The Reagan legacy/Reagan not THE Most Popular President :merged

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 61
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Oh yeah... Clinton was NO DIFFERENT than Bush 1 or Bush 2.



    You need to stop that b.s.



    And please explain to me what Nader can fix?



    Oh right... nothing! He couldn't get elected to any office at this point.
  • Reply 22 of 61
    jubelumjubelum Posts: 4,490member
    ... and did you care about any of this before the man was dead? Nope.



    Who cares? The nation is mourning a leader that many liked. Sorry you have to chime in an debate exactly how much they liked him. Obviously you didn't.



    Can we have seven days before we butcher the man's memory? Guess not if he was an eeeeeevil Republican. Scorched earth indeed.



  • Reply 23 of 61
    jubelumjubelum Posts: 4,490member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sammi jo



    Just because a national icon has recently died, gnarlier history cannot be suddenly erased in the interests of "good taste".




    But you could at least let the body cool first...
  • Reply 24 of 61
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    I didn't say he was evil.



    Just said he's not the most popular... or the greatest.



    And he made mistakes... we all do.



    But the conservatives over the next week will bask in the glory of the man they think is the greatest leader of the 20th century... and they'll say as much too.
  • Reply 25 of 61
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Wow. I didn't know conservatives were so sensitive.



    How soon after Vince Foster's death were they claiming Clinton had him killed?
  • Reply 26 of 61
    jubelumjubelum Posts: 4,490member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    Wow. I didn't know conservatives were so sensitive.



    How soon after Vince Foster's death were they claiming Clinton had him killed?




    I dunno. Throw me some links.
  • Reply 27 of 61
    jubelumjubelum Posts: 4,490member
    Yea, the hardcore neo-cons worship at the Altar of Reagan. Fine. Let em. I think he made some mistakes, but it's not right to talk about his value right after his death, that's all. We have the rest of our lives to bicker over his legacy. Let's just give it a rest until he is in the ground.
  • Reply 28 of 61
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    I watched a fair amount of Reagan coverage this weekend and there was plenty of using Reagan to belittle democrats... I know Novak and Noonan couldn't help themselves... the funny thing is that the people that were actaully on his staff were great... enjoyed them telling thier stories.



    But when the pundits got on... uhg.



    They didn't wait for the body to cool.
  • Reply 29 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Existence

    You're wrong.



    http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/fi...0_image001.gif




    Compare with other Presidents at that point in their term...his numbers were higher in general.
  • Reply 30 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    Anyone remember Lebanon? Terrorists blow up the embassy and soon after we pull out like thiefs in the night.



    His legacy was higher deficits and bigger government and a bloated military.



    He was a good man... and an ok president. He just happened to be on duty when the cold war was ending... he was smart to recognize that Gorbachev was someone we could deal with... despite the protests of many in his cabinet. I don't know why he gets credit for the Fall of the USSR.



    That's like giving credit to the relief pitcher at the end of a game when the score was 10-0 when he entered the game in the 8th inning.




    He shouldn't get full credit. But, what he did was new: He decided we had to negotiate from a position of strength. He literally told Gorbachev that the US would never allow itself to be outspent on defense, and that the US economy was superior to the Soviet's in every way and could sustain more military spending. The Soviet system was finished...but I believe Reagan's rhetoric certainly accelerated the process.
  • Reply 31 of 61
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    the funny thing is that the people that were actaully on his staff were great... enjoyed them telling thier stories.



    But when the pundits got on... uhg.




    That was my impression too.
  • Reply 32 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    They were striking because they were over worked and under paid...



    do you want these people managing the nations skies under stress and pissed off? neither did they.




    One cannot have vital industries go on strike like that. It's a threat to economic and therefore national security.
  • Reply 33 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    sammi jo:



    Quote:

    This story was of significance because the parents of the people I was visiting knew many of the people who were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night, arrested and beaten up, some severely, courtesy of Gov. Reagan and a bunch of thugs who got completely out of control, drunk on power, and turned their power of authority arbitrarily against sleeping students. This kind of heavy handed politicized policing has not gone out of fashion. The anti-WTO demonstrations in Miami 2003 saw the kind of policing normally associated with the regimes of ... (fill in the blank)....



    Just because a national icon has recently died, gnarlier history cannot be suddenly erased in the interests of "good taste".



    You're in rare from. Can someone give me the number for the substantiation police?
  • Reply 34 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Existence

    I'm sorry but Clinton was aweful. He pushed for NAFTA and the WTO and comprised so many times with the right wing, he was practially indistinguishable from a Republican.



    Thank god for Nader.






    HAHAHAHA. "practically indistinguishable from a Republican".



    Thank god you are not running the country.
  • Reply 35 of 61
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    I didn't say he was evil.



    Just said he's not the most popular... or the greatest.



    And he made mistakes... we all do.



    But the conservatives over the next week will bask in the glory of the man they think is the greatest leader of the 20th century... and they'll say as much too.




    "The Greatest"? Perhaps not. I'm not sure we can point to one person. But, should he be remembered with Kennedy, Lincoln, FDR, etc? Yes.
  • Reply 36 of 61
    artman @_@artman @_@ Posts: 2,546member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar

    favorite:

    in 81 PATCO, the flight controllers union walked off the job.

    president reagan had the FAA come up with an emergency plan for replacing them, they did. so he fired 11,000 flight controllers.



    least favorite:

    did not retaliate for 241 dead marines killed in their barracks in beirut in 1983. iran was responsible. in fact oliver north ileegally sold them more bombs a few years later.

    semper fideles indeed!




    Ah. The second attack on America (Iran kidnapping was the first) and the realization that American was a target of terrorism. They still didn't get it...Bush Sr. did, Clinton and now Arbusto doesn't get it...well Arbusto (dammit sorry Cheney) does...



    GRENADA!



    I was in college during the Reagan years. I'd say that 90% of my classmates thought he was an old asshole.



    Our favorite song of the time:



    "We've Got A Bigger Problem Now"



    Last call for alcohol.

    Last call for your freedom of speech.

    Drink up. Happy hour is now enforced by law.

    Don't forget our house special, it's called a Trickie Dickie Screwdriver.

    It's got one part Jack Daniels, two parts purple Kool-Aid,

    and a jigger of formaldehyde

    from the jar with Hitler's brain in it we got in the back storeroom.

    Happy trails to you. Happy trails to you.



    I am Emperor Ronald Reagan

    Born again with fascist cravings

    Still, you made me president



    Human rights will soon go 'way

    I am now your Shah today

    Now I command all of you

    Now you're going to pray in school

    I'll make sure they're Christian too



    California Uber alles

    Uber alles California



    Ku Klux Klan will control you

    Still you think it's natural

    Nigger knockin' for the master race

    Still you wear the happy face



    You closed your eyes, can't happen here

    Alexander Haig is near

    Vietnam won't come back you say

    Join the army or you will pay



    California Uber alles

    Uber alles California



    Yeah, that's it. Just relax.

    Have another drink, few more pretzels, little more MSG.

    Turn on those Dallas Cowboys on your TV.

    Lock your doors. Close your mind.

    It's time for the two-minute warning.



    Welcome to 1984

    Are you ready for the third world war?!?

    You too will meet the secret police

    They'll draft you and they'll jail your niece



    You'll go quitely to boot camp

    They'll shoot you dead, make you a man

    Don't you worry, it's for a cause

    Feeding global corporations' claws



    Die on our brand new poison gas

    El Salvador or Afghanistan

    Making money for President Reagan

    And all the friends of President Reagan



    California Uber alles

    Uber alles California



    - Dead Kennedys



    ...scary ain't it?



  • Reply 37 of 61
    sammi josammi jo Posts: 4,634member
    66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan

    By David Corn, The Nation

    June 6, 2004



    Editor's Note: This list of "66 Things to Think about When Flying in to Reagan National Airport" appeared in the Nation on March 2, 1998 after the renaming of Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan. As Corn says, "the piece remains relevant today ? particularly as a cheat sheet for those who dare to point out the Reagan presidency was not all that glorious and was more nightmare in America than morning in America."



    *The firing of the air traffic controllers,

    *winnable nuclear war,

    *recallable nuclear missiles,

    *trees that cause pollution,

    *Elliott Abrams lying to Congress

    *ketchup as a vegetable,

    *colluding with Guatemalan thugs,

    *pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers

    *voodoo economics,

    *budget deficits,

    *toasts to Ferdinand Marcos,

    *public housing cutbacks,

    *redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement,

    *James Watt.

    *Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals,

    *tax credits for segregated schools,

    *disinformation campaigns,

    *"homeless by choice,"

    *Manuel Noriega,

    *falling wages,

    *the HUD scandal,

    *air raids on Libya,

    "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa,

    *United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers, ***attacks on OSHA and workplace safety,

    *the invasion of Grenada,

    *assassination manuals,

    *Nancy's astrologer.

    *Drug tests,

    *lie detector tests,

    *Fawn Hall,

    *female appointees (8 percent),

    *mining harbors,

    *the S&L scandal,

    *239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut,

    *Al Haig "in control,"

    *silence on AIDS,

    *food-stamp reductions,

    *Debategate,

    *White House shredding,

    *Jonas Savimbi,

    *tax cuts for the rich,

    *"mistakes were made."

    *Michael Deaver's conviction for influence peddling,

    *Lyn Nofziger's conviction for influence peddling,

    *Caspar Weinberger's five-count indictment,

    *Ed Meese ("You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime"),

    *Donald Regan (women don't "understand throw-weights"), *education cuts,

    *massacres in El Salvador.

    *"The bombing begins in five minutes,"

    *$640 Pentagon toilet seats,

    *African-American judicial appointees (1.9 percent),

    *Reader's Digest,

    *C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed),

    *200 officials accused of wrongdoing,

    *William Casey,

    *Iran/contra.

    "Facts are stupid things,"

    *three-by-five cards,

    *the MX missile,

    *Bitburg,

    *S.D.I.,

    *Robert Bork,

    *naps,

    *Teflon.



    David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation, is author of 'The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception.'
  • Reply 38 of 61
    artman @_@artman @_@ Posts: 2,546member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jubelum

    ... and did you care about any of this before the man was dead? Nope.



    Who cares? The nation is mourning a leader that many liked. Sorry you have to chime in an debate exactly how much they liked him. Obviously you didn't.



    Can we have seven days before we butcher the man's memory? Guess not if he was an eeeeeevil Republican. Scorched earth indeed.







    He's dead. He is also a public figure. Live or dead people have and will criticize him now and before. He ain't Jesus. Get over it.



  • Reply 39 of 61
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    The prisoners' conscience (requires registration)

    By NATAN SHARANSKY





    In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth ? a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.



    At the time, I never imagined that three years later, I would be in the White House telling this story to the president. When he summoned some of his staff to hear what I had said, I understood that there had been much criticism of Reagan's decision to cast the struggle between the superpowers as a battle between good and evil.

    Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong.



    Those same critics used to love calling Reagan a simpleton who saw the world through a primitive ideological prism and who would convey his ideas through jokes and anecdotes. In our first meeting, he told me that Soviet premier Brezhnev and Kosygin, his second-in-command, were discussing whether they should allow freedom of emigration. "Look, America's really pressuring us," Brezhnev said, "maybe we should just open up the gates. The problem is, we might be the only two people who wouldn't leave." To which Kosygin replied, "Speak for yourself."



    What his critics didn't seem to understand was that the jokes and anecdotes that so endeared Reagan to people were merely his way of expressing fundamental truths in a way that everyone could understand.



    Reagan's tendency to confuse names and dates, something I, too, experienced first-hand, also made him the target of ridicule. In September 1987, a few months before a summit meeting with Gorbachev in Washington, I met with Reagan to ask him what he thought about the idea of holding a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of people on behalf of Soviet Jewry during the summit. Some Jewish leaders, concerned that if the rally were held Jews would be accused of undermining a renewed hope for peace between the superpowers, had expressed reservations about such a frontal challenge to the Soviet premier.



    Seeing me together for the first time with my wife Avital, who had fought for many years for my release, Reagan greeted us like a proud grandparent, knowing he had played an important role in securing my freedom. He told us about his commitment to Soviet Jewry. "My dear Mr. and Mrs. Shevardnadze," he said, "I just spoke with Soviet Foreign Minister Sharansky, and I said you better let those Jews go."



    Not wanting to embarrass the president over his mistake, I quickly asked him about the rally, outlining the concerns raised by some of my colleagues. His response was immediate: "Do you think I am interested in a friendship with the Soviets if they continue to keep their people in prison? You do what you believe is right."



    Reagan may have confused names and dates, but his moral compass was always good. Today's leaders, in contrast, may know their facts and figures, but are often woefully confused about what should be the simplest distinctions between freedom and tyranny, democrats and terrorists.



    The legacy of president Reagan will surely endure. Armed with moral clarity, a deep faith in freedom, and the courage to follow his convictions, he was instrumental in helping the West win the Cold War and hundreds of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain win their freedom.



    As one of those people, I can only express my deepest gratitude to this great leader. Believe me, I will take moral clarity and Shevardnadze any day.



    The writer, a prisoner of Zion for nine years, is currently minister-without-portfolio in charge of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs.
  • Reply 40 of 61
    sammi josammi jo Posts: 4,634member
    Excellent article here by William Rivers Pitt...a slightly more realistic story than the one-sided ersatz blandiosity presented by our currently pathetic corporate media, which Reagan himself helped to create by his policies:



    Quote:

    Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is appropriate. He was a husband and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be missed by those he was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the Alzheimer's Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took ten years

    to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.



    The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.



    In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth. Writer Edward Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads."



    The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye.



    How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was one of the most beloved Presidents of the 20th century. He won two national elections, the second by a margin so overwhelming that all future landslides will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved against Walter Mondale. How can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the evils which corrupt our days?



    The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is the absolute triumph of image over reality, of flash over substance, of the pervasive need within most Americans to believe in a happy-face version of the nation they call home, and to spurn the reality of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will always be, the undisputed heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.



    Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.



    Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves.

    Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.



    The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just deliver

    journalism to these massive corporations, but handed virtually every facet of our lives into the hands of this privileged few. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all tainted because Reagan battered down every environmental regulation he came across so corporations could improve their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporations that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The

    Savings and Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be fine guards in the henhouse.



    Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite the fact that he grew government massively during his time. Social programs which protected the weakest of our citizens were gutted by Reagan's policies, delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do this by caricaturing the welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who drove the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she didn't have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the decimation of a generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot because Ronald Reagan believed in 'self-sufficiency.'



    Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable home in America. The aftershocks from this callous disregard for people whose homosexuality was deemed evil by religious conservatives cannot be overstated. Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease which was allowed to burn unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with the subconscious idea that sex equals death.



    The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or

    criminal activities.



    Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver North, John

    Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory

    Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick. Many of these names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us today, 'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.



    Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way to run a civilized society?



    One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great

    effect. The deadly bacterial agents

    <http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...20920_3025.htm>

    sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry list of horrors.



    The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite public American condemnation of the use of those chemical weapons, the Reagan administration still considered him a welcome friend and ally. This happened while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a nation notorious for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation of scores of laws.



    Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald Reagan.



    In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted into rubble by Osama bin Laden, who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the Reagan administration to do the job. In 2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger into the heart of the United States, using men who became skilled at the art of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are 827 American

    soldiers and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.[/b]



    How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him as the man in charge, the man who defeated Soviet communism, the man whose vision and charisma made Americans feel good about themselves after Vietnam and the

    malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him as nothing more than a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to become a virtue, the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the government for him.



    In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan - whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We are a badly damaged

    state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.



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