Gorbachev: U.S. needs perestroika

[Stockholm]

LONDON, England (AP) -- The United States is in need of its own dose of perestroika, or restructuring, Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who brought such reforms to the Soviet Union, said Tuesday.

The former Soviet leader said he had suggested the idea to a group of Americans at a speech last year and they agreed. Gorbachev, who has been critical of the Iraq war and what he has called a Western "superiority complex," did not specify what he believed needed changing in America.

Speaking at a gathering of political and business leaders, Gorbachev said a global lack of leadership was to blame for many of the world's problems.

"The world needs a new vision, new policies," he said, opening a two-day conference in London. "I support the movement that says a different world is possible."

more http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/18/britain.gorbachev.ap/index.html

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Woah

10 world prestige points to Russia negative 10 points to US.

President Chimp working very hard to improve the image of Americans worldwide.

[punpirate]

2. The Bush administration needs...

... a healthy dollop of glasnost, too....

[Oversea Visitor]

4. Haha the US administration

you need more than that the way I look at it.
The Americans people is being rob by them in plain daylight.
Talk about Daylight robbery :rofl:

[Warren Stupidity]

7. and a dose of prisonhardtime. nt.

[Greeby]

3. Sad

That a former leader of the "Evil Empire" :eyes: should have better ideas than the US government

[newswolf56]

5. Though the Soviet Union never achieved it, its ideal -- the ideal...

upon which it was founded -- was economic democracy, and beyond that, the notion that without economic democracy, all other forms of democracy are meaningless: the essence of Marxism in a single sentence -- from the perspective of capitalism, the most terrifying notion on earth: the virtual antithesis of trinket materialism and greed.

Gorbachev speaks truly: Iraq and the aftermath of Katrina testify to his truth. But if there were to be true perestroika in the United States, there would also have to be glasnost -- openness (the truthful admissions of atrocities and corruption, also unflinching self-criticism and bold acknowledgment of needs not manufactured but genuine) -- and of all this forthrightness the oligarchy would never allow even a whisper: note the brutal lessons of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., not to mention Robert F. Kennedy and his brother John.

But it does not surprise me Gorbachev so speaks. His former premiership granted him access to dark truths about America most of us dare not imagine. Now freed of the necessity to be constantly on the defensive, he can grant his idealism free reign, focusing on possibility and potential. We are fortunate he shares his insights. Such elder statesmen are few and far between, and I would love to hear more of his wisdom. But then I was never a Reaganoid, nor did I ever buy the myth of the "evil empire" -- chiefly because I know (dare I say it even now, five decades after McCarthy?) that a child savagely attacked from the moment of her birth is allowed no choice but turn savage herself.

[LynnTheDem]

6. Do to America ONLY what America has done to others since bush.

Now NO ONE can say that ain't more than fair.

As for Americans, that would be BOHICA.

[Stockholm]

10. BOHICA? n/t

[MN ChimpH8R]

12. Bend Over, Here It Comes Again n/t

[BlueIris]

8. OMG, he read my mind.

Russian epic consciousness at work.

[Eurobabe]

9. The world needs Bu$hCo GONE from power

that would help to rid this negative, dysfunctional bullshit that is going on.

[Igel]

11. Khozraschet first.

Although what the government can perestroit', it should.

As for glasnost', we already know about droughts, airplane crashes, and the suicide rates. Glasneye, and we'll all go glukh ... deaf.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Been saying this for three yaers now

we need to expose all we did during the cold war, and dismantle the national security state