Ronald Reagan was a saint, a commanding leader, the gold standard of principled conservatism against whom all current and future Republicans should be measured. This is the new mantra coming out of the Republican race for the presidency as the current crop of candidates scramble, quite understandably, to distance themselves from the walking disaster that is George W. Bush. In the… return to article
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Reader Comments (56)Page 1 of 1 pagesSpeaking of facts, lets look at a few.
1) The Economy over the last century: The early Reagan years were an inflection point for the US economy, the start of an economic boon that was unprecedented and still persists. Look at the Dow over the last century. Post depression to mid 60s line of best fit showed consistent growth. Mid 60s to 80 flat - no growth. Early 80s to the present, a new line of best fit representing consistent accelerated growth. We have enjoyed the best of times for the last quarter century. Reaganomics worked. Pure and simple.
2) 80’s metric: Election results are a pretty fair representation of popularity. Look at the red and blue state map of the 1984 election. All of the states were red except for one, Mondale’s own Minnesota. And the results there were close: with over 2 million votes Reagan lost by less than 4,000 votes. That election was the closest thing to a unanimous electoral vote that has ever happened in this nation’s history.
3) Recent poll: The Discovery Channel and AOL recently polled the country to name the greatest Americans. With a sample size of 2.4 million Americans voting, Democrats and Republicans and Independents all included, Ronald Reagan beat out every other American who has ever lived.
Bash Bush. Rip on the Neocons. But hands off the Gipper. He was one of the greatest presidents we have ever had. When he took office our country was at rock bottom ... thank you Nixon and thank you Jimmy. Within minutes Iran returned the hostages. It took a little longer to turn around the economy but he did that and gave us back our “shining city on the hill.” Did I mention he also won the Cold War without firing a shot?
Reading this article, I am reminded about one of my favorite Reagan quotes: “it’s not that liberals are ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Posted by bulldog on Jun 19, 2007 at 1:46 PM Ronald Reagan talked like a Libertarian and did not walk as a Libertarian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXW1hb-JQg
Ron Paul has not tried to be the next Ronald Reagan. That said, you failed the Ron Paul test. I’ve dumped many media sources because of their mis-informayion and trashing Ron Paul. Others, like yours, which is new to me, will not get my subscription. I’m finding new media sources and supporting those who pass the Ron Paul test. TRUTH.
Posted by Jeanette Doney on Jun 19, 2007 at 3:35 PM bulldog,
If you would like to discuss facts, then let’s look at yours:
1. Two words for this point: deficit spending
2. Granted, the electoral vote was almost unanimous, being a winner take all format. But the popular vote was 58.8% to 40.6%. Not quite the ‘unanimous’ election that you would like to claim.
3. Last that I checked, self-selected polls were not the paragon of scientific accuracy. This is an ‘opinion poll’ not a fact.
As for the Cold War being won, when I grew up in the 80’s we condemned the Soviet Union for their internal passports and surveillance society. They were bogged down in a war in Afghanistan that was their undoing. Twenty years later we are looking a lot more like the country we claim to have defeated than the proud nation that we once were.
Hands off nobody. Even the great Founders of this nation should be looked at critically. Jefferson kept his slaves. FDR interred Japanese-Americans.
We do not live in the ‘shining city on the hill’, we live in post-Katrina America which is what we get after 27 years of government modeled on your hero.
Posted by torpedofish on Jun 19, 2007 at 5:20 PM “Saint Ronnie” has become a somewhat enduring myth perpetrated by a frustrated bunch of GOPers who had no answer for JFK and Camelot. “Saint Ronnie” was launched whole cloth to give the GOP sheeple an idol to worship.
But, the truth is that “Saint Ronnie” was pretty much detached from reality. He was a “B” movie actor who played the role of President as he read from the clever script handed to him by his speech writers. He wasn’t all that bright to begin with. When he was running for President, the WSJ interviewed a close aide to then Gov. Reagan who was asked to comment on his intellectual ability. The answer, “You could wade through Ronnie’s deepest thoughts and never get your ankles wet.”
It was revealed publically, after he left office, that Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Well, anyone with half a brain could do some counting and figure out that based on information available, Reagan had symptoms of his disease much, much earlier. Like when he was in office.
My Congressman, Les Aspin, spent a lot of time in the White House because of his committee appointment relating to defense. He said that he could not understand why Reagan needed fifteen minutes between meetings to get briefed. Without that briefing, he would walk into the meeting and be totally unprepared. Why couldn’t he remember the people in the room, the subject matter and so on? Mr Aspin asked WH staffers who told him that it was Reagan’s habit from his days as a movie actor.
The director would yell, “cut”, Ronnie would study his line for the next scene and, “Ready, Action, Camera”.
But, the truth was much more revealing. He, in his first term, had the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. It was well-known by the Reagan inner-circle and instead of telling all, ran him for a second term. It was much harder to cover up during the second term, but they did their best. However, there is tape that clearly reveals the deteriorated state of Ronnie’s intellect. Some has appeared on TV news.
Reagan was the biggest work of fiction the GOP has ever created. But, then Corporate America prefers their Presidents not to be too smart because it’s easier to control them. Therefore, Reagan was perfect.
So is Bush.
Posted by calvinthecat on Jun 19, 2007 at 5:39 PM FACT: Reagan’s 525 electoral votes (out of of 538) is the highest total ever received by a presidential candidate.
Posted by bulldog on Jun 19, 2007 at 5:56 PM You left out the third leg of the Iran Contra scandal, the Crack for money to buy the arms to exchange for hostages in Iran. Freeway Rick et.at. ,who devised the drive up crack marketing system, I believe, is still doing time. All of the Columbian cartel members were allowed to leave the country. Col. North is a celebrity, but should be a convict! He used CIA planes to transport the cocaine, using U.S. military bases.
(Congresswoman Maxine Waters can tell you about it. She held a number of press conferences on the practices.)
The San Jose Mercury news broke a multi-part investigational report on how Reagan’s guy, Ollie North, kick started the Crack epidemic. It eliminated the step of converting the base to the hydrochloride salt (blow), which brought down the price, (no need for ether and sep funnels). Smoking it was more addicting, so Ollie and Ronnie had a new frontier of Reagonomics, sell everything you own for a hit! Loose your family, job, house, car, personal belongings and your life from a premature coronary! That was the madeness that went under reported about the creep Ronnie Reagan.
Anyone who thinks his was anything better than scum is insane.
Posted by Hoep on Jun 19, 2007 at 6:07 PM George W. Bush is what Ronald Reagan WOULD HAVE BEEN had Reagan had a Republican controlled Congress. Thank goodness the Democrats curbed the excesses of his administration.
Ronald Reagan always gets way too much credit for “winning” the Cold War. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
I was born in 1971 and vividly remember the Reagan years. I will remember them as a time when deficits were at record highs, plant closings and high unemployment, crack, AIDS, cocaine, insider trading, conspicuous comsumption, Iran-Contra, and US Marines dying in Lebanon.
The right-wingers may try to whitewash history, but I will NEVER forget the truth. I LIVED through it.
Posted by lams712 on Jun 20, 2007 at 3:34 AM If one takes a close look at the Reagan years, they will find that he , indeed was used, but by G.H.W.Bush, and did exactly what he was told, and the same for Bush Jr. Junior, however has always tried to please Poppa, and too much the Coward to stand up to him, thus his drinking began. The White House is run by the Iron Fist of mild manner Poppa,
who reminds me of Meyer Lansky, of the mob.
Posted by cuja72 on Jun 20, 2007 at 9:29 AM The former president’s record is decidedly mixed bag with a heavy emphasis on the domestic negatives:
1. Iran-Contra
2. Trickle-down economics
3. Ollie North
4. High unemployment
5. Enormous growth in the National DebtHis single great international achievement was hastening the demise of the Soviet Union. But that must be tempered with missteps such as honoring NAZI war dead. His presidency will forever be tainted by suspicions regarding the role his operatives played in the return of the Iran Hostages.
Reagan supported and actively fought for a sensible immigration policy vis a vi Mexico and pulled us out of Lebanon when it made no sense to remain, something our current president should contemplate. To echo an earlier speaker, I thank God Reagan’s spending tendencies were checked by a Democratic Congress. This was not the case with Bush II and look at the deficit now!
What is most appalling is the unbridled assertion of religious influence into much of the Bush policy posturing, another Reagan legacy. This is a negative for the Republicans today. Now no Republican candidate can get beyond the primaries without bowing to the religious right.
My sense is that the attitude of the current crop of Repulican candidates is more wishful thinking than outright respect. They all wish to acquire his “teflon coat.”
Posted by Marv on Jun 20, 2007 at 12:47 PM lams, born in 1971-
Fortunately you weren’t olod enough to vote during the Reagan years, in fact your first Presidential election would have been ‘92. High unemployment during the Reagan years? Yes, when he took office and that was one of the reasons he beat Carter. Look at the historical data as published by the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics which follow.
Facts:
1981 7.6
1982 9.7
1983 9.6
1984 7.5
1985 7.2
1986 7.0
1987 6.2
1988 5.5
1989 5.3So when you were old enough to get your first job in 1987, his economic policies had already cured the problem. Deficits were high because he had a Democratic controlled congress. It wasn’t until 1994 that the GOP took back Congress after 40 years of Democratic control. I too lived during the Reagan years was old enough to remember the facts. In 1981, I was fortunate enough to spend three months in Poland during the height of the Cold War. You were ten. Solidarity had just formed and there was martial law in Poland and a serious threat of Soviet occupation. The USSR was truly an Evil Empire and millions are better off since its demise.
You don’t know how lucky you are to have benefitted almost all your life from the greatest economic boon in American history - 25 of your 36 years - and still going. Reaganomics worked and is still paying dividends.
Posted by bulldog on Jun 20, 2007 at 1:13 PM We should not forget the 16,000, mostly young, Americans that died in the most serious epidemic our country has faced before this great humanitarian could utter the word AIDS in public. I was at the event when Reagan first acknowledged the disease and remember the audience booing him after the line, “we do what we can then it’s it God’s hands”. Did he think he was talking to a Baptist convention? Many lives could have been saved by a government sponsored information campaign, which did not happen because the early victims were not his constituency. It appalls me to read the constant accolades to a person so completely without morals.
Posted by Jack24 on Jun 20, 2007 at 4:38 PM Nice try at the spin bulldog, are you on the Republican Party payroll???
Your revisionist history will not fly. I am resistant to your pack of lies. The longest economic boon in American history, 25 of 36 years and still going???? What are you smoking???? As an economics graduate student I will not dignify your crude propaganda and embarass you for your lack of understanding of economic history. The time and space required to refute all of your bogus claims are insufficient here.
Suffice it to say, we obviously had very differing experiences in the 1980s. I will always know the truth depsite the best ruminations of spinmeisters like you.
Posted by lams712 on Jun 20, 2007 at 7:54 PM Professor Susan did a pretty good job of presenting the real Ronald Reagan. For a more-detailed view check out:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thomas_b_070508_dreams_of_reagan__7e_ _m.htm
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 20, 2007 at 9:00 PM bulldog,
Blaming the record deficits on the Democratically controlled Congress conveniently disregards the veto power of the President. If he truly did not agree with the spending, he had the ability to curb it.
Being born in 1966, I lived through the Reagan Revolution as well. I agree with Iams that the ‘economic boom’ you talk about is only a reality for the wealthiest 5% of our country. Stagnant wages and declining purchasing power for most of us belies the success of Reaganomics.
Posted by torpedofish on Jun 20, 2007 at 9:15 PM Reagan got in because his people convinced the Iranians to continue to hold the hostages until after the election. They were paid off. That is treason.
He lied and cheated and created terrorists and crack addicts and sold weapons to official enemies. He ignored AIDS and the problems of the unrich. Such a nice guy.
But he sounded pretty good. He was a trained actor. You had to know what he did and authorized and supported to understand what an evil monster he actually was.
Carter, on the other hand, was in the wrong place at the “right” time. Big oil supported OPEC, which would be illegal in this country. They profited from the embargo which ruined the economy. They had every storage facility FULL while we waited in line at the gas station every other day. The CIA installed dictator in Iran happened to disintegrate on his watch, so Carter gets the blame. Couldn’t happen to a less blameworthy guy. But it cost him a second term. And still he soldiers on, doing good with his money, his influence, his first rate mind, and his own sweat and blood. There is a president to honor and remember.
Posted by Nitpicker on Jun 21, 2007 at 12:03 AM It’s a myth that Ronald Reagan had to combat a Democratic-controlled Congress.
He went into office with a Republican Senate (Howard Baker was majority leader for 4 years and Bob Dole for 2) and conservative House (many who gave Democrats a majority then became Republicans to give GOP control later).
And it was in those six years of GOP-conservative control that Reagan did the most damage to the nation
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 21, 2007 at 12:32 AM FACT: America has ALWAYS sucked. It has never been a beacon of freedom or liberty. Captialism relys on an underclass and where there is an underclass “freedom” or whatever cannot exist. The gipper can and should be viewed as a hilarious puppet of no great importance either positive or negative. quote “there is only one political party in the united states, and that is the property party which has two right wings.”
Posted by MediaFriend on Jun 21, 2007 at 9:30 AM Yeah the US is awful. In fact, it is the worst country in the entire world (well, except for all the others).
MediaFriend - do you really believe what you write? If so, have you ever considered finding a more hospitable place to live? But perhaps no place is better, so one has to make due as best as one can?
Reagen may have been intellectually challenged (!!!), but he turned out to be a prophet. “Tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachov!” Sounded nuts when he said it - until the wall came down! Then voodoo economics produced very good results. It was a odd time, but it turned out he was amazingly right about many things, despite his many shortcomings.
Perhaps it was because he had a good heart and was not burdened by the (false) knowledge of what was actually possible? He struck me as a JFK-like prez, a bit too reckless at the time, but as a result we (and much or the rest of the world) came out ahead.
Posted by wolf on Jun 21, 2007 at 7:03 PM To Wolf:
It’s obvious you didn’t read the article referred to above. Please do.
As for Reagan being a prophet. Nonsense.
In 1951, Supreme Court Judge William O. Douglas, dissenting in an anti-communism hysteria case, foresaw and predicted the demise of communism.
When I studied Marxist philosophy at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in the 1960s as an extension of my employment at the National Security Agency, nearly the entire class predicted the end of communism unless it changed dramatically.
The US intelligence community also saw communism as its own worst enemy and held firm that containment, not confrontation, was all that was needed.
All three turned out to be right. Reagan only got in at the end, but you give him credit for what others did and foresaw.
The only thing that Voodoo economics produced was massive debt. Any economic “growth” during the Reagan years was a result of borrowing close to $4 trillion dollars and putting it into the economy, and calling that growth. In short, Enron business practices.
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 21, 2007 at 10:25 PM wolf: i would love to travel the world and find a better place to live. Unfortunatley for me and the rest of humanity, the chains of capitalism are bound tightly, i work two jobs to pay the rent. i saw a picture of a man standing next to a wall in India, the wall had grafitti on it which read ” everyday i wake up on the wrong side of capitalism.” I wake up on the RIGHT side of it everyday of my life and find the results to be worth complaining about, but indeed i am not dying like the rest of the world. The underclass has four basic tenets: repression, rejection, oppression, and exclusion. These are the things that make our GREAT SOCIETY work.
Posted by MediaFriend on Jun 22, 2007 at 7:17 AM MediaFriend - i feel for you. I hope you manage to build a life you are happy with. Having traveled rather extensively, i will assert you are far better off here than the vast majority of other places (but if you read the papers, you already know this). While one can not (typically) change the world, one can always change oneself and how they perceive the world. Again, best of luck to you.
tabonsell - your class was wrong. Communism is alive and well in far too many places still. But ending it in the former USSR was clearly largely due to several key personalities (Thacher, Reagen, John Paul and Gorbachev). I merely give Reagen credit for what he actually did (i do not deny that luck had a great deal to do with things, as it *always* does). Having lived and worked through the 80’s and 90’s i also came to appreciate his “voodoo” economics, which brought us out of horrible stagflation and caused the economy to boom (but hey, i am in the top 25% of the work force, so i am an “elite” i suppose).
Posted by wolf on Jun 22, 2007 at 3:05 PM to Wolf:
Where is communism alive and well? China doesn’t come close to practicing Marxism communism. North Korea and Cuba are only old-fashioned dictatorships that would go any direction its handlers wanted. Vietnam is a basic agrarian society that is trying to develop a capitalist economy. So where is this communism that you fear so much?
Those four you mentioned had nothing to do with ending “communism” in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe or anywhere else, they only jumped on the bandwagon at the end of the game.
That horrible stagflation was caused by OPEC oil embargoes; remember them? And since there haven’t been more embargoes since OPEC found out that embargoes hurt it more than it hurt us, there aren’t likely to be any more.
And as I told you, borrowing $4 trillion and putting it into the economy isn’t economic boom, it is stupidity.
Now right-wingers claim Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union by forcing it into bankruptcy. If you believe that, why do you not belief that his economic policies, enhanced by George W, Bush, are doing the exact same thing to the United States? You can’t have it both ways; destruction of the USSR and economic miracle for the US.
And I lived and worked through the 1960s,‘70s ‘80s and ‘90s, much of the time defending this nation against the “communist menace” so I know the real story and I know what communism is; you only know myth..
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 22, 2007 at 5:22 PM “We should not forget the 16,000, mostly young, Americans that died in the most serious epidemic our country has faced before this great humanitarian could utter the word AIDS in public. I was at the event when Reagan first acknowledged the disease and remember the audience booing him after the line, “we do what we can then it’s it God’s hands”. Did he think he was talking to a Baptist convention? Many lives could have been saved by a government sponsored information campaign, which did not happen because the early victims were not his constituency. It appalls me to read the constant accolades to a person so completely without morals.”
It is absurd to blame Reagan for those deaths, aids infections results primarly from certain behavior patterns. Also, I don’t think aids qualifies as the “most serious epidemic our country has faced”.
Posted by chopper on Jun 24, 2007 at 4:32 AM “Nice try at the spin bulldog, are you on the Republican Party payroll???
Your revisionist history will not fly. I am resistant to your pack of lies. The longest economic boon in American history, 25 of 36 years and still going???? What are you smoking???? As an economics graduate student I will not dignify your crude propaganda and embarass you for your lack of understanding of economic history. The time and space required to refute all of your bogus claims are insufficient here.
Suffice it to say, we obviously had very differing experiences in the 1980s. I will always know the truth depsite the best ruminations of spinmeisters like you.”
Uh, why don’t you try refuting one or two of them instead of being merely insulting.
Posted by chopper on Jun 24, 2007 at 4:33 AM Chopper-
No I am not on the payroll, but I am aso not a liar. I was an Econ grad student and in my humble opinion Reagonomics worked! If you disagree, that is fine. Don’t question my understaning of the economy - you were in diapers when I started studying economics.
You have a lot to learn ... go learn and then pop off.
When you do ... you will see the light!
XXOOXX,
I already have a Masters.
Posted by bulldog on Jun 24, 2007 at 4:42 AM Actually Bulldog, I was responding to Iams712. I copied his post and suggested he refute some of your arguments rather than throw out meaningless insults. And for the record, I agree with you, Reagonomics did indeed work. If Iams712 is indeed an economic grad student, as he claims, I’d like to know the name of the university he is attending so that I can warn my grandson not to attend it.
Btw, I’m 56 years old, so if I was in diapers when you started studying economics you started quite some time ago.
I take it you missed my comment at the end of the post, probably due to it being late at night (if you are in the Eastern time zone of the US). I’ve made similar mistakes when posting late at night! I should have made it clearer I was actually criticizing Iams712’s remarks.
Posted by chopper on Jun 24, 2007 at 4:58 AM Wolf, I was going to fisk MediaFriend’s comments but you’ve already done so quite effectively. If he thinks “capitalism” (what I prefer to call free enterprise) sucks he should try living in a “socialist paradise”. As P.J. O’Rourke stated, “The free market is ugly and stupid. The unfree market is just as ugly and stupid, but there’s nothing in the mall and if you don’t go there they shoot you.”
Posted by chopper on Jun 24, 2007 at 5:23 AM Reagan wasn’t great, and Reagan wasn’t dumb. He was just a man. To put the mantle of absolute achievement or complete failure upon any one woman or man’s head is a fool’s errand—and a hearty display of both intellectual arrogance and historical ignorance.
Who are you people, and how did you come to the conclusion that arguing with Republican sycophants on the internet was a good use of your time? You have legs, a voice, and a vote: go use them.
Posted by samoya22 on Jun 25, 2007 at 4:20 PM President Reagan’s degree was in economics. I am not sure if or when the USA ever had an economics-trained president before Reagan, but I am fairly certain that it had not happened in the previous hundred years.
The USA economy was flat-lined for seventeen years after President Johnson mismanaged Vietnam and the Great Society programs, with no plans for paying for either one of them. There were three recessions during this period. The economy barely kept up with population growth during this time.
It is no coincidence that President Reagan instituted radical economic reform and tax cuts, followed immediately by investment growth, employment increase, falling inflation and interest rates, and rapidly increasing tax receipts.
The complaint that President Reagan “increased the national debt” is factually true and economically ignorant. If you can borrow money at 3% and invest it with a !0% return, you should be borrowing to the max. If China is willing to loan billions of dollars to us at at low interest rates, we have a lot better places to put the money; solving Social Security, solving the energy equation, upgrading national infrastructure, and increasing investment capital come immediately to mind.
Consequently, it was a fundamental, and tragic, economic mistake when President Clinton raised taxes and allowed the budget to go into surplus during the dot.com Bubba Bubble. Not only was the money not available to solve national priorities, but the lack of investment capital contributed substantially to the economic turmoil that started during the last year of Clinton’s presidency. Millions lost their jobs, investment was down, tax receipts were down, and social costs skyrocketed upward.
Meanwhile, China uses our dollars to support their currency, underpin their economy, and pay for their growth. We use our resources to best advantage, China uses its resources to best advantage, and both of us are better off.
President Reagan’s experience, quite apart from his thespic talents, such as they were, was in politics. Reagan successfully thwarted pernicious progressive influence in the film and media industries, and had excellent, and popular, results in dealing with the California economy during his term as governor.
In dealing with the communists in California, Reagan learned just how corrupt socialism could be, and put the knowledge to good use as president. The fall of communism was not an accident, just as the booming Reagan economy was not an accident.
There is a progressive cottage industry pretending that the greatest economic development of the last half of the Twentieth Century, Reagan’s economic reforms, were either (a) an accident or (b) did not happen. This is nonsense, of course.
There is another progressive cottage industry pretending that the greatest international political development of the last half of the Twentieth Century, the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet Union, had nothing to do with President Reagan, even though Reagan had worked tirelessly for twenty-five years to make sure that the Soviet Union would collapse, and was alone in the world declaring that the collapse would come.
Progressives are just full of nonsense. They can’t get anything straight, economically or politically.
Posted by scorp on Jun 27, 2007 at 8:01 AM Reagan’s economics degree was in economics that gave us the Great Depression and depressions of the 1840s, 1870s and 1890s. Unemployment under Reagan hit 10.8 %, the highest since 1940 when we were still in the Depression. Reforms by FDR apparently saved us from a Reagan depression.
Facts be facts. Every Republic president since WW II has given us a recession, Nixon gave us two. And those followed the GOP Coolidge-Hoover depression. Carter was the only Democrat president to have a recession, and his was the shortest, mildest and caused by OPEC oil embargoes, not policy. Its factual that over the past century, the stock market ~ if you use it to gauge economic health ~ has advanced twice as much under Democrat administrations than under GOP.
Johnson sure mismanaged the economy. When Eisenhower left office, US poverty was 24%. When Johnson left office it was 12%, only to skyrocket under Nixon and Ford and to plummet again under Carter to 11.4%, an historic low. In his final year in office Johnson produced the last balanced budget until Clinton did the same. So it seems LBJ payed for Vietnam and the Great Society quite well. Nixon screwed it all up. Righties, who screamed “balanced budget, balanced budget” for decades now claim a balanced budget is harmful. Pick a philosophy and stick to it.
Right wingers have a problem with consistency. Out of one of their faces, they argue that Reagan single handedly brought down the Soviet Union by driving it into deficit spending while out of their other face they argue that his deficit spending created an economic boom in the US. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
The end of the Soviet Union was unanticipated? That’s total nonsense. In 1951, Supreme Court Judge William O. Douglas foresaw that the system was going to fail. When I studied Marxist theory in the 1960s at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government as an extension of employment at the National Security Agency defending this nation from communism nearly the entire class predicted the end of the USSR unless it dramatically changed. During the Cold War, progressives were arguing for containment of communism because its flaws would undermine it; righties were yelling to “bomb it back to the stone age.”
The Soviet nation collapsed because of internal problems. The collapse began under Khrushchev when he opened the files on Stalin and Soviet citizens could see what sort of society they had. They got tired of living in miserable conditions in substandard housing; having no choice of consumer goods, if any were available; tired of seeing party leaders living like tsars while they had nothing; tired of miserable working conditions on dead-end jobs while every decent position went to party members; tired of seeing neighbors arrested and convicted when they had done nothing wrong but which kept the citizens in fear of their government. When leaders such as Gorbachev and Yeltsin got tired of the same things, the system fell, and Reagan had nothing to do with it.
When the Soviets occupied Eastern Europe, they stationed hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops there to maintain the “liberation.” When they were rotated home, they would relate to family and friends how people in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Germany, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria had superior standards of living. They began to wonder, “what about us?”
Just how did Reagan single-handedly bring down the Soviet Union? Did he wave a magic wand, cast a spell or hex using magical words? Did he use some pixie or fairy dust? And if he did all that, how is it that he didn’t do the same for the communism that is “alive and well” in the rest of the world, as wolf claimed above.
And if Reagan could make communism disappear, why couldn’t George Bush use the same magic to make alQaeda or Saddam Hussein disappear instead of getting us into the worst war-crimes mess since Hitler invaded Eastern Europe?
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 27, 2007 at 6:52 PM Tabonsell -
Reagan’s economics degree was in economics that gave us the Great Depression and depressions of the 1840s, 1870s and 1890s. Unemployment under Reagan hit 10.8 %, the highest since 1940 when we were still in the Depression. Reforms by FDR apparently saved us from a Reagan depression.
You have missed your calling, sir. You should have been a professional cherry-picker.
There is no question that Reagan grew up in the Depression and was a staunch believer in FDR and his programs. It was only later that he developed his new ideas on the economy, influenced more by JFK than FDR.
For the record, when FDR entered office in March 1932, the unemployment rate was close to 16% and rising. Two years later it peaked at 25%. After eight years (eight years!) in office, the unemployment rate under FDR was still above 10%, about the peak rate of the Reagan years.
The unemployment rate remained unacceptably high well into FDR’s third term, until December 7, 1941. In the first six months of 1942, the USA wrote purchase orders for war material and facilities totaling more than the entire GDP. And then the funniest thing happened: employment rose dramatically, and by 1943 the unemployment rate was 2%. All of FDR’s economic programs for eight years had limited effect, and deficit spending restored the American industrial base and jobs in less than two years. Try to keep that thought in mind during the remainder of this discussion.
Reagan inherited an incipient economic disaster from Carter. Unemployment was high and rising, inflation rates were high and rising, interest rates were high and rising, the economy was stagnant, and Carter was advocating coming to some sort of understanding with the Soviet Union, because he thought that free-market capitalism had reached an end-point and that the Soviet economic model might prevail, just ten years before the Soviet economic model crashed.
Reforms by FDR apparently saved us from a Reagan depression.
So, what the hell is this statement supposed to mean? It does not make sense.
You know, of course, that economic conditions and policies create recessions. Economic conditions under Carter were chaotic, and corrective measures were required. Instead of concentrating on the peak unemployment of Reagan’s Administration, you might have noted that after the Reagan reforms were enacted, unemployment went steadily downward to 5.3%, the stock market went steadily upward, and inflation and interest rates stabilized at gratifyingly low rates.
You surely know that the dot.com Bubba Bubble was a potentially dangerous period of excess and waste, and that the budget went into deficit during two of the quarters of Clinton’s last year in office, while the DOW started down and the NASDAQ lost half its value BEFORE Bush was elected. Fortunately, President Bush applied the proper corrective actions to the mess he inherited, and the economy has performed admirably since the minor recession (max 6.1% unemployment) that marked his first months in office.
You can pretend that the recessions at the start of the Reagan term and the start of the Bush term were “Republican” recessions if you want to.
Right wingers have a problem with consistency. Out of one of their faces, they argue that Reagan single handedly brought down the Soviet Union by driving it into deficit spending while out of their other face they argue that his deficit spending created an economic boom in the US. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
Context, please. Try to understand that lots of deficit spending in the corrupt, inefficient Soviet Union might not have the same effect as a moderate amount of deficit spending in a dynamic, vital economy like the United States.
President Kennedy was the first president to realize that the American economy was overtaxed, and that the revenue taken from the people by taxation was depriving the nation of needed investment capital, resulting in reduced growth and loss of jobs. The Kennedy tax cuts (enacted after his death) had a beneficial effect for two short years, before Johnson went off on his bender in Vietnam and the Great Society. Both Reagan and Bush put Kennedy’s insight to work with gratifying results. The American economy has enjoyed amazing growth and prosperity since early in the Reagan Administration, interrupted briefly by the excesses of the Bubba Bubble (irrational exuberance). Meanwhile, the Dims failed to learn the lesson Kennedy taught them, and they are again talking about raising taxes.
Its factual that over the past century, the stock market ~ if you use it to gauge economic health ~ has advanced twice as much under Democrat administrations than under GOP.
BFD. Virtually all that advance took place in Clinton’s two terms. Clinton had the advantage of inheriting Reagan’s prodigious changes to economic understanding and action, and then loused it up by allowing an unprecedented economic bubble to develop. If you do not understand how economic bubbles work, there is lots of documentation available: Dutch Tulip, Mississippi, South Sea, Japan 1990. The Bubba Bubble was a perilous threat to the economy, and Bush minimized it because he understood what Kennedy and Reagan had pioneered.
The end of the Soviet Union was unanticipated? That’s total nonsense.
Well, it was certainly unanticipated by Carter, who thought that the economic chaos he created marked the end point of Western economic and political development. And it was unanticipated by the CIA, Western intelligence agencies, and the nations of Western Europe. It was a long-term policy of the USA to contain the Soviet Union, but at least through Carter’s term the success of containment was in question.
Now several times recently someone has popped up and popped off that the end of the Soviet Union was “anticipated”. If so, there must surely be documentation to that effect: government documents, newspaper articles, policy analyses. Something that important should have been the subject of a report, or something. Can you give me any references? I. Think. Not. But I’m open to real evidence.
Consistency in political thought is a chimerical thing. There was a time when Democrats Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Humphrey, Jackson, and many others supported democracy and defended this nation from aggressors, totalitarians, and terrorists. No more. Dims now support terrorists and would support a viable socialist dictator if there were any to be found, but the best they can find is poor old Castro, and wanna-be Chavez.
The Republicans have the virtue of moving toward what works, while the Dims insist on policies that are known to fail, e.g., raising taxes and turning their backs on democracy. For Dims, it’s a control thing.
Posted by scorp on Jun 28, 2007 at 7:49 PM Thanks St. Ronnie for “the secret and illegal selling of weapons to our sworn enemy, Iran, to then fund the Contras”
Yours truly,
the thousands of American military killed and maimed by IED’s smuggled into Iraq from Iran over the last four years.
Posted by theloneous on Jun 28, 2007 at 8:15 PM well scorp, you said:
“Now several times recently someone has popped up and popped off that the end of the Soviet Union was “anticipated”. If so, there must surely be documentation to that effect: government documents, newspaper articles, policy analyses. Something that important should have been the subject of a report, or something. Can you give me any references? I. Think. Not. But I’m open to real evidence.”
Try reading. William O. Douglas’ dissenting opinion in Beauharnais v Illinois (1952) in which he documented what you say isn’t available.
I was in the intelligence community at the time and we ertainly anticipated the demise of the uSSR.
How do you know what Carter thought?
No Dems support Castro as you lyingly say and it has been shown repeatedly that Chavez went into office in elections far fairer that those that put George Bush into an office he clearly is unfit to hold.
Where do you get your statistics? Unemployment at the height of the Coolidge-Hoover Depression reached around 28% and before the beginning of WWII they had descended to around 10%. That looks like huge successes for FDR programs. Of course taking 10 million men out of the workforce to serve in the military distorted employment figures.
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 28, 2007 at 10:38 PM to scorp again”
Where did you get the idiotic notion that raising taxes is always a failed policy?
Look at the history.
After Reagan engineered massive tax cuts in 1981, the nation went into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. It lasted 16 months. He then steered higher taxes through a GOP Senate and conservative House ~ most notably the payroll tax in 1983 ~ and eliminated many tax write-offs the middle class used. The economy took off on what you call the Reagan Miracle.
When the miracle stalled under George HW Bush, he raised taxes to address the huge deficits. The economy crawled out of the recession; barely.
When Clinton took office, he found the deficit much worse than advertised. He got tax increases and the economy took off on the greatest economic growth in the history of the world.
It’s all in the facts. Get some.
Recessions aren’t caused by policy; they, like growth, are part of the business cycle. Whether we go into a recession when business begins to slow depends on what government does to determine whether the slump continues into recession or rebounds to growth. That Republicans always do the wrong thing is why all GOP administrations have recessions and Democratic administrations do not. Tax cuts do not halt a slump and prevent the recession, government spending does.
But, since I graduated Magna Cum Laude in Business Administration I couldn’t possibly know anything about that, could I?
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 28, 2007 at 10:57 PM PS to scorp:
FDR did not enter office in 1932. He was elected in 1932 but took office in late March of 1933 when the Depression had a strong grip on the economy after 3 1/2 years of do-nothing from Hoover.
From the White House historical records:
“By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed.
“By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery…”
No one could turn an economy around in weeks, it takes considerable time. And FDR did that quite well
And to others. Quit this lie that Reagan had to battle a Democratic-controlled Congress. He went into office with a GOP Senate in which Howard Baker was majority leader for 4 years and Bob Dole was leader for 2. The right-wing Southern Democrats that gave the House to Dems then soon became Republicans to give control of the House to the GOP, until the voters wised up last November.
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:13 PM tabonsel ...If you graduated Magna Cum Laude in Business Administration, who did you pay to take your economics classes? Did you get your degree online? Somehow you learned it all backwards!
From an article on the JFK-Reagan-Bush tax-cut model ...
What is strange about this story is that Democrats used to be for tax cuts. As Pete du Pont pointed out, John F. Kennedy espoused revenue-producing tax cuts when he said that “an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.”
The Democratic shift away from JFK economics is mind boggling: Only 2 of 48 Democrat senators and 7 of 205 Democrat representatives voted yes on the Bush tax cuts of 2003. If JFK’s famous analogy that “a rising tide lifts all boats” can’t be understood by modern-day Democrats, they need to spend some time reading about their hero’s concept of tax reduction.JFK was right. Reagan was right. W was right. Cutting taxes is a good thing period. All boats rise in a rising tide. The converse is also true: a falling tide strands all boats.
Maybe you should consider some additional coursework in economics.
Posted by bulldog on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:13 PM “JFK was right. Reagan was right. W was right. Cutting taxes is a good thing period. All boats rise in a rising tide. The converse is also true: a falling tide strands all boats.”
This is exactly right. The leftish idea that high taxes promote economic growth has no basis in reality.
Reagan’s tax cuts actually increased government revenue. The deficits resulted from government spening increasing even faster.
Posted by chopper on Jun 28, 2007 at 11:46 PM chopper
Only one thing to add. The deficits resulted from government spending increasing faster ... because the house was controlled by the Dems throught his entire presidency. In fact, the Democratic Party maintained control of the House from 1954 until 1995.
Posted by bulldog on Jun 29, 2007 at 12:02 AM to chopper:
Where do you get your “facts”? Your statement that:
“Reagan’s tax cuts actually increased government revenue. The deficits resulted from government spening increasing even faster.”
is blatantly false.
In the Reagan-Bush regime from 1981-1993 (12 years) tax collections increased 82%. In the same time period, population increased 12% and inflation was up 70% ~ 12 and 70 add up to 82 That means not a cent in extra tax revenues was generated by Reagan’s tax cuts.
But the wealthy and corporations got hundreds of billions of tax savings because of those cuts and that had to be made up in order to make the 82% figures to balance. It was made up with hundreds of billions of dollars of tax increases on middle-class workers. Get and use a fact from time to time.
The deficits did not come from government spending by Democrats. The House under Reagan was conservative with committee chairmanships held by Southern right-wing Democrats who REDUCED the spending requests that Reagan sent to them. Get it right.
And if Democrats are so horrible on economics, why have Demos been the only ones to produce a balanced budget since the Vietnam war? And why have the past several growth spurts in the economy followed tax increases while all the recessions followed tax cuts? Explain that.
Posted by tabonsell on Jun 29, 2007 at 5:21 PM Tabonsell -
Regarding anticipation of the fall of the Soviet Union:
Try reading. William O. Douglas’ dissenting opinion in Beauharnais v Illinois (1952) in which he documented what you say isn’t available.
Fair enough, and here it is:
BEAUHARNAIS v. ILLINOIS, 343 U.S. 250 (1952)
The only thing Douglas wrote on this case was:
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
Hitler and his Nazis showed how evil a conspiracy could be which was aimed at destroying a race by exposing it to contempt, derision, and obloquy. I would be willing to concede that such conduct directed at a race or group in this country could be made an indictable offense. For such a project would be more than the exercise of free speech. Like picketing, it would be free speech plus.
I would also be willing to concede that even without the element of conspiracy there might be times and occasions when the legislative or executive branch might call a halt to inflammatory talk, such as the shouting of “fire” in a school or a theatre.
My view is that if in any case other public interests are to override the plain command of the First Amendment, the peril of speech must be clear and present, leaving no room for argument, raising no doubts as to the necessity of curbing speech in order to prevent disaster.
The First Amendment is couched in absolute terms - freedom of speech shall not be abridged. Speech has therefore a preferred position1 as contrasted to some other civil rights. For example, privacy, equally sacred to some, is protected by the Fourth Amendment only against unreasonable searches and seizures. There is room for regulation of the ways and means of invading privacy. No such leeway is granted the invasion of the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Until recent years that had been the course and direction of constitutional law. Yet recently the Court in this and in other cases2 has engrafted the right of regulation onto the First Amendment by placing in the hands of the legislative branch the right to regulate “within reasonable limits” the right of free speech. This to me is an ominous and alarming trend. The free trade in ideas which the Framers of the Constitution visualized disappears. In its place there is substituted a new orthodoxy - an orthodoxy that changes with the whims of the age or the day, an orthodoxy which the majority by solemn judgment proclaims to be essential to the safety, welfare, security, morality, or health of society. Free speech in the constitutional sense disappears. Limits are drawn - limits dictated by expediency, political opinion, prejudices or some other desideratum of legislative action.
An historic aspect of the issue of judicial supremacy was the extent to which legislative judgment would be supreme in the field of social legislation. The vague contours of the Due Process Clause were used to strike down laws deemed by the Court to be unwise and improvident.3 That trend has been reversed. In matters relating to business, finance, industrial and labor conditions, health and the public welfare, great leeway is now granted the legislature,4 for there is no guarantee in the Constitution that the status quo will be preserved against regulation by government. Freedom of speech, however, rests on a different constitutional basis. The First Amendment says that freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the free exercise of religion shall not be abridged. That is a negation of power on the part of each and every department of government. Free speech, free press, free exercise of religion are placed separate and apart; they are above and beyond the police power; they are not subject to regulation in the manner of factories, slums, apartment houses, production of oil, and the like.
The Court in this and in other cases places speech under an expanding legislative control. Today a white man stands convicted for protesting in unseemly language against our decisions invalidating restrictive covenants. Tomorrow a Negro will be haled before a court for denouncing lynch law in heated terms. Farm laborers in the West who compete with field hands drifting up from Mexico; whites who feel the pressure of orientals; a minority which finds employment going to members of the dominant religious group - all of these are caught in the mesh of today’s decision. Debate and argument even in the courtroom are not always calm and dispassionate. Emotions sway speakers and audiences alike. Intemperate speech is a distinctive characteristic of man. Hotheads blow off and release destructive energy in the process. They shout and rave, exaggerating weaknesses, magnifying error, viewing with alarm. So it has been from the beginning; and so it will be throughout time. The Framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. That should be our choice today no matter how distasteful to us the pamphlet of Beauharnais may be. It is true that this is only one decision which may later be distinguished or confined to narrow limits. But it represents a philosophy at war with the First Amendment - a constitutional interpretation which puts free speech under the legislative thumb. It reflects an influence moving ever deeper into our society. It is notice to the legislatures that they have the power to control unpopular blocs. It is a warning to every minority that when the Constitution guarantees free speech it does not mean what it says.
Since Beauharnais vs. Illinois 1952 concerned free speech and rabble-rousing, and the Soviet Union was not mentioned anywhere within the text nor in Douglas’s dissent, perhaps you are mistaken? Maybe you confused the Nazis with the communists, since Douglas did mention the Nazis. An easy mistake to make, I suppose. Both Nazis and communists were what we now call terrorists. At any rate, a minor comment in a Supreme Court opinion from 1952 that does not mention communism hardly constitutes documentation supporting the conclusion that anyone foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Try again.
How do you know what Carter thought?
I don’t have a clue what Carter thought, and I seriously question whether Carter’s mental processes involve “thinking”. I do know what he said in the “malaise” speech, when he said the world was falling apart and it was all the fault of the American people. Carter said that American institutions no longer functioned, and Americans would have to adjust to a new reality. Fuck him. The American spirit revived quickly enough when Carter was out of office.
No one could turn an economy around in weeks, it takes considerable time. And FDR did that quite well
After eight years in office, FDR’s unemployment figures were still over 10%. I am not necessarily blaming FDR, as our understanding of economics at that time was very poor.
But look! When we started deficit spending at the start of WWII, the unemployment figures fell by over 50% in one year, to about 5%, and then down to 2%.
When the Kennedy tax cuts went into effect in 1963, the unemployment figures declined almost immediately, and tax receipts rose. Then the costs of the Vietnam War and the trillions spent on the Great (?) Society disrupted all economic calculations and figures, leading to wildly fluctuating figures for GDP, unemployment, interest rates, and inflation for seventeen years.
You criticize Reagan’s unemployment rate, which peaked briefly to 10.8%, ignoring that Reagan’s tax cuts resulted in unemployment rates steadily declining to 5.3%, with increased tax receipts. You also ignore that the economic status during the Carter years was chaotic, which was why Carter was not re-elected.
You criticize Bush’s unemployment rate, which peaked briefly to 6.1%, ignoring that Bush’s tax cuts resulted in unemployment rates steadily declining to under 5%, and that tax receipts rose as a result. You also ignore that the economic status during the Clinton’s final year was chaotic, with imploding markets, falling GDP in two quarters, and the vaunted surplus in rapid decline.
You pick one number out of the mass of economic data, and declare that it is bad when applied to Republicans. You take the same data (which was worse) for FDR, and declare that FDR did “quite well”.
To quote myself:
You have missed your calling, sir. You should have been a professional cherry-picker.
Posted by scorp on Jul 1, 2007 at 4:42 PM to scorp:
You are so wrong on so many points.
Unemployment didn’t drop steadily after Reagan’s tax cuts. They dropped after his tax INCREASES of 1983.
The unemployment rate fell to 2% because 10 million men were take out of the work force for military duty. Don’t use WWII rates to make a point because they were distorted.
Your understanding of Reagan’s tax cuts don’t square with the architects of those cuts. They said that tax cuts would generate an additional $3 in tax receipts for every $10 in cuts. That means if you cut taxes $100 million, you will get a $30 million increase in taxes. But you cut $100 million in tax receipts in order to gain $30 million. Economic stupidity because you created an unnecessary $70 million hole. Go to the track daily and waged $100 on the ponies, but never collect more than $30 in winning, and see how long it takes before you are living in a van down by the river.
Wrong case. Here’s what Douglas opined in 1951:
“There comes a time when even speech loses its constitutional immunity … When conditions are so critical that there will be no time to avoid the evil that the speech threatens, it is time to call a halt … The restraint to be constitutional must be based on more than fear, on more than passionate opposition against the speech, on more than a revolted dislike for its contents. There must be some immediate injury to society that is likely if speech is allowed. If they (the books) are understood, the ugliness of Communism is revealed, its deceit and cunning are exposed, the nature of its activities becomes apparent, and the chances of its success less likely.”
In that case, American communists were convicted of organizing study groups to teach their beliefs with the aid of four books: Foundations of Leninism by Stalin (1924), The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (1848), State and Revolution by Lenin (1917) and History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1939). There was no question about legality of the books; they weren’t, and couldn’t be, restricted. Only the communists’ speech was involved because a foe of Marxism could have used the same books to teach opposition to communism without fear of arrest.
Posted by tabonsell on Jul 1, 2007 at 6:17 PM Tabonsell -
Don’t be such a cherry-picking Densan.
Faced with high and rising unemployment, high and rising inflation, high and rising interest rates, and a stagnant economy from the Carter years, a comprehensive economic package was required. The most visible piece of that package was the Reagan tax cuts, but it also indexed taxes, maintained fiscal and monetary policy to fight inflation, and relaxed business regulations. The 1981 tax cuts amounted to 5.6% of GDP, and were soon realized to be excessive.
In 1982, modest tax increases amounting to 1.2% of GDP were passed to correct the tax structure. Your argument that the unemployment decline followed the tax increases is irrelevant and silly, considering the total package. You should have taken a course in logic as long as you were in school anyway; perhaps you would have learned about cause-and-effect relationships. “Correlation does not imply causation.”
Regarding anticipation of the fall of the Soviet Union:
If they (the books) are understood, the ugliness of Communism is revealed, its deceit and cunning are exposed, the nature of its activities becomes apparent, and the chances of its success less likely.
And you are claiming that an obscure comment in an obscure SCUSA case from 1951 is documentation of the anticipated failure of the communist system? Is that the best you can do? Are you nuts?
Posted by scorp on Jul 2, 2007 at 1:53 AM To wolf
MediaFriend is more right than you can imagine about America being a terrible place but I think that maybe he is commenting as someone who has seen the alternatives and can therefore make a rational comparison.
I have been living in Switzerland for the last 10 years and I can tell you frankly that it was a humbling and humiliating experience to come here with my head full of “America is Number 1, and has the greatest best democracy in the world etc..” propaganda and find myself living in a country in which the people vote on everything and they propose most of the laws and regulations by proposition. There are even small towns and villages that still do their voting by a show of hands when the population gathers in the village square to vote!
Do you have any point of reference for your claims that America is the best democracy? Do you have any concept of the vast difference between a two political party REPUBLIC (that’s right, we have a REPUBLIC in the USA, not a democracy although it would be more accurate to say that America has a “Corp.tocracy”) and a 8+ party, proportional direct democracy with 7 presidents, each in charge of a different governing area, at its head? Do you know what it is like to live in a country in which it is against the law for an individual not to have health insurance because the government has ensured through stiff industry regulation that there is adequate health insurance which is affordable for even the lowest income?? (there is no socialized medicine in Switzerland, not because it is some kind of evil, but because the Swiss simply find it inefficient) Do you have any idea at all of what it is like to live in a country in which real political debate is shown EVERY week on shows such as the one called Arena(every Friday) in which citizens, students, officials, political party representatives, etc.. meet in a town hall setting to discuss whatever is the hot topic of the week with a moderator who only talks about 10% of the time rather than dominate the show like some prima donna?? Do you have any idea what is like to be an American watching that type of show and marvelling at how factual and POLITE all of the discussion is, even when it gets heated or some participants get angry?? Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a country where you can travel cheaply and comfortably to absolutely anywhere in the country without a car because of govt subsidized public transportation??? Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a country in which at least 2 of the current presidents commute by public transport to work and in which one of the presidents cried like a baby as he gave the eulogy for 6 young army reservists killed in an avalanche?
Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a country in which you can call the tax office, talk to a human being (in all sense of the word!) and explain that “Sorry, I can’t pay my whole tax bill, can I make monthly installments?? Do you know what it is like to have the tax man look up your file and say “Sure, no problem. Would you like to pay it in 3, 6, or 12 installments?.....without penalty!...?Yes, there are a lot of taxes in this country but we pay them happily because we get something for it. Switzerland is probably the only country in the world in which the people have actually proposed on numerous occasions over the years to raise their own taxes for one reason or another and then, believe it or not, vote 70% in favour of the proposition if it was well presented and seen as necessary.
Sing America’s praises all you want but just realize that there is a whole universe of democratic examples in this world that our country could learn from. Ours is by no measure the best, even if it is not the absolute worst.
Posted by GrendelSon on Jul 26, 2007 at 9:08 AM Maybe you need to be over 50 to understand the differences between pre- and post- Reagan America, and to see how the Reagan administration has caused such tremendous damage to this country. Things that define the Reagan legacy: Some of the worst economic disparities in the Western world; the use of economic measures to censor the news media and turn it into a political spin machine; the highest infant mortality rate among all modern nations, coupled with a rapidly declining life expectancy for America’s (rapidly increasing number of) poor; the destruction of the “social safety net” by allowing corporations to loot public funds; the widespread use of soundbite propaganda in place of legitimate examination and discussion.
You know a nation is on its way out when economic disparities reach this level, when internationally-recognized fundamental human rights
(i.e., food, water, shelter and medical care) are treated with contempt and written out of policy and budgets (think welfare repeal coupled with a quarter-century long chain of “tax cuts” for the rich amounting to billions of dollars), and when work no longer pays. Most Americans are coming to the realization that a lifetime of hard work rewards only the rich, not the workers, and the majority will die poor. It wasn’t that long ago when an ordinary factory worker could count on being able to buy a house within a few years, believe it or not. Thought, learning and knowledge became subjects of ridicule, and self-centered consumerism became our religion. All those idealistic Constitutional rights mean very little, just like our votes. (Even if we weren’t dealing with the widespread fraud and “errors” of voting machines, what are our choices? Both parties are guaranteed to perpetuate the mess we have today.)The worship of a character called “Ronald Reagan”, symbolizing some mythical Golden Era that few Americans experienced, is all fine and well. The real Ronald Reagan administration set us on this self-destructive course.
Posted by dhfabian on Jul 26, 2007 at 6:28 PM dhfabian- (to borrow a line from the Gipper) It is not that you don’t know anything, it’s just that you know so much that isn’t so.
Our Country hit rock bottom when Carter was in office and when Reagan took officehe turned things around very quickly giving us back our “shinig city on a hill.” That is precisely why he was re-elected with such a landslide. The only state Mondale won was his own home state and that was by only a few thousand votes. Look at the red-blue state map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ElectoralCollege1984-Large.png
There was only one blue state! I suppose it was because all of the voting machines were tampered with but that doesn’t explain why he was also recently voted to be the number one greatest American in a poll run by the Discovery Channel (has that been infiltrated by the GOP too?) Oh yeah and why was there such an incredible turn out nation wide when he passed away?
Posted by bulldog on Jul 26, 2007 at 8:32 PM There is always a large turnout when a celebrity dies. Even Stalin had a magnificent funeral.
During Carter’s administration, when a person needed help, it was available. Our “failed welfare system” enabled over 80% of recipients to work their way off welfare in under 5 years, moving up to the middle class. The general economy saw a cyclical downturn, but instead of heaping billions of dollars of welfare…er, I mean “tax cuts”...on the wealthiest 1%, the nation Carter administration began investing in the education and job skills training that enabled the poor to escape poverty. And the depth and breadth of US poverty was nothing like we have today. During the Carter years, the average family might have had to cut back on vacation plans (remember paid vacations?), but kept their homes, ate well, and had health care.
Shining city on a hill for whom? The International community became alarmed at the Reagan administration’s militarism, and now has nothing but contempt for this government. Unimaginable before the Reagan Era, foreign nations now offer humanitarian aid to Americans, since our own government won’t. Most Americans lost ground, our unions almost wiped out, our jobs broken down into part time/no benefits work or exported to foreign countries, with the minimum wage falling far behind the cost of living. Before Reagan, MOST jobs came with insurance, retirement benefits and job security for all who were willing to put in am honest day’s labor. During the Reagan years, thousands of family farms were put out of business, and factories locked their doors for good. These are the jobs that provided a living for the vast middle class, and they’re gone. The middle class has just about disappeared by now.
Can you believe it, before the Reagan Era, homelessness was rare?
Since Reagan, homelessness is so commonplace that we no longer even discuss it. Before Reagan, it was unimaginable that a food pantry would run out of food. Now it’s common. Before Reagan, one could move to a city, find a job within a day or two that paid enough to adequately cover their needs, and within a couple of months find work that would enable them to get ahead.On polls, give me a topic, a little time, and I can provide you with poll results supporting either side of any issue. Or from a different perspective, virtually every major poll in the last election showed Bush losing, so who is in the White House? If you want to know what regular people think, get outside, and spend some time talking with the poor/working class (i.e., the majority). On media, the issue is money, not some vast conspiracy. Mainstream media is owned by the wealthy, it is the wealthy that determines the content, and this inevitably reflects the interests of the rich, who are oblivious to the poor/working class.
We were once considered a “shining city on a hill”, but those days are long gone. We became everything we claimed we hated, whether we talk about our gulag, our health care system, unaffordable higher education, unaffordable housing, etc. The Reagan Era “survival of the fittest” and “winner takes all” agenda suits the macho self-image of the comfortable. But no nation can survive when ruled solely for the benefit of the rich.
Posted by dhfabian on Jul 26, 2007 at 10:12 PM Come on. You are making this up as you go along.
If Carter was such a good President why did Reagan beat him in a landslide? If he was so great, why did he not get re-elected?
If Reagan was so bad why did he get re-elected? Why did Mondale only win one state, his home state, and only there by a few thousand votes.
I’ll tell you why. The vast majority of Americans don’t see things the way you do. And speaking of international opinions of Reagan, during the 80s many Europeans were strongly opposed to Reagan and his policies. As the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down, there has been a 180 degree turn and he is remembered as the man who ended the Cold War and communism in Eastern Europe.
Reference the recent headline and article at Poland.Pl:
The Order of the White Eagle has been granted posthumously to the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan by Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
Many historians consider Ronald Reagan as one of the persons who contributed directly to the collapse of communism.
During his first presidential term, Reagan started a campaign of support to anti-communist groups worldwide. In Poland he the assisted the Solidarity freedom movement. Later Reagan continued his tactics of putting pressure on the Soviet Union, which, according to many experts, led to the decline of Soviet economy.
There are millions of people who now live in freedom because of Reagan.
The American economy and the global economy have thrived because he knew what to do to in order to get us out of the mess we were in at the end of the short Carter administration.
Posted by bulldog on Jul 26, 2007 at 11:01 PM from article in top UK paper yesterday:
... Ronald Reagan, who is still lauded for winning the Cold War and restoring hope and confidence in the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/27/wus127.xml
Posted by bulldog on Jul 27, 2007 at 1:12 PM Nope, not making it up. I don’t recall ever saying that Carter was a great president, although he is a very a good man. He was a showman, unlike Reagan, nor did he have that quality of celebrity that Americans tend to value above integrity and competence. A successful ad campaign leads to high sales, regardless of quality and value. We were a little more naive back then, when it came (what has come to be called) “the selling of the candidate”. We are STILL paying for the deficit spending of the Reagan Era.
What did Reagan do that had any impact on the temporary halt to the “Cold War”? He is, indeed, lauded by supporters as being a virtual saint, marching into Russia to liberate the people. Right. In reality, the Soviet Union’s economic system had been deteriorating for some time. Russia and Eastern Europe were already heading toward change before Reagan took office. The only influence the US had was economic, not ideological. Spending on the military skyrocketed, even though we already had the means to utterly destroy the planet several times over. This threat made it necessary for Russia to hike military spending, they were less willing to remove funding from human needs or pursue uncontrolled deficit spending, and the economy collapsed. But it was a long-time advocate of change, Gorbachev, who brought an end to Soviet rule. Not Reagan.
Open dissent was allowed until Putin took over. Russia and Eastern Europe has been moving away from the free market/“survival of the fittest” system. Within a short time, under Putin, the government evolved into something far more similar to the old Soviet government than America’s political system.
Now consider the long-term impact of the hyper-conservatism ushered in by Reagan. I haven’t found anyone who has anything positive to say about running up unprecedented deficits, while de-funding virtually all human needs measures. The military budget saw massive increases, even though, it turns out, billions were lost to waste. Reagan’s mismanagement of the budget was the same thing as a guy blowing his entire paycheck on buying drinks for his buddies at the corner bar. They’ll love him for it, but his family will pay the price.
“Trickle down economics”, the very core of Reagan economics, has proved to be a failure. Massive tax cuts for businesses did not result in massive creation of family-supporting jobs. The elder Bush continued with the Reagan policies, and was voted out. Deficits were significantly reduced during the Clinton administration. Then G.W.Bush came into office. You would have a hard time finding anyone who doesn’t agree that Bush is the worst president in history, yet he “won” re-election. Just like Brezhnev, Stalin, etc., won their elections.
Posted by dhfabian on Jul 27, 2007 at 4:45 PM There you go again. You are expressing your opinion as if it were factual and you are blatantly wrong.
FACT: As far as ending the Cold War, Reagan has gone down in history as one of the key individuals who helped bring down the wall. Last Tuesdy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland bestowed the Republic of Poland’s highest award posthumously on former President Reagan for his efforts to stamp out communism and bring democracy to the people of Poland. That is a lot more telling than your ranting.
FACT: From an article in the Washington Times today, The Gipper still has a hold on American hearts and minds. Of five political labels meant to designate presidential hopefuls, “like Reagan” proved to be the most popular in a new Rasmussen survey, trumping a quartet of more familiar descriptors.
FACT: The elder Bush did not continue with Reagan’s policies like you suggested. He raised taxes! And as a consequence he lost in 1994.
FACTS: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday that U.S. lawmakers and business interests should be seeking to broaden the tax base as well as lower tax rates. Lower taxes are good for the economy and it is not just a Republican idea. In his tax message to Congress in 1963, Kennedy asked that the top income tax rate be brought down from 91% to 65%. His goal was to reduce all statutory income tax rates by about 30%, including a reduction in the bottom tax rate from 20% to 14%.
Bottom line: You can opine all you want burt you are a nobody as am I. THe difference is I am quoting credible sources and you are just spouting out innaccuracies. If life in the USA is so bad, why don’t you leave? The best measure of a country’s greatness is how many people want to move to it versus those who want to leave. Our shining city on the hill still wins hands down. FACT.
Posted by bulldog on Jul 28, 2007 at 1:44 PM To fascists, constructive criticism does not exist. Anyone who criticizes their country is asked to move out. “Love it or leave it”. Reagan supported the Apartheid government in South Africa, funded murderous thugs like Joseph Savimbi and UNITA ( who caused a million deaths in Angola) , propped up fascist dictators in El Salvador, illegally financed the CONTRAs.. The list goes on and on… People in those countries either had to love it, leave it, or die. Those countries are terrible places to live today because of Ronald Reagan..
Bulldog, you obviously believe in running away from your problems. If you don’t like something, you retreat. Thank god there are so many patriotic Americans who believe in sticking around and fighting for what they believe in, so many people who fought Reagen’s trail of lies and sleaze back then and still do it today…People who don’t just move out anytime a fascist tells them to…
Posted by Bmier on Jul 30, 2007 at 8:55 PM “In the 1980s, U.S.-backed forces committed widespread massacres, political murders and torture. Tens of thousands of civilians died. Many of the dead were children. Soldiers routinely raped women before executing them.”
-War Crimes and Double Standards (of Ronald Reagan and the press) by Robert Parry
iF magazine May/June 1999In the 1980s, U.S.-backed forces committed widespread massacres, political murders and torture. Tens of thousands of civilians died. Many of the dead were children. Soldiers routinely raped women before executing them.
There can be no doubt, too, that President Reagan was an avid supporter of the implicated military forces, that he supplied them with weapons and that he actively sought to discredit human rights investigators and journalists who exposed the crimes.
It is also cleat that the massacres at El Mazote and other villages across El Salvador, the destruction of more than 600 Indian communities in Guatemala, and the torture and “disappearances” of dissidents throughout the region were as horrible as what Slobadan Milosevic’s Serb army has done in Kosovo.
In the apt phrase of New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, the 1980s were a time of “weakness and deceit.” Yet, the continuing blindness to crimes against humanity in Central America in the 1980s has brought that weakness and deceit into and through the 1990s, now as a permanent trait of Washington’s political class.
Without doubt, it is safer for an American journalist or politician to wag a finger at Milosovic or at the killers in Rwanda or at the Khmer Rouge than it is to confront the guilt that pervaded Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Reagan, after all, has a throng of ideological enthusiasts - many with opinion columns and seats on weekend chat shows. Nothing makes them madder than to hear their hero disparaged.
To suggest that Reagan should be held to the same moral standard as Milosovic also invites lectures about “moral equivalence,” a clever construct of the 1980s that meant, in effect, that the Cold War justified whatever American policy-makers did. One must not equate “our” crimes with “theirs.”
Ironically, many of the conservatives who today advocate rock-hard moral values and who deplore fuzzy moral relativism embraced exactly that sort of situational ethic in the 1980s.
They did so under the banner of the Reagan doctrine, which held that battling the Evil Empire sanctified all actions no matter what other moral laws were violated, like some Medieval crusade, blessed by the pope and then sent off to slaughter infidels.
It didn’t matter that the Soviet Union was in steep decline before the 1980s. It didn’t matter that there never was a master plan for conquering the United States through Central America. It didn’t matter that most of the victims simply wanted basic rights that North Americans take for granted.
But even more corrupting in its own way was the slippery refusal to debate the rationalizations openly. While the “moral equivalence” debate captivated some intellectual circles, the Reagan administration’s basic strategy was simply to lie.
Rather than defending the atrocities, Reagan and his loyalists most often just denied that the crimes had happened and attacked anyone who said otherwise as a communist dupe.
Mostly, this lying strategy worked. By the end of the Reagan-Bush era, the national media no longer put up any fight for these historic truths. By the 1990s, the star reporters were more dedicated to their careers than to the principles of their profession.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the shocking historical disclosures form Guatemala earned only brief notice in the major news outlets.
The larger question is whether the United States can confront its complicity in shameful war crimes committed against the people of Latin America.
From http://masters-of-war.org/
Posted by Bmier on Jul 30, 2007 at 9:06 PM Bmier-
First of all, I don’t believe in running away from any problems and secondly I am not a fascist and neither was Reagan. I think it is good and healthy to have debates and wasn’t asking him to leave. I was just curious if America was as bad as he was saying why he didn’t seek greener pastures rather than enduring the agony of living in a free market society.
By the way, your second post was hilarious! Where do you get this stuff? You should write novels. You imagination is incredible!
Best regards,
Bulldog
Posted by bulldog on Jul 30, 2007 at 9:23 PM Bulldog;
Regarding 1) That particular “inflection point” resulted in the bending of economic disparity towards the advantage of the wealthy.
Regarding 2) You can have that one - other than 40% plus of the electorate thought your hero a bum
Regarding 3) Don’t your hero’s NOT govern by poll results? - including election day poll results?
Take Reagan and bury him deep. Deep beneath the S.S. he honored in Bittburg. Sell his remains to finance the people he killed in Central America and Grenada. Those he helped gas in the Middle East.
Posted by rmreddicks on Oct 20, 2007 at 3:37 PM Great to find a site with people who
did not love Reagan.
I googled “I don’t belive Reagan was shot”
which I never did belive, and that brought me
here eventually.
To the Reagan lovers:
PLEASE leave one site for those of us that did
not benefit from his term in office!
there are plenty of places where you can join a
lovefest for that bigot.
Is there anyone else who felt that the alleged assassination
was a little fishy?
I was in the Army, in the area, just off duty,
in the barracks dayroom
and waiting for extra duty assignment,
watching the “Munster’s” when Brady’s massacre
was suddenly put on the screen!
I didn’t see anything, or hear anything from the
brass that you would expect to hear, considering that the
commander and chief had just been hit by bullets,
and on his way to the hospital.
I mean NOTHING, NOT A THING.
I just feel and felt at the time, that it was a way for the conservatives to
make him seem more than what he was, and invincible.
I have yet to see anyone else that has just been shot, to
stop and start looking for more bullets to hit them.Oh yea! he was not Californian
(we have a red star on our flag)AREALCALIFAS
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