Gorbachev: Bush Should Drop “Superpower” View, Cheney Should “Calm Down"

[kpete]

Mikhail Gorbachev: Bush Should Drop “Superpower” View, Cheney Should “Calm Down”...
Gorbachev Says Bush Should Abandon `Superpower' Perspective

By Judy Mathewson and Todd Prince
Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said President George W. Bush should stop viewing the world ``from the position of a superpower'' and Vice President Dick Cheney should ``calm down'' and stop criticizing Russian leaders.

The U.S. should understand that ``leadership should be done not by domination, not by becoming a policeman in the world, but by being a partner,'' Gorbachev said in a Bloomberg television interview to air this weekend, the 15th anniversary of a failed coup against him.

Gorbachev said Americans ``should get rid of this disease which I call the winner's complex'' in the Cold War. ``The victory complex is even worse than the inferiority complex,'' he said.

Gorbachev, 75, was Communist Party general secretary, the top Soviet power post, from 1985 to 1991 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts to end the Cold War. When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, he was supplanted in the Kremlin by Boris Yeltsin, who in turn handed over the Russian presidency to Vladimir Putin six years ago.

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[tomreedtoon]

1. If anyone should know bullying, it's a Russian premier.

Not only did the Soviet Union do it to smaller nations, the Soviet leaders did it to each other during the war. And a retired leader would certainly reflect back upon the futility of what happened.

Of course, Bush and his crew wouldn't learn anything from the former Soviets.

[90-percent]

2. Gorby

I always kind of liked this guy. Seems like what he did took a lot of courage at great personal sacrifice to his power.

His role in making the Soviet Union a lot less threatening and ending this cold war B.S. was pretty heroic.

But, if I'm wrong, I'm sure I'll know why quite quickly!

-85% Jimmy

[Nashyra]

3. I heard him speak at a conference

Actually he was a keynote speaker at a NSBA (school board conference a year ago in April in SanDiego. He was pretty impressive but the speech was in Russian and there was an interpeter.

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. Why was Gorby at a SCHOOL BOARD conference?

That's just bizarre!

[Recursion]

7. He was an academic before he entered politics

Agricultural and economic history was his specialty I think.

I saw him talk once. Frankly I could barely stay awake; it was an hour-long pedantic tour through a Hegelian view of medieval european farming systems.

[YOY]

8. He speaks alot of places

Mostly for the money.

[Drum]

6. I'm with you, 90-percent.

I thought at the time that MB was a very different kind of Soviet leader, maybe the only one that could've straddled those reforms in the bankrupt and backward USSR...certainly compared to Yeltsin and Putin---and Reagan---he had some real finesse and wisdom. Hey, the Russians even tried to stage a (failed) coup/kidnapping of him...an indication to me that he was pissing-off all the right people....

[MysteryToMyself]

5. We can learn from other's mistakes.

Our country had a good system before Clinton, the DLC and Bushites. Yeltsin said that America's capitalism wasn't cruel like most because of our safety nets. He talked about Social Security and the other programs.

I agree with him. Sometimes a person who has failed gives better advice than a successful person like Bush who doesn't have a clue and doesn't care about the rest of us.

Gorbachev is absolutely hated in his country because he plunged the average person into destitution. They are going gradually back to some of their old ways with more for the average person.

We can learn from other country's leaders, don't you think?

The extremely rich robber barrons and the homeless are too extreme. Eh? We need to create a better system. But the Bushites plan to push through all their dastardly distructive plans after the election with the help of the DLC.