Richard Cohen wakes up....(Reagan piece)

[Aviation Pro]

...from his blissful, ignorant sleep.

Link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702215.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

It is not my intention to pummel the late Ronald Reagan for what he did or did not do back in the 1980s. It is my intention, though, to suggest that Reaganism -- to which Republicans now swear allegiance -- has outlived its very short usefulness and ought to be junked. This is not to say that government is the answer to all our ills.

It is only to note that if you think the answer is private enterprise, then drive to the nearest gas station and admire the prices brought to you by private companies.

The worst part of Reaganism was its political success. It left behind a coterie of panting acolytes who learned from Reagan himself that optimism, cheerfulness, an embrace of magical thinking and the avoidance of the painful truth was the formula for victory at the polls. For a time, it worked -- the cost of gas went down -- and Carter, that scold in the silly sweater, was banished. As they say in New Orleans, "Laissez les bons temps rouler!" (Let the good times roll!) Upbeat? You bet. But not a business plan.

In "The Age of Reagan," Princeton historian Sean Wilentz posits that Reagan was the transformative president of our times. I don't know about that. But I do know that in the recent primary debates, Republican after Republican invoked Reagan the way Democrats once did Roosevelt, and they vowed, knock on wood, to be a similar kind of president. If they meant what they said, that would mean no energy plan worth its name and, worse, chirpy assurances to the American people that all would be well.

This is the doleful legacy of Reaganism. We have become a nation that believes that you can get something for nothing. We thought that the energy crisis would be solved . . . somehow, and that no one would have to suffer. We still believe in the magical qualities of America, that something about us makes us better. Yet we have a chaotic and mediocre education system that desperately needs more money and higher standards, but we think -- don't we? -- that somehow we will maintain our lifestyle anyway. Hey, is this America or what?

Somewhere in his peripatetic travels, the much-maligned Jimmy Carter -- an artless politician, to be sure -- must scratch his head at the reverence still accorded Reagan. The way things are going, the Gipper's visage will be added to Mount Rushmore. Not that anyone will notice. It'll be too expensive to drive there.

[alphafemale]

1. Reagan even removed the solar panels Carter had installed. nt

[jasmine621]

4. It was REagan who scoffed at John Anderson's proposal for a

50-cent tax on gas to be used for alternative fuel research. Think where we would be now if that had happened. It would have made gasoline on about 99-cent per gallon then. And thirty+ years of research and investement into alternative energy sources would have reaped huge benefits.

Carter asked Americans to sacrifice for the greater good and Reagan said that Americans should not have to sacrifice for anything. I remember it well. I watched that debate and wanted to throw a shoe at the TV because of Regan. Also, the media kept quiet about the fact that the deal to release the hostages was achieved by Carter...not Reagan. They were just RELEASED physically after Reagan took office. I believe that the incoming administration asked that they not be released until after Reagan was sworn in.

[Raster]

20. Raygun was owned lock, stock and oil barrel by the Texas-American Petroleum Mafia

and its evil twin the Military Industrial Complex. There was no way in hell that the Mafia and the Complex were going to allow alternative fuels research on their--ahem--OUR dime.

Carter's Presidency was a potential alternate energy turning point for this nation, and one that the Mafia and the Complex would not and could not allow.

[eShirl]

5. Obama should put them back.

I'll bet he will, too.

[eShirl]

2. wow! k&r

[Demeter]

3. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Took less time than I expected for the Reagan myth to crumble to dust. Good Riddance!

[jasmine621]

6. Here is what is spookey about the Carter-Reagan-Anderson debate

I can't find the text of the debate anywhere on-line. It's like it has been scrubbed from history.

[jasmine621]

7. In case you want to know more about John B Anderson...here is some info

He was "Obama" before Obama was...he would despair Obama's rapid move to the center.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Vox/20000208-0.html

[tblue37]

21. I actually switcehd my registration to Republican in 1980

just so I could vote for Anderson in the Republican primary. He was great, but unfortunately I knew he was exactly the sort of man the American people would not vote for.

[eShirl]

8. this is all I found

http://www.debates.org/pages/his_1980.html

[jasmine621]

10. Thanks. My point is that the debate with John B Anderson cannot be found.

I think it is because he was right about most of the issues and Reagan/Carter were not. Anderson garnered about 6 million votes in 1980...no small sum considering voter participation then. Once again, the media and "the powers that be" keep us all in the dark. After so much time in the dark, we emerge unable to see.

[eShirl]

11. there is a debate there w/ Anderson and Reagan, but not Carter

Do you mean there was a 3-way debate that there is no record of?

(kick!)

[Clark2008]

13. Politically astute at 9, I was.

I voted for Anderson in our school's mock election. I was the only one.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Cohen...Useless Tool

So it took this so-called "librul" 25 years to realize this? Some of us are amazed it took this long for all this gambling and speculation that the Rayguns years turned the market into to finally spiral out of control. Letting the marketplace run rampant...and stacking the deck in favor of the richest was all but asking for the abuse we see these days. If you've got the connections and the insider information, you're golden, if not, then suffer. The GOOP mantra has been that if you're not rich, that's you're fault.

For this person who was trying to establish himself during those "golden" Raygun years, I can still remember interest rates over 10%, constant price increases while wages stagnated and the destruction of many small and medium sized businesses while his corporate buddies began to devour all they could beg, borrow or steal. It was the mantra that being greedy and selfish was "American"...and being benevolent was giving into the "welfare queens".

The GOOP attempts to make Raygun as their FD Roosevelt...but in was the opposite. We're all paying for letting Repugnicans "prove" that government is the problem...actually they are...and hopefully a majority of voters can see that now. Cohen can kiss my ass...he's been a tool for corporations and will be again. He must have just gotten his June statement and saw thousands gone from his portfolio.

[gratuitous]

12. Maybe Cohen should read this column every morning for a while

Before sitting down to write another brainless screed about how swell everything is, or what a bunch of good-hearted folks the Republicans really are, if you only knew them. He kicks off the column, noticeably, trying to say that he doesn't want to bad mouth Reagan, just every policy that's bloomed out of Reagan's administration. As if the man himself had nothing to do with his policies. Richie Cohen wants everyone to like him.

[KharmaTrain]

14. The Village Mentality

You nailed it. Cohen is more concerned about his access and being invited to the big drinkie-drinkie parties. When he says "bipartisan" he really means "meal ticket" as it's more important that he keep a byline and visibility than to ruffle feathers. His nice paycheck speaks for where he stands...and the way he keeps that paycheck is to "go along, get along"...play into the games and the spin and ignore facts and reality. It's only when things have gotten so bad that he then plays concern troll as if his enabling wasn't a part of what got us into this mess. May he rot in hell.

[hatrack]

15. To use a wonderful Russian expression, he appears to have discovered the whereabouts of the sky . .

And now, he apparently also wants to be rewarded for his amazing insights.

Fool.

[Aviation Pro]

22. Ahem, po-russkij....

он кажется, что открывает местонахождение неба.

On kazhetsya, chto otkryvaet mestonakhozhdenkie neba.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. You knew it. You knew that by the time the light bulb would go on over their

heads, it would burn a hole through the universe it would be so intensely hot and overdue.

[Aviation Pro]

17. Kick for the West Coast...

....

[kenny blankenship]

18. Actually the Reagan Admininstration had an energy plan

although it had nothing to do with improving energy efficiency or development of alternatives to fossil fuels.

The Reagan energy plan was to foment/prolong war between Iraq and Iran. The 1979 Iranian Revolution scared the Saudis and their western partners sheikless and so Iraq was approached and embraced to be the western bulwark against Islamic revolution spreading westwards. This may be one reason the Saddam = Hitler equation leaped so readily to G. H. W. Bush's mind in the run up to the first US war on Iraq. Before Hitler turned on them, British foreign policy and Anglo-American finance and industry zealously built Hitler up to be their bulwark against armed Bolshevist revolution spreading westwards from the U.S.S.R., as well as a prophylaxis against tradeunionism and Social Democracy in the heart of industrial Europe.

War between Iraq and Iran had two prospective benefits: first and most obviously to weaken revolutionary Iran. If fortune smiled, the Iranian Islamic regime might suffer a total military defeat in the field and even if not, it could be so weakened by the war that it might be toppled from within by counterrevolution. Even if Iran did not lose the war outright and did not collapse internally it would at least be prevented from spreading its Islamist ideology beyond its borders by having to focus on saving itself. Second, war between these two large oil producers meant that they would not abide by OPEC production quotas. To fund their war efforts they would sell all the oil they could pump and deliver without it being destroyed by the enemy - and since they were disregarding production quotas so did the other OPEC nations. The artificial scarcity imposed by OPEC quotas dissolved and oil prices dropped. To keep the war alive, the Reagan Administration would find opportunities to aid both sides. The Iraq-Iran War was the longest running major nation conflict of the 20th century, at 10 years of hostilities, and claimed over a million lives in direct battlefield fatalities.

I call that an "energy plan" because it is clear, now that we have lived through the second Bush's reign, that war remains the conservative's version of an energy plan. War is the first, second and last choice of a conservative facing a resource shortfall or commodity price levels that he doesn't like. We had thought that wars to seize or access mineral resources were banished in the international order created after WWII, which was itself largely begun by conservative nationalists looking to seize mineral/fuel resources, but we deceived ourselves. Fossil fuels may be running out now, but dinosaur thinking is just as abundant as ever. Witnessing the events of the last 8 years and hearing the comments of an administration run by "oil men" that the American way of life is not negotiable, and that energy conservation is strictly a personal "virtue" it is undeniable and patently obvious that warfare is the Bush family energy policy and the longstanding Republican Party energy policy (all the way back to the Kissinger Plan to seize Saudi oilfields). This understanding provides a lens that brings distant events of the 1980s into sharper focus: these things--the Iraq-Iran War, the undermining of OPEC solidarity, the drop of oil price levels-- didn't "just happen" as a happy accident of history. The Reagan Administration didn't just fight a geopolitical / ideological struggle against Revolutionary Iran with the unintentional side benefit of securing cheap oil for our cars for another 15 years, cheap oil is the only ideology they ever cared about, and we have been fighting increasingly bloody wars for it one way or another since Reagan took office.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. Now that HIS ox is being gored.

Cohen helped sell the war before "thinking better of it", too.

Cohen's lefty dad has been rolling in his grave for some time now.