One last Reagan thread

[DaveSZ]

RIP Lady Liberty.


http://www.progressive.org/webex04/wx060804.html


No Praise for Reagan

Spare me the heapings of praise for Ronald Reagan.

He was one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

In fact, he should have been impeached for the Iran-Contra scandal, and he might have been had Congress and the media just done their jobs. Reagan misappropriated funds, and then he lied about it. He traded with Iran, an enemy of the United States, and he lied about that, too.

-more

[whistle]

1. Please, no more good or bad threads on Reagan...

...the man does not deserve that kind of focus and attention. He was a shill for the right wing, an opportunist and evil. His place in history will be next to the likes of the small minded national leaders he supported and purchased through his corrupt policies. Let's bury him and get on with returning America to the people.

[jobycom]

3. His place in history will be next to Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson

If WE don't start convincing people of his real record soon. And his success means that more young leaders now will follow his example believing he was a great leader.

People are being told he was a great president. If we don't correct that here, he will become one in people's memories, and that will be fatal to truth, justice and the American Way.

[jobycom]

2. Finally! Those who think Bush is the worst ever are too kind to Reagan

Bush wouldn't be possible without Reagan's softening of corporate protections, thus allowing the media to be bought up. It was under Reagan's atrocious economy (it was NOT a thriving economy) that corporations got so used to paying no taxes. Reagan did away with federal aid to states so he could cut taxes, but states still had to pay for what they were doing, so states began raising taxes.

Taxes went UP under Reagan, but they shifted to local governments. This is more significant than even that "corporate personhood" red herring so many progressives are angry about, because corporations used this shifted tax base and Reagan's struggling economy (and his deregulations) to grab tax exemptions. As local economies began competing harder for a shrinking pot, they began giving tax exemptions to businesses to relocate to their city, thus making it impossible for cities to collect taxes on large companies-- even property taxes.

I took a course with a city planning expert in 86 who related a story about one of his cities vying to get a company to relocate to their city. The city kept the exact deal secret until they were forced to divulge it, and everyone was shocked that this corporation had a full tax exemption-- they were to pay zero in local taxes. The amazing part now is the realization that this used to be shocking.

Reagan was worse. He had no understanding of the issues he worked on, yet he stuck to his blind ideologies despite all evidence. He caused more pain and suffering than Bush by a long shot, and many of the terrorists who now spring up in poverty-stricken regions have Reagan to thank for making their lives so intolerable.

Reagan was worse than Bush. It's a disgrace that a US military vessel is named after that filthy animal. Or anything else.

[DaveSZ]

4. Reagan killed many more people

I guess you could then say he was worse.

[jobycom]

5. Reagan linked patriotism to machismo militarism

just as America was starting to break that link because of Viet Nam. Reagan began his campaign in a city famous ONLY for the murder of civil rights activists (although now it is famous for Jerry Rice, too). Reagan told the South that it was okay to be racist just as the South was sruggling to overcome that heritage. Reagan cut funding for education, school lunches, the arts, crime prevention, drug prevention, drug rehab, mental health treatment and just about everything else that helped our society deal with its complexities. He single-handedly (well, with the help of Congress) created the homeless problem-- people weren't living on the streets in such great numbers before Reagan. We spent most of the 90s trying to clean up the social ills Reagan created during the 80s.

Reagan's economy drove wages down (because it favored big over small business), which made families have to have two incomes to survive, and then he blamed feminism for destroying the family, trying to make women feel bad because they had to work to survive in his economy. He turned us into a debtor nation for the first time, and we've never recovered.

He did kill a lot of people (more than Bush? who knows, who counts anymore?), but he created a legacy that made Bush possible, and that turned power in this nation over to unbridled corporate greed (not that corporations were ever out of power, but he broke down all the safegaurds built after the Great Depression).

And he was a horrible, petty, racist buffoon. He was optimistic if you were white, rich, conservative, Christian, hetero, and male, but the further you varied from that ideal, the more Reagan explicitly blamed you for the world's problems. Before I even knew the difference between conservative and liberal, back when I just believed in the Jesus ideals of love, foregiveness and charity, I had to listen to Reagan blame those characteristics of myself that gave me my greatest pride as the root of all evil in America.

He was a despicable animal. W is just weak and stupid.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Reagan IQ + Bush IQ = 1 mentally impaired turnip.

Both are lauded as "plain speaking" which used to be know as "stupid" or "uneducated".