I'm Glad Ronald Reagan Is Dead

[barman]

First off, because living with the agony of Alzheimers has to be awful for both him and his loved ones - though a bitter irony considering his most rabid supporters from the 1980s also were the most insane opponents to the stem-cell research which if not impeded could possibly have allowed RR more real life time.

But more important are the many examples listed below in an excellent column from Greg Palast. In case anyone thinks to ask, no, I don't disagree with a single perception he shares below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

KILLER, COWARD, CONMAN -
GOOD RIDDANCE, RONNIE REAGAN
MORE PROOF ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

Sunday, June 6, 2004
by Greg Palast


You're not going to like this. You shouldn't
speak ill of the dead. But in this case, someone's got to.

Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward.
Reagan was a killer.

In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little
town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis.

People don't die of TB if they get some
antibiotics. But Ronald Reagan, big hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had
elected.

Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young
woman's lungs filled up and she stopped
breathing. Reagan flashed that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three.

And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior ran away like a whipped dog ...then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold
parades for gunning down Cubans building an
airport.

I remember Nancy, a skull and crossbones prancing around in designer dresses, some of the "gifts" that flowed to the Reagans -- from hats to million-dollar homes
-- from cronies well compensated with government
loot.

It used to be called bribery.

And all the while, Grandpa grinned, the
grandfather who bleated on about "family values" but didn't bother to see his own grandchildren.

The New York Times today, in its canned obit,
wrote that Reagan projected, "faith in small town America" and "old-time values." "Values" my ass. It was union busting and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness, bringing starvation back to America so that every millionaire could get another million.

"Small town" values? From the movie star of the
Pacific Palisades, the Malibu mogul? I want to
throw up.

And all the while, in the White House basement,
as his brain boiled away, his last conscious act was to condone a coup d'etat against our elected Congress.

Reagan's Defense Secretary Casper the Ghost
Weinberger with the crazed Colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster of the Mideast, Ayatolla Khomeini.


Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a
wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla.

Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in
front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages.

Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake
for the maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.

Then the Reagan roaches mixed their cowardice
with crime: taking cash from the hostage-takers to buy guns for the "contras" - the drug-runners of Nicaragua posing as freedom fighters.

I remember as a student in Berkeley the words
screeching out of the bullhorn, "The Governor of
the State of California, Ronald Reagan, hereby orders this demonstration to disburse" ... and then came the teargas and the truncheons. And all the while, that fang-hiding grin from the Gipper.

In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers
stayed awake to guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra terrorists. The farmers weren't even Sandinistas, those 'Commies' that our cracked-brained President told
us were 'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' What
the hell would they want with Texas, anyway?

Nevertheless, the farmers, and their families,
were Ronnie's targets.

In the deserted darkness of Chaguitillo, a TV
blared. Weirdly, it was that third-rate gangster movie, "Brother Rat." Starring Ronald Reagan.

Well, my friends, you can rest easier tonight:
the Rat is dead.

Killer, coward, conman. Ronald Reagan, good-bye
and good riddance.



Greg Palast is author of the New York Times
bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
www.GregPalast.com

 

[Shotgun]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by barman:
First off, because living with the agony of Alzheimers has to be awful for both him and his loved ones - though a bitter irony considering his most rabid supporters from the 1980s also were the most insane opponents to the stem-cell research which if not impeded could possibly have allowed RR more real life time.

But more important are the many examples listed below in an excellent column from Greg Palast. In case anyone thinks to ask, no, I don't disagree with a single perception he shares below.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It would help the guy out if he had his facts down. The Sandanista government was never elected (the 1984 was a sham similar to old Soviet elections); the Cubans weren't just "building an airport"; and the praise of Carter "never giving an inch to the Ayatollah" is laughable, sad, and an obvious lie.

I could go on and on, but why bother. Palast makes an ass of himself in his desperation to re-write history.

 

[barman]

Let's remember that 'your' perception of the facts was pretty much the government sponsored feed from Wash DC during those days.

And I think we've learned that since the early 1960s, the sitting federal administrations cannot be trusted to tell the truth about foreign policy, from Kennedy on thru GWB.

 

[PatPatriot]

One of the best sayings Reagan ever had that so much fits today that the block head liberals just will never get.
"You don't make the weak strong by making the strong weak."
And "You don't make the poor rich,by making the rich poorer"

Of course what does he know he single handely destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a shot.

 

[Oceans11]

Theres plenty of criticism that could be levelled at Reagan but I never believed that he really knew wtf was going on, even when he was the pressy.
He never spoke/acted right to me.
There was a live debate with some opponent dude on the TV where he totally lost the plot.
He actually had to think about stuff and it zapped his brain.
(and they had to reschedule it.)
He just like, short circuted.

um..err...ahhh..the...umm..ah

I watched this unfold on the UK news thinking Jesus Christ, what are they doing, has this guy really got his finger on the armageddon button...

But there was no obvious evil in him.
He seemed a personable guy, even if he was a right winger.
(Though he was a slimy little supergrass during the McCarthy period.)

Bush on the other hand, exudes arrogance and stupidity, and needs a huge kick in the scrotum.

 

[superstar]

Originally posted by Patriot:
One of the best sayings Reagan ever had QUOTE]

‘Go ahead, make my day’

 

[cussin'it]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Patriot:

Of course what does he know he single handely destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a shot.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

BULLSHIT

 

[lander]

Patriot,
The Soviets were already well on their way into an inevitable downward spiral.

Reagan had little to nothing to do with their collapse; he merely took the credit.

Ronald Reagan's legacy can best be summed up in a single word - overrated.

 

[superstar]

......the french..

 

[superstar]

People from the 50's until the 80's lived in the constant shadow of the mushroom cloud. How many children woke up in a cold sweat imagining everything around them and everyone the knew was destroyed? The Early Warning system could mean a thousand missiles heading in your direction, instead of some hail that might dent your car.

Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. He bet that American industry could outproduce and outspend the Russians, and it worked. We have a whole generation that can actually go a day without thinking that tomorrow, the ground they stand on could be a glassy plain

 

[Shotgun]

Lander, Reagan was about the only one in the country that thought the Soviet Union was primed for a fall. It might have collapsed without being pushed, but would it have happened without any bloodshed?

I doubt it, but no one can say. The USSR overextended itself with its actions in Central America, Afghanistan, Angola and Eastern Europe. Reagan made them pay for it. So we see individual stories about Reagan killing a sick woman in Nicaragua because of his embargo, and we ignore the context that the embargo was imposed.

This is from a book by Peter Schweizer:

"Reagan finally got to test his theory when he entered the White House in 1981. His defense team drew up a plan, later expanded into National Security Decision Directive 11-82, that explicitly made U.S. defense spending a form of economic warfare against the Soviets. The United States would "exploit and demonstrate the enduring economic advantages of the West to develop a variety of [arms] systems that are difficult for the Soviets to counter, impose disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition and obsolesce previous Soviet investment or employ sophisticated strategic options to achieve this end." The objective was to make arms spending a "rising burden on the Soviet economy."

In retrospect, Reagan’s point that the Soviet economy was on life support seems obvious to the point of banality. In fact, that’s one of the arguments his critics use against him: that the Soviet economy would have imploded anyway, even without Reagan’s defense buildup. But that’s not the way foreign policy intellectuals saw it in 1982.

"It is a vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable," declared economist Lester Thurow, adding that the Soviet Union was "a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." (I wonder if Thurow had ever flown on a Soviet airliner?) John Kenneth Galbraith went further, insisting that in many respects the Soviet economy was superior to ours: "In contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower."

Arthur Schlesinger, just back from a trip to Moscow in 1982, said Reagan was delusional. "I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street -- more of almost everything," he said, adding his contempt for "those in the U.S. who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink." (By the way, Schlesinger, who has spent his life in praise of JFK’s adventures in Vietnam and Cuba but foamed at the mouth over every other American military action of the Cold War, proves Isaiah Berlin wrong: In addition to foxes and hedgehogs, there are also chameleons.)

Reagan nonetheless persisted. He boosted production of conventional arms and borrowed a play from the Soviet book by backing anti-communist insurgencies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Most controversially, he poured billions of dollars into his missile defense program.

Whether SDI will ever work (20 years later, it’s still mostly theoretical) and whether, even if it does work, it’s a wise strategic choice in a world where America’s most implacable enemies are not superpowers with hundreds of ICBMs but terrorists with suitcases, are arguments for another time. But what has largely been overlooked in the debate is that the Soviets had no doubt whatsoever that it would work.

At arms summits, Gorbachev frantically offered increasingly gigantic cuts in strategic missiles -- first 50 percent, then all of them -- if Reagan would just abandon SDI. Schweizer, mining Soviet archives and memoirs still unpublished in the West, shows that Gorbachev’s fears echoed throughout the Politburo. SDI "played a powerful psychological role," admitted KGB Gen. Nikolai Leonev. "It underlined still more our technological backwardness." Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko understood exactly what Reagan was up to: "Behind all this lies the clear calculation that the USSR will exhaust its material resources before the USA and therefore be forced to surrender." Most tellingly of all, the East German-backed terrorist group known as the Red Army Faction began systematically murdering executives of West German companies doing SDI research

 

[Oceans11]

I would disagree with the theory that Reagan killed off communism.

It was collapsing anyway, he was just there at that point in time, nothing more, nothing less.

Gorbachev was the hero that grabbed the bull by the butt and changed the system.
After the USSR went, the Euro commies hung in there for as long as they could, but it was a domino effect.

The sneakiest thing that Gorbachev did was re-uniting Germany.

I had expected to spend my life safe in the knowledge that a divided Germany, was a safe Germany.

The Re-unification of Germany greatly accelerated european integration which is designed to neutralise their tendency towards nationalism.

 

[DrunkenHorseplayer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by superstar:
People from the 50's until the 80's lived in the constant shadow of the mushroom cloud. How many children woke up in a cold sweat imagining everything around them and everyone the knew was destroyed? The Early Warning system could mean a thousand missiles heading in your direction, instead of some hail that might dent your car.

I've got news for you supe. We still do and always will live under the threat of nuclear annihilation. I liked Reagan but he got lucky; he took over during a time when the US couldn't get any worse-only better.

Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. He bet that American industry could outproduce and outspend the Russians, and it worked. We have a whole generation that can actually go a day without thinking that tomorrow, the ground they stand on could be a glassy plain<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[DrunkenHorseplayer]

I've got news for you supe. We still do and always will live under the threat of nuclear annihilation. I liked RR but he got lucky; he was elected during a time when the US could only get better because it couldn't get any worse.

 

[PatPatriot]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> would disagree with the theory that Reagan killed off communism.

It was collapsing anyway, he was just there at that point in time, nothing more, nothing less.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Talk about contraditing yourselves.For the past year you guys been telling me that communism was the next best thing to sliced commrade wait in line bread....Now your telling me it will never work and was inches away from collapse by the weight of itself.
I've been arguing for a year that it dosen't work...never has,never will....You guys flip-flop more John "Al" Querry.

I've been telling you right along that France and Germany and Canada's socialist approach will eventually feed off and devour itself....Once again the US has by far the stongest growing econmy in the world and it ain't through taxation...its from BUSHES tax cuts.....Sorry me boyo's punked AGAIN...you can't have it both ways sons of Kerry.

 

[PatPatriot]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I liked RR but he got lucky; he was elected during a time when the US could only get better because it couldn't get any worse. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You mean Jimmy Carter and the left wing policies of the late 70's were such a miserable failure that even a bad B movie actor could turn the country around with just a tad of common sense approach??....I'll buy that.

 

[BoratSagdiyev]

The postition of president is one which has no real power and his or her primary function is to act as a figurehead and to look "presidential". Ronald Reagan did this better than most other presidents we have had.

 

[cussin'it]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Borat Sagdiyev:
The postition of president is one which has no real power and his or her primary function is to act as a figurehead and to look "presidential". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Respectfully have to disagree there Bory.
The Executive Branch has plenty of power as they set the agenda according to the mandate they are elected on, or in this jackal's case the mandate that he and his cronies sees fit.
The power increases as the 3 arms become increasingly Conservative or Progresive. As we have in the current situation when the other 2 arms act "in concert" with the Exec. the power of the Presidency becomes very real, in fact, it becomes too great and cries to be checked/balanced in this situation.
Had there been a check/balance, say a Democratic Congressional majority, I doubt that the blank Iraq check would have been issued, nor would the Patriot act legislation have been as severe.

And had the other check/balance been in place (court stacked with conservatives), Dumbya would never have been elected, as they would have never gotten away with the Florida hijack.

_________________________
Sure could use a trim

 

[DrunkenHorseplayer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Patriot:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I liked RR but he got lucky; he was elected during a time when the US could only get better because it couldn't get any worse. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You mean Jimmy Carter and the left wing policies of the late 70's were such a miserable failure that even a bad B movie actor could turn the country around with just a tad of common sense approach??....I'll buy that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The economy goes in cycles and the Prez doesn't have as much to say about it as everyone thinks. Clinton was a left-winger (too far left, I think) but his policies weren't too bad for the economy.

 

[Oren1]

The biggest fan of Ronald Reagan I ever knew had a picture of him framed up in his garage, which resided in a gated community in the richest neghborhood in the United States. They hid behind those gates far away from the city where the streets are littered with sick homeless people and where poverty stricken minorities shoot each other over turf for their crack selling businesses.

"One of the best sayings Reagan ever had that so much fits today that the block head liberals just will never get.
"You don't make the weak strong by making the strong weak."
And "You don't make the poor rich,by making the rich poorer"

are you ****ing kidding me? Ever heard of the word compassion? It's funny how liberal Canada is, and at the same time, has a very low murder rate. You also don't see nearly as many crazy homeless people wandering around downtown, and when you see a black person your first instinct isn't to run your ass off.