Rachel Maddow w/ writer & blogger Will Bunch: the danger of the Reagan Myth

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 05:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KJzq5KRft8   Posted on YouTube: February 06, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 06, 2009 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 1603

 

[Jack Rabbit]

1. What I remember about the Reagan years

A federal budget awash in red ink
A growing gap between rich and poor
Iran-Contra and those silly Contra wars in Nicaragua
Official indifference to the AIDS epidemic

But as Mussolini got the trains to run on time, Reagan got inflation under control

[alsame]

2. More gems from Reagan:

Union busting
Increased number of homeless
Greed is good mentality
Increased power of the religious right
Fewer tax deductions for the middle class but tax cuts for corporations and the rich

[Merlot]

8. Don't forget emptying out the mental institutions onto the street

lotsa homeless vets thanks to ronnie.

[spartan61]

3. I so remember the Reagan recession in 1982, thanks to

his "trickle down economics." My husband was laid off due to Reagan's "wonderful" policies and was out of work for 12 months. At the time we had two kids in college. Fortunately I was teaching school making $15,000 a year, but that didn't go far when one of the kids had tuition of $10,000 and the other about half of that. That recession, coupled with the Iran-Contra thingy, turned me into a very staunch Democrat!! Whenever I hear the repukes praising St. Ronnie, I want to barf.

[veganlush]

5. Thanks for posting this, professor..

Reagan is iconic now, but it's a shame that more people don't know the truth. He was the father of many of the problems that we have today. He was anti-environment in a big way.. he said greed is good, promoting big cars. He took the solar panels off of the Whitehouse that Carter put up. I'll go further...by rolling back Carter's plan to get off of middle-eastern oil by the year 2000, (Carter set the goal of 25 years in 1975) he helped us continue to pour billions of American dollars into the Middle East. The Bin Laden family made their billions in the construction trade. It was only because of oil riches that places like Saudi Arabia could afford to employ Bin Laden's firm to build infrastructure and palaces and the like. So, indirectly, Reagan helped empower Osama Bin Laden who inherited many millions from he family. Reagan said "a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?" when, as Governor, he was pushing for the destruction of the Redwood Forests of California at the behest of the logging interests. But the worst of Reagan's "crimes" was what he did with his "voodoo economics" (as the senior Bush referred to it). that started the downward spiral and huge deficits. He helped the rise of the religious flakes that still haunt our politics.

[spartan61]

7. Great post by you.

I have bookmarked it to refer to it when I need more info about St. Ronnie. Thanks!

[JohnnyRingo]

4. I remember the claim that he destroyed the Soviet Union

Back then the universal thought was spread that Reagan got up on a box and threatened them with a "Tear down this wall" speech, and the Ruskies quivered in their boots knowing that if he was pushed, Ol' Dutch would saddle up his horse and grab his six gun. Then he'd ride over to the airport where a Hellcat was waiting and he'd fly in with guns a-blazin'.

When pressed on this heroic scenario, his supporters would say that "he outspent them" in Afghanistan, and drove them into bankruptcy.

Then when "Charlie Wilson's War" was released, we find out that funding was dispensed without White House knowledge through black ops programs by a Democrat. Maybe the next version will involve Nancy and a crystal ball. The Reagan legacy isn't just a "myth", it's a fraud.

OH!... I also remember what welfare cheese tastes like.

[veganlush]

6. yes, I remember that too..idiots like hannity continue to

..say that Reagan brought down the Soviet Union and ended the cold-war single handedly. "Forensic accountants" who went in and looked over the "books" of the Soviet economy after the collapse say that the country was on the brink of economic collapse already and had been going downhill for a long time. No doubt that Reagan's "upping of the ante" in the arms race hastened the day that it "folded". It would have happened eventually anyway. I give him a little credit for speeding up the process, for the marginal good that it did, in retrospect. I would argue that Gorbachev deserves more credit, as he was the one that, working from the inside, ushered in the era of "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" which gave the people a taste of a free press and free markets-a genie that couldn't be put back in the bottle and lead to the people demanding more. Reagan was a good communicator that was very bad for the country.

[DutchLiberal]

9. Reagan has become a mythical figure, because Dems haven't fought the myth!

Somehow, Democrats always let Republicans frame the narrative. They should have opposed this whitewashing from day one. Instead, I remember Obama talking well about Reagan during an interview. What's up with that?

[cynthia]

10. Thom Hartmann never lets up on bashing the Reagan myth

we have to keep countering the Republican spin with truth

[ihavenobias]

11. Yes, Thom does a great job of it too.

If only more in the MSM caught on.

[underpants]

12. "Picking up welfare checks in a Cadillac"

I was a child of the Reagan era. I was 13 when he came to power

the Cadillac line worked. I didn't know any different.

The Reagan era was my high school years (even made phone calls for the campaign in '84-$5/hour tax free) and it was military, glorious USA! USA!, and the "old men in charge" image. I didn't know any different and the TV told me how great he was.