Say bad things about Ronald Reagan ...

[the_real_38]

I was reading about this boycott that the jackleg Right is threatening against the CBS mini-series, and since it looks like the network is going to back down and re-edit, I figured we should have a thread spelling out some of the f***ed up things Reagan did (if you just want to vent against his whole persona, that's cool, too). I could name quite a few, but I'm just going to start with one:

(1) In 1986, an international court found the Reagan administration guilty of de facto state terrorism by waging illegal war against Nicaragua, and ordered the U.S. to pay damages of 12 million pounds:

http://www.nicaraguasc.org.uk/overview/

[WilliamPitt]

1. WHY AREN'T WE COUNTER-ORGANIZING A BOYCOTT?

if they back down?

:wtf:

[wndycty]

2. Here Here Will Pitt!!!

:kick:

[loudnclear]

40. But then who is going to watch the series?

I think CBS should package the un-edited series for sale separately. Bet they would sell a million. Has to be as good as the other crime family, the Sopranos.

[the_real_38]

3. I'll do that, too - but you need to say something bad about

Reagan.

[WilliamPitt]

4. He was a stupid old bastid

Let's boycott.

[Andy_Stephenson]

13. He cut funding for Sign Language classes for

Termites Brother...But never fear...I have been teaching him and learning it myself.

[Say_What]

25. Cut all social programs so that the mentally ill where thrown into the

street. It was the beginning of homelessness on a large scale and it escalates today.

[Say_What]

26. Today's HOMELESSNESS can be attributed to him without a doubt!!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

11. There was quite a thread on his birthday this year

search for it in the archives- everything was covered there.
My big beef with shit for brains Ron was his dealing with Iranian hostage takers. Yeah, that's a good way to prosecdute a war on terror- Reagan forever compromised U.S. interests in those dealings.

[Tatiana]

48. Damn straight!

If CBS backs out, they can kiss having even a hint of integrity goodbye. First the Republicans take over the West Wing, now this.

Fuck the networks, I swear. I'll never watch CBS again.

[the_real_38]

50. We need a separate thread for the boycott campaign...

...if they back down. We need to get the crucial address, and start hitting them - tell them they should at least make the first cut available on dvd.

[grannylib]

5. Flood the station with calls and e-mails...

I have been encouraging everyone I know to call/e-mail CBS and tell them NOT to sanitize the Reagan story...
I thought the addled puppet had Alzheimer's back as Gov of California...

[jiacinto]

6. The Air Traffic Controllers

nt

[the_real_38]

9. Expound...

... he fired all of the Air Traffic Controllers when their union went on strike. There may be young people reading this, or people who don't know how evil Reagan really was. We have a duty to teach them.

[Fitzovich]

18. That is a big reason for today's problems

He cut the legs out from under Unions and the working people, once the Controllers were fired life as a union member became that much more difficult.

[Kurovski]

29. I heard a good comment on this

last night. A comedian named Sabrina on Comedy Central was doing a bit on how some songwriter's song about irony was off base. She said "A fly in your Chardonnay is not ironic, it's unfortunate. Having an airport named after the man who fired all the air-traffic controllers, THAT'S ironic."

I may be para-phrasing.

[Say_What]

24. That was the beginning of RayGun trying to shut down the unions

[Scottie72]

31. Great joke I heard

from one of the comedians the comedy channel played last night.

I forgot her name but she was an "out" lesbian and was ratting on how in Alanis's song "Ironic" there actually isn't anything ironic.

An example of irony she gave was that the National Airport was named after a man who fired all the Air Traffic Controllers.

[the_real_38]

36. Here's another joke - one from SC...

Reagan was having some trouble getting Nancy 'in the mood'. Knowing Strom Thurmond was good with the ladies, ol' Ron went to Strom for advice. Strom tells him, "well I tell ya what gets to 'em - go into the bedroom when it's dark, whoop 'it' out and whack 'it' against the bedpost three times. Drives 'em crazy."

So that night Reagan goes to his room, and Nancy's in the bed, and she hears this noise "whap-whap-whap". She goes "That you , Strom?"

[Skittles]

7. HE IGNORED THE AIDS ISSUE

UNTIL IT WAS WAY OUT OF CONTROL.

[Don_G]

16. He Didn't Ignore The Issue

Just felt that the "Sodomites" and "druggies" should pay for their sins. What he did ignore was that they are part of society and do the normal, patriotic things that everyone else does...like give blood to save the lives of others.

[Say_What]

27. I remember that. How many are dead because they failed to act!!

[grannylib]

8. He presented his movie roles as though they were real life

He used to reminisce about how he felt when he served in WWII...he never did, he played soldier in a MOVIE but was too addled to keep his real life straight from his movie life...
What a pathetic person...and there are those who want to put him on Mt Rushmore...
Put him up there, I say....can I push him off???

[Don_G]

10. What About Maureen Regan?

Secetary of the Treasaury under Regan convicted for Income Tax Evasion?

Dimbo has had some "experienced" instructors, hasn't he?

[the_real_38]

14. It was worse than that....

... the Reagan administration had more officials indicted than any other administration in history - which is a claim to 'most corrupt', I'd say.

[cosmicdot]

41. most corrupt administration info link

http://www.geocities.com/dude7891/index.htm

Partial Reagan Administration Crook List

Corruption ran rampant in the Ronald Reagan administration. This corruption was spread out in many government agencies. In the Department of Commerce, James Watt was a fiercely anti-environmentalist who protested federal control over the rich mineral and timber resources in the western states. Additionally, Watt set out to cripple the EPA and to permit oil drilling in scenic areas. After telling an off-color ethnic joke in 1983, Watt was forced to resign. He described members of a federal advisory panel as "a black ... a woman, two Jews, and a cripple."

While in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Interior Watt was indicted on 41 felony charges for using his HUD connections to help his clients seek federal funds for housing projects in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Watt conceded that he had received $500,000 from clients who were granted very favorable housing contracts after he intervened. He also was given $100,000 for a project in Puerto Rico.

Testifying before a House committee Watt said, "That's what they offered, and it sounded like a lot of money to me, and we settled on it." After over ten years of investigation, Watt was sentenced to five years of probation and 500 hours of community service for withholding documents from a grand jury which investigated HUD in March 1996.

Corruption spread to the EPA. Anne Burford, who headed the superfund of the EPA, resigned after she bent environmental regulations for dozens of industrial polluters.

One of Burford's subordinates, Rita Lavelle, headed the EPA's toxic waste clean-up program. She was indicted and served three months in a federal penitentiary for lying to Congress. She was able to clean up only a small handful of the nation's thousands of toxic waste sites.

In addition, EPA administrator, John W. Hernandez, resigned after his staff disclosed that he illegally allowed Dow Chemicals to review a report which named it a dioxin polluter.

Assistant EPA administrator John Horton was dismissed for using government employees for private business. Matthew Novick, EPA Inspector General, was fired after he used government officials to work on private business. Theodore Olson, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, was under investigation for obstructing justice in the investigation of the EPA.

EPA General Counsel Robert Perry resigned after improper participation in a settlement which involved a former employer.

John Tudhunter, assistant EPA administrator, resigned after being accused of meeting privately with chemical company lobbyists. Additionally, the Reagan administration sold and leased billions of dollars worth of coal and oil reserves, timber lands, and mineral reserves. In addition, Reagan tampered with environmental laws in his crusade to bolster corporate profits. These included the effect which factory pollutants, originating in upper state New York, had on destroying Canadian forests, rivers, and streams.

White House chief of staff Michael Deaver always denied Canada's allegations that sulfides from New York factories caused any harm to the environment. However, when Deaver left the White House, he immediately lobbied on behalf of foreign countries, in violation of The Ethics in Government Act which prohibits anyone for lobbying for one year after leaving a White House post. Deaver immediately he went to work for the Canadian government, being paid $105,000 to lobby for compensation from the United States for damage inflicted on Canadian territory from acid rain. Deaver also received $250,000 from Daewoo, a South Korean steel corporation, to market its product in the United States.

Other foreign lobbyists included Ed Rollins, a member of Dole's campaign committee in 1995, and former RNC Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf, were on the payroll as lobbyists for Taiwan. By the time Reagan left the White House and the smoke had cleared, a laundry list of government upper management officials had surfaced. Some of them included:

Anne Burford, Rita Lavelle, James Watt, and Michael Deaver.

Richard Allen, National Security adviser, who resigned amid controversy over a $1,000 honorarium after arranging an interview with Nancy Reagan.

James Beggs, chief administrator at NASA, who was indicted for defrauding the government while an executive at General Dynamics.

Guy Flake, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, who resigned after allegations of a conflict of interest in contract negotiations.

Louis Glutfrida, director of Federal Emergency Management Agency, who resigned amid allegations of misuse of government property.

Edwin Gray, chairman of Federal Home Loan Bank, who was charged with illegally repaying himself and his wife $26,000 in travel costs.

Max Hugel, CIA chief of covert operations, who resigned after allegations of fraudulent financial dealings.

Carlos Campbell, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, who resigned after charges of awarding grants to his friends' firms.

Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor, who was indicted for defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4 million.

John Fedders, chief of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, who resigned after charges of wife-beating.

Arthur Hayes, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who resigned after being under investigation for illegal travel reimbursements.

J. Lynn Helms, chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, who resigned after a grand jury investigated illegal business activities.

Marjory Mecklenburg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources, resigned after allegations of irregularities on her travel vouchers.

Edwin Meese, Attorney General, was under investigation by a special prosecutor for his role in helping Wedtech Corporation.

Robert Nimmo, head of Veterans Administration, who resigned when a report criticized him for improper use of government funds.

Lyn Nofziger, White House aide, who was under investigation for his role in helping Wedtech Corporation.

J. William Petro, a United States attorney, who was fired and fined for tipping off an acquaintance about a forthcoming grand jury indictment.

Thomas C. Reed, White House counselor and National Security Council adviser, who resigned and paid a $427,000 fine for stock market insider trade information.

Emanuel Savas, Assistant Secretary of HUD, who resigned after he had assigned staff members to work on a book he was writing.

Peter Voss, Postal Service governor, who pleaded guilty to charges of expense account fraud and to accepting kickbacks.

Charles Wick, director of the United States Information Agency (USIA), who was accused of taping conversations with public officials without their approval.

In addition, charges were brought against several high level officials in regard to Iran-contra. Those included:

National Security Council advisers Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter

Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger

Deputy Secretary of State Elliot Abrams

Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council

Major Richard Secord of the National Security Council

Deputy Assistant to the President Jonathan Miller

CIA officials:

* Albert Fiers
* Thomas Clines
* CIA chief William Casey died before he was indicted.
* Clair George
* Richard Miller
* Albert Hakim
* Carl Channell

[JohnKleeb]

12. Ive been told

That Gorbichev offered to disarm all nuclear weapons if Ronnie did the same, guess what I hear that Ronnie said no.

[Say_What]

35. Ronnie wanted STAR WARS

[JohnKleeb]

49. Yep the bastard

[FDRrocks]

15. (#) Defending Guatemalan Evangelical Dictator Rios Mont

"He got a bum rap" (paraphrase)

Reagan was an end-timer and our President. I believe he was just a puppet, much like GWB.

[FDRrocks]

17. (#) Grenada

The asshole is lucky I'm tired and my brain is only half working, I could rattle shit off all day.

[FDRrocks]

19. (#) Trickle-Down, Voodoo

Regressive tax cuts.

[the_real_38]

22. The 'legitimation' of supply-side economics - yes.

Probably the most important one. This approach (tax cuts for the wealthy stimulates investment) has been discredited by every reputable economist who has ever appraised it, including Reagan's own Budget Director - David(?) Stockman.

[Say_What]

30. Voodoo economics. We're paying for it today, but Bush makes

RayGun's disaster look like kindergarden stuff. YIKES!!

[Say_What]

37. Cover for Beirut --diversion. Someone said the other day that maps

came from travel agencies because they didn't know where Grenada was.

[Another Bill C.]

20. Reagan was a senile

old fart, surrounded and propped up by a ring of crooks that would have made Al Capone green with envy.

[Kurovski]

32. And some of that "ring" are back in the White House today.

Geez, talk about ignorance of history and the doom in repeating it...

[Say_What]

34. Baker, Negroponte, Abrahms, Reich, those are just off the top of my head

and I know there's a slew more.

[Say_What]

33. I lived in CA when he was gov. Then living in Boston when I heard he

would run for president. I thought the 'muriKan public would never be so stupid--guess what--two terms. And the leaders of the worlds countries were paranoid that he was gonna blow up the world.

One thing I could never f*ck'n understand is why they called him the 'great communicator'. He couldn't even speak for keeerist's sake. Nancy and the others where pulling the strings and telling him what to say. THere's a great video clip I see from time to time where he turns to Nancy and says: "What should I tell them" and she says: "Tell them we're doing the best we can."

[the_real_38]

21. Man, some lame-o's on here....

.... how about when he drove down to San Diego State in the 60's (when he was governor of California) and tried to get the faculty to remove Herbert Marcuse?

[Say_What]

23. Declassified RayGun docs

at the GWU NS Archives. Knock yourself out. Also covered in here is Otto Reich's Contras Public Diplomacy scam. Document 2 is pretty interesting--it's RayGun's sig on a paper in 1981 that basically says the CIA will support and conduct paramilitary opts against Nicaragua.

<clips>

Primary Source Materials Facilitate In-depth Research

Nicaragua, 1978-1990 offers a comprehensive case study of intervention and revolution in the Third World. In these primary source documents--many of them cables between the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Managua, and only recently declassified through the Freedom of Information Act--researchers will find a vast, untapped wealth of information on relevant topics including:

U.S. policy toward revolutionary upheaval in Central America Nicaraguan politics under Sandinista rule

Embassy reporting on political, economic, military and cultural components of the Nicaraguan revolution

National security decision making in the Reagan White House
The "Reagan Doctrine" of supporting pro-insurgency movements against leftist governments

CIA covert paramilitary operations

The political history of the Contras Public Diplomacy efforts to influence Congress and the American public in support of the Contras

Nicaragua's World Court case against the United States Regional peace efforts by the Contadora nations and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias

<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/nicaragua/nicaragua.html>

[Scottie72]

28. Regan not recongnizing AIDS

for several years. The man wouldn't even say the word.

[Kurovski]

38. Enormous deficits.

The streets of Chicago were filled with Homeless people.

it was difficult for me to make ends meet during his era of aggresive shameless greed. (I worked with the public, and folks became plain RUDE in this period, Upwardly mobile folks.) I remember the sharp increase in heating costs.

Engaging secretly in the occult (astrology) while stringing along the Christian base. In other words, the hypocrisy, that is now the modus operandi of a Republican party hijacked by right-Wing extremists.

[the_real_38]

39. Yes, the big deficits -

"recovery bought on margin" . Just like Bush's wal-mart recovery.

[yella_dawg]

42. Hey!

You're forgetting one of my favorites! Respecifying all economic performance metrics to get the country out of an economic nosedive. Just the finaggling with unemployment calculations alone is worth honorable mention in the Most Twisted and Evil Asshole of the Century hit parade!

[JVS]

43. Didn't he rape someone?

[Kurovski]

51. A woman in hollywood

reported that when she was 18 or so, she was at a party and was upset about a recent break-up with her boyfriend. Mr. Reagan saw an opportunity and took it. I believe the woman said it was a rape.I think it may have been in Kitty Kelly's book on the queen of America, er , I mean fancy Nancy.

[JVS]

54. Speaking of Nancy, I heard she known in Hollywood for her BJ's

[LTR]

44. There's Iran-Contra, James Watt, kissing ass to the Religious Right...

...but the worst was instituting a national drinking age of 21!

Criminy! I missed grandfathering by 7 months!!!

Ummm, excuse me... aren't 18 year olds legally adults?

[the_real_38]

46. I barely got grandfathered....

... that was some sneaky s*** the way he did it, too - tied states raising the drinking age to receiving highway funds.

To those who don't know, James Watt was Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, and he was the most rabid anti-environmentalist ever to serve in government (until Gail Collins) - he encouraged strip-mining on federal lands, and made so may inflammatory, neolithic statements that he had to be fired.

[quaker bill]

45. Deregulated Savings and Loans

So that scam real estate deals could generate funds for Iran - Contra. Cost us billions.

Supplied Contra's with weapons from the Romanian Dictator (can't recall how to spell the name) through an arms firm run by Nixon and Mitchell.

Placed first strike nukes on West German border.

Wasted billions on SDI.

Trained right wing Central American death squads at "School of the Americas".

Cut arms for drugs deals with Noriega.

Armed Saddam Hussein. Armed Iran. Gave both sides intelligence to even up the war and assure maximum damage to both sides.

Took Iraq off the "state sponsors of terrorism" list so we could do arms deals with Saddam. Did so even after Saddam 'gassed his own people'.

Armed and trained the Taliban.

Invaded Grenada for apparently no good reason as a "wags the dog" exercise after Kohbar Towers in Lebanon.

Spent the country into enormous debt with misguided trickle down economic theories.

James Watt - "trees cause pollution" need I say more

Ketchup is a vegetable

Race baiting wedge issue politician who came up with the absurd notion of welfare moms driving about in cadillacs. Perhaps so, but they were 20 year old cadillacs.

The man was an abomination. Probably the worst President of the 20th century.

Nixon, Raygun, W, who would have thought that one party could duplicate this feat over and over in only one generation. If we let them, I am sure they could find another.

[BadFaith]

55. Grenada was not "Wag the Dog"

In the early eighties, with innumerable left-wing groups combating fascist governments throughout South and Central America. Throw in the ever-entrenched presence of Castro and a socialist power structure in Cuba, and the the neo-conservative hawks that had occupied the DoD under Reagan were, needless to say, concerned. In order to "flex their muscle" and show that any nation within the U.S. Sphere of Influence that deviated from their role as a debtor to American economic interests would find themselves in jeapordy, the United States invaded Grenada under the pretense that it presented a threat to U.S. National Security. Grenada, being completely defenseless against U.S. attack, was ever the prime candidate for a demonstration of U.S. military power. 6,000 Special Forces quickly thwarted a few dozen middle-aged construction workers, winning over 8,000 medals in the process.

An interesting (and completely valid, IMO) comparison would be to say that the invasion of Iraq followed the same mold as the invasion of Grenada. In both instances the countries were the weakest in the region (Kuwait was spending more money on defense than Iraq, both per capita and in actual dollars), the supposed "threat" to national security was extensively hyped prior to the invasion, and the result is a region terrified of betraying the economic interests of their benefactors.

Another interesting comparison would be with the invasion of Panama under President Bush the Elder, as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was a paid operative of the CIA until he started waffling on his opposition to the Sandinistas in 1989. Saddam Hussein was much the same; he was the CIA's "boy" in the Middle East until Gulf War I, and there is considerable evidence to support the claim that the U.S. government pressured Kuwait into taking advantage of Iraq's crumbling economic environment (they then began slant-drilling into Iraqi oil fields, essentially stealing their oil) and gave Hussein the impression that the U.S. would quietly ignore any invasion.

[mlawson]

47. He decorated SS graves at Bitburg!!!!!!!

Even after Elie Wiezel made an impassioned speech, which Ronnie attended, decribing the horrors of the Holocaust. The old fart affected to look 'concerned' during the speech, then went ahead and did it anyhow.

WTF was the gain, to the US, of him decorating German war graves, anyway??? The whole thing was absolutely outrageous and shameful!!!

[TreasonousBastard]

52. WOW!

Great lists. Buncha things I completely forgot about.

Never could figure how no one wanted to recognize this guy had more indictments, and convictions, in his administration than Harding or Grant. Maybe even both together.

And the wingnuts are STILL talking about the discredited Reagan economic miracle-- even ignoring his tax increases in the second term. Or Bush I's increases forced by his reckless policies.

Must be that goddam liberal media!

But, he never got a windy, (that we know of) so I guess he's a hero.

[greekspeak]

53. Try this...the Apocalypse of John figured heavily into his foreign policy

Is that enough to send shivers down your spine? I direct your attention to Hal Lindsay's "The Late Great Planet Earth." Hal Lindsay, folks, is a fundie nutcase. He also had difficulty separating his nose from Reagan's butt. In the process of laying out a nutty apocalyptic future for America, based on the book of Revelation, and illustrated with maps based on Revelation, Hal paid homage to Ronnie by printing excerpts from Ronnie's speeches. Alas, many of the quotes he uses are probably ones you have never heard before, and they show how terrifyingly deranged Ronnie was. It makes clear that Ronnie looked to the Apocalypse-and other strange sources-for guidence in formulating his foreign policy.

[FDRrocks]

56. He once said...

during a speech he was giving that he believed the apocalypse would occur within his lifetime.

Freaky.

[greekspeak]

57. He also had to have people dress dress him

or else he would try to wear hush puppies with tuxedos. What a numbnuts.