Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was a Hollywood actor who became the American president from 1981 to 1989. He gave us the welfare queen stereotype and trickle-down economics so he could take from the poor and borrow from the future to give huge tax cuts to the rich. His fans say he won the Cold War, yet the fall of the Soviet Union took even the CIA by surprise.
He was a television spokesman for rich white people. In print he seemed like he did not have a full brain (it was in fact falling apart) but on television he seemed like he was just talking common sense.
Cartoonist Tim Krieder put it best as part of the country mourned his death:
Even at age twelve I could tell that Jimmy Carter was an honest man trying to address complicated issues and Ronald Reagan was a Brylcreemed salesman telling people what they wanted to hear. I secretly wept on the stairs the night he was elected President, because I understood that the kind of shitheads I had to listen to in the cafeteria grew up to become voters, and won…
The Washington press corps was so enamored of his down-to-earth charm that they never checked his facts, but if you watched his face when it was at rest, when he wasn’t performing for anyone, you could see him for what he really was – a black-eyed, slit-mouthed, lizard-faced old son-of-a-bitch.
- He was a bad actor, an informer for McCarthy, and a hired front man for a gang of Texas oilmen, fundamentalist dingbats, and right-wing psychotics out of “Dr. Strangelove”.
- He put a genial face on chauvanism, callousness, and greed, and made people feel good about being bigots again.
- He likened Central American death squads to our Founding Fathers and called the Taliban “freedom fighters.”
- His legacy includes
- the dismantling of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,
- the final dirty win of Management over Labor,
- the outsourcing of America’s manufacturing base,
- the embezzlement of almost all the country’s wealth by 1% of its citizens,
- the scapegoating of the poor and black,
- the War on Drugs,
- the eviction of schizophrenics into the streets,
- AIDS,
- acid rain,
- Iran-Contra, and, let’s not forget,
- the corpses of 240 United States Marines.
- He moved the center of political discourse in this country to somewhere in between Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet.
- He believed in astrology and Armageddon and didn’t know the difference between history and movies; his stories were lies and his jokes were scripted.
- He was the triumph of image over truth, paving the way for even more vapid spokesmodels like George W. Bush.
- He was, as everyone agrees, exactly what he appeared to be – nothing.
- He made me ashamed to be an American.
If there was any justice in this world his Presidential Library would contain nothing but boys’ adventure books and bad cowboy movies, and the only things named after him would be shopping malls and potter’s fields.
Krieder does not get all his facts right but he nailed it nonetheless.
See also:
“If there was any justice in this world his Presidential Library would contain nothing but boys’ adventure books and bad cowboy movies . . .”
That’s the single best sentence I’ve ever read about Ronald Reagan. Well done.
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“image over truth”
Well, he never called the Taliban “freedom fighters”, simply because the Taliban didn’t exist then.
What you see are Mujahideen. And you can tell by their clothes they are not all Pathans.
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Right, there was no Taliban till 1994.
There are other things that Krieder says that are not true, like “the embezzlement of almost all the country’s wealth by 1% of its citizens.” It was not “almost all” or even “1%”.
The value of Krieder’s quote is not that it would make a good addition to the Wikipedia or the Britannica but that he nails something about Reagan that is hard to put into words.
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“so he could take from the poor”
Impossible, there’s nothing to take.
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It’s the usual Philadelphia, MS thing with me in regards to Reagan. I was a kid when he entered office (barely remembered Carter), so I really didn’t understand him that much (image is everything I guess) until I got older and things got interesting. It’s a weird thing to hear all of the adulation once you study the man and “his” policies. It’s also weird when folks seem to clamor for him over the current GOP field…O_o
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My interest in politics began during the early Reagan so my bar is unfortunately quite low. I gag when I hear Obama refer to RR as one of his favorite presidents.
“He moved the center of political discourse in this country to somewhere in between Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet.”
I don’t disagree that the center has moved, but I blame others as well, particularly the typically spineless Democrats, for allowing the frames of debate to move so far to the right.
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Abagond:
Black liberals are full of it. They constantly criticize republicans for this and that, yet, 90% of blacks in the US vote for democrats. Black people got in bed with dems in the 1960s, and we’ve been paying for that error ever since. Republicans are not killing black people, leftist ideology is killing us. Hollywood is on the left, public education is on the left, public and private unions are on the left, colleges and universities are on the left, journalism is on the left, trial lawyers are on the left, criminals are on the left, and so forth. Ronald Reagan is hated by the left because he didn’t put up with their s**t…Bottomline! Yes, Reagan wasn’t perfect at all times, but he wasn’t an enemy of blacks in this country either. I take offense to other blacks talking smack about my side when their side continues to shove a pole up the behind of blackmen in this country and abroad. Never lump me in with the Clarence Thomas types who are seen as sellouts of our race. Besides being black and male, I have nothing in common with Mr. Thomas. He’s a phony who got over on “The System.” Conservative or liberal, a sellout is a sellout. That being said, all of us want the best for our race going forward. We agree to disagree on some issues, and work together on other issues that benefit our race as a whole. Abagond, Stay True!!!
Tyrone
Black Eros Movement
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Wow, reading this article gave me goosebumps. I get the feeling you didn’t like Reagan very much.
“The triumph of image over truth”.
Well, that happens a lot, and a good reason why the truth should be put out there so that people are not confused about anything. People need to know facts in clear, concise language so that they can make informed decisions about villains and support/back the heroes.
The reason why sometimes the villains appear to win out over the heroes is because people are given false, misleading or unclear information. When the evidence is presented clearly, people can usually see who the villains are, unfortunately, we can be easily misled by villains and that’s why it is important for evidence and information to be presented clearly so that we can see the villains for exactly who they are without the room for confusion of any kind.
Sometimes, when I read posts on this blog, I sometimes feel an element of dissapointment, sadness and regret, maybe I’m just too sensitive and it’s me reading too much into things. I really don’t know, but this article makes me feel kind of sad.
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I firmly believe that RR was already displaying signs of Alzheimer’s during his first term – few people recall that he called the state of Hawai’i a ‘territory’, and did a microphone check by saying “Gentlemen, the bombing begins in five minutes.”
I have to say, his habit of calling his second wife “Mommy” was a bit disturbing, as well…
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@ sepultura 13
My mother says the same thing.
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It still amazes me that the Reaganites managed to get Washington Nation airport re-named for this idiot. And naming that airport after him was a huge slap in the face to every Black person who lives in D.C.
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@Tyrone
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. You should really do your self a favor and learn some history.
The Republicans stood with Southern segregationists in the 60’s. Do you really think Black voters should have sided with the Republicans?
Reagan was a super-racist who used the Southern Strategy to his advantage. The Reagan presidency devastated many Black communities in America because of his racist economic and legal policies.
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@ sepultura13
“I firmly believe that RR was already displaying signs of Alzheimer’s during his first term ”
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And I firmly believe that few, if any, POTUS in recent times have ever been the most powerful person in the world. That distinction ultimately belongs to an exclusive cabal/cartel of ultra rich, powerful, white males running things quietly, hidden behind the scenes. The president is only the figurehead/show piece/lead actor of an elaborate & misleading staged production.. with the exception of maybe Jimmy Carter.
Ronnie, the actor, and former governor of Cali, was the perfect stooge for this role. I recall scenes where he was accompanied to a podium with someone from his administration seemingly whispering instructions in his ear, apparently telling him what to say to the people and reporters. I too suspect as I look back that his Alzheimer’s was kicking in.
(The VP, the elder Bush, via legal protocol, should have taken over the presidency – but didn’t, lending more credibility/evidence that the USA isn’t the real democracy that most people think it is.)
Like W Bush and some others, there’s NO WAY – in a nation of 270 million people – that these men were remotely approaching the best, brightest, most qualified people to run the greatest federal apparatus on the planet!
Americans surely love their entertainment, but the “show” they’re getting seems to escape their ability to recognize.
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Huey Freeman was right all along. Ronald Reagan WAS the devil lol.
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@Sepultura13:
I firmly believe that RR was already displaying signs of Alzheimer’s during his first term.
—
I agree. He used to appear to lose his train of thought quite often toward the end of his last term. I remember an occasion where Nancy had to complete his sentence.
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I find it interesting that Ron Jr., appears to be a staunch liberal. I think some of it comes from the stem cell research issue. Junior has said more than once that he feels the research could have benefitted his dad in some way. His mom agrees.
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Why is it that when one man says something, it’s bad. But when another says the same thing, it’s good? Just askin’…
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Exactly. I’ve been saying, for many years now, that the USA is a plutocracy, not a democracy. As far as political leanings go, I can’t see why any ‘blackman’ or ‘blackwoman’, as Tyrone says, would vote for Republicans OR Democrats. None of the established parties have (or will) done us a lick of good! Politics, schmolitics…religion, ‘race’, ‘social class’, and politics are all artificially constructed means of dividing and manipulating people, to name a few.
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Reaganomics meant a huge catastrophy for many americans, including the middle class who voted for him. The point is, he was an actor. Who wrote the script, we will never know, but they got what they wanted from him, the wrecking of the state.
As for being black mans friend or less harmfull than democrats, I have no idea where from tyrone gets that. Reagan was at odds with all minorities, the poor and immigrants, he hated them with gusto, particulary if they dared to raise a stink on anything. Remember: Just Say No.
Labour unions were demons and anything that brought people together was communist subversion. The white washers of Reagan do not want the real image of the man, they want the imaginary.
Reagan and his intelligence staff had no idea what was going on in USSR. They painted USSR as a super power, monolithich ultra state, when in actuality it was about to crash down both ideologically and economically, totally spent by 1980’s.
As for talebans, yes. They were not called talebans in those days, they were called afgan freedom fighters. Some observers warned the west about them, but Reagan government supported them with tens of millions of dollars and AA missiles. Gulbuddin Hektmaktyar, one of those freedom fighter leaders, told his american contacts straight up in 80’s: “First we take down USSR and then you.” Reagans men gave him 40 million dollars to fight the heathens.
One very young saudi was fighting among these freedom fighters,. His name was Osama bin Laden and he was also backed by the CIA under the orders of the Reagan administration.
There was a real afgan freedom fighter called Ahmed Massoud who fought against the USSR alone for years and years in the Panshir valley, but because he was independent, CIA did not assist him, even though he was the most successful of them all. He also warned the west about the fanatics but he was not listened. He also fought against the taleban but the west never assisted him. He was killed by Al Qaida.
Remember Iran-Contra gate? Reagan, who publicly was saying that he does not negotiate with terrorists, was doing excately that in Libanon and smuggling weapons and spare parts into hateful Iran at the same time he was on tv telling americans he did not. CIA planes took guns from US airports to the contras and brought back cocaine straight into USA. Reagan denied all knowledge of this even though his closest staff was into it up to their elbows. Somehow he got off the hook, where as Slick Willy got into deep Sht because he “did not have sex with that woman”.
The other was publicly nailed because he did something with a young woman and lied about it. The other is being praised as a “great president”, even though he organised drug smuggling into his very own country, funded the very people who already in the 80’s were telling that they were going to attack USA and set up islamic schools i Pakistan tribal areas where the mullahs teached that the west is satan, who allowed the looting of the national wealth by big copmanies, who gave to the rich and took from the poor, lied about all of this and then some.
Go figure.
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Great post, good succinct reminders. Reagan is also largely responsible for the US having the largest prison population, and for most of them being minorities, a covert effort fueled by the racist War on Drugs. Another selfish Republican moron made dangerous by the backing of plutocratic billions.
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“Triumph of image over truth”. Love it.
Hitch also had some apropos comments:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/not_even_a_hedgehog.html
As a conservative, what never ceases to amaze me is how many people there are who call themselves “conservative” but are not outraged by RR’s economic policy, which involved running up massive amounts of debt and spending the money on military-industrial projects to create a temporary illusion of a boost in the economy — exactly the stuff they are nowadays criticizing Obama for doing. RR created the template for this type of government.
And the myth of Reagan presiding over the end of the cold war is just that — a myth. Though it’s difficult to pinpoint when the cold war ended with finality, that point occurred some time between 1991 and 1993, under either Bush41 or Clinton.
Meanwhile, the “winning” of the cold war was the cumulative effort of the nation over many decades since the end of WWII.
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Valentina:
With all due respect, you gotta come with something better than the southern strategy. Dixiecrats in the south who chose to turn away from the democrat party are worse than those who chose to remain in the party? Valentina, are you serious? Explain that logic to me? If i know that my party is full of s**t, Why would i want to stay in the party Valentina? All of the jacked-up blackmen in this country, and some on your side have the nerve to talk s**t to me about being a conservative republican. If you can show me a large number of GOP brothas who are destroying our race on a daily basis, We can talk and chop it up. Sista, if you can’t do that…Adios!
Tyrone
Black Eros
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Just read Tyron’s post and am posting my agreement. In response to Jim Crow of the 1960’s, the response of liberals was to buy some marginal land in an unused corner of town, build some giant concrete warehouses, and stuff them full of black folks, all using taxpayer money. It was the most obvious form of NIMBY, all done in the name of “urban renewal.” Now, the liberals scratch their heads and wonder how our nation managed to create a black urban under-caste.
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National airport was renamed for him and there is a stature of him in the Capitol.
But there is a statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square right across from the white house. People admire and honor the most dubious of heroes.
I wonder what the legacy of Jimmy Carter will be.
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It’s quite the read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/07/why-nelson-mandela-was-on-a-terrorism-watch-list-in-2008/
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Same with Trump.
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