For you history people out there like me...

[Brock Landers]

What ended the soviet union in reality?

I want to get your opinions before i tell you what i've read and heard was the REAL cause...

[TPowell]

lack of work ethic/pride

[Brock Landers]

nope, try again LOL

[iceminers26]

Ivan Drago losing to Rocky Balboa

[Brock Landers]

since i don't think many will guess this..i'll post it

Gorbachev: Chernobyl, not Peristroika, Caused Soviet Union Collapse

Mikhail Gorbachev talks about about the relationship between Chernobyl and changes in the Soviet Union under his leadership:

Turning Point at Chernobyl, by Mikhail Gorbachev, Project Syndicate: The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed. ...
The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.
The price of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, the legacy of Chernobyl affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Some even suggest that the economic price for the USSR was so high that it stopped the arms race, as I could not keep building arms while paying to clean up Chernobyl.
This is wrong. My declaration of January 15, 1986, is well known around the world. I addressed arms reduction, including nuclear arms, and I proposed that by the year 2000 no country should have atomic weapons. I personally felt a moral responsibility to end the arms race. But Chernobyl opened my eyes like nothing else: it showed the horrible consequences of nuclear power, even when it is used for non-military purposes. One could now imagine much more clearly what might happen if a nuclear bomb exploded. According to scientific experts, one SS-18 rocket could contain a hundred Chernobyls.
Unfortunately, the problem of nuclear arms is still very serious today. Countries that have them – the members of the so-called “nuclear club” – are in no hurry to get rid of them. On the contrary, they continue to refine their arsenals, while countries without nuclear weapons want them, believing that the nuclear club’s monopoly is a threat to the world peace.
The twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe reminds us that we should not forget the horrible lesson taught to the world in 1986. We should do everything in our power to make all nuclear facilities safe and secure. We should also start seriously working on the production of the alternative sources of energy. The fact that world leaders now increasingly talk about this imperative suggests that the lesson of Chernobyl is finally being understood.

[Jericholic]

Ivan Drago losing to Rocky Balboa

Absolutely, this is right.

"If I can change, and you can change....we can all change!!!"

[Brock Landers]

Chernobyl...the story behind that is amazing, most people don't realize how bad it was.

[THE PROFIT]

I was going to say trying to keep up with the U.S. military industrial complex. That really explains why they couldn't! It would have eventually happened anyway, Chernobyl just sped things along.

Good article & good thread Brock!!!

[milwaukee mike]

the powers that be (rothschilds, bilderbergers, trilateral, cfr, etc) took down the soviet union just like they are successfully taking down the standards of living in the u.s. and europe to make a one-world government system.

in the soviet union the puppet government was much more open about telling people they were slaves to the system, we are a bit smarter than that having the average joe think he has freedom!

what a free people we are!
the government owns you in the public school system from the age of 4 until at least 22. then the banks own you for the next 30 years (or more) on a mortgage. how is that freedom?

[Brock Landers]

You know that area around Chernobyl is now uninhabitable for like 2000 years?

[THE PROFIT]

Didnt JJ move there for a while? Is that why his hair fell out & his dik fell off?"

[Diesel79]

I dont think Chernobyl was real reason.... most soviet union people didnt even know about that when it happened because politics denied everything. Whenever something bad happened it was always denied....

I lived my first 12 years behind that iron curtain.... luckily we got our independency back 1991

[statnerds]

amazed that the soviet gave no credit to the U.S. for the cold war/arms race bankrupting their country.

[French Tickler]

I thought it was that they were cut of from buying oil and other necessities. Pretty much ran the government dry, then they had no choice but to enter the free market system and democracy

[pavyracer]

They got bankrupt 20 years before us. No big deal.

[36mafia]

You know that area around Chernobyl is now uninhabitable for like 2000 years?

Hemp helps Chernobyl

By Dana Larsen - Wednesday, June 2 1999 Tags: Using hemp to clean contaminated soil in Chernobyl.

Cannabis Culture: HotpotHemp helps ChernobylThis spring saw hemp being sown in the contaminated soil surrounding Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst-ever nuclear disaster. International hempseed broker, Consolidated Growers and Processors (CGP), have teamed up with the Ukraine?s Institute of Bast Crops and a company called Phytotech, to use hemp to remove radioactive elements and heavy metals from soil and water in the contaminated area.

Phytotech specializes in phytoremediation, which means using plants (phyto) to clean up polluted sites. Phytoremediation can be used to remove radioactive elements, and to clean up metals, pesticides, solvents, crude oil, and other toxins leaching from landfills.

Plants such as cannabis break down organic pollutants and stabilize metal contaminants by acting as filters or traps. "Hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants we have been able to find," said Slavik Dushenkov, a research scientist with Phytotech.

Research by the Polish Institute of Natural Fibres released in 1995 showed that high levels of heavy metals in soil do not impair cannabis growth, and that yield and fibre quality do not differ from those obtained on regular soils.

* CGP: PO Box 2228, Monterey, California, 93942-2228; tel (888) 333-8247; info@congrowpro.com; www.congrowpro.com

* Phytotech: tel (732) 438-0900; fax: (732) 438-1209; phytotechinc@yahoo.com; www.phytotech.com

http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/160.html

just one of the many almighty powers of cannabis

[Dunder]

They got bankrupt 20 years before us. No big deal.

This sums it up. It the mid-80's the USSR was spending nearly 35% of it's GDP on its military. It was broke.

When the baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) started to call for independence and were openly importing Western goods that were not available to other Soviet citizens, the game was up.

Chernobyl was a symptom of the downfall, but not the cause.

[KingKolzig]

funniest thing is in the sum of all fears like a few months after the nuke goes off in baltimore (vaporizing the superbowl) things are just back to normal basically ........ben affleck eating lunch in a park outside the whitehouse just happy as can be lol

[MC PICKS]

Ronald Reagan scared the shit outta those peeps, thats why. And when his underboss was elected to succeed him, it was in the bag.

[Jonah]

Interesting Article. Definitely Gorb's opinion tho.

[stealthyburrito]

if you are a cold war buff i strongly recommend Melvyn Leffler's "For the Soul of Mankind", its an amazing read that analyzes the major events of the Cold War, including the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I had Leffler as one of my professors last semester, the guy is the most senior cold war scholar out there

[THE PROFIT]

The end of the cold war really hurt this country! Our government had to act like we wanted the wall to come down & the Soviet Union to collapse & democracy spread across the east, but our government really wanted nothing of the such. The CIA was actually surprised as hell & had no idea the wall was coming down. CIA operatives learned of it just like everyone else when they turned on the TV & saw Berlin teenagers with sledgehammers!

It's lonely at the top with no enemy that equals you! My dad worked for a major defense contractor that made the Patriot & several air-to-air missiles. Business was booming!!! But by 1993 the facility here in E.TN was closing the doors. He went to Desert Storm in 1990 came back mid 1991 and by 1993 was out of a job! One of the top 3 jobs in this area

[Flying Dutchman]

1) Ronald Reagan bled the Commies white with a conventional defense build up & Star Wars, & the Soviets felt they had to match the Americans.
2) Afgan War (in which the US sent aid to the proto-Talaban forces) sucked the life out of the conventional Russian military forces.

Chernobyl was bad, but a sideshow next to these two issues.

[THE PROFIT]

The afghan war did really drain them

[THE PROFIT]

Renegade cowboys just don't learn from other peoples & their own mistakes

[Karayilan9]

You know that area around Chernobyl is now uninhabitable for like 2000 years?

People still live there, strange but true

Every country needs to invent enemies, the fear of an enemy is the greatest tool needed to rule people. Tell people about the threat of the enemy mythical or real and you can get away with anything, charge extortion taxes, strip away human rights, limit freedom of speech, control the media, spend anything you like on arms, put anybody you want in prison, it just makes politicians lives a whole lot easier. Without the threat people will stop worrying, start living and then the dreaded part start questioning authority and what they do.

This is the case around the world, always has been, Soviets and US couldn't have done it without each other, its like a big sports game, all the trash talk before, the supporters fighting and killing each other in the hype but after the game all the players go out together.