengel would say.
OutOfContext
· 2 years ago
Uh oh, this could get ugly.
darrelplant
· 2 years ago
Tom K, Reagan and his buddies portrayed the Soviet Union as a dire threat that would take over the world. The whole notion of supplying the contras was based on the concept that Nicaragua would become a Communist beachhead in the Americas from which Soviet tanks could drive through a thousand miles of Mexico and be on the border of Brownsville, Texas in 48 hours. I did live through those years, I remember how incredibly stupid those claims sounded back then, and I remember the people who made them in the mid-80s were certainly not on the left.
Are you saying that Reagan didn't predict, in this first term, that the Soviet Union was on the brink of demise due to its internal flaws? Are you saying that "intelligent opinion" on the left didn't generally disparage this view?
If so, well, not point arguing with someone who's just gonig to deny reality.
But if you're not saying those things, what are you saying? That we should overlook Reagan's prescience in this regard because he didn't appreciate exactly how quickly the SU might collapse, and wanted to take measures to counter its expansionist ambitions while we awaited its demise? Even assuming the SU would have demised as quickly without the pressure created by Reagan's policies, is that really all you got?
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
"That we should overlook Reagan’s prescience in this regard because he didn’t appreciate exactly how quickly the SU might collapse, and wanted to take measures to counter its expansionist ambitions while we awaited its demise?"
Reagan talked out of both sides of his mouth. One minute, the SU was nearly in the dustbin. The next, it was the most harrowing giant that the meek and pure US ever faced, and that our lives were in danger. Depended on the audience or the rhetorical/political need. And do you honestly believe that Soviet "expansionist ambitions" -- which paled compared to US imperialism -- was stemmed by shooting Salvadoran schoolteachers in the back of the head and tossing them in a ditch? Or backing Rios Montt's ethnic cleansing in Guatemala? Or destroying Nicaragua, putting it back into the proper "regional mode" where it became a beggar state after some 60,000 people were killed? All that helped the Berlin Wall to fall? Who's the one denying reality?
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
Uh, I don't recall writing anything about Central America. That seems to be your area of interest, which is great, but don't attribute statements about it to me, when I haven't made any.
As it happens, I do believe that Reagan's instinctive opposition to the Sandanistas was prudent, and that Nicaragua has benefitted from it. I will refrain from making any further points about US policy in the region, which was certainly subject to criticism, because I don't want to be dragged into a debate on this collateral matter before the anti-Reaganites admit that he was ahead of the curve in his assessment of the SU's prospects.
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
"As it happens, I do believe that Reagan’s instinctive opposition to the Sandanistas [sic] was prudent, and that Nicaragua has benefitted from it."
So you supported state terrorism in Central America. That helps to clarify your position. Appreciate your honesty.
But recall that Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US "resistance" to Soviet "expansionism." The fact that all three Nicaraguan communist parties, one of which was pro-Moscow, opposed the Sandinistas and sided with the CIA-funded UNO coalition, apparently made no impression.
darrelplant
· 2 years ago
Are you saying that Reagan didn’t predict, in this first term, that the Soviet Union was on the brink of demise due to its internal flaws? Are you saying that “intelligent opinion†on the left didn’t generally disparage this view?
Yeah, I am saying that.
Reagan promoted the image of the USSR as powerful foe. The "bear" ad, the urgent need for the SDI program, the various extralegal measures they took to fund any operation they saw as combatting the Soviets.
I suppose you're taking the same tack as Dinesh D'Souza who credits Reagan with some sort of unique prescience that the Soviet Union was failing in one of his books, but I suspected they were in trouble myself as a college undergraduate, just by reading about the shortages of goods in stores in Moscow in the late '70s and early '80s. I live in a state where the suspension of grain shipments to the Soviet Union in 1980 (even before Reagan was elected) was a big deal. A big country like the USSR with a breadbasket region like the Ukraine importing basic foodstuffs like grain? From the US? You'd have to have had your head up your ideological ass not to know that there was something wrong.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
*So you supported state terrorism in Central America. That helps to clarify your position. Appreciate your honesty.*
No, check again. I said I thought Reagan was right to oppose the Sandinistas. Since you were reading closely enough to [sic] my spelling, I don't see how you could have missed my meaning so badly.
*recall that Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US “resistance†to Soviet “expansionism.â€Â*
Gee, I don't recall that; it doesn't really sound like something he would say. Maybe you could supply a source for the quote.
But if he said it, that only shows that, in addition to anticipating the fall of the Soviet Union, he also foresaw the break-up of Yugoslavia and the specific crimes of Milosevic. Which would be pretty impressive.
Impressive for most people, that is. I'm pretty sure Darrelplant anticipated those things in about the sixth grade, based on the 1974 revisions to the Yugoslavian Constitution and his observation of increasing foreign debt for Belgrade following the 1970's oil crisis.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
*I suppose you’re taking the same tack as Dinesh D’Souza who credits Reagan with some sort of unique prescience that the Soviet Union was failing in one of his books . . .*
Haven't read Dinesh, and I think unique would be a slight overstatement. There were other people saying the SU was failing at the time, but they were not well known and their views were considered bizarre.
I don't need a book to tell me that, because I was alive at the time. Now, I concede that, spending the first Reagan term in a Northeastern college, I may not have gotten opinions representing the national spectrum. But I sure heard the views of the American left, and from some of its more intelligent adocates (students as well as teachers.) I took a course with a major soviet adivsor to D presidents.
Although I heard many arguments against the US military buildup, never did I hear the argument, in person, in writing, on television, or otherwise, that the buildup was unnecessary because the SU was on the verge of collapse.
I had been assured that the SU would collapse, due to ethnic tensions, from a righwing acquaintance. When I heard Reagan's prediction (which was really more economic and spiritual than ethnic, but they all played a role), I thought: "Gee, I hope he's right, but the only person I've ever heard say anything remotely similar is that kinda-out-there rightwing guy, and my really informed Sovietologist professor sure isn't saying that."
My feeling was, if the Soviets were vulnerable, great, but if they weren't, all the more reason to be on guard. I don't claim any particular insight for myself. But I do recognize, from having lived through it, that Reagan called it better than the experts. Those who didn't or don't like that are going to have to cope with it, as surely as isolationsist conservatives have to deal with the fact that FDR was right about Hitler.
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
"The Soviets' plan is designed to crush self-determination of free people, to crush democracy in Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama. It's a plan to turn Central America into a Soviet beachhead of aggression that could spread terror and instability north and south, disrupt our vital sealanes, cripple our ability to carry out our commitments to our European and send tens of millions of refugees streaming in a human tidal wave across all our borders."
Of course, this address is chock full of lies and bizarro fantasies and projections. But that was Reagan all over.
I compared what Reagan did to Central America to what Milosevic did in Bosnia and Kosovo, only in Reagan's case, the body count was higher and the destruction more widespread. But it was Milosevic who went to the Hague. Imperial double standard at its finest.
You said that you thought Nicaragua "benefitted" from the contra war, which, to my eyes, suggests endorsement of the terror policy of mass murder and political subterfuge. At least have the fucking balls to own it.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
You wrote that "Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US 'resistance' to Soviet 'expansionism.'"
Of course, he said no such thing, as you have now been forced to admit. You can make whatever characterizations you like, but hey, have the cojones to "own them", instead of attributing them to your advesaries.
I don't believe there was a terror of mass murder in Central America attributable to the US Govt. in the 1980's that can be fairly compared to the events in the Balkans in the early 90's. I do believe there were various revolutions, civil wars and repressions; that our involvment in them came at a moral price, as any foreign intervention does; and that more than a few of our allies were unsavory, to say the least.
I also think the people of Nicaragua, as well as other states in the region, are better off for being able to vote for their leaders. Yeah, Nicaragua might have the same leader anyway, but he'd be a Castro-style tin-pot "President for Life" instead of someone who has to actually contend for popular support.
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
"Of course, he said no such thing, as you have now been forced to admit."
What -- that his war on Nicaragua was justified as a defense against Soviet "expansionism"? I linked to a whole speech where Reagan said exactly that. What the fuck are you talking about?
The Central American wars led to much more death and destruction than was seen in the Balkans. Check the body counts sometime if you doubt this. In Nicaragua alone, there was the equivalent of some six Sebrenicias. Add to that some seven Sebrenicias in El Salvador, and some nine-10 Sebrenicias in Guatemala. And as far as Nicaragua goes, the Sandinistas held presidential elections in 1984 and 1990, exactly when they said they would. Both elections had observers from Latin America and Europe, but the US ignored the '84 results (having its hand-picked puppet, Arturo Cruz, boycott the elections, due to lack of popular support, among other reasons), and financed the UNO opposition that won in '90. All this, mind you, while Nicaragua was being ripped to shreds by a foreign-backed terrorist army, and while the US controlled Nicaraguan airspace. And the Sandinistas still honored the '90 results and stepped down from power. Wonder if the USG would act the same if the roles were reversed? Judging from, say, the Wilson administration, I seriously doubt it. And Bush? Please.
Louis Proyect
· 2 years ago
Well, I was in Nicaragua for both the 1984 and 1990 elections. There were at least 5 times more parties on the ballot than in the USA during the last election. With respect to the first election, an Irish parliamentary delegation stated: "The electoral process was carried out with total integrity. The seven parties participating in the elections represented a broad spectrum of political ideologies." The general counsel of New York's Human Rights Commission described the election as "free, fair and hotly contested." A study by the U.S. Latin American Studies Association (LASA) concluded that the FSLN (Sandinista Front) "did little more to take advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere (including the U.S.) routinely do."
darrelplant
· 2 years ago
I took a course with a major soviet adivsor to D presidents.
It was hawkish Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski who had the bright idea of funding the Afghan religious fighters to try to bring down the Soviet Union in 1978 by embroiling it in a Vietnam on its own borders. Of course they pleaded all innocent when the USSR accused the CIA of funding a war on their borders, and acted outraged that the Red Army moved across the border in exactly the reaction they were hoping for (thus leading to the aforementioned halting of grain shipments and the refusal to participate in the Moscow Olympics).
If you thought a Soviet advisor to Democratic presidents either represents the view of the left or would give you an accurate portrayal of what the left thought about the Soviet Union, you're horribly mistaken. The guys running foreign policy in this country on both sides of the aisle were pretty much all buggy where the USSR was concerned. Practically the entire foreign policy staff of 1972 Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen Scoop Jackson became Reagan Republicans, and you'd probably recognize their names: Richard Perle, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Elliott Abrams.
I guess the difference between you and I is that I didn't just rely on what I heard from people to know what was going on (are you sure your last initial isn't F, Tom?) I read stuff. Sure, the predominant thought in the nation was that the Soviets were so powerful they could drop into Colorado with the Cubans to back them up at any time, but the fact that they were having so much trouble in Afghanistan keeping their troops supplied was covered in the venues I read.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
DP:
Read your quote that my comment follows.
Oh, wait, you must have read it already: that's why you decided to omit it, since reading it makes clear that Reagan never said it.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
"It was hawkish Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski who had the bright idea of funding the Afghan religious fighters to try to bring down the Soviet Union in 1978 by embroiling it in a Vietnam on its own borders."
What a dopey idea. Like that could have ever worked!
Anyway, it has nothing to do with the point at hand.
It seems you claim that, unlike the D establishment, the far left knew that the Soviet Union's demise was imminent.
Well, we know what Reagan said on the subject: what did the people you are talking about say, and when and where did they say it?
Dennis Perrin
· 2 years ago
Tom K -- you've lost me completely. I more than made my case, direct link to a Reagan speech during the Central American wars included, and you pitty-pat around with some minor point only you seem to understand. Later for you.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
DP:
I think we can agree on, or at least cannot dispute, the following:
1. Reagan argued for his Central American policy as a defense against Soviet “expansionism" (which I never contested).
2. Reagan *never* said that "his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US 'resistance' to Soviet 'expansionism'"; which stands somewhat in contrast to your claim that: "Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US 'resistance' to Soviet 'expansionism'".
You may call it "some minor point only [I] seem to understand", but I think it is important that you follow the words: "X said . . ." with something that X actually said, and not create quotes that favor your point of view, and attribute them to people who feel or felt differently. But hey, maybe I'm a victim of false consciousness, or middle class morality, or some other oppressive trope that takes reactionary sentiment and dresses it up as basic decency.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
*The Central American wars led to much more death and destruction than was seen in the Balkans. Check the body counts sometime if you doubt this. In Nicaragua alone, there was the equivalent of some six Sebrenicias. Add to that some seven Sebrenicias in El Salvador, and some nine-10 Sebrenicias in Guatemala.*
OK, Sebrenica was about 8,000. Taking your numbers, that makes ~50,000 in Nicaragua, 60,000 in El Salvador, and 80,000 in Guatemala.
If you intended this as a counting up, you haven't reached the Balkans level yet. If you didn't intend it as that, I don't know what it's here for.
Tom Watson
· 2 years ago
Those sure were funny videos!
Dayv
· 2 years ago
So, Tom K., your argument with Dennis basically boils down to this:
Reagan was responsible for his decisions, but not the outcome of those decisions.
Glad we're clear on that.
Tom K.
· 2 years ago
Decisions, outcomes, principles, mistakes, contradictions, flaws; charge it all to his account. He'll run a healthy balance at the end. For a politician, anyway.
cindysdildovibrator
· 2 months ago
dammn terms of use violation, was looking forward to watching this again, anyone know where else i could find this?
All Comments
Kinda interesting how it reflected the assumption that "normal" young people would be liberal and anti-nuke. I wonder how valid that assumption would be now? Was it more valid then? I sense that it was.
Not much in that critique to make me question the Reagan administration retrospectively. Nor, I suspect, would the millions freed from dictatorship by American policy, which Reagan maintained against "sophisticated" opinion, find much to laugh at.
But, there are some chilling prefigurements of the excessive militarism and abandonment of the working class that was to come. (I refer, of course, to the Clinton administration). Viewed historically, the thing critics of Reagan's views should find most frightening is how readily they were adapted by the "progressives".
This skit came out a month and a half after Ronald Reagan won the presidential election, after all. According to exit polls, 43% of the voters in both the 18-21 and 22-29 age groups voted for Reagan. Carter got 44% and 43% respectively. Not every Carter voter would have been a liberal. Carter was a conservative, Southern Democrat. Even in 1976, the first election after Watergate, the under-30 vote was only a few points different between the two major parties (Ford actually got more of the 18-21 vote than Carter that year).
People forget that hippies and liberals were never anywhere close to a majority of their demographic.
So Tom K., I think that your analysis may be skewed by an inaccurate grasp of the reality. Certainly the idea that Reagan "freed" anyone from dictatorship can itself be laughed at. Anyone who knew what was going on in the USSR could see that the state was collapsing of its own weight in the early '80s, but Reagan and his buddies were so blind to that fact that they were completely taken by surprise when it started falling apart. It was Iraq war planning writ large.
Wow. It's amazing, but not really surprising, that this old myth lingers on. Fact was, Reagan's admin was perhaps the biggest and deadliest terror operation in the 80s.
Remember how Qaddafi was portrayed as a Global Terrorist Mastermind? Please. Compared to Reagan, Qaddafi was a Keystone Kop. Shall we go down the list? El Salvador. Nicaragua. Guatemala. Southern Africa. East Timor. The West Bank and Gaza. Lebanon. South Korea (under the generals). Backing Afghan Islamic fanatics. Backing Saddam's Iraq. Backing the Khmer Rouge in the UN. As Darrel Plant put it, the SU was falling apart by the time Reagan came in. The Gipper's true legacy is one of effective state terrorism.
This sketch doesn't get anywhere near this, since very little of the above had yet happened. The writers seemed more interested in comparing Nixon to Reagan, which missed the point altogether. But again, this was early on.
Thing is, Reagan was virtually the only public figure in the early 80's saying that the Soviet Union was on the brink of demise due to its internal flaws, and the intelligent opinion on the left was that the Soviet economy was on pace to outperform the West, or at the very least to compete with it vigorously.
I believe Moynahan said similar things; one of several reasons he was rejected by many on the left.
I note that you mischaractierize me as saying that Reagan "freed" the people behind the Iron Curtain, when I specifically said they were freed by "by American policy, which Reagan maintained against 'sophisticated' opinion." The word "maintained" was carefully chosen. Like anyone, Reagan had to do some new things to adjust to new times, but his critical decision was to keep doing what Truman had started vis-a-vis the Soviets (and maybe crank it up a little), when the D party and much of the country had decided we should stop.
Reagan is on record with his predictions about Soviet vulnerability. The record also shows that the left was saying quite the opposite. He was criticized for it; in fact, his statements were regarded by many in the mainstream left as irrational.
If you lived through that era (coherently), you know this to be true. If not, "you could look it up", as Casey Stengel would say.
31 March 1986: TIME Magazine cover featuring Daniel Ortega and the cover line "The Man Who Makes Reagan See Red"
Look it up yourself.
Are you saying that Reagan didn't predict, in this first term, that the Soviet Union was on the brink of demise due to its internal flaws? Are you saying that "intelligent opinion" on the left didn't generally disparage this view?
If so, well, not point arguing with someone who's just gonig to deny reality.
But if you're not saying those things, what are you saying? That we should overlook Reagan's prescience in this regard because he didn't appreciate exactly how quickly the SU might collapse, and wanted to take measures to counter its expansionist ambitions while we awaited its demise? Even assuming the SU would have demised as quickly without the pressure created by Reagan's policies, is that really all you got?
Reagan talked out of both sides of his mouth. One minute, the SU was nearly in the dustbin. The next, it was the most harrowing giant that the meek and pure US ever faced, and that our lives were in danger. Depended on the audience or the rhetorical/political need. And do you honestly believe that Soviet "expansionist ambitions" -- which paled compared to US imperialism -- was stemmed by shooting Salvadoran schoolteachers in the back of the head and tossing them in a ditch? Or backing Rios Montt's ethnic cleansing in Guatemala? Or destroying Nicaragua, putting it back into the proper "regional mode" where it became a beggar state after some 60,000 people were killed? All that helped the Berlin Wall to fall? Who's the one denying reality?
As it happens, I do believe that Reagan's instinctive opposition to the Sandanistas was prudent, and that Nicaragua has benefitted from it. I will refrain from making any further points about US policy in the region, which was certainly subject to criticism, because I don't want to be dragged into a debate on this collateral matter before the anti-Reaganites admit that he was ahead of the curve in his assessment of the SU's prospects.
So you supported state terrorism in Central America. That helps to clarify your position. Appreciate your honesty.
But recall that Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US "resistance" to Soviet "expansionism." The fact that all three Nicaraguan communist parties, one of which was pro-Moscow, opposed the Sandinistas and sided with the CIA-funded UNO coalition, apparently made no impression.
Yeah, I am saying that.
Reagan promoted the image of the USSR as powerful foe. The "bear" ad, the urgent need for the SDI program, the various extralegal measures they took to fund any operation they saw as combatting the Soviets.
I suppose you're taking the same tack as Dinesh D'Souza who credits Reagan with some sort of unique prescience that the Soviet Union was failing in one of his books, but I suspected they were in trouble myself as a college undergraduate, just by reading about the shortages of goods in stores in Moscow in the late '70s and early '80s. I live in a state where the suspension of grain shipments to the Soviet Union in 1980 (even before Reagan was elected) was a big deal. A big country like the USSR with a breadbasket region like the Ukraine importing basic foodstuffs like grain? From the US? You'd have to have had your head up your ideological ass not to know that there was something wrong.
No, check again. I said I thought Reagan was right to oppose the Sandinistas. Since you were reading closely enough to [sic] my spelling, I don't see how you could have missed my meaning so badly.
*recall that Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US “resistance†to Soviet “expansionism.â€Â*
Gee, I don't recall that; it doesn't really sound like something he would say. Maybe you could supply a source for the quote.
But if he said it, that only shows that, in addition to anticipating the fall of the Soviet Union, he also foresaw the break-up of Yugoslavia and the specific crimes of Milosevic. Which would be pretty impressive.
Impressive for most people, that is. I'm pretty sure Darrelplant anticipated those things in about the sixth grade, based on the 1974 revisions to the Yugoslavian Constitution and his observation of increasing foreign debt for Belgrade following the 1970's oil crisis.
Haven't read Dinesh, and I think unique would be a slight overstatement. There were other people saying the SU was failing at the time, but they were not well known and their views were considered bizarre.
I don't need a book to tell me that, because I was alive at the time. Now, I concede that, spending the first Reagan term in a Northeastern college, I may not have gotten opinions representing the national spectrum. But I sure heard the views of the American left, and from some of its more intelligent adocates (students as well as teachers.) I took a course with a major soviet adivsor to D presidents.
Although I heard many arguments against the US military buildup, never did I hear the argument, in person, in writing, on television, or otherwise, that the buildup was unnecessary because the SU was on the verge of collapse.
I had been assured that the SU would collapse, due to ethnic tensions, from a righwing acquaintance. When I heard Reagan's prediction (which was really more economic and spiritual than ethnic, but they all played a role), I thought: "Gee, I hope he's right, but the only person I've ever heard say anything remotely similar is that kinda-out-there rightwing guy, and my really informed Sovietologist professor sure isn't saying that."
My feeling was, if the Soviets were vulnerable, great, but if they weren't, all the more reason to be on guard. I don't claim any particular insight for myself. But I do recognize, from having lived through it, that Reagan called it better than the experts. Those who didn't or don't like that are going to have to cope with it, as surely as isolationsist conservatives have to deal with the fact that FDR was right about Hitler.
Ronald Reagan -- March 25, 1985
Of course, this address is chock full of lies and bizarro fantasies and projections. But that was Reagan all over.
I compared what Reagan did to Central America to what Milosevic did in Bosnia and Kosovo, only in Reagan's case, the body count was higher and the destruction more widespread. But it was Milosevic who went to the Hague. Imperial double standard at its finest.
You said that you thought Nicaragua "benefitted" from the contra war, which, to my eyes, suggests endorsement of the terror policy of mass murder and political subterfuge. At least have the fucking balls to own it.
Of course, he said no such thing, as you have now been forced to admit. You can make whatever characterizations you like, but hey, have the cojones to "own them", instead of attributing them to your advesaries.
I don't believe there was a terror of mass murder in Central America attributable to the US Govt. in the 1980's that can be fairly compared to the events in the Balkans in the early 90's. I do believe there were various revolutions, civil wars and repressions; that our involvment in them came at a moral price, as any foreign intervention does; and that more than a few of our allies were unsavory, to say the least.
I also think the people of Nicaragua, as well as other states in the region, are better off for being able to vote for their leaders. Yeah, Nicaragua might have the same leader anyway, but he'd be a Castro-style tin-pot "President for Life" instead of someone who has to actually contend for popular support.
What -- that his war on Nicaragua was justified as a defense against Soviet "expansionism"? I linked to a whole speech where Reagan said exactly that. What the fuck are you talking about?
The Central American wars led to much more death and destruction than was seen in the Balkans. Check the body counts sometime if you doubt this. In Nicaragua alone, there was the equivalent of some six Sebrenicias. Add to that some seven Sebrenicias in El Salvador, and some nine-10 Sebrenicias in Guatemala. And as far as Nicaragua goes, the Sandinistas held presidential elections in 1984 and 1990, exactly when they said they would. Both elections had observers from Latin America and Europe, but the US ignored the '84 results (having its hand-picked puppet, Arturo Cruz, boycott the elections, due to lack of popular support, among other reasons), and financed the UNO opposition that won in '90. All this, mind you, while Nicaragua was being ripped to shreds by a foreign-backed terrorist army, and while the US controlled Nicaraguan airspace. And the Sandinistas still honored the '90 results and stepped down from power. Wonder if the USG would act the same if the roles were reversed? Judging from, say, the Wilson administration, I seriously doubt it. And Bush? Please.
It was hawkish Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski who had the bright idea of funding the Afghan religious fighters to try to bring down the Soviet Union in 1978 by embroiling it in a Vietnam on its own borders. Of course they pleaded all innocent when the USSR accused the CIA of funding a war on their borders, and acted outraged that the Red Army moved across the border in exactly the reaction they were hoping for (thus leading to the aforementioned halting of grain shipments and the refusal to participate in the Moscow Olympics).
If you thought a Soviet advisor to Democratic presidents either represents the view of the left or would give you an accurate portrayal of what the left thought about the Soviet Union, you're horribly mistaken. The guys running foreign policy in this country on both sides of the aisle were pretty much all buggy where the USSR was concerned. Practically the entire foreign policy staff of 1972 Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen Scoop Jackson became Reagan Republicans, and you'd probably recognize their names: Richard Perle, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Elliott Abrams.
I guess the difference between you and I is that I didn't just rely on what I heard from people to know what was going on (are you sure your last initial isn't F, Tom?) I read stuff. Sure, the predominant thought in the nation was that the Soviets were so powerful they could drop into Colorado with the Cubans to back them up at any time, but the fact that they were having so much trouble in Afghanistan keeping their troops supplied was covered in the venues I read.
Read your quote that my comment follows.
Oh, wait, you must have read it already: that's why you decided to omit it, since reading it makes clear that Reagan never said it.
What a dopey idea. Like that could have ever worked!
Anyway, it has nothing to do with the point at hand.
It seems you claim that, unlike the D establishment, the far left knew that the Soviet Union's demise was imminent.
Well, we know what Reagan said on the subject: what did the people you are talking about say, and when and where did they say it?
I think we can agree on, or at least cannot dispute, the following:
1. Reagan argued for his Central American policy as a defense against Soviet “expansionism" (which I never contested).
2. Reagan *never* said that "his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US 'resistance' to Soviet 'expansionism'"; which stands somewhat in contrast to your claim that: "Reagan said that his destruction of Nicaragua, and his turning the entire region into a mass grave that made Milosevic look cheap, was part of US 'resistance' to Soviet 'expansionism'".
You may call it "some minor point only [I] seem to understand", but I think it is important that you follow the words: "X said . . ." with something that X actually said, and not create quotes that favor your point of view, and attribute them to people who feel or felt differently. But hey, maybe I'm a victim of false consciousness, or middle class morality, or some other oppressive trope that takes reactionary sentiment and dresses it up as basic decency.
OK, Sebrenica was about 8,000. Taking your numbers, that makes ~50,000 in Nicaragua, 60,000 in El Salvador, and 80,000 in Guatemala.
If you intended this as a counting up, you haven't reached the Balkans level yet. If you didn't intend it as that, I don't know what it's here for.
Reagan was responsible for his decisions, but not the outcome of those decisions.
Glad we're clear on that.