Robert Parry has pulled back the curtain, shed light on the Republican elephant in the room, the fact that Ronald Wilson Reagan put in place the very precepts and people that have brought us to ravage and ruin ...

This article will be the beginning in the reevaluation of the presidency of Ronald Reagan ... and it couldn't happen at a better time ... the reverence for Reagan has become a cancer of the conscience, a malevolent myth that cheats us of the real history of the dystopia that has reigned as gospel truth these last 28 years and counting ...

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Or should I say: "Duh!"?

Reagan is one of the scariest blind spots among many large ones in US collective memory, as the article points out with several good examples, such as Obama's words.

I doubt that history will ever treat him as he deserves--at least in the US--especially since we've named all of our airports, buildings, streets and pets after him.

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One of the evil fulcrums Reagan used which should have been mentioned is Milton Friedman: his economics predicated on "commodifyng" virtually everything. It is still with us today: next on the agenda, access to water.
The tears that poured at Carter campaign headquarters throughout the States when he uttered his premature, albeit, tragically proper, concession were not for his losing, but for the country that we who campaigned for him knew we would be losing.
Will that country ever be returned to the American people? .....

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I was a kid growing up in California when "That Stand-In For An Extra", AKA Ronald Reagan was Governor. My Merchant seaman Dad had told me stories of going to places like Egypt, India and other places during the war and seeing people who had never lived in a house in their lives.

When Reagan took office in California, it had the #1 educational system in the world, homelessness did not exist, it had a healthy public health system and a thriving and well-financed and maintained infrastructure.

When he left office, he had dumped the mentally ill on the streets of the Golden State, had helped shepard Prop 13 through providing the death knell to the educational system, quit maintaining roads and highways allowing them to deteriorate, gutted worker safety laws and used police and National Guard to attack anti-war demonstrators.

Then he took it on the road for the rest of the country. He was elected in 1980 with the aid of the Socal Defense Corporations and they were the ONLY ones who profited from those times.

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Nobody can be worse that IdiotBush but Reagan is certainly as bad and almost as stupid.

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No accounting of Reagan's Presidency can be complete without a more thorough examination of his economic policies.

When he took office, the US was suffering from stagflation and a large national debt, the legacies of tying up too much of the economy in defense spending and volatile, generally rising oil prices. Previous Presidents from Nixon to Carter had wrestled unsuccessfully with this trend.

For those too young to remember, stagflation is inflation coupled with little economic growth. Dollars lost purchasing power, sometimes in the double digits per year. Salaries could not keep pace. America's economy was hurting.

What did Reagan do about stagflation?

The first thing he did was to "fix" the inflation indices so that inflation no longer could be reported at its true rate. Using a series of accounting tricks, the Administration lowered the reported rate by around 5 percentage points.

This was the cover needed by the Fed to goose the money supply upward (which is itself inflationary). No longer would the Fed be required to fight inflation. They could now just ignore it.

Loosening the money supply produced a series of ever-larger bubbles bubble collapses, culminating in the biggest collapse of all on Wall Street. Understating the rate of inflation was a direct and very large contributor to our current recession.

It's important to grasp that an oversupply of money was the proximate cause of overlending and junk derivatives. Wall Street banks had access to vast quantities of cheap money and felt incredible pressure to find ways to put that money to work.

Understating inflation also provided Reagan with a means of directly attacking retirement payouts, civil service salaries, and welfare, among other government programs despised by the Republicans. Cost of living adjustments (COLA) lagged behind inflation and put the squeeze on their recipients.

Reagan also set the stage for massive offshoring of American jobs, made it easier for the rich to hide their wealth from the IRS, and left us with an economy that produces almost nothing the world wants to buy. Our major export now is dollars: both currency and dollar-denominated debt instruments. These dollars in foreign hands can't be redeemed for much, because we no longer have much to export that they want to buy. This has led China and other holders of dollars to fear that the dollar will collapse completely, devastating their treasuries and sending the world into a global depression.

Unfortunately, Reagan's economic legacy is secure. Every President who followed has embraced his economic strategy, not excluding President Obama.

Obama is now busy attempting to resurrect the bubble economy using direct transfers of wealth from taxpayers to Wall Street, which is more than Reagan dared to do - but I'm sure Reagan would have approved heartily.

The Wall Street boom - and bust - centered on the export of debt. Resurrecting the zombie banks which did the exporting is pointless. Our debt is less and less welcome overseas. Our economy will never regain its strength until we are producing goods and services other nations want to buy. We should be investing those trillions to make our manufacturing sector competitive, especially in green industries, not propping up failed banks with a business model that not only failed them, but America and the world.

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As if their catastrophic record weren't enough, the Reagan Adminstration was also BY FAR the most corrupt administration in U.S. history, until George W. Bush (this is if we count Bush as President).

The Reagan gang were so corrupt, they would sometimes rack up more convictions and forced resignations in a single day than the Clinton Administration managed in its entire eight years.

(For the record: Clinton had fewer convictions and forced resignations than any two-term adminstration since Teddy Roosevelt, making it the cleanest administration of the 20th century. You can't always believe what you read in the paper.)

Reagan's posse were:
the first administration in American history to have a sitting cabinet member indicted.
the first administration in American history to have an Assistant Secretary of State indicted.
the first administration in American history to have an Assistant Secretary of Defense sent to prison.
the first administration in American history to have over 100 members of an administration charged with crimes.
the first administration in American history to have more members of his administration charged with crimes than the cumulative total of all other presidents in the twentieth century.

So the Repubs are claiming that the most corrupt President in history is a great administration. But it doesn't work that way.


Sie sind Swine!

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If America is just now beginning to realize that Reagan was the architect of all the problems of the last thirty years, we're in trouble!

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Yeah. I know what you're thinking. The feeble-minded old freak shuffled off this mortal coil five years ago this day. What I'm trying to say is that the era of trickle down insanity, the so-called "Reagan Revolution" is deader than the gipper himself.

Here's the difference between Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: Every thing Bush did to you, Reagan tried to do to you - and would have done to you - had he had control of both houses of congress.

What must be remembered is that Ronald Reagan was essentially a mask - with a twinkle in its eye and a fine, Irish smile. Remove that mask and what is revealed is the twisted, hideous smirk of George W. Bush.

That's the real face of the Reagan Revolution.

Post #228: Random Thoughts

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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Reagan was by far the best President we've had since Harry Truman. Not many could pull this country out of the mess it was in resulting for decades of liberal rule. He started an economic climb that lasted until the end of last year.

He broke the unions death grip on this nation, reversed the welfare mentality that was leaving many to chose 5 welfare checks rather than work!

The worst since Truman.. well, there is LBJ - Vietnam and millions killed is all that criminal needs to make the list. Then there is Carter, which made Reagan's success even more evident. Carter was nothing more than an incompetent lightweight caught up in the realities of the real world... does he remind you of anyone (hint (our now self proclaimed muslim President)

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It truly is a curious thing, isn't it? In hindsight Dick Nixon is starting to look like Thomas Jefferson when compared to Reagan/Bush/Bush.

Isn't life strange?

Tom Degan

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Let's not forget the once head CIA spook, G.H.W.Bush, perhaps the model for Dick Cheney's vice-presidency, and how power and policy can be used and manipulated within the executive branch. The Neo-Cons should be listed as a terrorist group - their actions have earned all of them a free one-way trip to the Hague.

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Forgive me for hogging so much space this morning but Mr. Parry's excellent article invites so many thoughts. He ends his piece with the following paragraph:

"Despite the grievous harm that Reagan's presidency inflicted on the American Republic and the American people, it may take many more years before a historian has the guts to put this deformed era into a truthful perspective and rate Reagan where he belongs -- near the bottom of the presidential list."

In fact, there are a few historians who have a jump on the topic.

Read:
"The Acting President" by Bob Scheifer

Read:
"Sleepwalking Through History" by Haynes Johnson

Read:
"Reagan's America: Innocents At Home" by Gary Wills

Read
"Landslide" (This is the story of the 1984 election - the names of the two authors escape me at the moment.

There are more then a few books available that expose the utter corruption and incompetence of Ronald Reagan and Company.

Tom Degan

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Neither Reagan nor Bush would have gotten far with their destructive agendas if it had not been for the fawning corporate media that served as their propaganda arm.

A corollary to this is that if we do not do something to break up the media monopolies we will be treated to another round of this same kind of ignorant, dangerous and destructive administration.

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As many of us remember, Reagan’s first national speech in 1980 after being nominated by the RNC was at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Philadelphia, of course, was that tranquil little dorp where Freedom Riders Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were lynched with the complicity of a KKK-saturated sheriff’s department. 18 of the perpetrators were charged by the Feds because Mississippi refused to prosecute them for murder and 7 were convicted; no one served more than 6 years.

And what was the topic of the keynote speech 16 years later by that “talking Gila Monster with a pompadour” (in Jello Biafra’s phrase)? Why, “states’ rights,” of course. For southerners, this term has been a code for white supremacy since the days of Reconstruction. Rutgers professor of history and media studies David Greenberg reviews this deplorable history for Slate here: “It was a dog whistle to segregationists. In the same vein, Reagan's use of phrases linked to insidious racial stereotypes—his talk of Cadillac-driving welfare queens, or "young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps—pandered to bigots while making sure not to alienate voters whom starker language would have scared away.” If you were from the South and born before 1965 or so, there was only one word which naturally followed “young buck”—it started with the letter “N.”

In one sense, this was a continuation of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” But whatever his personal opinions on race may have been, Reagan’s political chops were earned from the start by subtly playing to white backlash against black empowerment, no less than by bringing the Cold War back home by demonizing working and poor people and fomenting hatred for the Unions that had been pivotal in creating the largest expansion of the middle class in history in the years immediately following WWII. For example, in 1962, the same year the Kennedy administration began to seriously step up its battle for Civil Rights, Reagan proclaimed himself a Republican, saying, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me." He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When he ran for governor of California in 1966 he championed the elimination of the Fair Housing Act. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," he said, "he has a right to do so."

No less egregious was his consistent support for the Pretoria regime in apartheid South Africa, refusing to implement sanctions even when they had widespread support among his fellow Republicans. He vetoed a congressional sanctions vote and, when Congress overrode the veto, did everything he could to see the law was never carried out. After one of his speeches in favor of apartheid, Desmond Tutu famously said, “I found it quite nauseating. I think the West, for my part, can go to hell . . . Your president is the pits as far as blacks are concerned. He sits there like the great, big white chief of old.”

Like so much else Parry has diligently documented, the regressive racial stance of this vicious, duplicitous conman was one more tactic to gain political traction by exploiting and legitimizing everything shameful and hateful about the US. That our first black president would say anything in his favor is further evidence that politicians will blithely sanction the worst in us when it’s expedient to do so.

Snake-handler Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform must be slobbering all over themselves now that their Ronald Reagan Legacy Project seems to be paying off big.

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Let's keep his legacy short and simple: he used the good faith of the American People against them. Money represents the good faith of the American People; it was never intended to be used as an instrument of torture by the Commercial Banks.

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I thank you for finally telling the truth. Far from being an actor turned Presidential hero Reagan and his cabal started a war on the average American couched in divisive language that has been resonating ever since!

Along the way Americans have allowed themselves to become dumbed down: schools, print, tv., celebrity journalists, corporate control of everything! This article should be required reading for every American so that they can see exactly where this fearmongering, white men first, divisive attitude comes from, and why as a nation we need to shake off this American exceptional-ism!

The government due to political hack appointees have demoralized the very agencies that they are supposed to be in charge of! How can you continue to put the foxes in charge of the hen-house and then scratch your head wondering why the chickens are missing?! Maybe now people are willing to stop paying attention to history - and stop electing people that have NO business in office!!!

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After reviewing Reagan's tentative economic policy during his first 1980 run for president, "Poppy" Bush justifiably derided it claiming that it was nothing more than "voodoo economics". I was never a fan of that closet Reichwinger but ya gotta admit he was spot-on with that justified insight!

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Thank God Reagan lived long enough to realize that he wasn't the worst president ever.

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This article really puts things into perspective. I meet so many young people who are/were disgusted with Bush II, and they seem to think that he was the originator of the harsh, mean-spiritedness in American society. But it was Reagan who created it. Reagan was Bush's John the Baptist.

I was 25 when Saint Ronnie was elected, and having grown up a working-class kid in the 70's I had expected a life of continually improving economic opportunity.

It's hard to imagine the changes that occurred over the Reagan years. Busting the Air Traffic Controllers Union was one of his first actions, and he did it with great relish. Every employer--big and small--pricked-up their ears and realized that hey it was ok to now treat your workers like shit. This is the era when ruthless "downsizing" became all the rage. Where before a company that laid-off workers was a mark of shame, it now became acceptable.

This was the era of "Red Dawn" and "The Day After", when Reagan's saber-rattling really had people believe that he would gleefully start a nuclear war in the Name of Jesus.

This was also the exact time that the religious right in the guise of Jim Bakker's PTL Club and Pat Robertson got into the swing of things.

I'll never forget a remark that Rosalyn Carter made in an interview a few years after Reagan had been in power. She said that Reagan made it OK and ACCEPTABLE for American to disparage the poor, to be ruthless in the name of profits.

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he just might get it in 2012 when he goes down in flames for selling out and breaking all his campaign promises except for the rightwing ones. Obama will lose not only his liberal voters but also the moderate and independent leaning voters who are gonna see Obama for what he really is, a pompous fraud and the worst political opportunist. Obama can join Raygun and Dubya in saying "Hasta la vista America" but we're gonna fight him back and say NOT SO FAST TRAITOR !

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Are you kidding me? There has never in US history been a worse "leader" and I use that term loosely, than G W Bush. May the shoe throwers of the world converge on his Texas mansion!

RT
Online Privacy when it Counts

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When Jimmy Carter got on the tv and said that Americans needed to cut their energy dependence, that we needed to be concerned about human rights, that we needed to take care of the environment, that we needed to try negotiating before confrontation with the rest of the world... my oh my! but the chest beating from the Stupid White Good Ol' American Boys was deafening! "Carter is a traitor! We don't need to do that! We're Number ONE!!! USA!!! USA!!!"

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For a movie-star-turned president, Reagan provided a foil for folks who were directly or indirectly hurt by the presidency of our peanut-farmer-turned president.

I don't know how you can look through history's lens and claim that there can be anything worse than a perpetual war against a word from a military commitment perspective, or this Obama monster that the monstrous Bush presidency made possible.

We had a president that instituted a policy of military devastation because we had the money to do it, but now what happens when the money runs out due to the economic devastation planned for us by Obama's banking/Chicago cronies.

We'll be broke and powerless if we don't start choosing our rotating political machinery based on the most superficial of differences, and yes...perhaps that trend has been in place, at least partially so, though to Reagan, if not Carter and Nixon-Johnson.

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When the economy tanks, it's because of the greedy little guys who bought houses at inflated prices.

Where's Reagonomics when you need it?

Suddenly, Reagonomics seems to have dropped out of the media's vocabulary.
This is a clever way of disassociating the cause-and-effect out of the American consciousness, so that in a few years, they will be extolling the virtues of Reagonomics once again.

Our corporate memories and foresight extends only in quarterly increments.
We need long-term strategies coupled with short-term, or we will continue in a cycle of crisis management by our government.
The business model of quarterly reporting should not be the governing model for a democratic government.

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I was a young, newly divorced Mom when Reagan became governor of my home state of California. I watched him put the mentally out on the street and help turn my compassionate and lovely state into a mean-spirited, gluttonous and narcissist disney-type fantasy land that fostered people who were all about land-grabs and flipping real estate for huge profits.

It became hell on earth for a working single mom trying to survive in Reagan's California. Cruelty with a smile is exactly what Reagan was all about.

The Reagan era was when I first noticed those bumper stickers on behemoth RVs: "We're spending our kids inheritance". Boy howdy, that's the truth ... not only cash did they gobble up, but resources that should have been left for their Grandchildren.

Thanks for including many facts about both Nixon and Reagan. The comments here are also enlightening and informative. This article is a keeper.

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Excellent article. I tried to warn folks about sending Bonzo to Washington because I was in college when he was governor of California. Back then, the big C was rolling in dough, yet Reagan damn near bankrupted the state. Upset with anti-war protestors, he publicly said, "If they want blood in the streets, we'll give them blood in the streets."

He had anti-war protestors at U of C Berkley gassed in the streets with combat CS gas. It would have been a PR coup among hardliners, but winds carried the gas into the respiratory wing of the local hospital and nearly killed some critical patients.

You never hear about his antics these days.

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These are some of my notes recapitulating and collecting much of what has preceded:

Reagan (an outline): withdrew birth control for the poor and international dismantling humanitarian programs including contraceptives for the poor and international family planning, He discarded entire classes of people such as when he threw the mentally ill onto the streets, let the AIDS epidemic spread unmolested ("gay cancer"), neglected the urban poor and characterized them as welfare queens. Reagan fathered the trickle down lie that never happened, He taught America to despise government and was the father of modern era deregulation which led to Savings and Loan crisis and its multi billion dollar bailout. He midwifed the era of leveraged buy-outs (greed is good), as well as insider trading scandals in his day, not to mention firing the air-traffic controllers, the beginning of the assault on and disempowerment of unions, and he destroyed the domestic airlines in his free time. He orchestrated treasonous acts against American interests, not only with Iran-Contra, but even before assuming office with the Iranian hostages. The Iran-Contra crimes led to the cocainization of America and the modern urban crack epidemic, as well as the conviction, indictment and/or investigation of 138 Reagan administration officials for misconduct and/or criminal activities. Reagan supported a slew of dictators and terrorists including the ayatollah and Saddam Hussein (gave him deadly bacterial agents while selling arms to Iran which was notorious for its support of international terrorism), Osama bin Laden (armed, funded and trained him and his people and referred to him as "The moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers of America), and the Mujahadeen, Marcos, Duarte, and Duvalier. He accelerated deficit spending and massively enlarged the national debt (Reagan more than quadrupled it) and the cost of servicing it. He accelerated the anti-environment movement (dismissal of acid rain as a real problem). He fathered the destruction of mainstream media via reversal of the Fairness Doctrine and by allowing the dangerous consolidation of the media.

Bush (an outline): Damage to national reputation and national morale, unprecedented secrecy and loss of transparency, crippling of separation of powers, church-state wall decimated, 911 intelligence failures, illegal war justified by lies after manipulating intelligence such as by forging Nigerian yellowcake documents and leading to the formation of the Iraqi al Qaeda franchise, the Jessica Lynch scam and the Pat Tillman cover-up, veterans degraded and neglected, no exit strategy for Iraq which was then strategically mismanaged with billions of dollars also unaccounted for and massive fraud by Hallibutron, bin Laden escape, the Walter Reed Hospital scandal, the resurgence of Afghani Taliban and heroine, Supreme court perversion with the Florida recount fiasco and the addition of two more inappropriate justices (not counting the Harriet Myers nomination), DOJ politicized and justice itself cast aside, signing statements and outright lawlessness including felonious wiretapping and CIA operatives outed, Constitution and Bill of Rights violated like a deb on prom night, rule of law flouted with the Libby pardon and signing statements.

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[CONT] Bush introduced torture and other war crimes, violating treaties (Geneva conventions), built gulags (Gitmo), facilitated extraordinary rendition, shit-canned habeas corpus and posse comitatus , elections tampered with and stolen, institutionalized kleptocracy, corporatocracy, aristocracy, plutocracy, and crony capitalism. The environment was violently assaulted and neglected including flouting global warming, the assault on forests/clean air/mining new public lands. There was massive municipal and infrastructural neglect and decay (levees and bridges collapsing), drilling pristine shorelines and wildlife preserves, Katrina / FEMA meltdown and Heckuva-Job-Brownie. We had the CEO scandals (Enron, Adelphia, etc.) and the related accounting scandals, massive expansion of government with advent of Dept of Homeland Security, further assault on unions, decimation of the economy and the dollar with even greater acceleration of debt accrual, reinstituting deficit spending after Clinton's surpluses, exporting jobs, sub-prime lending and foreclosures galore, future generations burdened with choking debt (doubled under Bush), four dollar a gallon gas and now, most recently, the mortgage crisis and collapse of the automotive and finance industries with astronomical and unconstitutional bail-outs. Withdrew support for condoms in Africa. Assaulted the church-state wall with faith-based initiatives. Gave us Alito and Roberts. Politicized the DOJ. There must be more – please feel free to add.

A word on Carter: Nobody need buy into the Republican lie that Carter's was a failed presidency. In just four years, he brokered a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, major arms control achievement (brokered SALT II) established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology leading to a 59% reduction in oil imports between 1977-82 and normalized relations with China (Nixon merely opened the door here, but failed to bring home the deal. Carter restored honor to the White House that Nixon and his pardoning puppet Ford crapped away. And he undoubtedly would have brokered the release of the American hostages in Iran had not the treasonous Reagan administration negotiated its own illegal deal with the ayatollah to hold them through the elections and release them like so many doves on Reagan's inauguration day. Like Gore, after having his candidacy scuttled and entering private life, some of his best work was yet to come. Contrast that with the Republican parasites leaving office.

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Without RR there wouldn't be George W. Bush in power. That being said he was a catalyst for a downturn spiral but not the bottom of the same spiral. The same can be said for great many politicans in history.

I don't like Reagan but his blame is in paving the way, not doing the dirty deed itself. Bush Jr. used the opportunity but the choice was his, after all his daddy started with Iraqi war.

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What a breath of fresh air. I've been amazed at how much praise Reagan has/had been receiving, especially after his death. I always thought that he was the one who started this country's decline, both morally (i.e., weapons given to terrorists) and financially (trickle-down economics). I started getting interested in politics back then because I thought something just wasn't quite right with his ethics. He seemed like he had too many friends in high places that he wanted to keep happy and the rest of us could go to hell. Today, we can now see the fallout that started with Reagan and which GWBush eventually stubbed into the ground. It was the beginning of the end.

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Hear Hear. I have long been arguing exactly what Mr. Parry has said. What I find especially grating is the Conservative conceit that "Reagan won the cold war." It is an insult to all the Administrations, Democratic and Republican who contained the Soviets until they imploded. The Soviet Union was so far behind the U.S. in computer technology for instance, that a more plausible argument could be made that Bill Gates won the Cold War. Think of what might have happened if the Soviets had had the sense to adopt a Capitalist Economy as China did. With all their natural resources and thousands of Nuclear Weapons and the means to deliver them, they would have been an extremely formidable adversary both militarily and economically. Reagan will eventually be viewed by historians
of honesty to be the unmitigated disaster that Mr. Parry has outlined.

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Nothing was more disgusting during the 80's then watching our fawning MSM of that time put on the nightly news this guy's latest "geniality". It almost made me vomit to see him with his "aw shucks" folksiness while he was delivering the next blow to the people who were not of his "constituency" i.e. if you made less then $250,000 per year.

And when the bastard finally did croak, it almost made me scream to see how the conservatives fawned over him and his "legacy".

Obama disgraces himself by his comments of praise on Ronnie.

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Reagan surrounded himself with conservative Catholics and they came up with Gag Rules at home and abroad to prevent even the mention of abortion by NGO'S as an option or their funding for family planning would be cut off. He thus did irreparable harm to the efforts to control population growth. Ironic that both Reagan and the communists were in denial about the reality of the Malthusian population dynamics.

Reagan was a father figure for a lot of people and that is why he is revered by so many of the unthinking and uncritical masses who are oblivious to the consequences of his policies and actions.

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Too much credit is given to reagan for things which require intelligence, ruthlessness, and cognitive excellence. Let's look at some facts:
1. Reagan was already a doddering old man when he took the Oath of Office.
2. Reagan was described by one of his own staff members as "dumb as a stump".
3. Reagan was the beginning of the new rethug model of putting an affable fool up front while others ran the show. Think about that one for a minute.
4. Reagan had a history as a journeyman actor-not great-but adequate for the task at hand. He made good speeches when the words were right there in front of him. Everything was scripted, right down to his "extemperaneous" utterences, just as in his movies.
5. Reagan wasn't truly evil-not like the bushes-nor was he capable of conceiving something like Iran/Contra, let alone directing it.
Now, let's move to the bushes.
The rethugs didn't expect Clinton to win the 1992 election, and they went all out to destroy him and his presidency from day one. Clinton proved himself to be smarter and tougher than all the neocons put together.
Comes now, georgiepoo, another affable fool.
Same model as reagan, but a more cunning and evil version of him. The neocons and their rethug stooges wasted no time with their plan to begin a situation of endless war, big military, big war profits, and a fascist dictatorship. They came so close to succeeding that even with Democrats in the White House and majorities in the House and Senate the sheer momentum of their foul deeds continues to this day.

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While many will argue the question of weather Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan (Reagon/GWBush) were the most despotic and corrupt rulers, let us not forget that the Bush administration presided over the events of 9/11. I would argue that this single event moves GWB to the head of the list as the worst president we have had to endure. This single event and the cover-up trumps all other presidential misdeeds.

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1) Reagan didn't control all 3 branches of government. Bush's policies are largely what Reagan WOULD have done, were he able.

2) There was less popular activism during Reagan's years. He could get away with blatant war crimes (the attack on Nicaragua, for example) without the sorts of popular protests that Bush saw. But the violent policies were not qualitatively different- the difference was in public awareness of the policies.

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Parry's 2004 book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq is excellent. But it says surprisingly little about Reagan and the poisonous influence his presidency has had on our country. I hope this terrific AlterNet essay will someday be the basis for an entire book about Reagan alone, and that it will get the media attention it deserves.

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Let's not forget that under Reagan, we increased our dependency on imported oil, increased the ratio of national debt to GNP, and went from being a creditor nation to a debtor nation. I recommend Andrew Bacevich's book "The Limits of Power."

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That s.o.b. Grover Norquist, president-for-life of Americans for Tax Reform, started this Reagan Reagan hagiography bullshit by founding his Ronald Reagan legacy Project in 1997.

Now every time I visit my sister and brother-in-law in Arlington, TX I have to see this big f*cking sign on I-20 which says "Ronald Reagan Memorial Expressway," or some sh*t like that.

Every time I go to the Saturday morning farmer's market on Court Avenue in my hometown I have to look at this hideous monstrosity honoring Reagan. It memorializes the time Reagan spent as a sportscaster for WHO Radio, current broadcast home of right wing asshole and Scott Roeder-lover, Steve Deace.

It's time to blow this crap up!

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Clinton is the Democrats' hero, but was he really a great president? When we start to review his policies, especially his economic/trade policies, we can see that he was not much better than Reagan.

I totally I agree that Reagan was a corporate and global banking shrill...but so was Clinton.

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A topic that never occurred to the bozos running the Reagan foreign policy. And guess what we have now, thanks to Ronnie.

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It reminds me of the line in Don Henley's "End of the Innocence" in which he refers to Reagan as "that tired old man that we elected king."

I've never known if Reagan was really a cardboard cutout prop or if he was truly the mastermind behind the scenes. An old SNL had him acting like a dopey old grandfather in public and a ruthless dictator when the cameras were gone. I'm sure there are some very good books and articles on this subject, but I haven't taken the time to do any research.

Did we all think Reagan was a tired old man while he was the force behind the regressive movement, or was Reagan really a tired old man who provided the face of optimism for the real villains?

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I grew up in the 1970s and 80s... and was somewhat politically active and interested in politics and history. I completely agree that Reagan was worse than Dubya. He was the master, and the Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, etc. were all his apprentices.

From 1997 to 2007 I made Washington, DC my home... and was deeply offended when a group of Republicans in Congress pushed through a series of legacy naming projects for Reagan... including National airport (which will always be simply "National airport" to me). DC is a city of mostly democrats, and for years nobody would call National airport "Reagan International" even after the signs had changed.

Reagan's propaganda was so obvious and open about dividing the country, and the way he dismissed tough issues like the environment, foreign dependence on oil, and poverty within our own country were infuriating. But he had a folksy appeal that many people bought into.

Republicans have long been for style over substance. They want leaders who will make them feel good about their lifestyles and about their religious faith (as long as it's Christian). Republicans seem to not only ignore science... they ignore history. Worst of all... they ignore reality. They represent a group of Americans who are desperate to cling to a way of life that is no longer sustainable. They don't realize that many of these issues could have been dealt with decades ago through small changes, but now we have allowed our problems to grow so large that even drastic measures may not be enough. Fortunately change does not have to be negative. It just means adjusting to a new healthier way of life that is better for our health, better for our environment, and better for our pocketbooks. But most important: It means paying attention to our past and learning from our previous mistakes. Future generations should not have to repeat the mistakes of the past that inevitably lead to unregulated greed. And they should avoid the intolerance towards other religions, gender preferences, etc. that many Republican leaders inspire in their constituency. Sadly... tough economic times will probably create an environment that is perfect for the Republicans to use fear (their favorite tool) to attract and keep constituents.

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When it comes to judging evil, we have to ask ourselves who is worse. Is it the man who believes his his own falsehoods, or the one who seeks only to persuade and doesn't care whether what he says is true or false?

I say the latter man, the one who excels at "bullshit" is worse, and that would be Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush, though the cause of great evil, apparently believed that God was speaking through him. This is a severe delusion, but it is more to be pitied than vilified. As for "The Great Prevaricator," there should be an especially hot place reserved for him in hell.

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Neoliberalism. People need to start learning that. Neoliberal Capitalism that began with Carter and really took off during the Reagan Regime is what this current crisis is all about.

It's difficult for people to understand what is going on when the mainstream media won't acknowledge this fact. This system started with the worst president: Reagan, only to come crashing down with the second worst: Bush II.

If it hadn't been for Reagan, Bush wouldn't have had the disastrous effect that he did. It would have been bad, but we wouldn't be in this economic crisis today without Reagan.

Start researching neoliberal capitalism. Start thinking about what we need to replace it with, because it's dying fast. (Thank goodness)

We have a real opportunity (for those of you who don't adhere to the lies that both parties inflict upon us) to create a new world. The crisis is big so we need to think big. That means it's too big for the box you're usually thinking in. Resist the urge you feel to be a "liberal" or a Democrat just because Republicans are worse.

Being a liberal implies that you have faith in this system and that we can put a band-aid on it. Forget that! It's time for radical politics. Read about the past radicals of this country like Emma Goldman, Frederick Douglas, Eugene Debs, Harry Bridges etc. Learn about direct democracy, participatory economics, anarcho-syndicalism etc.

Start pushing for unity and REAL change!

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...but GW Bush perfected it.

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Nothing could be further from the truth. No president "won the cold war". This standoff was won by the American taxpayer who supplied the money for the arms race. The USSR "lost" the cold war because they could not keep up with the U.S. and meet the needs of the Russian people.

The same thing that happened to them is happening to us, over-extending our capability to be the world's police force. At some point we will have to decide between guns and butter. And we better do so quickly. The bottom of the barrel is staring us in the face.

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... and the video to their song "Two Tribes" (1983)?
It showed Reagan and his Russian counterpart wrestling around in a sandbox. That was essentially it: two bullies fighting over a block. The wealthier one won.

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Robert Parry's main thesis is strongly reinforced by the amount of additional evidence cited in these comments. One writer (so far) has mentioned AIDS, but Reagan's abdication of responsibility for the emerging AIDS epidemic deserves a closer look. Reagan was in a unique position to provide leadership to curb the spread of AIDS when it mattered most. His failure in this regard was shocking and, many would argue, criminal. Not only did he famously refuse to speak of AIDS until 1987, but he and his allies in the "religious right" ensured the suppression of effective public health responses and nurtured an atmosphere of fear and stigma that caused great suffering. In the long run, Reagan's inaction and hostility to minority communities surely helped catalyze the global epidemic we know today.

According to a 2004 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, ,

Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.... [T]he tragedy lies in what he might have done. Today [2004], the World Health Organization estimates that more than 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide. An estimated 5 million people were newly infected and 3 million people died of AIDS in 2003 alone.

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A lot of people credit Reagan for conquering the rapid inflation that peaked in 1980/81. It's seems plausible given the timing -- but it's just not the case.

However, the fact is the PAUL VOLCKER as fed chairman (from 1979 to 1987) conquered inflation, perhaps in spite of Reagan's run-away deficit spending.

Then in 1987, Reagan replaced Volcker with bubble-blower Alan Greenspan (1987 to 2006) whose policies played a big part in setting up the mess we're in now.

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How dare you criticize Unca Ron?!! Don't you remember, he was the one who brought lots of candy when he came to visit, and just like everyone's favorite uncle, he left before the sugar rush wore off and the fatigue set in and the tantrums started. And just like little kids who don't understand what's happening to them, we sure do miss our Unca Ron and remember him with only fondness.

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An excellent article, but one that omits another major horror that Reagan instigated: America's Nazi-style Drug War. To distract people from then-Attny Gen Meese's brewing Wedtech scandal, Reagan-Meese foisted on us a text-book example of the fear-mongering Big Lie technique, first developed by Hitler-Goering-Goebbels, starring drug users as the new Jews. To complete the recurring nightmare in American guise, the DEA-Gestapo was empowered by a gutless Congress with a host of Constitution-destroying policies. Meese's (and all subsequent) "Justice" Departments pushed these Drug War exemptions to common law and common decency to the point we now have regular, often deadly, often-errant no-knock raids, we've lost the ability to protect ourselves from self-incrimination, juries in Federal courts are not even allowed to hear testimony from defense witnesses about patients' medical marijuana necessity, wives must testify against their husbands or face prosecution as accomplices, accused people's property can be stolen by the Feds without proof it was acquired illegally, our tax dollars pay for anti-drug propaganda-lies to be televised, and, perhaps the most egregious effect of Reagan's institutionalization of intolerance, the long mandatory-minimum sentences inflicted on peaceful Americans whose only "crime" was refusing to kiss ass to lying drug-Nazis has resulted in the release of violent thugs who were in prison on parolable offenses. But at least the karma of the latter - and of the violent crime prohibition causes - is felt by us all, as is just, since it is we who allowed ourselves to be manipulated into sacrificing our liberties to preserve Reagan's lies that drug users are the enemy and that drug prohibition is in any way, shape, or form necessary to the public welfare.

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YES! All this crap began with his administration... his smiling call to "Free Enterprise" and deregulation that was continued by Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2... to quote Frank Z again... "Do ya Love It? Do ya Hate It? There it is, the way you made it... WOOOOOOwww! (Brown Shoes Don't Make It) We all just sat back, grew fat and TV stupid... and here we are. The powerless masses.

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Ronnie Regan and Gordon Gekko. For years I have said that unholy timing and confluence of "Greed is Good" and the cruelty of Regan and damn near ALL of his kitchen cabinet toward the average American was when our Doomsday began. So many posters have perfectly articulated my feelings that I won't repeat.

I do, however, have one request of all media people. Please stop referring to the neocons thusly. "In the early 1980s, Reagan also credentialed a young generation of neocon intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called "perception management," the shaping of how Americans saw, understood and were frightened by threats from abroad.
(Isn't this exactly what Goebbels did?)

They are SO NOT intellectuals (witness the damage done); they are ideologues period. Pure and simple. Repressed sexually, emotionally and intellectually. I would also venture they are fearful to their bones they will be found out which is why they lie and strike out in such hideous manners against anyone unlike themselves.

One more thing: Was it not under Regan that education became de-funded so these kind of reprehensible tacits would work against the dumbed-down, SUV drivin', beer-drinkin, gun-totin white male and all his ilk?

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Remembering Reagan

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Nixon rounded up 50,000 antiwar protesters at one time. Filled up a football stadium with them. This when the same tactic was being used all over South America to "disappear" leftests. The roundup would occur, gunfire would be heard for days, and considerably fewer would emerge later.

He initiated the "War on Drugs" and stampeded congress into giving him "No Knock" drug laws; beginning the gutting of the Fourth amendment - and packing the courts with judges that enabled it's complete emasculation.

Google "Russian wheat deal" if you want to learn about the biggest theft in history (up to that point).

"Peace is at hand" before the 1972 elections was the original "October surprise."

Had an "enemies list" upon whom he sicced government agencies - particularly the IRS.

Bugged unfriendly reporters.

Ran up the biggest budget deficits in history because of his unwillingness to pay for the Vietnam war - and incidentally triggered the inflation and soaring oil prices by cutting the dollar loose from gold. (The Saudis priced the oil in dollars, but valued it by how much gold it would buy. When the buck dropped over 80% overnight, they wanted 5x as much for their oil.)

Nixon created neither the EPA or OSHA - the Democratic congress did. Nixon had a knack for taking credit for any Democratic initiative he couldn't stop.

He went to China because there was no real reason not to - and he had been the main reason that it was politically impossible for any Democrat to do so. From the infamous "pink sheet" slur he used to win his first election against an excellent Democrat (Helen G. Douglas), to the "Pumpkin Papers" (commies in the State Department!!), HE had created the climate that made previous overtures to China impossible.

And the wage/price controls? Somehow they were a lot more effective (surprise!) in controlling wages.

This is the guy who gave us Cheney, Rumsfeld, Greenspan and many other of the worst wingnuts of the Bush admin. Know a tree by it's fruits.

"Nixon the liberal" is becoming a common meme these days because the younger generation has been a bit too preoccupied with the Bushies to do the research - and it is complete revisionist bullshit.

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As a boy growing up in the 50's I was an avid movie goer and I loved the movie stars, except that is for Ronald Reagan. To me, Reagan was a tin horn hero and a terrible actor.

Later in life I lived in California while Reagan was governor and I found him no better as governor. When he was elected president I was astonished, and I couldn't believe that such a mediocre man actually made it to the presidency. All through the Reagan presidency I still failed to see what made people think he was so great and I'm not a bit surprised that the policies he fostered have proved to be disasterous for our country.

What I still don't understand is what makes so many people attracted to a mediocre man like Reagan?

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A number of historians say it takes a generation (about 25 years) to really look back at a President's legacy, it's affects and to look at in a honest way. We are at that stage from when Reagan was in office. We now better understand his legacy with the passage of time. I never bought his BS then and indeed he was really a far worst President that his legacy suggests.
Let us not forget his firing of the Air Traffic Controlers, seeking better pay to keep up with the stresses they were under as well as several years of inflation. That affect us for years and even today especially as to labor relations and collasping unions.
He began the trend of less government regulation. We all know that result.
Iran-Contra. Another criminal act, possibly a war crime, by a US President.
Let us also not forget that what probably got Reagan elected by many voters was the Iranian Hostage Crises. Republicans hyped up the apparant ineptness of the Carter Administration to deal with it, although they were trying to not use military options and didn't have many others. Reagan and the Republicans make the play that comming on as as tough guy is necessary with the rest of the world. That thinking has led us to the disaster in Iraq under Bush.
Hopefully, with articles like this, we will begin to really revising correctly Reagan's horrible place in history.

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It's amazing and kind of disheartening to recall that, toward the end of Reagan's second term and during Bush the First's one term, it really looked like Reagan would go down as one of the very worst presidents in history. He'd built up the biggest debt ever, created an unprecedented homeless population, created an unprecedented and racially unjust prison population, shoveled money from social services and education into prisons, police, and military, and made the US internationally hated. The 80s were similar to the Bush II years in that you were embarrassed to travel internationally for all the damage Reagan had done to other countries with his military adventurism. Anyway, polls toward the end of his presidency showed him to have very low approval ratings and it looked like there might be criminal prosecutions over Iran-Contra and other things. Then in the 90s, Clinton refused to pursue criminal proceedings and didn't reverse many of Reagan's policies. By the mid-90s, Grover Norquist had established the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project to get as many things as possible named after Reagan in every state of the union and a rewriting of history was occurring, to the extent that during the present decade an AOL poll showed that Americans ranked Reagan as equivalent to Lincoln in greatness and people tear up when his name is mentioned. He really was as bad as Bush, worse in that without his major redirection of policy, Bush II's agenda wouldn't even have been possible.

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I think Billy rapist wins the prize for WORST.

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yes Ronny was not the icon the Repugs try to portray in their inept attempt to rewrite history. But he was NOT the Director- just the B actor given the leading man part.
A Little education on Alzheimers Folks- it does not Just happen over night, or even a few years. It is an insideous disease which can take Decades to gradually takes over the persons mind. Ronny HAD Alzheimers when he Took office. He clearly admitted it when he stated 'I couldn't tell you what I had for Breakfast'- that was not just a sly way to get out of answering questions about what he knew about Iran Contra- it was an Admission of senility- and he probably did not know any thing- except maybe "Basically" (ah DICK?). anyone who has worked with alzheimers patients as they descend into a mental catatonic state recognizes those Vacant eyes, The revelation there is not much being comprehended behind them. Reagan had those teltale looks early in his admin- he was already suffering from the onset of Alzheimers.
We need not look far to see who were the men behind the Puppet- calling the shots, setting direction...Cheney,Rummy and Wolfie.why do you think all the things begun during the Reagan years continued into HW's and then become Fate Accompli's in W's...Same Directors.
So pointing a finger at the Reagan Era is Correct- but holding Ronny solely Responsible deflects away from the Real Culprits and fails to follow the True dots to Why this all came together under W.
These Three have chosen the most malliable Front men they could find- Ronny had Alzhiemers, HW no Spine and W the IQ of a Knat.
Cheney,Rummy and wolfie have been committing War Crimes, Crimes agaisnt Humanity,Treason and Usurping the office of the Presidency for Decades!

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I think that nothing so illustrates Reagan's contempt for the working man than his taxing
Unemployment Benefits and Social Security Benefits
Taxes that are still in effect today

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Now we know why Dick decided to throw his old boss under the bus. Better we rid ourselves of the legacy of Dubya than Bonzo's daddy. If we stir up the Reagan cesspool; long forgotten Cheney turds are bound to float again.

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Glad to see a realistic analysis of Reagan's effect; startled to learn that he had become a beloved icon. But both Reagan and "Junior" were the beneficiaries -- and the instruments -- of an organized, and very well-funded, plan by the plutocracy.

The far-right's lock on the media, the sudden proliferation of right-wing think-tanks, the blueprint drawn up for the Reagan administration by the Heritage Foundation, the tremendous shift away from energy conservation and toward "the ownership society" -- all the stuff that began in the Reagan years and reached its terrible fruition in "Junior" Bush's administration were mapped out and lavishly funded, starting in the 1970's, by a group of 9 mega-wealthy families panicked by the runaway social and economic changes of the 60's and 70's.

This is not some conspiracy theory -- here's AlterNet's 2005 article on the Rob Stein analysis which urged deep-pockets progressives to respond appropriately. It is still true, and still a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what happened to our country. And it sure explains the origins of our two "SBD" (in this case, stupid but deadly) neocon Presidents -- the men who killed America.

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For the Bushies. WE say WAIT A MINUTE! Where's the e-Mail address where we can send the money? Chumsfeld in Bruxelles by September!

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If Reagan was so bad, why do we erect big statues to him and have Nancy there weeping at the unveiling? What's next, will the GOPS nominate his ghost?

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Labor unions had their hard fought gains stripped from them, Reagan gives new meaning to ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. Was his claim to fame as a labor leader just for an act? Perhaps Act one in Scene II?

Dissent is fundamental to democracy; by squelching dissent Reagan proved he is antidemocratic, he did not encourage or facilitate “we the people” to participate in the democratic process. He is also responsible for setting the stage for the massacre in panama. His vice-president Bush continued Reagan’s legacy and gave that horrible Christmas gift of “no good will” to the Panamanians, when thousands of civilians were slaughtered, they were divested of property and life.

Reagan and his wife told food stamp recipients to stick to beans. Did they think about the farmers that grow produce and dairy products and cattle ranchers etc.?

Reagan also blamed unemployment on the unemployed; he waved a newspaper and said there are so many “help wanted” columns! If people are unemployed it is their own fault!

His trickledown economics or Reaganomics are a disaster, “Reagan's budget director David Stockman once blurted out the truth, that it would lead to red ink "as far as the eye could see." We all should be seeing red at what his plan has done to ordinary Americans! The house prices went out of reach for most ordinary working class Americans, the interest rates also went up.

UK had their iron woman, Thatcher, and we, the Darth Reagan! What a pair! They are responsible for the current multidimensional crisis that is affecting our world today!

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For the younger generation-- I would like to tell you about James Watt--Reagan's (in)famous Secretary of the Interior. He was the guy who believed that America should fully and ruthlessly exploit its national resources because, as he put it: "when the last tree is finally felled, then Jesus will come".

And as for Mr. Reagan himself, there was his famous comment that "trees cause pollution".

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Anyone here remember the Carter Misery Index? The foreign policy shame?
Obama is on track to beat all those awful records...
Take a look at your 401k suckers...look again Labor Day...suckers..
the taxing phase is next...
Obama is s Dufus...can't solve a thing and will not...secular socialism is NEVER the answer...

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Bush was just the ignoramus who got caught holding the bag.

#@!

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We continue to support this one party system masquerading as a two party system, nevertheless the real agenda is furthered by either party elected. So who's really pulling our strings?

HTTP://WWW.PROPAGANDAWERKS.BLOGSPOT.COM

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This article is brilliant. I've been telling people for years about how bad I think the Reagan Presidency was and no one would listen. I lived through every excrutiating day of it and hoped I would never see anything that bad again. Little did I dream that the Bush Baby was lurking on the horizon.
Trickle Down Economy - Yeah, that worked brilliantly. The only time the rich gave money to help the rest of us was if it happened to fall out of their pocket.
James Watt - Don't know what happened to him. Can only hope a tree fell on him, or he was bitten by a rabid beaver.
Star Wars - Does anyone else hear heavy breathing in the background?
Ended the Cold War - What, just by asking someone to knock down a wall?
The list goes on. I've never understood the Deification of this man. And now there's the recent unveiling of a statue of him in Washington:
"Seven feet tall, cast in bronze and unveiled Wednesday in the Capitol Rotunda next to another popular Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Former first lady Nancy Reagan shed a tear when a blue curtain fell away and revealed the visage of her beloved "Ronnie," standing tall as a head of state and bearing the trademark twinkle of a movie star who understood the power of humor in politics."
Kinda' makes you want to puke, doesn't it?

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The writers diatribe against RR is not logical nor truthful. The Demnocratic President Woodrow Wilson sent thousand of Americans to their deaths to fight a foriegn war in WWI; FDR's (D) depression lasted until WWII where he sent thousands of Americans to die in WWII; Harry Truman (D) sent thousands of Americans to die in Korea; LBJ (D)sent thousands of Americans to die in Vietnam; Ronald Reagan (R) sent less than 10 Americans to die in Grenada; George Bush (R) sent less than 400 to die in Gulf I; George Bush (R) sent about 4500 to die in Iraq and Afganistan. Now whose record are you confused with? Or is it that you relish the idea of Democratic Presidents sending American Boys to die by the tens of thousands in foriegn wars. Get real, get with it and stop the 'big lie.'

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I waited for years for something good to "Trickle Down" to our families from the Reagan "Trickle Down Economics". The only thing that has tricked down to us is more debt, more lies, and presidents that embarrass our nation to reckless and careless levels.

IMO, Bush is by far the worst president in the history of the United States, however, what do you expect when you sit around since the 80's waiting for something to "Trickle Down" to you?

Well if you didn't know before, you know now. And Mr. Obama carries on where our worst president in history left off in pretty much every way.

End result? Not even a trickle.

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Go back a little further and you can find Harry Truman deciding to drop the second atomic bomb less than a week after the first one. While I think that the first bomb can be justified with the usual explanations (kill thousands to save millions) the dropping of the second bomb before the Japanese were able to comprehend what had happened in Hiroshima was a war crime.

In 1950 Eisenhower started sending military advisers to Vietnam which was ramped up (using false evidence) by Johnson into sending tens of thousands of US troops and millions of Vietnamese to their deaths.

The sad truth is that most presidents succumb to the temptation to intervene militarily and twist the law to support their policies. Even though I voted for him, I think Obama is sliding down that slope faster than most of his supporters would have predicted.

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