[Rhodes22-list] Politics- reply to Rummy on Steve's Comments

[Ronald Lipton]

Stan,

  I was in Russia/USSR in October of 1991, just after the failed coup and
when Yeltsin was consolidating his power.  Also no toilet paper, but I knew
enough to bring my own.  The infrastructure was falling apart (the Soviet
Union might have lasted another 5 years if they had enought duct tape).
It was an interesting and sobering experience.  One of the things that most
impressed me was the overall spirit of pessimism in spite of the dramatic
and postive changes which were occuring.  Part of this is national 
character,
part is the result of being beaten down for decades (if not centuries).
One of the stengths of Russia continues to be a great intellectual and
cultural tradition that has endured despite the years of the gulag, Lysenko,
and communist indoctrination.


Ron

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "stan" <stan at rhodes22.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Politics- reply to Rummy on Steve's Comments


> Rummy,
>
> you hit a sore spot.  I was in the USSR just before they imploded, (just 
> to show you how they were getting everything wrong) because their space 
> program mistook me for an expert sailboat builder and invited me to show 
> them how to make sailboats from their fiberglass nose cone operation, and 
> my biggest problem was wiping my ass.  No one had toilet paper.  What a 
> mess the country was in.  Nevertheless they were turning out tanks like 
> crazy.  When I asked them why they would be doing this while at the same 
> time run their big gas lines on the surface of the streets of Moscow so 
> that one bomb from us would be worse than Mrs. O'Leary's cow, they said 
> they had no interest in war but did not know how to close down the tank 
> line.  I think that the USSR was finishing up its run irregardless of our 
> strategies.
>
> stan/gbi
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <R22RumRunner at aol.com>
> To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 2:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Politics- reply to Rummy on Steve's Comments
>
>
>> Steve,
>> The economy was so bad after 12 years of Republican spending that it was 
>> the
>> slogan that got Clinton/Gore into the White House: It's the economy 
>> stupid.
>> Remember?
>> As for Reagan's spending on the military sending the Soviet Uniuon into
>> collapse, there are those that believe it would have imploded all by 
>> itself
>> anyway. They couldn't grow enough crops to feed their people, let alone 
>> produce
>> enough toilet paper. Now that would irritate the masses.
>> You might want to check with your doctor and see if you have any early
>> indications of alztheimers. Oh, and since you work in the state budget 
>> department,
>> me thinks they might want to hire an outside auditor to come in. Can  you
>> say: E-N-R-O-N?
>>
>> Rummy
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>
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