Why do we blame ONLY Reagan?

[dsc]

Reagan was a known quantity when he won overwhelmingly in 1984. He won 49 states and close to 60% of the vote. He had already broken the air traffic controllers union, he had already made major cuts in programs which serve the needy, he had already embarked on some of his adventurs in Central America, other than Iran Contra this man was a known quantity. Instead of picking on a sick man we should be blaming the country they voted for the man after he did those things.

ON EDIT THERE IS THAT BETTER NOW?

[Political_Junkie]

1. I agree.

I remember being so angry at my fellow Americans after that vote.

[glarius]

5. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems to me the reason Reagan was elected

was because he had the personality depicted by Hollywood as being what an American is supposed to be....Amiable, good-natured, takes no guff, and with a sense of humour....With his record he would not have been elected without this personality.....It looks like the same thing might happen again, by the way Kerry is being personified as colourless and Bush the personality boy....I'm speaking as a Canadian, watching from afar, but that's how it seems to me.....I sure hope I'm wrong.....

[SquireJons]

13. This is not 1984

While is does resemble the novel, it does not resemble the election. I think a much better analogy is the 1980 election. Reagan wasn't elected in 1980 as much as Carter was removed by the electorate. They wanted someone else, and took a chance on RR. Then the right wing machine took over and steamrolled Mondale in 1984.

I think the electorate will vote out shrub unless something dramatic happens between now and November.

[troublemaker]

Agreed

The American people are the lowest pack of swine ever assembled, but try running a political campaign on that theme!

[AP]

2. understand history...or doomed to repeat it...

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. To an extent, you have a point

Sure, America enabled him and should take some of the blame. However, he STILL did many horrible things while in office. Not making a direct comparison, but was Hitler any more acceptable because the German people allowed him to take power? Of course not!

The point is, just because he COULD do it, that doesn't make it right. And personally, I don't give a flying fuck if he's sick or not - he was personally responsible for the deaths and/or impoverishment of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) throughout the world. Whether dying or alive and healthy, he was what he was, and nothing will now change that.

[dsc]

6. Hitler never got more than 1/3 of the vote

Reagan got close to 3/5 of the vote. That is a very big difference.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. There's no difference at all

The point is that THE MAN committed the crimes, not the country. It was HIS actions. Just because you CAN do something, that doesn't mean you SHOULD or that it's RIGHT.

[dsc]

10. there is a huge difference

A clear majority here agreed with Reagan, while a clear majority there didn't agree with Hitler. Democracies are responsible for the actions of their leaders when they turn around and reelect them. If we elect Bush in 2004, then forever more America loses the right to say "We didn't agree with the stuff Bush did".

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

12. What in the hell does that matter?

Reagan was supposed to act as our leader in our best interests, not as a criminal. For whatever reason, the American people elected him to do that job and he did not do it. Period, end of discussion. ONCE AGAIN, just because someone lets you commit a crime, that will never make it okay. Both are at fault, absolutely, but that does not in ANY WAY absolve Reagan for what he did.

[dsc]

15. By 1984 it was crystal clear what he was doing

and he got elected again. Aside from the arms for hostages which was a surprisingly boneheaded thing, no one voting in 1984 has any right to be shocked at what the man did.

[leesa]

23. It was not clear. The media made it as murky as they possibly could

Also, you seem to believe that elections are fair and honest. Remember 2000?

[dsc]

25. Reagan had already done most of the bad stuff

and ignorance isn't an excuse. Other than the arms aspect of Iran Contra name one thing that any reasonably well informed person could have expressed honest surprise about Reagan doing in 1984. And he won with 60% of the vote. The election wasn't stolen. I remember, in a very Democratic area of the country, being the one and only supporter of Mondale in my government class.

[AP]

34. Republicans were very sophisticated with the symoblism and the cultural

shit, and there's no doubt that it was covering a huge upward transfer of wealth and power. They did some downright evil things in exploiting race.

I don't think acting like it's all cool just because they were able to fool a lot of people makes any sense at all.

And the Democrats were extremely unsophisticated. After the 60s, when it looked like people were going to do the right thing economically and socially because it was so obvioulsy right, that sat back throughout the 70s and 80s and watched the corporations use their buying power to knock Democrats out of the game, and they barely fought back until Clinton came along.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

39. Well I wasn't voting in 1984

Nor will the generations of children who learn about Reagan in history class. And for us, he will be the fucking scumbag that he is. You can see him however you see fit.

[dsc]

48. Neither was I

but you need to blame your parents or grandparents as well, which is my point. I was 17 in 1984 and thus couldn't vote either.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

55. Uhm, hello?

I've said that three times that they share the blame, but Reagan still takes the lion's share.

[AP]

17. So we give Reagan a free ride because Dems ran Carter and Mondale?

[dsc]

20. Do you honstly think anyone would have beaten Reagan in 1984?

Yes, Mondale was a bad candidate, but Reagan didn't just beat Mondale he creamed him. Say Mondale is responsible for half of the margin. That still leaves a 55 to 45 margin which is still very good. Incidently you will note I don't mention 1980. Had we merely elected him then thrown him out on his ass, then I wouldn't have posted this. It is his reelection which ratified what he did.

[AP]

24. Gary Hart in '84 might have been able to win states. I'm sure somebody

was out there who would have been a better chance. (You're talking about getting closer to 50% as the measure for being able to complain about Reagan, right? You're not arguing that Dems had to win?) I certainly don't want to give Reagan a free ride just because he ran against Mondale.

Also, so what if it was an electoral vote landslide? If your argument is only about popularity, it wasn't a popular vote landslide (IIRC), unlike, say, LBJ in '64.

[dsc]

27. 59 to 41 isn't a landslide?

Just what would you define as one. I think Reagan is number 2 on the list of margins in the 20th century in that regard.

[AP]

29. That bastard. What were Dems thinking! So what MoV would allow us to crit-

icize Reagan, in your opinon?

55:45? 51:49?

[dsc]

33. If you want only in the title fine I wil edit

I guess I assumed liberals were smart enough to get that. But people need to look in some mirrors. I am sick of hearing this crap that the American people are blameless lambs under some sort of spell. They ratified what this man did and did so in overwhelming fashion.

[AP]

36. Republicans were sophisticated fascists. Democrats were unsophisticated

moderates, and not much farther to the left of where people perceived Republicans on the spectrum. (Carter was the one who started deregulation.)

So, we can't call out republicans on their neoliberal, anti-democratic, pro-corporate policies?

They got a lot of votes. But they still weren't representing the interests of the people who voted for them. They were representing the interests of the minority at the very top of society.

[AP]

37. Again: what MoV in your mind would allow us to criticize Reagan? 48:52?

[dsc]

38. Jesus Christ

what part of only don't you get? Do you need a frigging dictionary. I editted the post. Good Lord do I need to done ashes and sack cloth too.

[AP]

42. You have a dozen posts and I looked at the one I was responding to

and didn't see any changes.

Furthermore, your subject line is hardly a sentence. I wasn't even sure what you meant. But I can suggest a good book on grammar, if you'd like. :)

And, by the way, you don't help your argument by acting like that.

[dsc]

49. on the subject of grammer

there should be a comma before and in your subject line. Too can play grammer snot. BTW I stated I would edit the post I think that is pretty damn clear.

[AP]

52. Where's your sense of humor?

I wasn't playing the grammar snot, or the dictionary snot. I was making a joke.

[ACK]

4. What about taking responsibility for letting it happen?

The best the Democrats could come up with was Mondale?

Give me a break.

Even Mondale said that Americans agreed with Democrats on 90%+ of the issues so what happened? They were not as brainwashed by the Repuke media machines at that time and on top of that many of the Southern states were still back and forth on the Presidential vote and still sent lots of Dems to congress. What the hell happened?

The Repubs realized and were already working on slick ads and manipulation of the media. They had the think tanks and organizations in the works to pull of the fascist master plan. Reagan was their way into the mainstream.

There are tons of things that should have been put into place after Carter's defeat to Reagan and lots of preparation that could have been taken and it was not.

Somebody could have told Gary Hart to keep his dick in his pants or even better groomed a national hero like John Glen to take up the Dem mantle and blow away the bullshit elitist liberal stuff. Instead, the Dems dutifully put up Mondale against Reagan when they should have known they were screwed.

_

[JanMichael]

7. How about both being held Accountable?

That'd be nice, eh?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

32. And toss the media in there for failing to honestly address the

mental shortcomings of the man. Much like the 2000 election.

I thought the Pacific Palisades moment in the debate had doomed Raygun (it should have)-- but it was glossed over like an 8X10 photo. Thus began my education.

[SquireJons]

9. Why NOT blame Reagan?

Yes, millions of Americans were taken in by Reagan's machismo. Unfortunately, this country is far more conservative and reactionary than most of us here would like to admit. But he made it all happen. Without RR, there would have been no conservative revolution. He was the pitch man and he was very good at it, being a trained actor.

He deserves every criticism that is and ever will be thrown at him. Next to shrub, RR is the worst thing that has happened to this country in the last century. And we are still paying a price, a very high one I might add, for ridiculous policies that he ushered in, and we are still stuck with his asinine lieutenants.

Go a head and blame the voters also, but there should be no exoneration for the leader of the coup.

[Bandit]

11. He ended inflation

That was his major accomplishment. I don't know if you were around at that time or not but inflation was an unimaginable 23%. Every single time you went to the store prices were higher. Ford could do nothing and Carter was stymied as well. That one fact is what got him re-elected by such a huge majority. Also he was a likable guy. He made you feel good about your country and the direction it was going. He may have been lying through his teeth but most of America did not know that at the time. It doesn't surprise me that he is thought of so highly by a good majority of Americans.

[MikeG]

14. His breaking of the labor unions ended inflation.

That and the start of the global economy ended the upward pressure on labor costs.

[robbedvoter]

18. Only by exploding the deficit - borrow and spend. Started many of the

horrible practices of BFEE - the lack of control over the market, killed the fairness docrtrine, emboldened the Christian right, the takeover of the media, etc etc. I think he is just as accountble as any other POTUS - and he has a lot of crimes to respons for. The mentally ill spilled into homelesness might find some comfort in his illness. Some think it's "poetic justice"

[charlie]

35. Volcker ended inflation

And his tight money regimen began late enough to throw the economy into recession at the end of the Carter administration. Carter took the hit for it, Reagan got the credit, when Volcker's policies brought inflation to heel years later.

[BillZBubb]

40. Thank you!

At least someone else here knows the score on the inflation of the 1980's. Ending it had nothing to do with Reagan. It was all Volcker--a Carter appointee.

Reagan was a clueless piece of shit.

[woofless]

16. The past and continuing popularity of Rayguns

is what finally brought it home to me that I am out of step with popular opinion. Of course I interpret that to mean that the masses are either deluded or dumb and lazy. Face it folks. We will always have an up-hill battle as long as the likes of RR and W are lauded as good Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

[robbedvoter]

19. It's when they took over the media. They covered for his stupidity

better than they did for W's - Raygun being an actor helped. No pics like this from Bonzo's co-star:
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I17369-2004Jun05L

[emulatorloo]

30. Raygun was a facade, polished to a glistening gold by the breathless media

Thank you robbed voter. . . .

The Reagan Presidency was very much the blueprint for the Bush Presidency. The Republicans got packaging and marketing down to an art.

[leesa]

21. What is a "known quantity"?? He deregulated most of America

which caused most of the disasters we have today. Exploding pharmaceutical costs, out of control greed in the corporate sector, destroyed the medical industry, allowed rampant pollution and worst of all, deregulated the FCC which produced our RW controlled media, which has produced the state of fascism we all love today.

[dsc]

31. yes and the people voted for him knowing he did it

Incidently Carter actually began deregulation. I am sick of hearing that the poor American people didn't know what they were doing. Reagan was a svenagli who tricked us into it. Balderdash. People decided that helping the poor was not cool. They wanted government gone. Reagan gave that to them and they voted for him. In a democracy you own what is done by your government unless you take specific steps not to ratify it.

[AP]

41. The alternative in '80 was another big deregulator, and their alternative

in '84 was Mondale.

Some choice.

I still think if Americans had any idea what it all meant, they wouldn't have agreed to it. Which is the point of criticizing Reagan today.

You can't just sit back and say, oh, I guess the people had an informed choice, and they did the democratic thing. They were neither informed nor had a real choice. And the consequences are worth talking about: increasing power in the hands of corporations, less wealth and political power in the hands of the people. But I guess that's what the wanted, eh?

[dsc]

47. I have pointedly kept out 1980

due to that being a totally different story. There people were told one thing and got another. But in 1984 we knew Reagan was cutting the budget, created a homeless class, destroyed the controllers union, run massive deficits, increased taxes on unemployment benefits while cutting them on the rich, and caused havoc in Central America. People looked at that record and said give me more in droves. Sorry but the American people deserve a heaping pile of blame here. Reagan was the agent. He sure was a necessary component. But you can't play to racism which isn't there. You can't play to greed which isn't there. You can't make people not care about the poor if they really did.

[AP]

51. Running as an incumbent has advantages, so you can't discount the lameness

which allowed him to be in there in the first place.

If Carter had been more like Clinton who followed, or LBJ (the good parts -- like committed to transferring wealth and economic power down to the people, rather than with deregulating industries) maybe the reason for Reagan to be never would have come up.

And '84: again, I say Mondale. A people were neither INFORMED about what Reagan was doing to society, nor did they have a real CHOICE.

Do you really think that 59% of Americans would chose to have more wealth and power concentrated in the hands of fewer adn fewer people, if they understood that that was what was happening?

Do you think a party that uses race to divide Americans, and used fear to encourage the transfer of huge sums of money to the military-industrial complex is beyond reproach simply because they were very effective at confusing people at a time when Democrats were extremely inept at telling people the truth?

Just look at things historically. What was so different about Americans from '92-'00? Not much, except that you had a politician who was able to articulate the truth better than politicians who were fabricate lies. Sure, Clinton was luck to be able to run against Bush (in the same way Bush was lucky to run against Gore).

But are we going to hate on the American public becuase they didn't have a champion like Clinton or LBJ or JFK or HST, or FDR in '84, and were instead saddled with a dud like Mondale?

[tinanator]

45. no he didnt

that was the wimp's department all along and for obvious reasons when you account for pharmaceutical connections like Eli Lily, pollution interests galore and media friends like Rupert and Rev Sun.

[supercrash]

22. Fuck that shit.

Ya...lets blame the American people for Reagans misdeeds

I guess the Buck doesn't stop at Rayguns door either...jeeesh

[robbedvoter]

26. hail St Alzenheimer, blame the American people - good plan!

You are right - the GOP-ers only seek the media to lie to people, it's the people who believe the lies who are to blame. The concocters of the lies should go to heaven...:eyes:

[dsc]

28. again

name one thing that people didnt know about Reagan in 84. Go ahead.

[leftofthedial]

43. so because a bunch of you morons voted for him

it lets him off the hook?

Who said any of us blame ONLY Reagan?

Half of his corrupt Iran-Contra gang are running the show today.

I say MORE blame, not less is in order. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for the genocidal rat turd. I hope he suffers every moment until he thankfully is no longer part of our species.

[Selwynn]

44. Who says we do?

[jpgray]

46. Did the voters tell him to sell arms to Iran?

No? Then it is the fault of his administration, not those who voted for him.

[dsc]

50. that is the only thing

voters have any right to bitch about. That is the only thing that can honestly be viewed as a departure from what he was doing.

[AP]

54. I think voters can bitch about Mondale being the alternative choice.

But maybe Democrats just didn't want to waste all their best ammo running against an incumbent who had a lot of money and cultural power behind him. Why destroy the guy who has a good chance to win in '88, when they'd surely apply all the lessons they were learning watching Reagan steamroll America with lies.

Yes. That hero: Dukakis.

Ok. So they wanted it to be Gary Hart, which was genius. But only George HW Bush is allowed to have blatant affairs.

[dsc]

56. Mondale won the nomination fair and square

BTW it was 88 that Hart had the infidelity. If the primary voters preferred Hart they should have voted for him. Frankly I don't think Mondale made a close to 20 point difference. Hart may have done a little better, Glenn maybe better yet, but a loss is a loss is a loss.

[cosmicdot]

53. it wasn't the CEO, it was the rank-and-file (and, prolly Hill & Knowlton

PR firm or equivalent ... "it's morning in America" ...
"Just Give Nancy a First Lady Coiffure and a Slogan" ...


wow, supply-side economics: they've extended us so much credit, the skies the limit ...

it'll be a bummer when those $20,000 Gold Cards max out and we have to continually remortgage the house (if not lose it) to pay'em off, and start over ... surely, the Big Bank will cut us some slack with interest rates to make that happen ......


I was living in the DC area at the time, and witnessed way too many people evicted with their possessions on the street ... and, that was in the high-rent areas ...