Same.

Gorbachev was one of those people who could see reality beyond the emotions that most use for knowledge.  He was clearly politically incorrect.  And entirely accurate in his analysis of reality.

Some facts that most fail to learn.  The Russian economy in those maybe seven years after he took power was not of his doing.  Since economics today is created by what happened four and ten years ago.  He simply got blamed for a serious economic downturn created by his predecessors.  It was inevitable in an economy where innovators are at the mercy of top management - the central committee of the party.

It did not help that Russians really had little grasp of free market economics.  And (unfortunately) too many parts of the Russian economy listened to business school graduates who foolishly kept preaching that only profit matter.

Things could have been better had American invested in Russia so much as Americans invested in Germany and Japan after WWII.

Yeltsin saved Gorbachev's life.  Russia still had too many Donald Trump type thinkers whose first purpose in life was to maximize personal gain.  Many who live in the ethersphere for too long (even the best of people) lose touch which others who could be the future of their nation.  So lose touch as to not understand what the little people (the power of a nation) really need.

Gorbachev tried.  It could have brought Russia into the EU as a productive nation for the world.

However also appreciate the other side.  The west is not so innocent.  Having no adversary to keep Americans honest, suddenly too many extremist  Americans with too much ego saw the world in terms of their emotion.   America saw a wrong (created in part by American mistakes).  Then lead an international rescue of Kuwait.  Extremists (who claims America could not rescue Kuwait) suddenly discovered a new found righteousness.  20 years later would attack (Pearl Harbor) a nation for no good reason.

And so inspired a new cold war.

Extremists (having discovered power they did not know existed) arbitrarily used "only we are always right" reasoning to justify attacks on any other nation.

Had we truly worked with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, then Putin (communism dressed in a different uniform) might not have existed.  But then what we did (ie to Saddam) only justified to Russians what Putin was planning for the next 20 years.

Gorbachev could have been a world class solution.  We cannot entirely blame ourselves for a failure to support him.  But we could have been a lot better.  Clinton tried.  George Jr's wacko extremist, in essence, undermines anything Gorbachev could have accomplished.

Among those accomplishments due to Gorbachev is the ISSS.  Russia has just announced they will withdraw from that next year. Without the attitude control systems in the Russian module, the ISSS may become a world's most visible meteor in recorded history.   Created because of what  Gorbachev did.  Destroyed because his vision did not survive.

What was Gorbachev's thinking in the last years of his life?  Curiously, much of what we know comes from Khrushchev's granddaughter.
 

Named for a dog that should never have been revived, bad omen.

That guy who was in that thing:




Henry Silva was 95.
 

Artis Leon Ivey Jr.

AKA

Coolio



 

To be fair... it was cardiac arrest in the bathroom of a friend's house. Far be it from me to speculate, but I'm gonna speculate there were drugs involved.

I need someone to tell me how that is music.

I really don't want to listen to any more of it just for particulars to argue.
I found it cacophonous and grating on my ears. 

Do you listen to that more than once?

^WHS

TNW, you living, breathing PSA, you.

Never stop bein you, man.

BigV wrote:

TNW, you living, breathing PSA, you.

Never stop bein you, man.

I shall endeavor to do so, for as long as I can.