On this day in 1985

Post #399,919 by rcareaga 3/11/15 3:26:12 PM Reply	On this day in 1985 Gorbachev became (at 54!) General Secretary of the CPSU. He's been described since as an inept reformer and an unintentionally effective revolutionary. I continue to believe (as I recall suggesting when I first weighed in here in 2003) that a rump USSR, with the Baltic bones dislodged from its throat, would have continued to serve as a useful counterweight to late-stage capitalism. It is a great pity that events didn't break his way: we'd be a lot better off, in Europe and here, had "socialism with a human face" been established as a plausible alternative to Gilded Age II: Revenge of the Jerkoffs. cordially,
Post #399,928 by Ashton 3/11/15 9:35:25 PM Reply	Since USSR comprised half the perpetuating stand-off, maybe so. Such a Grand turn-around, actually completed ... might possibly have overcome the US National solipsism (merely "improved" situation, though? Our ayatollahs and pecksniffs would do exactly what they have done since before BHO got the brass-plated Zinc Ring: for as many years. No?) Still, examples of superior handling of Med-care, Gender, Prisons, Labor -vs- Owners regulations etc. have always fallen on deaf ears here--the water? Puritan toxicity + hubris?--many have tried to encapsulate "a" fatal-flaw in the dis-US, even before it earned the nick. Seems quite more than "a" flaw in the local genes. Scandinavia alone, could provide many a How-to, for any authentic seeking of Better-versions. (My Aunt Florence, a teacher in the '30s and on, was surely toying with dumping Fat-Cat-ipalist status quo; she was smart, among other qualities.) Murica Doesn't Listen/its xenophobia cannot conceive of better-than-US, no matter how presented the alternative. We already ken the anti-intellectualism as: one of those n+99 flaws. Hmmm, though: were a head-transplant possible in the Peoples' Republic of Putin: and such a Grand, actually humanitarian gesture to race to --> an undeniable, operating-Conclusion!! ?? ¡Wow! ... such a Nuclear anti-bloviation Weapon of Mass Construction might.. de-zombify even this tribe of sleepwalkers ... If. Anything. at. all. COULD. Thanks for the Thought! even moi be surprised that (any example) might overcome the narcotic-slumber of the many on full-autopilot, in a facsimile-liff. That can be my Unicorn-dream on a day when I might see something Odd ..like a cop-car in sight? in My (near invisible) cul-de-sac..
Post #399,943 by mmoffitt 3/12/15 11:13:18 AM Reply	He did in 7 years what the CIA could not in 70.
Post #399,956 by rcareaga 3/12/15 3:40:56 PM Reply	He meant well... and could not have essayed the project had Khrushchev not tilled the ground a generation earlier. That the Sovs of the day regarded Brezhnevism as "stagnation" was not entirely a function of reformist propaganda. True, had they known what the Nineties were to bring, when power passed from Gorbachev to his irresponsible sot of a successor, they'd likely have stuck with stagnation. I fault Clinton for ignoring Russia during his eight years. Relations were notionally friendly, but the implied condescension (to say nothing of the depredations of western financiers) was obviously galling, and laid the ground for Cold War III. We and the Russians would all be a lot better off today had the USSR held together. cordially,
Post #400,029 by Ashton 3/15/15 7:14:58 AM Reply	Add-to-list of self-torturing What-if?s Nuke disarmament (close-enough..) a palpable possibility, had not that 3rd-rate Actor sat across the table. Only Ronnie's pig-ignorance of science and his Shrub-grade intransigence rendered that stillborn, all via fantasies of some magical Umbrella techno.. the details of Why-not? well beyond his capability to assimilate. We might still have that counterweight against Murican hubris, now when we need it most. As Bertie said (with apt drawings) in that little tract he sent out, in Aldermaston marching days: Since the beginning ... Man has never refrained ... From any folly ... Of which he is capable.
Post #400,038 by mmoffitt 3/15/15 7:54:41 PM 3/15/15 8:00:08 PM Reply	Wasn't it Rogers who said that was the worst thing you could say about a man? Edited by mmoffitt March 15, 2015, 08:00:08 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #400,782 by gcareaga 4/8/15 7:06:45 PM Reply	Fifty-fucking-four? But he was old then and I am not old now. This makes no sense.

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