Who's the Most Popular Modern President?
- Thread starter ironsides
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LBJ chose not to run again? The scandal!
Me thinks your critique is a lot of bluster and no substance.
Didn't you just mock political correctness a few posts back?
It was the people wanting and seeing what we had. Their goverment could only afford new cars of new weapons. Simplistic answer I know, but we broke the Soviet Union. Of course the strikes pushed them over. But Ronnie did tell them to take down the wall and they did. As for Gorbachev getting the Nobel Peace Prize hmm Obama got it also.
Mind does funny things, memories seem to fade with the smoke distancing itself from the truth.
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That's pathetic. You're suggesting they tore down the wall because Reagan gave a speech?
Kinda like the wizard standing on the beach, saying, "I'm going to make the tide come in if it takes me all day"
It was long over before Ronnie even came into office.
By the 1970s, low morale of the Soviet Union's work force was hurting its economy. Workers were given goals that seemed abstract or remote from tangible benefits. Common people were criticizing people in power for not responding to their needs. Common people still lived in cramped housing and were seeing little material progress for themselves.
Cynicism was high among Soviet workers and alcoholism prevalent. People were taking less pride in their work than people did in some other nations.
Skilled workers were also demoralized. The massive effort in the Soviet Union in education to create a skilled work force could not compensate for an economy that functioned poorly. Instead, education was producing poorly employed talent.
The agricultural sector of the Soviet economy was also functioning inefficiently. Under Brezhnev, most farming remained collectivized, with four percent of the Soviet Union's arable land being farmed on the side, as privately owned plots -- with this four percent producing around twenty-five percent of the Soviet Union's agricultural output. Before World War I, Russia had been one of the greatest food exporters in the world, but now it had become one of the world's greatest importers of food. After decades of collective farming, agricultural workers in the Soviet Union had developed poor work habits. And with distribution and transportation a problem, some harvests rotted on their way to market, and sometimes as much as forty or fifty percent of a crop might rot in the fields.
During the Brezhnev years supplies of oil and natural gas were becoming more costly, these supplies now deeper in the ground or located in permafrost regions. The Soviet Union had not been using its energy efficiently, and scarcer supplies of fuel were now adding to the cost of production.
A decline in sales of its oil abroad and the purchasing of food from abroad was a trade imbalance that was costing the Soviet Union hard currency and gold. Within the Soviet Union, government agencies were involved in more deficit spending than bureaucrats were admitting. And increases in the printing of money were contributing to the declining value of Soviet money -- the ruble.
What grew during the Brezhnev years were bureaucracy and the size of the Communist Party -- with many Party members working in bureaucracies. And growing too were the number of vacation residences, pensions, perks and privileges for Party members. In the eyes of the common Soviet citizen, corruption was growing alongside economic stagnation. According to Business Week (1-20-09), Brezhnev contributed to the ruination of the Soviet
Economy by not having started reforms in the early 1970s.
And the Brezhnev years included aggressive moves to defend the Soviet Union's position with its neighbors. Brezhnev was concerned that the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was becoming too liberal -- the Communist leader in Prague, Alexander Dubcek, having talked of creating a "socialism with a human face." Brezhnev saw Soviet hegemony in East Europe as threatened. He spoke of all the sacrifices that the Soviet people had made in World War II and, in August 1968, he sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to quell liberalization.
Brezhnev wanted to maintain the Soviet Union's standing in Europe and to maintain good relations with the West. He made himself a champion of Détente, and as a sign of his desire for good relations with the U.S. he kissed President Carter on the cheek. Then in December 1979, Brezhnev sent troops into Afghanistan, to support a friendly socialist regime there against guerrilla insurgents.
YouTube - Little Boxes - Malvina Reynolds [Claymation]
вот коробки на пригорке
сделаны из ticky tacky
вот коробки на пригорке
little boxes all the same
тут зеленая а там желтая
эта синия а та красная
и все сделаны из ticky tacky
Ironsides, with all due respect many Americans, same with Canadians do not know their history as they say wroth a ****.
At one time in the 70's a group of people walked the streets in Florida and asked people to sign this petition. many, the majority refused to sign calling it a piece of commie Crap - it was you Constitution.
The greatest president of the 20th Century without any Doubt was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.The rest were up and comers - JFK only served a couple of years before being murdered. hard to say how he would have done.
After that I would have Truman then Eisenhower.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franklin D. Roosevelt | The White House
American President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Yukon Jack yes LBJ did bring in the great society and I think it was a good plan over all.
I know that you don't think any idea is good unless instituted by the right wing. George
Bush Jr is the dumbest,he's the guy who gave everyone six hundred dollars to go shopping
in an effort to restart the economy. Unlike you, I believe society must have those who are
social progressives while being more of a fiscal conservative.
America is now living with the mistakes of being ultra conservative and a nation without a
social safety net. People are in financial trouble and even those who are not are in trouble
because they can't afford services.
It will soon be said the world passed America by while they were watching Entertainment
Tonight.
I prefer to see the potential in people and invest in their welfare while others rail against all
things liberal or progressive. With the attitudes of some I am surprised we even got the
wheel off the drawing board. In the exchange of ideas, I expect there will be different views
and people don't always agree, but there are some people who don't agree with anything
because they have their mind made up. I sometimes do change a view of something when
someone comes up with a good point. I don't view things from a left wing or a right wing
viewpoint all the time, I prefer to see good ideas no matter who came up with them.
I am neither purely left or right.
I know that you don't think any idea is good unless instituted by the right wing. George
Bush Jr is the dumbest,he's the guy who gave everyone six hundred dollars to go shopping
in an effort to restart the economy. Unlike you, I believe society must have those who are
social progressives while being more of a fiscal conservative.
America is now living with the mistakes of being ultra conservative and a nation without a
social safety net. People are in financial trouble and even those who are not are in trouble
because they can't afford services.
It will soon be said the world passed America by while they were watching Entertainment
Tonight.
I prefer to see the potential in people and invest in their welfare while others rail against all
things liberal or progressive. With the attitudes of some I am surprised we even got the
wheel off the drawing board. In the exchange of ideas, I expect there will be different views
and people don't always agree, but there are some people who don't agree with anything
because they have their mind made up. I sometimes do change a view of something when
someone comes up with a good point. I don't view things from a left wing or a right wing
viewpoint all the time, I prefer to see good ideas no matter who came up with them.
I am neither purely left or right.
''That would be FDR would it not?''
FDR fulfilled the progressive programs started under his cousin and predecessor Teddy Roosevelt.
FDR fulfilled the progressive programs started under his cousin and predecessor Teddy Roosevelt.
That is true, however most of the first administration of LBJ was spent fulfilling the program
that Kennedy began, he put a new label on it and passed the civil rights bills and set forth
the programs to benefit the lower middle class and the over all middle class in America.
I know this is so terrible when they could have used trickle down and stoked the rich leaving
some scraps to fall off the table for the middle class, and Yes I jest. The programs of LBJ
were of benefit to society
that Kennedy began, he put a new label on it and passed the civil rights bills and set forth
the programs to benefit the lower middle class and the over all middle class in America.
I know this is so terrible when they could have used trickle down and stoked the rich leaving
some scraps to fall off the table for the middle class, and Yes I jest. The programs of LBJ
were of benefit to society
Most US presidents, including Reagan, spent like drunken sailors on shore leave. JFK not as bad, but he too.
As for FDR, yes, he spent a fair bit and made many mistakes too, but to be fair he'd also inherited a depression on the heels of a world war. I'd probably choose him as a possible #1 owing to the lasting influence of his Four Freedoms speech, which in turn eventually had an influence in the writing of the UDHR, which in its turn has had an influence on the writing of subsequent constitutions and bills of rights of various countries in the world, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. How many other US Presidents have been able to have as much of a lasting influence on world affairs before or since?
Even had he proven completely incompetent on all other fronts, his Four Freedoms speech alone has had such a profound impact on the world and shall continue to do so via the bills of rights of various countries, that that alone compensates for any incompetence of his on any other front. Now of course I don't want to exaggerate his contribution to the world, but at least when compared to the influence of any president since, none can claim to have had the same lasting influence on so many parts of the globe in such a profound way.
Now as for presidents prior to him, yes there are some who could compete with him for first place. But he's certainly up there as a contender.
As for FDR, yes, he spent a fair bit and made many mistakes too, but to be fair he'd also inherited a depression on the heels of a world war. I'd probably choose him as a possible #1 owing to the lasting influence of his Four Freedoms speech, which in turn eventually had an influence in the writing of the UDHR, which in its turn has had an influence on the writing of subsequent constitutions and bills of rights of various countries in the world, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. How many other US Presidents have been able to have as much of a lasting influence on world affairs before or since?
Even had he proven completely incompetent on all other fronts, his Four Freedoms speech alone has had such a profound impact on the world and shall continue to do so via the bills of rights of various countries, that that alone compensates for any incompetence of his on any other front. Now of course I don't want to exaggerate his contribution to the world, but at least when compared to the influence of any president since, none can claim to have had the same lasting influence on so many parts of the globe in such a profound way.
Now as for presidents prior to him, yes there are some who could compete with him for first place. But he's certainly up there as a contender.
That's certainly the mythology alright, but it's not true. Reagan just happened to be the U.S. President when the old USSR imploded under the weight of its own mismanagement, corruption, and inefficiency. Wouldn't have mattered who the U.S. President was, it would have happened anyway.
Some people are obnoxious by nature while some work really hard at it. Where do you fit in?