Death was the Gipper's co-pilot

[struggle4progress]

Only the ideologically twisted would deny Ronald Reagan his due. He was a wildly successful president, accomplishing a remarkable amount of his agenda.

He entered office in 1980 determined to block advancement for black Americans, to halt the sluggish march towards equality for American women, to make America walk tall again by beating up tiny poverty-stricken nations, to allow insatiable greed and ruthless personal ambition to reap lavish rewards, to fire up the economy through trillions of dollars in defence expenditures, to invite industry to desecrate the environment and to legitimate a morality in which any means justified his ends.

Notwithstanding his unparalleled laziness, ignorance and immersion in fantasy, in all these areas his administration triumphed, a splendid role model for conservatism in the modern world.

The new values were never in question. This was conviction politics. One of the very first acts of the Reagan administration was to cast the only vote against the World Health Organization's code of ethics on feeding third world babies with instant formula prepared with contaminated water.
<snip>

http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=32658

[Political_Junkie]

1. Wow, this is as good

as Palast's, thanks.

[PfNJ]

2. Yeah, well those babies.....

Should have gotten off the public dole.....

(Sarcasm off)

:eyes:

[Turbineguy]

3. On this board I have seen

a lot of stuff against Reagan. No, he was definitely not my favorite president and I was in California schools when he was governor.

He was never brought to trial for the things that happened on his watch that he was culpable for.

But he did get a life sentence without parole: Alzheimer's. Maybe we should just leave it at that.

Yes, we should become aware of the truth of his presidency so we can try to keep it from happening again. If Reagan is to be judged in the Next World, I'm sure nobody will be laying on the lavish praise we had to endure last week. At least that's over.

That's my 2 cents.

[phantom power]

4. But it won't be over

that's what they are busy doing: rewriting history. That's why some people are trying to point out what used to be obvious only a few years ago: that Reagan wasn't a good president, by any objective measure of what he did (or didn't do) for our country, or the rest of the world.

If somebody doesn't call them on it, Reagan's actual history will be forgotten.

[struggle4progress]

5. Many ugly Bush policies we're seeing now ...

can be traced back to Reagan and to people in his Administration. Many of those thugs are back in power with Dubya, pushing familiar junk.

Of course, Alzheimer's is a tragic illness, and "nil nisi bonum" is a graceful attitude. But in our present political crisis, perhaps it would be good for the public to remember Reagan as he was, not as his idolators would have him portrayed -- if for no other reason than to remind people that many of the thugs have a history; too much in this country goes "down the memory hole."

I'll agree if you want to argue that many of us do not necessarily do a good job of balancing the conflicting issues raised in the two previous sentences.