I will never understand the conservatives obsession with Ronald Reagan. His "trickle-down theory" is the reason why we're in the tank right now, and his willingness to fund the mujaheddin in Afghanistan is the reason why Al-Qaeda exists in the Middle East. But don't tell any of that to Leo Pusateri, who's now pissed that during the week, when we celebrated the day the Berlin Wall fell, we didn't fall on bended knee and worship at the feet of Saint Reagan.
Someone please explain all the praise to a man who made greedy, selfish businessmen feel good about being greedy, selfish businessmen (and Leo is more than welcome to state his case to me), because I don't get it...I don't get it at all.
20 comments:
Reagan was pretty good in Knute Rockne All American.
Just reading Louie's Twitter page, he seems to think Jack Bauer is a real person.
Like Reagan's policies had anything to do with the collapse of the USSR's economy under its own weight.
The people who so love to lionize him forget all about Nancy's astrologers and ketchup-is-a-vegetable and the dismantling of the social safety net that made the middle class possible. And don't get me started on the people he surrounded himself with, like James Watt, who as Interior Secretary was to the nation's natural treasures pretty much as garlic is to vampires.
History (and distance) will show Reagan to be ineffective at best, and a retrograde influence overall on American progress.
Any proof to support your statement ET? Geesh you are a Dolt.
History (and distance) will show Reagan to be ineffective at best, and a retrograde influence overall on American progress.
I disagree with this somewhat ET. Not that you're wrong because you aren't. But History is written by the people with $. And who was Reagan best for? This is why they continue to lie about how great he was.
As for the Anon puke you must be about 13. I lived through the 80's and I saw how bad Reagan fucked this country. Trust me it's all true.
Count,
Could you please be more specific as to why you think Reagan will be viewed as ineffective?
When you look back at the past few presidents we have had, Reagan was probably the only one in the last 20 years that was effective at bringing the majority of the country together. Look at what Obama has done in only a year. He has divided the country and has put this country at risk with an enormous burden of debt.
Can you say 1 term president?
Could you please be more specific as to why you think Reagan will be viewed as ineffective?
Let's see Ran the economy in the toilet, illegal arms sales, wide spread aids epidemic, cocaine flowing like water...oh yes he was a great president. BTW I have already said he will continued to be lied about because the people who write history have $ and were Reagan's base.
When you look back at the past few presidents we have had, Reagan was probably the only one in the last 20 years that was effective at bringing the majority of the country together.
Not true. 80 percent of the country thought your boy Bush was a moron. 60 percent voted for Obama.
Look at what Bush had done in 8 years. he has put this country at risk with an enormous burden of debt.
Fixed.
Can you say 1 term president?
Can you say the Ranger is a fucking moron?
Another great prognostication from the trolls...
Bottomline, America is going to elect Rudy as the next President of the United States because people want to be safe and want to live.
Citizens put security 1st, and families don't want terrorists to blowup things on our homeland. Rudy will stay on the offensive, continuing the Bush doctrine of hitting them before they plan to hit us b/c it is a different kind of war, i.e. terror war.
Henry
Oh, I'm cut to the quick, Anon.
Like the Count, I lived through those years. Many of them in Santa Barbara, site of the Reagan "ranch." There wasn't a day that protesters weren't standing across the road from it with signs. Though I'll give St. Ron this much: he at least didn't have to corral people blocks away from him as your more recent hero did.
So, while wondering what facts I could lay out for you in small, simple words you could understand, I came across this article on the Republican agenda. Go give it a read, and then stop back here for a look back at those warm, sepia Reagan years.
- - - -
No. No cheating. I said go and read it.
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OK, now, by the numbers, let's see how Ronnie stacks up:
(1) Check. The GWB M.O. of lightening the burden borne by the wealthiest Americans started with RR.
(2) Check. Remember the air traffic controllers? (Of course you don't.) RR was spectacularly anti-labor.
(3) Check. If RR and the aforementioned Watt hadn't rolled back so many environmental regulations, maybe climate change wouldn't now be as advanced as it is.
(4) Check. The seeds of last year's Wall Street meltdown lie in the lax enforcement of the Reagan era.
(5) Check. Pushing school vouchers and underfunding public education went arm-in-arm in the RR administration.
(6) Semi-check. Though RR wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he did make it clear that the mother's life matters in a way that today's defenders of small cell masses don't. Minor props for that.
(7) Check. RR turned a largely blind eye to the spread of HIV, for example.
(8) Well, there was plenty of chest-beating and heating up of the Cold War to go around in those years. As for nasty stuff going on in the backroom, two words: Iran-Contra.
(9) See #8, and throw in Grenada and the inane “Star Wars” defense plan.
(10) Despite a nominal increase in wages during these years, the elimination of price controls on a host of commodities and the underfunding of social services in many ways decreased the quality of life for lower-middle and lower-class families. Also, the national debt went stratospheric during the Reagan era, pretty well ensuring there was nowhere to go but down. Fiscal conservative, my ass.
(11) Go back to Ronnie's 1961 fearmongering recording (and he was still a registered Democrat at the time!) to learn all you need to know about what he would have done about health care.
(12) I give him a pass on this one, assuming that you are infuriated at his including amnesty for over 3 million illegal immigrants in legislation putting tougher constraints on employers.
(13) Recall the so-called Moral Majority and Christian Coalition? They propelled RR to power and thrived on his rhetoric blaming secular society for the nation's ills. (And, no, this is not the uniting of a "majority of the country," then OR now.)
(14) RR played the dog-whistle phrase of "states' rights" - segregationist code - extensively when campaigning in the South. He also wanted to reinstate tax-exempt status to private schools/colleges that enforced policies against interracial dating.
(15) All big-tent stuff aside...go back and review again items 1-14 and tell me with a straight face that today's train wreck of failed GOP policies didn't originally depart from Station Reagan (ironically enough, RR).
First of all Aids was not even identified until 1981. Reagan actually spent 5.7 billion on aids research. The last year Reagan was in office there were actually more cases of diabetes than aids.
Reagan also inherited a 12.4% inflation rate that he substantially lowered during her terms ( 1.1% when he left office).
The last year Reagan was in office there were actually more cases of diabetes than aids.
So he didn't do anything to help stop that either. wow that guy sucked.
All we need is for folks like you to stop having anal sex without a condom, and the spread of aids will be minimized.
Stay Classy Ranger.
1981. Yes. And Reagan took office in January 1981. Your point, Anon, therefore, is? [Pregnant pause ensues.]
And "Reagan also inherited a 12.4% inflation rate that he substantially lowered during her terms"
HER terms?
Anon, you're funny.
Anon, allow me to observe that you're full of crap. Identification of a disease precedes its spread to epidemic status. For an analogy more your speed, someone had to make and post the "Keyboard Cat" video before it could begin to go viral.
Reagan was there on the "ground floor," so to speak, in terms of being able to make curtailing the spread of AIDS a priority. Instead, he consistently and continually underfunded AIDS research and education. Did you know that from June of '81 to May of '82, a grand total of $1 million had been spent on AIDS? Whereas a whopping $9 million went toward Legionnaire's Disease. In that time period, a thousand people had died from AIDS; from Legionnaire's, a comparatively small fifty.
He also did nothing to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to raise awareness, concern, or even a nominal level of empathy regarding the disease. Here's just a small portion of this article:
First reported in the medical and mainstream press in 1981, it was not until October 1987 that Reagan publicly spoke about the AIDS epidemic in a major policy address. By the end of that year, 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. He and his administration did almost nothing during the first seven years of the epidemic. AIDS research was chronically underfunded. Community education and prevention programs were routinely denied federal funding.
Reagan, a man affectionately dubbed the Great Communicator by his supporters, was excruciatingly, unjustifiably silent about HIV and AIDS. Defenders of the Reagan legacy like to argue that his domestic policy advisers downplayed AIDS to such a degree that the former president never developed a sense of urgency. To accept this, you would also have to believe that Reagan never watched television or picked up a newspaper. The media -- print and television, including the first 24-hour news network, CNN -- were all over AIDS in the 1980s. Histrionic televangelists like Pat Robertson and Rev. Jerry Falwell seized any opportunity to articulate and promote the idea that AIDS was God's wrath upon homosexuals.
Even as the highly publicized illness and subsequent 1985 death of Rock Hudson made headlines and sent a shiver down Hollywood's spine, Reagan remained inexplicably quiet. His friend and colleague, beloved actor and White House state dinner guest, was dead from AIDS. No public comment. What was that about? Indifference?
Had he chosen to speak up after Hudson's death, the world would have listened. Ronald Reagan, the man who confidently parlayed Hollywood stardom into a successful political career, could not have had a more compelling opportunity to open his mouth.
No, your St. Ronnie was content to pander to his homophobic, angry, born-again base and allow this disease to cut a wide swath through a certain segment of the American population. Even when members of his own administration advocated for stronger action and more education. It all came down to ideology trumping the public health.
And if you continue to make lame excuses for it, then your behavior is equally shameful and reprehensible.
But we knew that.
Sorry ET. I usually Check to see whether or not it posts but I didn't go down far enough on the board. laziness on my part.
No worries, Count. I love how the wingnuts don't understand cause-and-effect, or progression. Heck, they probably think that if they close their eyes, we can't see them.
For those just joining us, the (deleted) post by Anon above my rather lengthy riposte attempted to make the case that because AIDS was only identified at the beginning of Reagan's term, he didn't really have much time to address the issue.
*sigh* Whither context?
ET once again you are incorrect.
President Reagan's February 6, 1986 State of the Union address included this specific passage where he says the word "AIDS" five times:
We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS.
You mean a Republican President says he'll do something then does jack shit? The hell you say!
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