You might have heard by now of the amazing GOP tribute to Ronald Reagan given to him at the GOP Presidential Debate, and I don’t mean there was a moment of silence or a montage of highlights, I mean the debate itself. They competed with each other over who was the Reaganiest, and quite frankly, I was wondering when it would degenerate just a little further into a pissing contest:
“I’m more like Reagan because I’ve always hated taxes, way back to when I was 4 years old!”
“Oh yeah, well I’m more like Reagan because I love corporate money. Make me Prez and I’ll be an even bigger shill than he was!”
“Oh yeah, well I saw all of his movies, even Bedtime for Bonzo, and I never missed an episode of General Electric Theater.”
“Yeah well I had his DNA shot directly into my bloodstream! Top that!”
It really is amazing all the hoopla given to Reagan. Especially since the Gipper, all be it a very influential President, really at the end of the day wasn’t that great of a president.
Yes I’m going there. Not to disrespect the guy, I just really don’t want to see another Reagan be President. No, not for partisan reasons, mainly because of the fact that Reagan did a whole lot of horrible things that he never was made accountable for, many of which the American people ultimately paid the price.
Read this amazing page for more detail.
First however, if anyone ever tells you Reagan ended the Cold War and toppled communism, look them straight in the eye and say: “How did the Gipper manage to pull that one off?” Neo-Cons don’t like to be asked questions. They might come back at you with a talking point or two, but nothing that can be attributed directly to Reagan. Why? Because Reagan didn’t end the Cold War.
He had about as much influence on the Soviet Unions collapse as Yakov Smirnoff. The U.S.S.R. collapsed under its own weight, its own economic problems, its own internal disorders, its own civil strifes. Reagan didn’t have any influence on that other than continuing the Carter Administration’s arms buildup and expanding it to include SDI or Star Wars. Sure the Russians were afraid of a missile defense shield, but I’m sure their intelligence told them how far away we were from having a system that could even stop 1 missile. By the time Clinton pulled the plug on the overall program, it was still considered a failure.
Besides, the war in Afghanistan was a much greater drain on the Soviet Union, also a Carter Administration policy. Sure Reagan helped “bleed” the Russians in Afghanistan too, but since this helped lead to the creation of CIA trained terrorists like Bin Laden, it is not a favorite line amongst conservatives. The space shuttle too scared the Russians far more than SDI. Star Wars proponents point out that SDI used the shuttles, but the shuttle was developed before Reagan was President, so that’s a misleading argument.
In the end, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the booming post-WWII economy (which is still felt today) did far more to topple communism than anything else. Reagan’s brutal war games in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua among others may have helped drain the Soviet coffers, but did equal harm to the United States by killing thousands of innocent civilians. The brutality delivered to families in Central-America and the Middle East in the name of the United States has damaged our reputation abroad, helping to give terrorist ideology justification, and nothing brings people to the cause of war more than losing loved ones.
Which leads us to Iran-Contra. An impeachable offense, for his cronies were raising money by selling weapons to Iran, crack here in the U.S. too, and using that money to fund an unethical war. The funny part is, it wasn’t the war stuff that made it illegal. It was bypassing the Constitutional right of Congress to deal with issues of money. Still, if they can throw Al Capone in jail for tax evasion, they could have kicked the Gipper out of the White House.
Aside from that, Reagan’s economics were supply-side based. In other words, give money to the rich, and it will trickle down to the lowly poor. What a crock. Rich people hang on to money the way a drug user hangs on to drugs. That’s why Jesus said a rich person has little chance of getting into heaven, but we’ll get into Reagan and the religious right another time. Studies found that Reaganomics led the middle class to shrink and rich to get richer, an overall increase in income disparity. Of course! That’s why you tax the rich more, because they don’t spend their money, and the money doesn’t do anyone any good when that money isn’t being spent in the marketplace. Sure they invest it in stocks, which also doesn’t seem to really do anyone any good at the end of the day (but more on that another time), investments however, do not directly translate into higher wages for employees. Often that money goes right back to the salaries of the rich board members. One of many reasons why 30 years of Supply Side economics have made the top 1% extremely rich.
Reagan also fired the striking air-traffic controllers, being the first to ignore the right of workers to strike. This touched off a trend that led to a severe weakening of labor and the middle-class in general.
Reagan’s environmental policies were laughable. He put industrialists in charge of the Department of the Interior and the EPA, opening up national lands to mining and oil companies at little return profit to the taxpayers, while doing nothing to stem the destruction that is beginning to manifest itself today. He even said once that trees cause more air pollution than automobiles do! Really? Than why were they skies clear before automobiles and factories?
Lastly, the big government argument. What a crock. Regan did not significantly reduce government spending, he actually increased it, but cut social programs to spend it on missile defense systems that achieved nothing. That’s why the national debt almost tripled on his watch.
I can go on but I think you get the picture. Please read this page if you are still not convinced. It’s full of great examples of Reagan’s wit and wisdom.
I say thank God he’s no longer president. We don’t need another Reagan. We don’t want another Reagan. What we need, is another Roosevelt.