Reagan Legacy is Superficiality

[earthside]

Opinion today by Dave Chandler on: www.Earthside.com

Earthside Commentary:

It really is pretty easy to sum up the truth about Ronald Reagan's tenure in office.

He sold weapons to the Ayatollah Khomeini and lied about it. His Defense Department envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, acquiesced in Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds. He espoused policies that resulted in the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. He trivialized the sacrifice of millions in a battle against communism that stretched over decades - and then claimed that he alone defeated the Soviet Union. He sent the national debt of this country into the deepest morass of red ink ever (until the present regime, anyway). The economy in middle America was devastated ... remember the farm crisis? The depression in the Rocky Mountain west? His 'deregulation' set the stage for the savings and loan debacle. And he promoted the infusion of fundamentalist religion into government that has festered into the disunity and polarization that has corrupted our politics to this day.

But he had a great public relations staff and, as a former actor, understood how to use propaganda to put lipstick on a pig. The Reaganites (and now the Bushites) honed and practiced the tactic of equating Republican partisanship as the sole expression of patriotism - a method Joseph Goebbels, himself, would have admired. That's about the size of it.

Sadly, the REAL Reagan legacy is that America today would rather live in a world of television-style entertainment and superficiality ... than confront any uncomfortable truths. So it is fitting that Reagan dies while G. W. Bush is pretending to hold office legitimately. It is a continuum of unreality, denial of truth, feel-goodism, disdain for sacrifice, militarism masquerading as patriotism, and economic elitism.

The excesses of the Reagan funeral extravaganza is indeed a sign of our times. But it portends the absolute decline of the United States of America as an agent for truth and democracy and freedom and justice. The Ronald W. Reagan-George W. Bush fantasy is the harbinger of the unavoidable real-world confrontation with scarcity and resentment. Heaven help us.

DC

[Demeter]

1. AMEN BROTHER!

The unvarnished truth--but then, you are preaching to the choir, here.

[salinen]

2. None of those is important

What's really important is would you like to be with Reagan at a bar-b-que?

[Raster]

3. alive or dead?

[Catfight]

4. Reality TV! What a joke.

[davidavisok]

5. regan is a prick in disguise