The Demonization of “Big Government” and the Myth of the Greatness of Ronald Reagan

[Time for change]

“Despite the grievous harm that Reagan’s presidency inflicted on the American Republic and the American people, it may take many more years before a historian has the guts to put this deformed era into a truthful perspective and rate Reagan where he belongs -- near the bottom of the presidential list.” – Robert Parry


I begin this post with a summary statement that puts the Ronald Reagan presidency in proper perspective because it was Ronald Reagan who most successfully perpetrated the toxic myth – that still plagues our country today – that “big government” is inherently bad.

In his First Inaugural Address (1981), Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Reagan also said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.’”

These Reagan statements about government are stupid beyond belief, and yet he sold that ideology to millions of Americans, rode it to victory in two presidential elections, and helped turn American politics sharply to the right for years to come.


REAGAN’S INTELLECTUAL/IDEOLOGICAL LEGACY TO OUR COUNTRY

The ridiculously absurd idea that government is inherently bad

The justification for a role of government in providing essential goods and services to the American people was established in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which was created “to promote the general welfare” as one of the main reasons for our existence as a nation. Closely related to that purpose is the need to establish justice, secure the blessings of liberty and defend against crime (“ensure domestic tranquility”).

Government is us the people. It is the vehicle by which the American people have arranged to serve their needs. Without government we have anarchy and the rule of the jungle, as opposed to the rule of law.

So assuming that, as our Founding Fathers wrote in the preamble to our Constitution, it is important that the general welfare of the American people be promoted, that justice be established, that the blessings of liberty be secured for us, and that domestic tranquility be ensured, then what would Ronald Reagan put in the place of government to accomplish those functions?

There are basically two different kinds of political systems that can take the place of government being responsible for those functions: anarchy and fascism. Think of it like this: Suppose that wealthy corporations are allowed to pursue industrial activities that pollute the air, water and soil of our country with little or no regulation or penalty. The health and livelihood of much of the U.S. population could be damaged by such activities, while the polluting corporations rack up immense profits. Who can stop corporations from doing this if not government? Allowing them free reign to pursue their profits at the expense of ordinary Americans is tantamount to government standing aside while thieves break our homes, kill us and steal our possessions. That’s essentially anarchy. But it’s even worse than that. Government under right wing ideologues like Ronald Reagan doesn’t just stand aside. In addition, it subsidizes corporate activity and provides police protection for the corporations in the event that the public becomes aroused and tries to impede their destructive activities or protest against them. That’s fascism – the melding of government with corporate interests.


Fascism vs. democracy

It has largely gone unmentioned that when Ronald Reagan built his whole political career on the demonization of “big government”, what he was really advocating to take its place was fascism. So the most pertinent question becomes: Should government – elected by the people to represent their interests, and accountable to the people – serve the functions described in our Constitution? Or, should government delegate that job to private, for-profit corporations?

The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit. If we as a people have a need that has to be met, such as the provision of water or health care, and all other things being equal, would we rather that need be met by an entity – government – which we created specifically to serve our needs and which is accountable to us? Or would we rather that need be met by an entity – a corporation – that was created to make a profit?

I don’t want to exaggerate this. Government is composed of people, and so are corporations. Despite the fact that government is created to serve us, it nevertheless has the potential to perform poorly, and it often does, for a variety of reasons. And conversely, corporations sometimes serve our needs quite well. This issue is not black and white, and there certainly is a role for both government and private business in our country. But Reagan’s implication that government is inherently bad or incompetent compared to the private sector is, well, incredibly stupid – and dangerous as well.


THE LEGACY OF THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY

The presidency of Ronald Reagan ushered in the era of privatization and deregulation. Another way of saying this is that the Reagan administration ushered in the era of favoritism towards wealthy corporations and individuals at the expense of everyone else, which began a trend towards a disappearing middle class and the greatest level of income and wealth inequality ever seen in this country.

Thus our country took giant steps towards transformation into a corporatist state during the Reagan presidency. By equating “big government” with Socialism or Communism the Reagan administration had a good deal of success in their goal of privatizing most of the functions of government. Their idea of reducing “big government” was to hire “contractors”, unhindered by government rules created for the purpose of ensuring accountability to the American people, to do the work that government employees used to do. The expense of doing this is immense because of the additional layers of bureaucracy, the need to support the immense salaries of the CEOs who employ the contractors, and the need for corporate profit. But it allows ideologues like Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and their supporters to then claim that they have eliminated “big government”.


Some background: FDR’s New Deal

Before describing the legacy of the Reagan presidency it is necessary to say a few words about FDR’s New Deal, since the Reagan administration had to dismantle much of the New Deal in order to proceed with its agenda. Due to the stunning success of the New Deal, most of its components lasted for decades. Largely as a result of this, our country experienced for the next three decades what Paul Krugman calls “the greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history”.

As a result of the labor protection laws enacted during FDR’s presidency, the percent of non-agricultural U.S. workers who were members of labor unions rose from 10% to close to 30% during his presidency and remained at that level for many decades, until the anti-labor policies of the Reagan administration resulted in a precipitous decline in union membership. The labor protection laws and other New Deal innovations, such as Social Security and unemployment insurance, were instrumental in alleviating poverty in our country and producing a vibrant middle class. Median family income rose steadily (in 2005 dollars) from $22,499 in 1947 to more than double that, $47,173 in 1980.


Eliminating social services that had benefited Americans for decades

A major purpose of Reagan’s effort to cut down “big government” was to save money previously spent on programs that benefited the poor or middle class, so that taxes on the wealthy could be reduced. Thus the demonization of “big government” served as an excuse to dismantle government programs that had long benefited the American people.

William Kleinknecht writes about the Reagan Presidency in his book, “The Man Who Sold the World – Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America”. He sums up Reagan’s philosophy of government with respect to the New Deal:

Reagan stood against everything that had been achieved in this remarkable age of reform. His constant attacks on the inefficiency of government, a rallying cry taken up by legions of conservative politicians across the country, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more money that was taken away from government programs, the more ineffective they became, and the more ineffective they became, the more ridiculous government bureaucrats came to be seen in the public eye. Gradually government, and the broader realm of public service, has come to seem disreputable… Politicians, imbued with the same exaltation of self-interest that is the essence of Reaganism, increasingly treat public office as a vehicle for their own enrichment.

With the onset of the Reagan Presidency the economic boom that followed the New Deal came to a virtual standstill. The Reagan administration’s budget cuts were particularly hard on the poor, as described by a report by Sheldon Danziger and Robert Haveman on “The Reagan Administration’s Budget Cuts”

Many of the programs which grew most rapidly from 1965 to 1981 (Food Stamps, Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, federal guaranteed loan programs for higher education, and Legal Assistance, for example) have sustained the largest cuts. Compared to Carter's proposed 1982 budget, the fiscal 1982 budget that was proposed by Reagan represented a reduction of $44 billion, or 5.7%, and all categories except national defense were reduced. Over half of the $44 billion budget reduction came from two areas: income security; and education, training, employment, and social services….

Deep cuts are planned for programs designed for the poor and near poor-such as AFDC, Food Stamps, Medicaid, education aid, Low-Income Energy Assistance, and training and employment programs… Particularly hard hit will be the demographic group with the lowest mean census income-households headed by women with children…. Also greatly affected will be the near poor…This group has stayed above the poverty line with the help of food stamps and extended unemployment insurance coverage in economic downturns; it has depended upon job training and education subsidies to provide opportunities for a better life. Yet because the near poor are not being classified as truly needy, their eligibility for food, housing, medical care, and cash benefits is being most restricted.

Deregulation of the financial sector

A major component of the Reagan agenda was the deregulation of corporations whose activities greatly affect the public welfare. In the absence of government regulations, corporations that are subsidized and otherwise supported by government with the understanding that in return they will serve a public function, become free instead to pursue profits with no regard for the public whatsoever. Kleinknecht describes what this process meant in terms of financial deregulation:

The Reagan administration’s zest for financial deregulation was responsible for the boom-and-bust cataclysms of the 1980s and 1990s, the obscene inflation of executive compensation; the corporate scandals and stock market meltdown of 2000-2001; and innumerable crises in international finance, including the most devastating of them all: the subprime mortgage scandal. Deregulation corrupted financial institutions at the same time that it made them the lords of the world economy and allowed their proxies, people like Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan, to dictate the policies of the federal government. History will marvel that these two standard-bearers of Reaganism – Greenspan and Rubin – were lionized as geniuses and visionaries at the very time they were steering the nation toward disaster….

Reagan’s plan for deregulation of the financial sector would take years to come to full fruition – what was finally left of Glass-Steagall would not finally be repealed until 1999 – but the processes he and his Republican colleagues set in motion in 1981 were the genesis of so much that is wrong with the U.S. economy in the 21st century.

Reagan didn’t have the votes in Congress to repeal Glass-Steagall. So he attacked it the same way that he attacked everything else he didn’t like about our system of government: by executive fiat. He simply neglected to fulfill his responsibility as a U.S. president to enforce our existing laws and regulations. As Kleinknecht explains:

Reagan changed the role of government from that of watchdog to lapdog without even bothering to consult the Congress. He also gave a potent political voice to the backlash against regulations, ensuring that the movement would continue to burgeon after he left office… The Reaganites went after regulatory agencies with relish, starving them of resources and staffing them with officials committed to their destruction…The S&L mess worked out well for the new class of robber barons that emerged in the Reagan years. A small group of rich business types went on a spending spree, and the public picked up the $150 billion tab. Privatize the wealth and socialize the risk.

Reagan’s Treasury Secretary, Donald Regan, drafted legislation in 1983 to repeal Glass-Steagall, but it was defeated in the Democratic House of Representatives. With the help of his newly appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, Reagan tried again in 1988, but the effort was again defeated in the House. Nevertheless, Reagan put Glass-Steagall on life support through his continuous refusals to enforce the terms of the law.


Energy and the Environment

Robert Parry sums up the Reagan administration’s approach to energy and the environment:

When it came to cutting back on America’s energy use, Reagan’s message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.
The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment.

Hiding behind the “free market” label

To a large extent, Reagan and his fellow ideologues justify their economic policies by putting a “free market” label on them. Their point is that it is best to leave economics to the workings of the “free market” rather than to upset the apple cart with intrusive government policies. But it is difficult to see how tilting all aspects of economic policy in favor of the wealthy and powerful constitutes “free market” policies.

The reality is that these ideologues not only don’t care about the welfare of the American people, they don’t care about their so-called “free market” principles either. Would those who care about free market principles vote down an amendment that would have required the federal government to negotiate prices with Medicare? Would they vote to make it illegal for Americans to obtain cheaper generic drugs from Canada? Is that free market ideology in action? Or would those actions be more accurately described as sucking up to the pharmaceutical industry in return for the millions of dollars showered upon their campaigns?


Foreign policy under Reagan

It’s very interesting that those who complain most about “big government” are the first to support massive military expenditures – either for defense, or merely for the purpose of U.S. intervention in foreign countries, regardless of the cost. The Reagan administration was one of the most militant and interventionist administrations in U.S. history.

Reagan support for Guatemalan atrocities
According to documents declassified by the Clinton administration in an effort to cooperate with the efforts of the Guatemalan truth commission, 200,000 people were killed by the Guatemalan security forces during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The mounting death toll disturbed one American embassy official, Viron Vaky, enough for him to issue the following report:

The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used…we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them…we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as Communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are Communists… I have literally heard these arguments from our people.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he criticized the Guatemalan regime and initiated an arms embargo. But when Reagan became President in 1981, he loosened the arms embargo and began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the country to support the military suppression of the people. Reagan justified this to the American people and to Congress by blaming the violence on “leftist extremist groups”, even though he should have known, from U.S. embassy, CIA, and human rights groups reports, that the Guatemalan government was carrying out a scorched earth campaign against the Mayan Indians, which included according to Americas Watch, “virtually indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents”. According to the truth commission, this resulted in 626 massacres against Mayan villages in the 1980s alone.

Other military interventionism by the Reagan administration
In our financial support and military training of the Contras and other right wing causes in Central America we sponsored groups with abysmal human rights records and little support among the populations that they desired to lead. Robert Parry describes the:

“death squad” operations throughout Latin America, bloody campaigns that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, including what a truth commission judged a “genocide” of Mayan Indians in Guatemala during the 1980s.

In that same decade, the Reagan-Bush administration financed and supported the Nicaraguan contras, a terrorist-style organization that ravaged towns along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border, committing acts of torture, murder and rape – killing thousands. Some contra units also collaborated with drug cartels shipping cocaine into the United States, while the Reagan-Bush administration sidetracked investigations for geo-political reasons.

The trillions of dollars that we put into military spending, including the unworkable missile defense system known as “Star Wars”, probably did our country little good, while leaving two future U.S. presidents with a massive national debt to deal with. And our interest in helping Islamic fundamentalists to counter Soviet interests in Afghanistan led to our training of the Islamists in the techniques of terror and our ignoring of Pakistan’s move towards becoming a nuclear power, both which have now come back to haunt us, with Pakistan’s facilitation of North Korea’s nuclear program and the terror threat posed by al Qaeda.


SELLING THE REAGAN MYTHS

Thus it is that Ronald Reagan’s most substantial “intellectual contribution” to the nation he presided over for eight years was the still prevalent but absurd idea that government is inherently bad. This is the core idea of the radical right wing ideology that has been responsible for widening the wealth gap in our country to unprecedented levels and shrinking our middle class. So absurd is this idea that those who stood to reap huge rewards from it had to undertake an aggressive and sustained propaganda campaign to get the American people to accept it.

And indeed they did. Kleinknecht writes about the propagation of the Reagan myth in his book. From the book jacket:

The myth of Ronald Reagan’s greatness has reached epic proportions in recent years. The public rates him as one of the most popular presidents, and Republicans everywhere seek to cast themselves in his image. But award winning journalist William Kleinknecht shows in this penetrating analysis of his presidency that the Reagan legacy has been devastating for the country – especially for the ordinary Americans he claimed to represent.

So how did one of the worst presidents in our history come to be seen in such a glamorous light? Some call Reagan the “Teflon president” because none of his many scandals would “stick” to him in the public mind. But there was a very good reason for that. Kleinknecht explains in the introduction to his book:

It cannot be disputed that there are legions of Reagan critics across the country. But why are they never seen on television or quoted in the media? Why is this dissenting view of Reagan’s “heroism” never in the public eye? … When it comes to media assessments of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the usual standards seem not to apply.

Let’s just say that our corporate controlled media wish to maintain his image.

So enduring is the myth of Reagan’s greatness that his supporters created that 19 years after the end of Reagan’s disastrous presidency, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama felt the need to justify Reagan’s policies, attributing them to “all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability.” And even as President of the United States, Obama felt compelled to praise Reagan, saying “President Reagan helped as much as any President to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics – that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day”.

The Reagan propagated myth that government is inherently bad must be knocked down, because it is ruining our country. And along with that, the myth of Ronald Reagan as a great president must also be knocked down – because the two myths are intimately related, to the point of being joined at the hip.

[FarLeftFist]

1. I grew up listening to how horrible Reagan was from my parents and their friends.

Now its years later and its sad to see the truth is that since Reagan took office our country started its downward spiral into mediocrity, before that we were pretty much on the forefront of the entire world. 3 republican presidents later and.....

[FarLeftFist]

2. 30 years of the 'republican revolution' has shown us that...

Govt is the only solution to all of the problems we've created by treating the Govt as the problem.

[FarLeftFist]

3. I grew up listening to how horrible Reagan was from my parents and their friends.

Now its years later and its sad to see the truth is that since Reagan took office our country started its downward spiral into mediocrity, before that we were pretty much on the forefront of the entire world. 3 republican presidents later and.....

[The Magistrate]

4. Spot-On, Sir!

Good to see it on the Greatest listings now....

[Ardent15]

5. Kick

[StevieM]

6. Reagan was definitely one of the worst presidents in American history. Worse than W. Bush IMO (eom)

[indepat]

62. junior #1, gipper #2, poppy #3 for continuing the gipper's voodoo economics

:P

[diane in sf]

78. I agree

[Time for change]

86. And don't forget.... Poppy also for

helping to birth and raise junior.

[laughingliberal]

7. K & R nt

[patrice]

8. K + R

[moondust]

9. K/R

IMO Reagan was the beginning of the end of the middle class leading to the gradual return to feudalism.

[Chisox08]

10. Ronald Reagan was the Devil. nt

[Kitty Herder]

11. K&R

[Lasher]

12. Well done, I'm saving this.

Reagan's popularity, interestingly enough, is mostly a phenomenon of the past decade or so. In historical rankings of all US Presidents, scholars placed him at number 26 in a 1996 poll. But in 1999 he moved up to number 11, and was at number 6 in 2005. One notable reason for this misplaced popularity is the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, created in 1997 by Grover Norquist.

[Time for change]

68. When I first saw an "official" poll that ranked him in the top 10 I was very surprised and dismayed

I would rank him second from the bottom -- above W. I don't think that anyone else is even close. I'm not a historian, but I've read at least one biography on every US president.

It's a testiment to the corruption of our society that a prestigious poll would rank him in the top 10. We have to be very careful about believing what we read these days.

[Lasher]

115. If you hit the link I furnished you might have noticed that Junior is not faring well.

But billions are waiting to buy him a legacy, just like Saint Ronnie. Already his foundation has half a billion from secret donors. The motive is transparent: If you can glorify these men, you justify their policies - which are utter foolishness for everyone except the wealthy elite.

[Demeter]

13. Reagan Did So Much Damage To the Physical Sturucture and Mentality of the Nation

that I despair of ever becoming a sane and whole nation again. We are in a permanent state of psychotic Alzheimers/Denial. It is fashionable and acceptable, if not de rigueur, to be out of your flipping mind and totally divorced from reality.

It is considered good business to be a psychopath. The nation's soul is a dessicated, lifeless, burst-open shell that let loose a destructive and horrifying insect pest.

The worst members of our nation have gone beyond being Ugly Americans to being reprehensible human beings.

[Time for change]

69. The bottom line is that there has been a consistent and concerted effort by a very powerful minority

of people to get the American people to believe that up is down and down is up -- greed is good, compassion, intelligence and especially skepticism about what we hear from our corporate masters is bad.

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. excellent post!! I believe the greatest harm Reagan did was moral

There was a time when even mainstream Republicans believed in some sense of noblesse oblige and community responsibility. There was a time in which even mainstream Republicans believed in principle that the government had a duty and responsibility to help those who genuinely could not help themselves.

Ronald Reagan changed all of that. Ronald Reagan was able to turn banal selfishness into a patriotic virtue. This ideology was then promoted around the whole world.

[socialist_n_TN]

39. Agree. It was in basic morality that Reagan.......................

left his most toxic legacy. The Michael Douglas character in Wall Street summed up perfectly the MORAL legacy of RR. "Greed is good." Now, what religion has EVER thought that greed was a good thing? I'll save you some googling. NONE OF THEM!

[RufusTFirefly]

64. Amen. There's that word, "moral" again

It's high time we reclaimed the word "morality" from right-wing ideologues who utterly pervert its meaning to include killing innocent people abroad, discriminating against people because of their race or national origin, and letting our citizens go hungry or sick despite the fact that we live in the richest country in the world.

[Time for change]

70. I'mm with you there. I guess it's easy for some people to believe that selfishness is a virtue

It helps them justify their actions -- especially if you can simultaneously get them to believe that they are good "Christians" and "patriotic". This country needs a reorientation on morality.

[Douglas Carpenter]

131. I think Reaganism pretty much killed idealism too

The 60's and the 70's were not a perfect era by any means, but it was an age when most people still believed that the world could and would be made a better place in the future than it was in the past. It was still an age when academia was truly filled with uninhibited free thinking and all ideas - no matter how mainstream or how far out - were open to debate. Reaganism truly represented the closing of the American mind and the hardening of the American heart. The new ethic to replace idealism and free thinking was a ethic that embraced "Pragmatism" - Pragmatism as defined as that which grants a rapid albeit short term and significant return on investment - with no regard for social consequences. Fast money was the new definition of being sensible and pragmatic.

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. this needs to be kicked and recommended to the front page!!

[Scuba]

16. Excellent. Thank you.

[abq e streeter]

17. This was my response 2 days ago to a fellow New Mexico DUer about the Democratic leadership

and their complicity in the "Reagan myth": We ( our party's upper echelon) have for the most part been cowardly in standing up to and challenging the Reagan myth and thus assisted in its taking hold of the "conventional wisdom"....Below was my reply to Cybergata: not particularly deeply insightful nor eloquently stated , but I think it's unfortunately accurate.

Fri May-07-10 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #63

101. The failure/refusal of the "leadership" of our party to challenge and debunk the Reagan myth

has made them enablers if not co-conspirators in the crimes against humanity that the republican party has committed for the last thirty years. How are large numbers of people going to stop "lauding" him when the "opposition " party assists in perpetuating the lie of who he was and what he really did ( well, not him so much, but the people he was acting as a frontman for). Do you remember the Albq.Journal front page when he died ? It still makes me just about barf just picturing it: an oversize picture with just two also oversize words : "Graceful and gallant". How are the mass of people going to figure out it's all a lie when even the current Democratic president continues to say nice things about him?

[Time for change]

71. Excellent response

It makes me sick. It especially made me sick to see Obama embrace him like he did -- it was one of the first things to make me lose confidence in Obama. The Democratic Party has lost its way, and we need something else to replace it.

[abq e streeter]

80. thanks--wonder if you saw reply # 22

I thought he expressed some more of my own thoughts extremely well. By the way, just to make sure no one reading this exchange misunderstands, when I wrote that reply to cybergata, it was not a disagreement but an extrapolation on agreeing with a post of hers.
And I ,like olegramps ( post 22) had serious doubts about Obama for these exact reasons from way back. Not to rehash the primaries, but learning from history is ALWAYS important...I feared he'd be a wishy washy centrist from the beginning ( although I still have managed to be disappointed) and thought that if he did not quickly learn that holding hands and singing kumbaya with the repubs was a terrible, possibly politically fatal mistake, then we were , to be rather crude about it...fucked. I have several theories about why he's acting like this ( including the Bill Hicks one; film of JFK; "any questions?").Maybe I'll do an OP on that some day. ( or not)

[Time for change]

91. I had many of the same thoughts

I expressed many doubts about Obama when he ran in the Democratic primaries. Here is the first one I did, based largely on thing he said in "The Audacity of Hope":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=298091

And I've often wondered what's going on. Here's some of my thoughts on that, in a post titled "President Obama and the Powers Behind the Throne":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5361126

Near the end of that post I quote Bill Moyers, interviewing William Greider, in a very unusual question:

You describe President Obama as quote "trapped between the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed." When does he finally have to choose sides?

And sometimes I can only throw up my hands and resort to believing the Bill Hicks scenario.

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. Well done synapses in one page k/r n/t

[Dr Morbius]

19. How do we defeat a myth?

I've been preaching the truth about government for a long time. Government is a tool. Government is a necessity. Where government does not exist, it manifests spontaneously (usually as a dictatorship or monarchy). Our government is as good or as rotten as we allow it to be. The people who are inclined to accept this truth already get it, and the ones who don't get it don't want to get it.

How does one solve this conundrum?

[Time for change]

72. That's what I was thinking

My original title for this most was "'Big Government' Is What we Make it".

[Canuckistanian]

99. "Where government does not exist, it manifests spontaneously"

What a great quote, mind if I use it?

When you look at places where government has fallen apart or has for all intents and purposes been made useless, what do you call it? A "failed state", that's what.

Isn't that the situation that invites intervention?

[Dr Morbius]

113. Help yourself.

The way I see it, once something gets posted on a message board, all copyright and authorship interests are abandoned. Use away, with my blessing.

I would like to ask you, though: what is the result of a failed state? Local warlords take over, usually, and what are they but tin-pot dictators? This is the natural tendency of people to choose leaders, to seek the protection of those more powerful; as well as the natural tendency of some people to seize power when an opportunity arises. The intervention kicks in when the interests of surrounding nations are affected by the lawlessness - absence of government! - of the failed state.

In the absence of law, predators rule. The law of the jungle takes over, and in the jungle, only the lion is truly free. Everyone else is just meat. One cannot be free without law. Law is not present without government. Ergo, government is an essential part of a free society; this isn't complicated logic.

Americans have a brilliant government. We don't show enough gratitude for it, or enough respect for it, and yet we are far too tolerant when it goes awry... as inevitably it sometimes must.

[Raksha]

20. K & R

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. What makes the myth totally surreal is that they themselves transformed

the myth into a terrible reality under George Bush, yet fondly imagine they are excoriating the Democrats!

What, after all, could more perfectly characterise that, than the two illegal imperial wars initiated by him? How much have they cost and what benefits have they produced? Atrocious management of New Orleans storm-surge safety infrastructure must have cost billions more, as well as many Americans' lives and livelihoods. Yet, from both the wars and the inundation, their Republican cronies in the private sector made financial killings.

Was there ever a welfare programme in which several billions of dollars simply could not be accounted for? They could afford a School of the Americas, but not half-decent schools for Americans. Amazing.

[olegramps]

22. Obama's praise of Reagan...

If you read Obama's books you would not be in the least surprised that he praised Reagan. Obama's is naive in believing that when can ever return to the civil days of the Eisenhower era when the welfare of the average citizen was foremost. Reagan appealed to the worst of the nation's character flaws, racism, in his Southern Strategy. The working class drank the cool-aide and cut their own throat when they bought the propaganda that unions were their enemy and corporations were their best friend.

Yeah, Cry Me a River. Workers gladly assisted in their own suicide and majority still don't get it. Yes, I voted for Obama primarily because the alternative was totally unacceptable and I regard all Republican politicians to be the scum of the earth. However, I am not surprised about his clumsy attempts at bipartisanship. He isn't a fearless warrior like FDR or Harry Truman who didn't hesitate to call his critics SOBs, he is a pacifist at best. It isn't Yes, We Can! It is Yes, We better not!

[annabanana]

46. It has become politically toxic to critize this mouthpiece for the billionaires.. .n/t

[abq e streeter]

56. a reluctant +1

you really distilled it and said it perfectly

[ipaint]

23. Reagan's education study- A Nation at Risk

They lied about the results and every president since,including the current one has shaped policy based on that lie. We are to the point today where a once successful and always improving public education system is being destroyed. Both parties are complicit.

His handling of the aids crisis was criminal.

[Lesleymo]

24. Very well said

Thank you! I love this quote -

"The more money that was taken away from government programs, the more ineffective they became, and the more ineffective they became, the more ridiculous government bureaucrats came to be seen in the public eye."

- and then, the same people who advocate getting rid of these programs because they have now made them ineffective, are telling us we can't trust government, which of course means we can't trust THEM. Good lord. And they get away with it.

[The Wizard]

25. The anti education president fostered

the great dumbing down that made boorish ignorance and greed virtues in the American psyche. People liked Bush because they thought it would be fun to go out drinking with him. We are now the most backward nation in the industrialized world. We don't make anything the world wants to buy. Our biggest exports are war and the weapons thereof.
That Bush was allowed to trample the Constitution and turn America into an international pariah is Reagan's real legacy.
"Say goodbye to America, and say hello to the world."
(Tim Buckley)

[Enthusiast]

28. Nice post! And spot on. nt

[dsn]

47. I cannot think of anything worse than to go out drinking with Dubya

He would go into the bar, drink everyone's beer, bitch about the music the band was playing even if he liked it, then start a fight. He'd end the night by hauling you to a strip joint, which he would get thrown out of by propositioning the dancers for sex--FREE sex, because wouldn't you like to say you slept with the President's son?

[The Wizard]

117. W is the kind of guy

who pukes in your car and tell you to sell the presidential vomit on e-bay.

[Echo In Light]

26. K/R

[Enthusiast]

27. This is excellent!

Knock down the Reagan myth!

The greatest excess of government before Reagan was the god-damned Vietnam War! Now that was an excess. The other stuff, not so much, not compared to Nam.

[ck4829]

29. K&R

[political_Dem]

30. K and R. Well put.

Many working families suffered under the Reagan Administration. Not only that, St. Ronnie's policies had caused a lot of jobs to be lost. He was a union buster. His "trickle down economics" did not benefit anyone except those in the top 1 percent of the wealthy. His "war on drugs" was a joke--especially with the ridiculousness of Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign.

What is worse, is that his campaign unleashed a new type of backlash against multiculturalism as well as racism against people of color (i.e. "the welfare queen", "colorblind-ism").

The only legacy that St. Ronnie should have is that he begun the downward spiral that our country has been on which has been culminated by *'s policies.

It is simply disgusting that the Republicans want to honor this man for ruining our country and instilling a type of volatile politics that have hurt the most vulnerable amongst us.

[malaise]

31. Brilliant post

K & R -bookmarked

[arcadian]

32. kick

so I can read later

[tilsammans]

33. K&R-ed and bookmarked!

The Reagan administration set the stage for the demise of the USA, casting us far away from what we could have been and should have been. :cry:

[hansberrym]

34. Are we doomed to whipsaw back and forth between oppressive government regulation on one hand

and ineffective, too weak regulation on the other?

Is there no optimum level of government, or do you see it as all or nothing?


While I agree with much of what you write,especially that Reagan took the idea of deregulation too far, there are two glaring problems with your post. You equate "providing" with "promote" when discussing the preamble to US Constitution, and drop "big" when criticizing Reagan's bashing of "big government".

The justification for a role of government in providing essential goods and services to the American people was established in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which was created “to promote the general welfare” as one of the main reasons for our existence as a nation Closely related to that purpose is the need to establish justice, secure the blessings of liberty and defend against crime (“ensure domestic tranquility”).



When government is a player (a provider of services) its essential role as referee is compromised. This situation is made much worse when the Federal government takes the role of provider as then there is no higher level of government to appeal to, and so the benefits the founders spoke of regarding the Federal system versus a single state are lost.

Reagan is rightly criticized for allowing the Federal debt to explode, but he wasn't the only one with a hand in that screw-up. Furthermore the unfunded mandates(the debt the Fed government owes to pensioners, SS beneficiaries, and others)dwarf the public debt of the Fed. goverernment.


The founders tried to create a governemnt by way of the US Constitution that was stronger that the dangerously weak confederation under the Articles but which was restrained sufficiently so as not to slide into oppression. Just as no man ought to be a judge in his own cause, the Federal government ought to avoid the role of provider so that it can carry out its essential role of referee/lawmaker/regulator.

[Time for change]

50. I certainly do NOT see this as all or nothing

I do believe that there is a level of government intrusion beyond which government should not tread. The best example I can think of is the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of men for mere posession of drugs.

The problem with Reagan and his ilk is that they intruded only where it hurt ordinary people, yet they meticulously backed away from regulating corporate power in a way that would meaningfully help people. Worse, they systematically destroyed necessary regulations that were already in place -- Glass-Steagall being perhaps the most important example.

One issue where I seriously disagree with you is your statement that government should not provide services. The government is ours, and if the American people believe that government should provide services, then they should elect a government that will do that. Examples include Social Security, health care, our highway system, our prison system, education, and many more. You say that that will compromise government's role as "referee". But why should government's role be limited to that of referee? I would much rather have government provide us with health care than receive it from a for-profit corporation that (as history has shown) will make every effort to screw their clientelle in order to make profits.

[hansberrym]

112. You ask -But why should government's role be limited to that of referee?

1)Because no man should be the judge of his own cause. If the Federal government is the provider of services, who will be the judge? Who will hold the government accountable when they run roughshod over the rights of the individual or when they cook the books?

You (rightly) point out that for profit corporations will make every effort to screw their clientelle in order to make profits, but do you really believe that government will act always in the best interest of each citizen, or each generation? Do you not see that politicians have interests which are every bit as self-serving as managers of for-profit corporations?

When for-profits try to screw people over, we can use the power of government to set things right. But who can the individual turn to when government demands that an individual turn over his wages in return for SS or health care benefits that governemnt is under no legal obligation to make good on?

Has not history shown that governments will make promises that can not be kept? Does the US not have unfunded mandates(pensions, SS, medicare, etc) that will cause severe hardship to some unfortunate generation when that bubble finally breaks?

Why do these unfunded mandates exist? Because governments/politicians were/are as dishonest as any for-profit corporation, but government has an advantage over for-profits -it is the judge of its own cause, and can and will lie, cheat, and steal until the bankruptcy can no longer be hidden.


2)Because one should not put all his eggs in one basket. If a corporation(or even many corporations)fails this does not bring the whole system down. But if the Federal government fails we are all screwed. If "too big to fail" is something to be avoided, then surely having the Federal goverment be the provider of more and more essential services is a recipe for disaster.

[Time for change]

134. "No man should be the judge of his own cause"

First of all, our government is not a man, and it is not a monolithic entity. It is a conglomeration of many men and women, fulfilling different but related functions, whose power is limited by the "separation of powers" that our Founding Fathers wrote into our Constitution.

Second, this is not our government's own cause -- it is OUR cause. The government works for us, and we pay them to do that.

Who will be the judge? WE are. Our government is accountable to us. They must stand for re-election. We have the right to petition our government to represent our interests.

Of course I don't believe that government doesn't sometimes run roughshod over our rights. They did that to an extra-ordinary degree during the Bush administration, and they are still doing so under the new administration. We must hold them accountable for that. The solution is to hold government accountable -- not to eliminate government or to limit its ability to provide for the needs of us, the American people.

You say that government can set things right when corporations screw over the American people. Absolutely, that is one of their primary responsibilities. But it doesn't work when they get into bed with the corporate powers, as they did during the Reagan administration. Then you have the merger of government and private corporate interest (i.e. fascism).

[dotymed]

53. You're reading of the constitution is ridiculous.

How about "to PROVIDE for the common welfare?" Where does it say that our government is supposed to be a "referee?" We finance our government and are supposed to receive, in turn, services and benefits. This includes our infrastructure and our welfare is definitely not best served by for-profit health care that is substandard and the most expensive in the world. If your interpretation were accurate, the governments "job" would be to referee between the corporate giants. What would be the purpose of the states to unite? BTW, "trickle down" works for piss not for money.reagan (and seemingly your) vision of America is nothing more than Feudalism. Congratulations, you have won this battle but I hope, for all of our sakes, that the war is not over.

We must unite and demand change. Only the sight of the huge masses of the disenfranchised, might make the elite fearful enough to withdraw and allow the people to regain our government.

[bluestateboomer]

35. Reagan Was No Saint

Unfortunately, the processes he started also pushed the ownership of of media into the hands of a few corporations. This had an adverse effect on public who needed to know the truth and also on the many people who worked in the media. In getting my degree in broadcasting I was taught that television and radio were to be operated in "the public interest convenience and necessity". It was even given an acronym PICON. Now we operate in the corporate interest convenience and necessity. Fewer and fewer people work in the industry and those few are certainly not encouraged to investigate or report on the true facts of our national disaster.

[ThomWV]

36. He was the filthiest piece of shit to ever set foot in the White House

Not even Bush compares ...

[Douglas Carpenter]

38. couldn't agree more...few people in all of history have done more to thwart the path of progress

for America and all of humankind that Ronald Wilson Reagan.


As I would like to tell my fundamentalist Aunt:

Ronald = 6
Wilson = 6
Reagan =6

The deceiver of nations who lied down with the whore of Babylon.

Imagine that one single individual, more than any other single person in history, convinced much of America and much of the world that selfishness is a virtue and compassion is a vice.

[socialist_n_TN]

40. This is probably the ONLY way to........................

begin to MAYBE demythologize (is that a word? :))Reagan. Use his name to equate him with the Antichrist. Who knows? It might even be true.

[moondust]

57. I see the solar panels as a grand historical metaphor.

Carter's solar panels on the roof of the WH represented the path to a sustainable future. Reagan put an end to that crazy idea by God! (Much to the delight of Exxon. And BP.)

:crazy:

[CrispyQ]

37. One of your best posts ever, TFC!

I always wonder about people who vote for candidates who claim that government is the problem. Why would you vote someone in a government position, who clearly has disdain for government?

The elite's plan is progressing quite nicely. They've dumbed down Americans to the point where millions & millions go to the polls & vote against their best interest.

k&r

[Overseas]

41. K&R. Glad to see this review of his true legacy.

We had our Iran Contra hearings but we didn't have a full Truth & Reconciliation Commission after his presidency.

The right wing PR machine was up and running to pump up Ronnie's image and get his VP into power.

And then even after the Democratic Clinton won the election by talking populist and calling out Republicans on their deficit spending for illegal wars and other blunders, party officials didn't want to recognize their victory as due to Democratic populists, labor, and Reform voters supporting Perot for his opposition to NAFTA to preserve the US' manufacturing base, and interest in using more of our tax dollars to improve the quality of life domestically, rather than pouring so much into warfare.

Democratic legislators didn't take that clear message to go all FDR after the Reagan dismantling of the loathsome "good government" at that time either, when they could have. Could have realized their 42% plus the Perot Reform 20% equaled a strong Democratic majority. They could have even strongly supported Medicare for All at that time, to free US businesses from the burdens their global competitors did not have to carry, to add a national interest to the social justice reasoning. They could have respected the unions' interest in keeping a strong US manufacturing base and preserving the jobs that built the US' middle class.

Instead of focusing on their 42% plus Perot's 20%, the Democratic party chose to pretend they should go for incorporating "Reagan Democrats" back into the fold.

Yes there were a few helpful Democratic moves like correcting some of the Reagan tax cuts and letting Al Gore get the country to acknowledge climate change and increasing student loans and job training.

But they went with NAFTA, against our unions, and made it easier for manufacturing jobs to be outsourced and for the plutocratic trickle down (aka Suck Up) to continue.

So loathe were they to be considered old-fashioned pro-union FDR Democrats, even though that would have given them solid Democratic victories for years to come, that they participated in dismantling economic protections like Glass Steagal, and removing other regulations on the giant multinational corporations. Pushing the whole "free trade" claptrap instead of fair, democratically-regulated trade. Choosing cash over the majority of their citizens' needs. And the funding did indeed increase to encourage those Democratic legislators to prioritize the needs of the multinational corporations.

And the relentless right wing attack machine kept up the ridiculous fear mongering smearing of Clinton so that Democrats wanting more democracy felt like they had to support their president in whatever he did because he was under such constant attack. I remember the feeling.

Yet after all of that, I still hoped this Democratic victory would be different. Knowing the power of the right wing attack machinery, I'd hoped for a vigilant time out on Republican mismanagement, right at the beginning of the term. We had the Bush Crash and Bush Bailout for big businesses, and could have come in strongly democratic and pushed through Medicare for All as the people's bailout and a boon to our businesses. Our president could still have pushed a bipartisan message-- but with the caveat that Republicans had lost their way-- they claimed to support fiscal restraint but had run up the largest deficits in US history; they claimed to support a strong national defense but had pushed the country into another war on false pretenses that had made our country less secure. I was hoping for at least that kind of realistic bipartisanship-- Truth & Reconciliation of major Republican blunders with Republican purported values. That approach was what had given Dean's candidacy such strength-- he called the Republicans out on their values vs. realities gap. The public's increasing recognition of that gap had given the Democrats their majorities in our legislature and gotten many Republicans to cross over and vote for President Obama.

So I was really hoping the Democrats would go ahead and reclaim the FDR legacy and rebalance our economy. We were back in the plutocracy of the 20's, with millions of workers foreclosed, bankrupted by medical bills, laid off, and experiencing the very real pain of deregulation and privatization. Medicare for All and millions of green jobs were what I had hoped for.

But I was loving my 21st Century Green FDR dream while trying to ignore a lot of what I knew that you cited in your previous essay http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8293821.

[laughingliberal]

51. Very well explained. Thank you

Perfect explanation of the past 30 years and the move to the right the Democratic party made in response to the Reagan/Bush years. Many of today's Democrats really do resemble Reagan. In fact, many are now to the right of Reagan.

[Time for change]

73. Excellent point about how the Democratic Party turned away from the values that Perot represented

and instead turned to the right. And also about how Democrats could have done the right thing and (in a sense) have been bipartisan at the same time.

But there's one thing that worries me somewhat about that approach. You allude to it yourself. You note that "That approach was what had given Dean's candidacy such strength..." I agree, but... Dean lost. They relentlessly castigated him and took him down.

Maybe the solution is that we need to realize that there can be little or no middle ground in the propaganda war against the right wing corporate elite. If we challenge them we need to go all the way. I talk about that with respect to Dean in this post (See part written in red at the bottom).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1252317

[LongTomH]

42. Don't forget the Salvadoran Baby Skulls!

This article from 2007 details the horror of the ReaganBush campaigns in South and Central America:

Ronald Reagan’s many admirers may find this idea offensive, but – given a new report by the Washington Post – it might be fitting to have a display at Reagan National Airport to show how Salvadoran baby skulls were used as candle holders and good luck charms. Perhaps the presentation could contain skeletal remains of Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, too.

It might be modeled after skeletons on display in Cambodia from the slaughters by the Khmer Rouge. After all, it was President Reagan – more than any other person – who justified and facilitated the barbarity that raged through Central America in the 1980s, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of peasants, clergy and students, men, women and children.

Reagan portrayed the bloody conflicts as a necessary front in the Cold War, but the Central American violence was always more about entrenched ruling elites determined to retain their privileges against impoverished peasants, including descendants of the region’s Maya Indians, seeking social, political and economic reforms.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/012907.html

[DutchLiberal]

85. Let's not forget *all* American presidents have supported murderous dictatorships in Latin-America..

I'll be the last to say anything to take blame away from Reagan and Bush, but we'll have to realize this.

[avaistheone1]

43. k&r Reagan elevated the super wealthy to new heights

at a great cost to the rest of us.

[The_Commonist]

44. "So how did one of the worst presidents in our history...

... come to be seen in such a glamorous light?"

The Upside-Down People.

Those people who simply cannot see reality for what it is. In fact, everything they think and do and believe is Upside-Down to reality. That is how they are so easily convinced to vote against their own self-interests.

Upside-Downism had been a part of the Human Condition forever. Reagan somehow managed to tap into that and exploit it in a masterful way. It was the whole dumb grandfather schtick. "The Great Communicator." He communicated to the Upside-Down People in their own simple, monosyllabic language, and they lapped it up like children eating ice cream.

After a generation of pretty smart presidents - Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter - and a number of pretty big problems - Vietnam, Watergate, Inflation - The Upside-Down People were upset, kind of like today's Teabaggers, who are the legacy of Reaganism. They got someone who spoke in the right frequency range, and they identified with his seeming simplicity. He glamorized greed and idiocy, and we've been paying the price for that ever since.

Of course, we here all understand that Reagan was just a frontman for those who wanted to steal the wealth of the Upside-Down People. And that project has been wildly successful. Unfortunately, the rest of us are getting ripped off as well, and any efforts we make to educate the Upside-Downers is only met with derision and name-calling. It's really sad how Upside-Down this country has gotten. And, it's not going to end well...

[Time for change]

74. That is a big part of it -- the upside-down people

But let's not forget that, in addition, Reagan (not to mention Bush also) had a great deal of support from the corporate power structure, which went to great lengths to mold the American mind to its liking.

[The_Commonist]

119. Of course. Corporatia LOVES the Upside-Down People.

Unthinking consumer-drones and cannon fodder.
Corporatia also uses them as a wedge and a distraction.

[Mosby]

45. K and R

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

48. I think Al Gore eloquently addresses the demonization of government in The Assault on Reason. nt

[Dr Morbius]

77. A real must-read. I tell people to read it and they roll their eyes.

But I call it the most important book of the last twenty years.

[rasputin1952]

49. To be blunt...

Reagan was a piece of crap, only to be outdone by bush. bush will go down as the worst president of all time, Reagan will occupy the second place, and not by much. Reagan was an idiot, but bush was not just an idiot, but evil as well.

Good riddance to both of them...if there is something to thank these two jugheads for...it is their aid in destroying the GOP that changed into some kind of horrific bastardization of what the GOP once was.

[DutchLiberal]

87. Yeah, but the Democrats have become the new Republicans...

[rasputin1952]

89. You may see it that way...

I certainly don't.

D's have their problems, but R's are a disaster.

[DutchLiberal]

122. It's not a matter of opinion, but a matter of facts.

Over the last 30 years, Democrats have gradually moved to the right, to the position in the political spectrum that Republicans once held, and the Republicans have moved into the mental hospital.

[rasputin1952]

127. You do realize that there was a 180 between the parties...

The GOP was seen as progressive until the 1920's, the D's were conservative. This went on, for a bit, until the Dixiecrats really messed things up.

Anyway...D's were, for along time associated with the South and many of the nasty ideologies such as the KKK and upholding Jim Crow laws.

Point is, political parties change with the times...whether this is good or bad, is up for debate...but just as think unbridled Capitalism is a disaster, I think unbridled Socialism is as well...I'd much rather someone place in the middle than either extreme...:hi:

[DutchLiberal]

129. But you don't have "someone place in the middle" in the White House now...

You have a right-wing corporatist now. If that's what you like: fine. Vote for the guy in the next election. But don't pretend the Dems are somehow still left-wing.

[rasputin1952]

132. No, bush was a RW corporatist...

PO is not, he's pragmatic, knowing that until changes are implemented, the banks, corps and other entities have a stranglehold on funds.

This is going to take time...:hi:

[DutchLiberal]

135. Bush was a facist. No wonder Obama looks 'pragmatic' compared to Bush...

Everybody would look pragmatic compared to Bush. But that doesn't mean Obama is. There's a difference between pragmatic and caving in to right-wing corporatist policies.

[dotymed]

52. Remember when

a "made for tee vee" movie was made about reagan? It was successfully prohibited for being aired. (that in itself is horribly un American). Was that movie ever "allowed" to be released? This post needs to be posted on every freeper site. The "winners" write history. If only our children could be taught the truth... He really devastated American intelligence and their access to facts. reagan had the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE repealed, which meant that Americans would never again have to hear facts and opposing viewpoints.
IMO, that single action is responsible for the "dumbing down" of America and THE reason that Americans are too ill informed to organize and, through huge numbers, demand a return to a Democratic Republic that is free from the influence of huge vote buying sums of corporate money.

:mad:

[Raster]

54. The Raygun Legacy: Bullshit wrapped in an American flag.

Ronnie the Raygun = The Great Bullshit Artist.

[underpants]

55. K&R-bookmarking for later full read

[mdmc]

58. I spent from 5th grade to college arguing about the evil raygun was

.. k/r bookmark

[abq e streeter]

59. One of your best and most important ever, TFC.

[EFerrari]

60. Reagan "transcended the heated arguments of the day"

like Hitler and Goebbels "united Germany".

[droidamus2]

61. Central truth

To tell the truth I didn't read the whole post but I think a central truth is the statement 'the government is we the people'. The right-wing Reaganites always talk about the Government as if it is a bunch of aliens come down to tell us what to do. The people that are the government be it elected, appointed or civil servants do their best to provide the best service they can. Are they always successful, no, but no group of people is. These people also live under the same 'government' so why would they have any incentive to screw things up (well except for right-wingers that have a vested interest in making sure the government doesn't work).

[moonbatmax]

63. It is a testament to American stupidity...

...that someone who declares, "government is the problem," ever gets elected.

Seriously, would YOU vote for someone who effectively declared,
"I'm running to become part of the problem!"

Of course, to be fair, Reagan waited until his inauguration address to say it so openly,
but that doesn't excuse his RE-election.

[Kablooie]

65. Government in service to the moneyed interests is what is bad. Not government by and for the people.

Government exclusively for the moneyed interests is exactly what the conservative movements are pushing for.

[earcandle]

66. Democracy is coming to the USA! And this is going up on my news page!

Democracy written by Leonard Cohen performed by The Blame

[G_j]

67. Superb!

Maybe someday, an advanced alien will record this in the history of the humans of Earth.
Until then, it seems Reagan is the archetype of the king (the Elvis of presidents) to far too many people.
:-(

However, chisel away at this image, we must, after all, the chisel is the truth.

Reagan had a mean streak too, a streak of bully which appealed to the public's lower angels.
The age of Rambo and cocaine.

[Time for change]

108. Thank you -- He certainly did have a mean streak

I believe he was a psychopath.

The first link in my OP is an article by Robert Parry, in which the first section is titled "Cruelty with a smile". That's a pretty good phrase for summing up Reagan.

[Uncle Joe]

75. Outstanding! This is one of your best.

:applause:

Thanks for the thread, Time for change. :thumbsup:

[Time for change]

90. Thank you Uncle Joe

[BlueJazz]

76. 9 Words...."I'm Ronnie and I'm here to destroy your Country"

[abq e streeter]

81. perfect

:thumbsup: from a fellow saxophonista

[BlueJazz]

102. Hi: Glad to meet you. :)

[OverBurn]

79. Well Done Sir !

[DuckBurp]

82. Thank you for this excellent commentary.

I was born, raised, and educated a Republican. However, when Reagan campaigned in 1980, I realized that if he was a Republican then I couldn't be one. I disagreed with him in every possible way. I still do not understand why anyone could support him. I have not voted Republican since then. I refer to myself as a "recovering Republican."

[Time for change]

104. I love to hear stories about people who are capable of rethinking their positions in the light

of facts.

Too bad there aren't more of us who can do that.

[DutchLiberal]

83. I'm afraid the US will never recover from the damage Reagan and Bush inflicted on the country...

It's very rare that I read such a long post word-for-word, but this was so good, I had to keep on reading. The damage Reagan and Bush have done to not only the US, but to the world, can't be exaggerated. Just look what they did in Latin-America; it's horrible to realize what exactly has happened there. It's just so sad that president Obama doesn't seem to have learned from it. His support for the murderous coup-regime in Honduras could easily pass for Reagan-Bush policy.

I just feel most of the blame should be placed by George H.W. Bush. I think he was the thriving force behind the presidency and the ideological agenda. Reagan was just a puppet to appeal to the masses, just like George W. Bush was.

[Time for change]

95. Thank you -- Recovery from things like this tend to take a very long time

Regarding your comment above (post 87), I believe that Carter proved to be in a lot of ways a substantial exception to the general rule:

On the campaign trail in 1976, Carter was an outspoken critic of U.S. imperialism:

We’re ashamed of what our government is as we deal with other nations around the world… What we seek is … a foreign policy that reflects the decency and generosity and common sense of our own people.

Morris Berman, in his book “Dark Ages America – The Final Phases of Empire”, discusses Carter’s commitment to human rights as President:

Carter never stopped talking about the subject… He cut out aid to Argentina, Ethiopia, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, Rhodesia, and Uganda because of human rights abuses.

Berman discusses the hopes engendered by Carter’s 1976 election to the Presidency and how the American people turned out not to be ready for that kind of change:

For a brief moment in American postwar history, the position of sanity found an echo… We would work for a more humane world order in our international relations, not seek merely to defeat an adversary; military solution would not come first; efforts would be made to reduce the sale of arms to developing countries…

But… the Carter morality was, within two years, heavily out of step with the return to the usual public demand for a more muscular and military foreign policy… Out-of-office cold warriors closed ranks, forming organizations such as the Committee on the Present Danger… Their goal – to revive the Cold War – was ultimately successful; Ronald Reagan and CIA-assisted torture in Central America were the inevitable results. And in the course of all this, a picture was formed of Jimmy Carter as weak, bungling, inept… That Carter would be perceived as weak, and presidents such as Reagan and Bush Jr. as strong, says a lot about who we are as a people…

[DutchLiberal]

123. Carter was inconsistent when it came to human rights...

Carter definitely was infinitely better than Reagan and the Bushes, no doubt about that (both in domestic and foreign policy). The Camp David Accords come to mind, and the Panama Canal Treaties, and SALT II.

Carter indeed did criticize a lot of the Latin-American right-wing military dictatorships and he cut some aid to those countries, but he never did anything to try to pressure the juntas to step down. The US could have easily used its (diplomatic or financial) power to pressure those regimes, but nothing ever happened. Stroessner and Pinochet were even present at the signing of the Panama Canal Treaties. Carter stood by Indonesian dictator Suharto, even after the bloody invasion of East Timor. Carter also didn't stop military aid to the junta in El Salvador. He initially criticized Mobutu but changed his mind after rumor that Cuba supported anti-Mobutu rebels. I believe the support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan (which would later become the Taliban) started under Carter. Most serious, after the Khmer Rouge was driven out of Cambodia by the Vietnamese in 1979, the US government continued to back them and finance them, despite the widely known genocide.

I always describe Carter as "the least bad American president". He was not perfect, but he deserved a lot more credit and respect than he got when he was in office. His defeat by Ronald Reagan was a grave injustice to the man and his policies. But, Carter told America those things it did not want to hear, like the "malaise speech". The world would have been infinitely better of had Reagan lost that election.

I respect Carter most for his post-presidency work. The only thing that's sad about it, is that politicians only get a sensible view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once they're out of office. (It works the same in Holland, too!)

[Time for change]

128. Carter's actions that you describe here

One gets the impression that he really didn't want to do all those things. I would love to know what kind of pressure he was under to do them.

[DutchLiberal]

130. I think you're right that he was under pressure...

Do you know that bit by Bill Hicks where he describes what happens to a new president once he gets into the White House? He meets with the leaders of the financial and corporate elite, and they show him footage of the Kennedy assassination from an agile that nobody has ever seen. When they're done, they say to him: "any questions?"

Damn, I wish that bit was still on YouTube; it's brilliant!

[Time for change]

133. I sure do -- and I don't think of it as a joke

I've quoted it several times on my DU posts, and I've thought about it a great deal, because I think it's one of the most relevant statements facing our country today.

I've also discussed the Kennedy assassination in detail in numerous posts (most which are now in the 9-11 Forum). The evidence is incontrovertable. Every doctor that saw him at Parkland Hospital knows that at least one, and almost certainly two bullets came from the front. About 10 made official statements to that effect, though some later changed their minds after being "visited" by FBI to clarify the evidence for them. The autopsy doctors know too -- even though the body was revised substantially before they got to see it. And they were under tremendous pressure to obscure the findings.

I've also discussed how JFK defied the powers that be, probably more than any other president we've ever had:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5757851

[DutchLiberal]

136. And his vice-president did everything he could to bury any evidence...

If only the public cared or demanded an explanation... But, like Bill Hicks said, they go: "Let it go, man. It was a long time ago. When's American Gladiators on?"

It's a scary thought that such a thing (a coup) could happen and everybody just carried on with their lives. Shot by a crazy communist called Oswald? Sure, we buy it. His brother shot by another lone wolf? If you say so... Anybody who questions it must be a conspiracy theorist.

We will never know who was behind the assassination for sure.

[Seneca]

84. K, R & B

'B' for Bookmarked. :thumbsup:

[Lorien]

88. The government only stops being "good" when it no longer serves the interest of it's

citizens, but those of the corporations and the wealthiest elite instead. That's what we have now. If you look at the teabagger manifesto you'll see that what they are fighting against is America itself; a government of, by and for the people. What they are fighting for is Reaganism/ fascism- no "government" outside of a military to protect and serve corporate interests. No regulation, no taxes, total anarchy...at least outside the realm of the laws that corporations lay down. They call it "support for free markets" and "freedom", but it's nothing less than the enslavement of American citizens to a corporate dictatorship that they are advocating. Treason against American Democracy.

[Jester Messiah]

92. Well, this should brighten your day...

The stupid old coprophage is rotting in the ground. Good riddance and fuck off.

[troubledamerican]

93. Philadelphia, Mississippi

Ronald Reagan kicked-off his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Philadelphia, Mississippi's claim to fame? In 1964, three civil rights workers (made famous in the film "Mississippi Burning") were "disappeared" Latin America-style, and murdered.

Reagan used the location as an occasion to symbolically begin his campaign -- and rally for "States' Rights" (code for white power).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan%27s_speech_at_the_Neshoba_County_Fair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers_murders

[wial]

94. the lottery number in Baltimore the day Reagan was elected the first time

was 666. Kid you not. And that's the number of letters in Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Maybe we're left behind. That would certainly explain what's happened to the world since his regime.

But I don't believe that crap.

Reagan is way up there. Reagan, Nixon and GW Bush are all so bad they make GHW Bush look good, and that's saying something. Those three are all certainly in the top five worst presidents. Which is also saying something.

Obama, so far, is in the top three best, despite all his failings. And America, for electing him, has earned a unique place in the history of our species.

[DutchLiberal]

124. George HW Bush was the man behind Reagan and Junior!

How can you say Reagan, Nixon and Junior make George HW Bush look good, when it was HW who was running the show all the time?

[unlegendary]

96. If government is SOOO bad then why do they always want to run it?

I think, not sure because i didn't read every bit of it, it left out Reagans great idea of cutting taxes for the rich and instituting "usury fees" on everything from farting to opening ones eyes in the morning.. Not taxes..Usury.. Well, it's REALLY taxes, but they call it something else. Bastards.

[Time for change]

97. Yes, I left out a lot -- One could fill a lot of pages talking about all the terrible things that

befell this country as a result of Reagan's presidency.

I did mention his cutting taxes on the rich, but didn't go into his "trickle down economics" in any detail. I even left out Iran-Contra, which most certainly should have led to his impeachment. And I left out his administration's arrangements to make sure the Iran hostages weren't released until after the election -- which should have constituted solid grounds for imprisonment for treason.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

98. Ronald Reagan was a union-busting turd...

and Nancy was the blowjob queen of Hollywood.

Reagan's treatment of PATCO strikers was the first shot in the war of the rich against the middle class that has resulted in the situation we face today.

[AlbertCat]

100. The presidency of Ronald Reagan ushered in the era of privatization and deregulation.

Someone last night just told me that deregulation started with Clinton! :eyes:


And y'know why these myths persist? Right after I pointed out it was Reagan that started the big Government/ regulation bad meme, it was all "Let's not talk politics." "Don't get into it!" "Don't talk politics during dinner!"
This is not a mater of differing opinion. It a fact that can be established!

Just don't talk about it!

[Time for change]

103. That reminds me of an argument I had with a Republican -- over dinner

He told me that California and Ohio, among other states, were stolen from Nixon in the 1960 election. I told him I was pretty sure that Nixon won California and Ohio in 1960 -- which would prove that they weren't stolen from him. I looked it up on the computer and told him, and he said something like "I don't want to talk about it, I know what I know".

[DutchLiberal]

125. It's called cognitive dissonance.

[elzenmahn]

101. K&R...

Thom Hartmann is one of the few media voices, in print or broadcast, that brings up this very point consistently.

Once people realize how had our country was by the former Borax salesman in chief, then there will be hope. What makes this task difficult is how steeped his ideas were allowed to become in our political common wisdom over thirty years. What makes it almost impossible is how multinational corporations and their purchased marionettes in Congress feed at Ronnie's trough, and how they'll do anything to keep it that way.

[craigmatic]

105. All reagan did in a nutshell was stop investing in schools and started investing in prisons.

And we wonder why the prison industrial complex is as big as it is. We have more peoople in jail than China and Russia. It's mostly due to reagan's war on drugs.

[liberal N proud]

106. I only wish I could K&R this 1000 times

[Poiuyt]

107. This is an extremely important article - I just wish people were not afraid to discuss it

People outside of DU that is. Everyone's afraid of knocking down Reagan's de facto sainthood.

[DutchLiberal]

126. I've heard Keith Olbermann call Reagan "a lousy president".

But that was all.

Bill Maher has repeatedly slammed Reagan for being a disastrous president on his show, 'Real Time', but he didn't say a word when, a couple of weeks ago, the creator of 'Family Guy' was on his show and he said that, Ronald Reagan would have prosecuted Dick Cheney for war crimes. And the panel and the audience started clapping and cheering. Which made me go: :wtf:

[muntrv]

109. Don't forget raygun's trip to Bitburg, Germany. That's when he laid a wreath on a nazi grave.

[Douglas Carpenter]

110. another kick - because it is so important

[rhett o rick]

111. Thanks for another great post. rec. nm

[GrannyK]

114. I'll add another kick for a enlightening post. N/T

[Sherman A1]

116. Precisely

Thank You for posting!

[harun]

118. Now that is some writing that gets it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

120. one last kick - for the truth about Ronald Reagan

[humbled_opinion]

121. Cutting Non-Defense Government spending

Is the cornerstone of Conservative economics. Their claim is that the Government is a burden to the Free Market. Many whom I work with are sick that Bush bailed out the "too big to Fail" banks with taxpayer money. Their position is that market adjustment is sometimes necessary and that the role of government should be limited because it only exacerbates the problem.

Conservatives care little about how the large end business losses effect the main street workers, their position is always less regulation and tax cuts across the board to spur economic growth. I counter that instead of growth they should use the word GREED and they all agree greed is the catalyst of a free market.

IMHO, there is some common sense truth to this notion, because now as we have just seen happen in Europe the bail outs are continuing only instead of banks and insurance companies we have moved on to bailing out entire countries. This path is unsustainable.

The next common sense tidbit I get alot from the same conservatives is that the government claims that it will maintain some order in the free market by imposing various regulations on business in order to impose and carry out such regulations the government raises taxes on the people to pay for it, subsequently the business who has to pay more to either get around the regulation or pay more in taxes or fees or oversight costs, fines, etc caused by the regulation, turn right around and pass those costs on to the consumers in the form of higher prices. Effectively government and business both screwing over the consumer.