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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#511

Post by selimthegrim »

sammalloy wrote: post #297
throwaways85989 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not really a base for capitalism to take hold and effect. It needs a basic rule of law and democracy to work. All it got was brief window of chaos, before the kleptocracy returned. Best description of the cultural background i found so far was this: https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0?t=76

> It was not really a base for capitalism to take hold and effect. It needs a basic rule of law and democracy to work. All it got was brief window of chaos, before the kleptocracy returned. This is my understanding as well, from everything I’ve read. The more interesting question is why Russia, both as a nation state and a culture, has no history or tradition of democracy. I’ve never received an answer to this questi…

You might want to check out the history of Novgorod.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#512

Post by Nanana909 »

bolton_strid wrote: post #375
spamizbad wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s crazy is the minds behind the Washington Consensus favored a form of extreme capitalism that no western democracy would ever tolerate such a system on their own soil. Some ultra-capitalist die-hards have even retreated away from Liberalism in general as they found it too restrictive for their extreme ideology (they know their economic regime could never gain sustained popular support; it would need to be impos…

What’s crazy is the minds behind the Washington Consensus favored a form of extreme capitalism that no western democracy would ever tolerate such a system on their own soil. It had been tried in many places already: Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, and (before 1979) Iran. The data were clear: it had worked very well for capitalists, but very poorly for people in the countries affected. And it mostly has come to the…

No post body was provided.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#513

Post by selimthegrim »

ghostwriter wrote: post #353
andrekandre wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you are being a bit pedantic, it says: While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. notice the wording "more accurately" and not "mischaracterized" etc -- btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a democracy? are you trying to say that people shouldn't be able to decide their leaders?

it's the US embassy being very pedantic about the matter to the extent they find it important to dedicate the starting paragraph of the entire section about the US government, even though the difference is just about being more accurate. in fact, accuracy in founding principles of governing is as important as accuracy of long-distance ballistic motion planning. > btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a demo…

You need to go back and read about Doerr’s Rebellion and the Guarantee Clause.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#514

Post by hot_gril »

sph wrote: post #393
paulpauper wrote: post #72

Like Bill clinton, he helped define 90s geopolitics. It's remarkable how he faded away like he did. Nelson Mandela, Yassir Arafat , Ariel Sharon..that whole era.

They were too moderate for the modern age. Centrism has gone out of fashion.

In the US, Obama seemed pretty centrist to me. Joe Biden less so, but still the most centrist of the front-running candidates this cycle.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#515

Post by krn »

eloy wrote: post #20

RIP Gorbachev, one of the few genuinely good people in politics. After he retired from politics, he was featured in several advertisements: - In 1994 for Apple Computer: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisem... - In 1998 for Pizza Hut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial - In 2000 for the ÖBB, the Austrian railways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c - In 2007…

He also did a cameo in Faraway, So Close! (1993)[1] by Wim Wenders:

> Mikhail Gorbachev only appears because his secretary was familiar with the movies of Wim Wenders and was a great admirer. She talked Gorbachev into giving up a couple of hours to do the cameo as he was on a trip to Germany anyway.

[1] https://imdb.com/title/tt0107209/mediaviewer/rm1602489600

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#516

Post by romwell »

mantas wrote: post #199
romwell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some did, some didn't, the way it happened. The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. 30 years later, we can see how the people who were in charge of the USSR are the reason if fell apart: because they are still running Russia, an…

Yeah, USSR should have kept all the occupied countries! /sarcasm

I was trying to say that there was a way forward for the Cold War to end without the dissolution of the USSR — not that it'd be great for the occupied countries (or people of USSR in general) for USSR to continue existing.

The dissolution could have happened afterwards, in an organized manner, as a process — not a cataclysm.

That way we could have ended up with the new countries not having old apparatchiks as little tsars. Maybe we'd have an independent Yakutia, Siberia, Tatarstan too

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#517

Post by refurb »

lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s.

If anyone is interested why the US get involved in other countries affairs, just look to comments like this.

I'm not sure why the US has any responsibility for helping Russia transition to a democracy. And I'm not sure why, when the US does provide assistance, when the country fails to become democratic, it's because "the US didn't do enough".

It's pretty clear it's a no win situation. The US gets blamed for "doing nothing, or not enough" and then when it does something it gets blamed for "interfering with another nations affairs".

I'm starting to see why the founding fathers were such isolationists and the US as a whole was isolationist until WW1. There is nothing good that can come out of getting involved.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#518

Post by justsomehnguy »

filoleg wrote: post #457
justsomehnguy wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and guys who were installing these doors were blindfolded and couldn't see what the stuff the owner of the apartment had.

Do you genuinely believe that people in eastern europe at the time were so oblivious and naive? I can bet you that on average, they were way more cautious and aware of their surroundings than modern people living in the west are. For once, I don't think that they would consider leaving all of their valuables in front of the front door where everything is visible. Unless installing the front door includes rummaging th…

> oblivious and naive

I see oblivious and naive people everywhere all the time (eg phone scams)

> they were way more cautious and aware of their surroundings than modern people living in the west are

Thanks for assuming I'm just a stupid guy from the West.

> all of their valuables in front of the front door where everything is visible

Of course not, but there is a lot of things what can tell you there could be valuables there. Ruined flat in a commie block is one thing, but a freshly renovated flat in that commie block is another thing.

If you think a little you can, probably, understand why I know that.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#519

Post by thehappypm »

wobbleblob wrote: post #478
thehappypm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big difference is the oligarchs. The USSR had already been transitioned to a resource state, and there was no actual rebuilding that needed to happen. The Marshall plan was almost easy because you could tally up all the broken bridges and say “itll cost us $X to fix”. What’s the equivalent for post USSR? What ended up happening was oligarchs swooped in to take over from the central planners, and it’s not…

I think you have this upside down. The oligarchs didn't swoop in and ruin everything. The Russian government did not want their resources and industry controlled by foreign share holders, so they were dead set on privatizing the economy by selling to Russians only. With this constraint, the handful of Russians who were able to raise capital in such a short time, without foreign counter bids, got the privatized busine…

Yes, they swooped in, as I said

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#520

Post by romwell »

nradov wrote: post #239
romwell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some did, some didn't, the way it happened. The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. 30 years later, we can see how the people who were in charge of the USSR are the reason if fell apart: because they are still running Russia, an…

You can't seriously claim that the USSR should have been held together as a single empire, contrary to the wishes of most people who lived outside of Russia. The dissolution of the USSR was absolutely, unambiguously a positive event for the human race despite the minor problems which resulted.

I'm saying that a catastrophic decomposition through a coup that left most of the Soviet apparatchiks in power (Lukashenko, Yeltsin/Putin, etc) is barely better than nothing at all.

The problems it caused to people in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and many other former Soviet republics aren't minor by any account — and they are a direct reason for why Putin managed to hold power for so long.

The way in which the USSR dissolved itself is why we have a war in Ukraine now.

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