Slashdot Mirror

We get a leader who tries to calm and reassure a potential dangerous adversary?

I'm sure Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave right about now. I remember his position on Russia being quite a bit different back in 1983:

"I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."

If you have the time, you might want to read that speech in full. Reagan talks a great deal about morality, and about faith, both of which seem somewhat lacking in our current president-to-be. In fact, during this speech, Reagan makes the claim that morality and faith are in fact far stronger than rockets or bombs, and that victory in the Cold War would come from America's traditional values, not from military might.

It's therefore depressing to me that today's conservatives, who otherwise lionize Reagan, seem so willing to forget those traditional values and morals whenever it's convenient to do so, as it is with Vladimir Putin. Trump's cozying-up to Putin is about as close to an outright rejection of Ronald Reagan's legacy as I can imagine. You realize that Putin worked for the Soviet-era KGB, yes? Did you also know that during a 2011 meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, Putin smiled and said, "We understand one another," after Biden told him he had no soul? Do you honestly believe Reagan would have embraced Russia's annexation of Crimea, or the on-going military assistance to rebels in east Ukraine?

I'm hopeful that Trump will be able to negotiate solutions to our differences with Russia, but I suspect what will actually occur is that Trump and his team will simply agree to turn a blind eye to the humanitarian problems and other issues Putin causes. Makes me wonder what the world would be like today if Reagan as president had taken the same course of action.

I see that some are still bitter that the communist infiltration of Hollywood failed.

American President: A Reference Resource

In Hollywood, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Reagan also identified with Roosevelt's internationalism, especially his opposition to the aggressions of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. After World War II, Reagan aligned with the dominant faction in the Democratic Party: anti-Communist liberals, whose ranks included President Harry Truman, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Senator Hubert Humphrey, and labor leader Walter Reuther. Reagan joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1937, became a member of the union's board in 1941 and its president in 1947 and continued to serve on the board after stepping down from the presidency in 1954. During that period, SAG was involved in a myriad of battles, including repeated efforts to purge itself of Communist influence. Reagan opposed the Communists and their allies; in 1953 he became a secret informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), reporting on Communist activities in Hollywood.

Reagan, however, was wary of the indiscriminate anti-Communism then sweeping the country in the early days of the Cold War. He worried that SAG's programs designed to root out Communists might harm innocent actors and actresses. He was skeptical of the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities, which in the late 1940s investigated Communist infiltration of Hollywood. But as president of SAG, Reagan helped implement the blacklist of suspected Communists that had been agreed to by movie producers frightened by the congressional investigations. Reagan did, however, work to clear the names of actors whom he thought had been wrongfully accused or had only dabbled with leftist groups, as he had done in the 1940s. He continued in the 1950s to campaign for Democratic candidates, including the liberal Helen Gahagan Douglas, who in 1950 lost a U.S. Senate race in California to Richard Nixon.

Because all members of Congress have complete knowledge of what the NSA is doing? The NSA chief is held accountable for lying to Congress? Neither of those two things are true, so you are untruthful at best.

It is often the case that all members of Congress are not equally informed. In some cases, to their shame, virtually none of them are as was the case in passing Obamacare. But it is far from clear that the NSA chief actually lied to Congress since we don't know what was said behind closed doors. We only know that some Congressmen are willing to engage in theatrics.

Wyden’s Stunt Was Congress at its Worst

I agree that some aspects of the Constitution have been abused to increase Federal power, especially the commerce clause. I would like to see at least some of that being rolled back.

I'm not sure what you are referring to in regards to the first Gulf War - the one in 1991? What do you think was lied about there?

This is why what JFK said was so very important. "The very idea of secrecy in a free and democratic society is repugnant." Secrets beget more secrets, and things begin to escalate in order to protect the secrets, and the secrets that protected the secret.

You distort JFK's message, or at least leave out some very important parts that are relevant today. Perhaps it has been too long since you read it. I suggest you read the whole thing, but I've included a portion below. It says something quite different than you suggest with your snippet as noted by the Miller Center's side note, "President Kennedy speaks at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City before the American Newspaper Publishers Association. Kennedy asks the press for their cooperation in fighting Communism by applying the same standards for publishing sensitive materials in the current Cold War that they would apply in an officially declared war."

President and the Press" Speech (April 27, 1961)

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort, based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared—and however fierce the struggle may be—it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

  If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

  It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions—by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence—on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

That and creating nations to allow you to build your canal. First you find a bunch of mal-contents, arm them and then when they revolt you recognize their little area as an independent nation. They then sign a treaty giving you perpetual control and you can start digging.

In 1901, the United States negotiated with Britain for the support of an American-controlled canal that would be constructed either in Nicaragua or through a strip of land—Panama—owned by Colombia. In a flourish of closed-door maneuvers, the Senate approved a route through Panama, contingent upon Colombian approval. When Colombia balked at the terms of the agreement, the United States supported a Panamanian revolution with money and a naval blockade, the latter of which prevented Colombian troops from landing in Panama. In 1903, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty with Panama gave the United States perpetual control of the canal for a price of $10 million and an annual payment of $250,000.

Wow I just wrote a reply to someone else that is a reply to you also:

Here ya go.

If you think I don't agree that this and every other government has abused its power then you're wrong. But that abuse was a function of the people who lived at that time. American Indians a case in point. People then just did not think as we moderns do. Sure, they did bad things using the government as a force multiplier with its armies and ability to fund via taxes and pass laws etc. etc. but it was THOSE people who did those things, through the government.

The Government is not a thing with a static, enduring , persitent "character" like people. Some people may not change that much- you knew them then, you know them now and they haven't changed at bit. Their character endures over time . That's actually an artifact of their biology. They learned a first language, English say, and now that's their primary language, forever. That persistence, that durable fact about them is a function of the biology of learning a language.

But governments don't have a biology and because of that they don't have an identity that endures the way people's endures. They change when society changes. They change when the people inside their offices change. They change to reflect the times they exist in.

You can't reason about what governments will and won't do the same way you can (reasonably) reason about what people will or won't do.

You're talking to someone who after due consideration of the facts has come to the conclusion that some part of the government likely had a hand in the assassination of JFK. Even though I think that's true, I don't ascribe to that part of the now government the same propensities and lawlessness that it I think it used to have then. Why? Because that kind of lawlessness was pandemic in the world Eisenhower order the assassination of the democratically elected heads of state Arbenz in Guatemala and Mossadeq (sp?) in Iran and in this the American people probably would have backed him, had they known:

http://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/essays/biography/5 [millercenter.org]

It's a function of the times which a shorthand way of saying it's a function of the people who live at that time in history. Ditto the American South. No Southerner today countenances slavery or owns slaves (generally this is accurate) . There is no point in generalizing to today's South on the basis of yesterday's South
.

Today's government is more enlightened by our measure just because it is run buy us, I mean we moderns. They are not evil in the ways that past governments have been evil. If you're aq progressive like me, some things piss you off, like global warming and the lack of action. It's a crime perpetrated on future generations. But the non-action reflects about 50% of the US public's POV. That evil is a function of we "moderns."

There is no evidence I am aware of which indicates that some part of the US government, in this case the CIA and the NSA is independently and and in secret regressing to some previous state of society's developmental norms, much less to Stalin-esque or Pol Pot-esque type thinking.

Just because Pol Pot could have used the NSA doesn't mean the NSA is going to turn into Pol Pot.

If you think I don't agree that this and every other government has abused its power then you're wrong. But that abuse was a function of the people who lived at that time. American Indians a case in point. People then just did not think as we moderns do. Sure, they did bad things using the government as a force multiplier with its armies and ability to fund via taxes and pass laws etc. etc. but it was THOSE people who did those things, through the government.

The Government is not a thing with a static, enduring , persitent "character" like people. Some people may not change that much- you knew them then, you know them now and they haven't changed at bit. Their character endures over time . That's actually an artifact of their biology. They learned a first language, English say, and now that's their primary language, forever. That persistence, that durable fact about them is a function of the biology of learning a language.

But governments don't have a biology and because of that they don't have an identity that endures the way people's endures. They change when society changes. They change when the people inside their offices change.

You can't reason about what governments will and won't do the same way you can (reasonably) reason about what people will or won't do.

You're talking to someone who after due consideration of the facts has come to the conclusion that some part of the government likely had a hand in the assassination of JFK. Even though I think that's true, I don't ascribe to that part of the now government the same propensities and lawlessness that it I think it used to have then. Why? Because that kind of lawlessness was pandemic in the world Eisenhower order the assassination of the democratically elected heads of state Arbenz in Guatemala and Mossadeq (sp?) in Iran and in this the American people probably would have backed him, had they known:

http://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/essays/biography/5

It's a function of the times which a shorthand way of saying it's a function of the people who live at that time in history. Ditto the American South. No Southerner today countenances slavery or owns slaves (generally this is accurate) . There is no point in generalizing to today's South on the basis of yesterday's South
.

Today['s government is more enlightened by our measure just because it is run buy us, I mean we moderns. They are not evil in the ways that past governments have been evil. If you're aq progressive like me, some things piss you off, like global warming and the lack of action. It's a crime perpetrated on future generations. But the non-action reflects about 50 of the US public's POV. That evil is a function of we "moderns."

There is no evidence I am aware of which indicates that some part of the US government i, in this case the CIA and the NSA is independently and and in secret regressing to some previous state of society's developmental norms, much less to Stalin-esque or Pol Pot-esque type thinking.

Just because Pol Pot could have used the NSA doesn't mean the NSA is going to turn into Pol Pot.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

John F. Kennedy
Yale University Commencement Speech
June 11, 1962

No, they have actually formed our recent history. See this post below:

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1234821&cid=27975543

Their infiltration of our higher ed system and popular culture can be clearly seen today. It's eerie that if you watch Ronald Reagan's farewell address, you notice that at the end, it's the decline in the core of American sensibilities he is worried about, despite the increase in national pride under his administration.

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3418

and what advice would that be?

That of the President who launched convert operations against the Barbary pirates?

The President who doubled the size of the U.S. in the Louisiana Purchase? The U.S. would become a continental empire in less than fifty years.

The President who waged economic war against Britain and France? Thomas Jefferson: Foreign Affairs

The President who died as the Erie Canal and the Industrial Revolution was putting an end to the agrarian Republic - the limited government - of his dreams?