Now that this week of trashing Reagan is over,

[charliebrown]

Can we not be a little more like humans and understand that many loved him. He deserved a State funeral in all its pomp and circumstance. He was elected twice by landslides.

I was really disappointed with the reactions on this site. I felt as an elected President(with a major mandate twice). It was just evil the way his death was dealt with here.

It is done now so lets forget it and go back to where we need to be.

Backing our canidate and not by trashing the dead but by trashing the living.

Wouldn't it be better to support Kerry then to trash Reagan? Trash Bush but let the dead rest. There is no gain(and probably a net loss) in trying to use Reagans death for vote gain.

Forget hate for the past and focus on now!!!

[dogman]

1. NO!

[WI_DEM]

2. actually your post is the only one I see right now on Reagan

so I think many people here have already moved on.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Naw...I actually was waiting until he was buried to criticize him.

And was urging a modicum of respect until then.

Now I am not allowed to express my feeling after the fact?

That's just not right.

[charliebrown]

5. Thats good of you, as I did.

Express freely now.

I just think the way he won both times should give him a State funeral. nothing more.

[KevinBG]

4. Reagan traded arms for hostages.

That happened, and there are some of us who will never forget that. Also, there's credible evidence that Reagan (and the first Bush) conspired with the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages to ensure his election.

So, while Reagan didn't lie about extramarital sex, he DID trade arms illegally, and should have been impeached.

[jeff30997]

9. Welcome to DU!!!

:toast:

[KevinBG]

16. Thanks

Looking forward to the exchanges. Should be enlightening.

[charliebrown]

12. It didnt happen, impeachment that is.

So what ever we wanna feel there wasn't the will to persue that. He never said he knew it went on but he did apologize and say it was his watch.

[KevinBG]

18. So?

It was his administration, and the fact that he can't remember isn't good enough. He either knew or should'a known. If you think he deserves credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union(which I don't, BTW), or for anything else, then he deserves to take the hit for the treasons acts that occured IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

[ashling]

39. So, to extend your logic,

as there has apparently not been the "will" to impeach that insipid twit currenlty masquerading as President, we should pipe down and just understand that some people love him.

Reagan deluded too many Americans for too long, while inflicting pain and misery on most of the rest of us. The litany of his mean spirited (to say the least) actions is too long, and has been adressed more eloquently elsewhere on this board.

Irving Stone once said that if the height of the Washington Monument indictes the greatness of the man, then an appropriate monument to Calvin Coolidge would be a hole of the same depth. Using that measure, a monument for Reagan would surely measure the thickness of the earth's crust!

:dem:

[acmavm]

13. Trading arms illegally is only the tip of the iceberg. Forget, never. Move

on, hell yes.

Since he did't rise from the dead today, I really would imagine anyone who thought that Reagan was a god would be dispelled of that pathetic notion by now.

Stange, I think that many of us had moved on, until this post.

[Hoping4Change]

59. I agree with you about Reagan's impeachable crimes and

I strongly disapprove of sentimentality. Being dead doesn't exhaonerate him, especially given the Repufgs attempts to cast him as saint. Furthermore why hasn't a fraction of the media attention
been given to sodiers who lost their lives arriving at Dover?


BTW Welcome to DU.

[BillZBubb]

6. You forget what you want. Me I'll always remember.

Reagan was a mean spirited, ignorant man. He did a lot of harm to a huge number of innocent people. That's a fact.

I will vote for Kerry, but that has no relationship with the fact that I won't roll over and play nice about Reagan.

If you want to swallow the propaganda, fine, that's your right--just don't expect others to do the same.

[punpirate]

7. The time to trash Reagan is never over...

... go ahead and be disappointed. He was a cruel man, too stupid to understand the pain he inflicted on others, in this country and elsewhere.

Let the dead rest? Say the same for the families of the hundreds of thousands of dead in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua and of AIDS patients and the poor in the US.

Let's make no mistake, here--this weeklong lovefest for Reagan is meant to obscure his record, not to reveal it. There's a lot the press has not said about this man, going back to his time as governor of California. Even then, he used his position to destroy people and institutions for the benefit of the wealthy few, for the sake of his ideology alone.

Any attempt to mitigate what this man did in his roles in government is unwarranted, sir.

[KevinBG]

10. Yep.

Couldn't've said it better.

[ashling]

30. well, said

he was, at best, a supercillious ass whose igorance was exceeded only by his verbocity.

[Art_from_Ark]

58. Absolutely

Those of use who lived through the eight disastrous years of Reagan will never forget the stupidity, nastiness, and corruption of his misadministration-- which, until January 20, 2001, had been the worst in American history.

[DrWeird]

8. Lots of people loved Hitler too.

That doesn't make him a decent human being.

[jeff30997]

22. Don't forget about:

Stalin,Mao and when Kim il Sung died in 1994 everybody in North Korea was crying.(Well at least that's what they showed on tv.And tv never lies isn't it?).

[physioex]

11. What concerns me is...

The revisioning of history and lionizing the man. Put a stop to it first. I couldn't watch the news all last week long. Good thing DU is around so I can keep track of what is going on.

[charliebrown]

17. I knew I would be flamed. I asked the admins yesterday.

It's just sad when you cant look at the facts(not changed by teachers and websites).

I won't fight. I think it is stupid that you all wanna fight a dead man rather then support a live one who is our hope.

Nough said.

[physioex]

20. I appreciate what youre saying....EOM

[Cleita]

21. The man is dead.

But he started a whole legacy that could destroy our country. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, they are all dead, but what they said and did isn't.

[dogman]

23. You have noted we should persue Bush.

We must also realize where he came from. Everything everyone despises about Bush was spawned by Reagan. I have seen the damage done to my country by this monster and I will never forget.

[Zinfandel]

61. Your not serious? Your joking right? Reagan was a disgusting, lying greedy

two-faced piece of shit.

And a week long of bullshit that you watched with such respect and believing every fucking lie that the republican owned, corporate media fed you...does not change the facts.

And I can happily say I didn't and refused to watch a single minute...so I feel I can be very objective.

"Let's just forget about the past" like we should forget about Bush stealing the election?

So many around here at DU, (including myself) fight hard to stress... WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET!!!

And to remind those assholes everyday, we haven't forgotten.

[Cleita]

14. It's over?? We've been holding back. It's only beginning.

eom

[stevebreeze]

15. I voted for Reagan

I have learned a lot about economics since. Reagan deserves to be trashed. He was a horrible president. In any real world scenario do you think Clinton or Carter would fair as well with the 'left wing media'?
I think not.

[mitchum]

19. HE WAS A FUCKING DIRTBAG (death does not change that)

[charliebrown]

24. YEAH!!!!!!, Lets spend all our time trashing the dead!!!

Fuck Kerry. Fuck 2004. Lets go back to 1988. Smart thinking idiots.

[dogman]

28. Play nice.

Reagan supporters are the idiots.

[physioex]

33. I realize some of your sarcasm.....

"Smart thinking idiots."

But personal attacks are unwarrented. That's why I am here..This is not yahoo message board.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kanary]

56. You've sold us.

You condemn us for telling the truth about a man who TRASHED this country, and tell us to be more kind, then you turn around a yell at us and curse us.

Yeah, that makes a real good case for you.

You might want to take some time to really think about that.

Kanary

[jeff30997]

26. Well now he's a rotting dirtbag!

:evilgrin:

[Trajan]

25. I was also rather upset by some posters ...

But frankly: YOU just brought it all back again ..

Gee: thanks ...

Anything else you want to reintroduce ? ..

Tell you what: when we get perfect: please tell us: I would hate to miss it ..

[charliebrown]

31. Not reintroducing Trajan.

Just saying its a no win futile thing. Time should be used for kerry not anti-deadguy. I think thats self-evident.

[Trajan]

38. You will learn one day ...

You can barely control yourself: efforts to control others are futile ...

WHY would you return to the issue AFTER ITS OVER if you believed we shouldnt waste time on it ? ..

geeez ... THINK ! ...

[the Kelly Gang]

27. don't worry..now it's Clinton's turn, we haven't heard anything yet

[Crunchy Frog]

29. My position is

that if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I myself had no wish to see the constant 24 hr a day Reagan worship, so I kept the TV off for the week. You had the option of staying away, or just not clicking on objectionable threads if you didn't want to read what people here had to say.

Alot of people here object to the attempt by the corporate media to canonize Reagan and re-create him as a mythical being. They had a perfect right to sound of in this forum.

For many, this was the only place to read, or tell the truth about what Reagan really did during his presidency.

He may have been beloved by many in this country, but he also was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Central America. There are probably more mass graves associated with Reagan than with Saddam Hussein, are we just supposed to ignore that?

I myself have not written anything negative about him, but completely understand why other people would.

And the current attempts to re-write history have vis a vis Reagan, have everything to do with this countries current political situation in my opinion.

Let's not "trash" Reagan, but let's make sure that the truth is known about what he really did, and not replaced by RW mythology.

[charliebrown]

32. Agreed.

Now that goes to the Historians. It is Time for DU to forget it.

[Crunchy Frog]

41. No, we can't understand our present

without understanding our past, and it's the duty of active citizens to gain that understanding, rather than waiting passively to be told "the truth" by authority figures.

Which historians are going to settle things? RW ones from the Heritage foundation? Those people are already trying to write an incomplete and dishonest history, which turns the real Reagan into a mythical figure.

It's our job to make sure that the ugly truth remains in public awareness, rather than being buried under mythology.

This is something that will continue on this board whether you like it or not. If you don't like it, the hide thread feature is a very useful thing.

Or you may find yourself happier frequenting other boards.

DU wil not forget it. Sorry.

[MoonRiver]

48. So forget it already, "DUer".

[tkmorris]

67. Well aren't you cute?

You are not the voice of DU. It is extraordinary that you think you can decide what it is time for DU to do.

I'll tell you what. If you want to not discuss Reagan I will do nothing to force you to. In return I will say whatever I please about Reagan and you will not do anything to stop me.

[LittleApple81]

34. Reagan's week is over. Period. Hide thread. n/t

[T Town Jake]

36. I actually held my tounge...

...until the services on Friday where over. That was just my personal choice, not criticizing anyone who didn't. But now that he "belongs to the ages," as the Republicans are constantly reminding us, I don't see why some historical perspective is not in order.
One thing I'd like to add: while I chose not to criticize Reagan during the past week, those who did where told repeatedly "why can't you wait til he's in the ground?" or "why can't you wait until the funerals over?" etc., etc. Well, it's over - and we're STILL hearing from certain quarters that he can't be criticized, and on a Democratic website no less. There's something wrong with that picture.
Just curious: when WILL the proper time arrive that we can criticize St. Reagan?

[charliebrown]

43. I never said dont critize him.

I said it was disgusting the way it went last week on this site. Critize all you want. I think it was good that you held off last week. Read what I wrote and you will know that what I said was to do as you have.

He is in the ground now and he is gone. I just think lots of time was wasted and emotions spent, on a wrong direction and on a wrong person.

Time lost to Kerry is time lost forever.

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zomby Woof]

37. fuck that

We came on DU to escape the week-long Reagan orgy all over the media. In the balance of things, the total amount of anti-Reagan posts on DU still only amounted to 0.0000000000000001% of the total fawning and worship in the media in contrast. So why the fuck are you moaning to us about how poorly some of us treated St. Ronnie's corpse?

This is the best progressive site on the web, and if I can't speak the truth about Reagan here, then I would quit posting. But I can, and will, continute to tell the brutal truth about that rotting douchebag whenever the fuck I feel like, without lectures from Reagan admirers.

Reagan defenders on DU! Holy fuck.

[Forkboy]

42. Reagan defenders on DU!

At least half of them found DU this week.Coincidence?

[Trajan]

54. 'Reagan Defender' ...

I am troubled when those who make an issue about funerary practice are suddenly absolute supporters of the object of the funeral ...

WHAT is being 'defended' ? ... 'Reagan' the body ? ... 'Reagan' the idea ? .. 'Reagan' the policy ? ... 'Reagan' the philosophy ? ..

These charges border on strawman and equivocation ...

I despise Reagan's policies: but being respectful during a greiving process is appropo ...

My dad was much like Reagan, with similar heartless beliefs: yet: I didnt feel inclined to skewer him when he was buried ... Does THAT mean I agree with his beliefs ? ..

Hardly: ...

This is a strawman fallacy ...

[Zinfandel]

63. !!!!!

[AlCzervik]

40. You know they way that

Reagan's history is being rewritten is actually evil. Reagan was not some paragon of virute. He came into office with a plan to cut the federal governemnt way back and many lower income and poor paid the price, thats evil.

[charliebrown]

45. My post wasn't pro-Reagan but you read what you want.

It was pro-DEM-pro-Kerry. Are you all so easily distracted?

I am off to bed now. Its a shame that you wanna spend more time on Reagan then Kerry. Lucy will hold the ball and I will fall. ZZZZZ

[Kanary]

44. I ain't heard no fat lady in a helmet sing!

It Ain't Over!

Here's some earplugs for ya........ the criticism of Raygun is NECESSARY!

Kanary

[MoonRiver]

46. Why don't YOU give it a rest?

You just resurrected the ghost of Reagan past (last week). So what's the real agenda here?

[Zomby Woof]

47. no shit

The threads have already begun to get back to Kerry and his VP choices, Bush's ties to the torture memo, Powell's lies in general... All quite normal for the DU metabolism. Some people like to play with cadavers, I guess.

[MoonRiver]

50. Yes, there is a name for that.

But there are other names that might be equally appropriate. :D

[Octafish]

49. LOL! It's a good time to bury the BFEE along with Reagan.

Reagan was a crook. The press made him out like a king of Persia. The people occupying the White House are crooks, too. We should do like they used to do in the olden days when the king died. Toss in all the wives, concubines, ministers, farm animals and assorted riff-raff that make up the Bush Organized Crime Family and seal the tomb.

[Jane Austin]

51. Of course he should have gotten a state funeral.

Who's arguing about that?

It was pretty over the top that the production lasted seven days, but as they say "It's your funeral".

I think the objections here were mostly to the sentamentalist, smarmy, hagiographic media coverage, 24/7 for a solid week.

As for his presidency, it will and should be studied and debated for many, many decades. You don't serve as Presdent and get a pass on criticism of your administration.

But the state funeral? If he wanted it, he deserved it.

Now, can anybody imagine the beautiful person that is Jimmy Carter wanting a funeral like that?

[theoceansnerves]

52. interesting

your post is one of only two on the front page about reagan. and i also find it interesting you ignored the MAJORITY of threads that dealt with his policies and his tenure as president and did not "trash" his death.

[sadiesworld]

55. Why didn't you start a Kerry thread?

[Solly Mack]

57. Yeah. Uh huh. Sure. You betcha. Ok. Alriiighty then

sigh

[struggle4progress]

60. Dubya rehired many of Ronnie's heartless thugs.

It's critically important that people know who these scumbuckets are and what's so ugly about them.

It's impossible to effectively educate people about such issues while insisting that everything said about Ronnie be "nice."

It's real, contemporary politics. Giving Ronnie glowing reviews would simply provide shade and cover for criminal histories and related ongoing crimes. That IS about "focussing on now."

And what's wrong with telling the truth? I don't think the truth is hateful: I think patriots are honest.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

62. Forgive and forget? I think not.

Reagan was "elected by landslides" because he appealed to the darkest side of Americans. Racism, greed, nationalism, xenophobia, ignorance, and sheer mythology.

He yearned for a lily-white America of docile workers stiving happily to further enrich the wealthy. A sort of "Mayberry, USA" complete with happy housewives making cookies for the happy kids waiting for the happy dad to come home and sit down to dinner with his happy family.

And, he did everything in his power to make thay myth come true. He busted unions, portrayed minorities as "welfare cheats", threatened anti-war protestors with "blood in the streets", backed and financed murderers, scorned the environment, and opposed every move by women for equality.

That he was popular and elected in landslides, speaks ill of America.

He finally did something right by dying and giving the federal workers that he did his best repudiate a day off.

I'm not "trashing" Reagan, he was trash.

[buycitgo]

64. so, is anyboy else waiting on tenterhooks for charlie brown's

contributions to further dialogues?

wonder what he'll have to say in the future

will we see any more posts from him?

not a very auspicious start, but maybe he'll have something of value to contribute

always the eternal optimist, I predict a bright future for him here

holding up the football for ya, charlie

I eagerly await your presence

[La Lioness Priyanka]

65. whatever!

maybe if he hadnt wilfully neglected the death of thousands of gay men i'd have some compassion for him but i dont. and i do not feel apologetic and guilty about it.

[dflprincess]

66. I didn't respect him when he was alive

and I won't be a hypocrite and pretend death changes that.