Ronald Reagan

[arlen]

Respect:

1. To take notice of; to regard with special attention; to regard as worthy of special consideration; hence, to care for; to heed.

2. To consider worthy of esteem; to regard with honor.

 

I skipped a "Reagan is Dead!!!" party to watch Sifl and Olly last night. Does that count?

[johndavidjr]

James Watt, Edwin Meese, Bush #1, Patrick Bucannan, John Poindexter, much of the current Supreme Court bench (the absurdities of Robert Bork), Michael Deaver, Lyn Nofzinger, et cetera, et cetera.

[MervGriffin]

The one thing this little "discussion" has revealed is that some of you have NO CLASS whatsoever as evidenced by your heartless comments.

 

 

R.I.P. Ronnie

[Fairweather]

Good comments, Merv. And how true!

[griz]

The one thing this little "discussion" has revealed is that some of you have NO CLASS whatsoever as evidenced by your heartless comments.

 

 

R.I.P. Ronnie

 

No shit. This thread makes me want to puke.

[graupel]

KILLER, COWARD, CON-MAN

GOOD RIDDANCE, GIPPER ...

MORE PROOF ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

Sunday, June 6, 2004

by Greg Palast

 

You're not going to like this. You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But in this case, someone's got to.

 

Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was a killer.

 

In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis.

 

People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics. But Ronald Reagan, big hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had elected.

 

Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young woman's lungs filled up and she stopped breathing. Reagan flashed that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three.

 

And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior ran away like a whipped dog … then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold parades for gunning down Cubans building an airport.

 

I remember Nancy, a skull and crossbones prancing around in designer dresses, some of the "gifts" that flowed to the Reagans -- from hats to million-dollar homes -- from cronies well compensated with government loot. It used to be called bribery.

 

And all the while, Grandpa grinned, the grandfather who bleated on about "family values" but didn't bother to see his own grandchildren.

 

The New York Times today, in its canned obit, wrote that Reagan projected, "faith in small town America" and "old-time values." "Values" my ass. It was union busting and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness, bringing starvation back to America so that every millionaire could get another million.

 

"Small town" values? From the movie star of the Pacific Palisades, the Malibu mogul? I want to throw up.

 

And all the while, in the White House basement, as his brain boiled away, his last conscious act was to condone a coup d'etat against our elected Congress. Reagan's Defense Secretary Casper the Ghost Weinberger with the crazed Colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster of the Mideast, Ayatolla Khomeini.

 

Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla. Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages.

 

Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.

 

Then the Reagan roaches mixed their cowardice with crime: taking cash from the hostage-takers to buy guns for the "contras" - the drug-runners of Nicaragua posing as freedom fighters.

 

I remember as a student in Berkeley the words screeching out of the bullhorn, "The Governor of the State of California, Ronald Reagan, hereby orders this demonstration to disperse" … and then came the teargas and the truncheons. And all the while, that fang-hiding grin from the Gipper.

 

In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers stayed awake to guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra terrorists. The farmers weren't even Sandinistas, those 'Commies' that our cracked-brained President told us were 'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' What the hell would they want with Texas, anyway?

 

Nevertheless, the farmers, and their families, were Ronnie's targets.

 

In the deserted darkness of Chaguitillo, a TV blared. Weirdly, it was that third-rate gangster movie, "Brother Rat." Starring Ronald Reagan.

 

Well, my friends, you can rest easier tonight: the Rat is dead.

 

Killer, coward, conman. Ronald Reagan, good-bye and good riddance.

 

Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. www.GregPalast.com

 

[Fat_Teddy]

Ahhh, Greg Palast. Proud member of the Black Helicopter Club.

[scott_harpell]

Graupel... Kennedy did the same thing to Cuba and you didn't see conservatives pissing on his grave. Instead, we mourned the death of a man who was our leader. Show some class.

[scott_harpell]

 

...and yes I have been there and I have seen kids who only needed baisic medicines for survival.

 

Here's a picture I took.

[Dru]

oh yes remembering the 1980's

 

1984 - More live mayhem brings Dead Kennedys to guerrilla performances outside both the Democratic and Republican National conventions. Republicans in Dallas are greeted by Biafra-led crowd chanting "Fuck off and die!" as they flee the hall for their hotel rooms. A mass die-in at Nieman-Marcus and the notorious Joey Johnson flag burning case that wound up in the Supreme Court add to the festivities. At the Democratic convention Dead Kennedys take the stage in Klansman hoods, then remove them to reveal Ronald Reagan masks underneath. A thousand people break away from the crowd to march on San Francisco City Hall, where they are beaten senseless by out-of-control police officers.

 

 

1985 - Dead Kennedys reaffirm their place at the front of the underground musical vanguard with the release of the Frankenchrist album (possibly Biafra's favorite). Again, not what people expected. A poster insert by Swiss surrealist master H.R. Giger will soon prove very controversial.

 

 

1985 - Infamous Senate anti-music hearings are staged by Senator Al Gore and his cohorts as a favor to his wife Tipper and her openly bigoted fundamentalist friends calling themselves the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC). Among the PMRC's demands were the censorship through a labeling system of warning stickers, the "Reassessment of contracts" of artists whose lyrics are, "sexually explicit", "anti-Christian" or mention suicide or homosexuality. "Expert witnesses" called by the Washington Wives blame rock music for gang violence, suicide, murder, devil worship and sexual perversion. Frank Zappa was one of the first to oppose the PMRC and sense their significance, as was none other than John Denver(!) and Dee Snider (Twisted Sister). The music industry above and below ground keeps their head in the sand, preferring to sleep through the hearings.

 

ronald reagan and tipper gore vs. jello biafra and frank zappa!

[Bug]

A president is a person. Nothing more. In this case, you are paying respects to a person who ordered the murder of countless innocent El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Grenadians, etc. not because they were communists or tried to put down the US but because they tried to esablish personal liberties like we in the US enjoy. Meanwhile, Reagan oversaw the dismantling of our miranda rights.

Sorry. I think the man was evil. I think his successors are evil. I think they are dead set on stripping all power and money from the middle class. And Some of you are playing right along with their lies while they ship your jobs over seas and throw your rights in the toilet. The Democrats are not our great white hope either, so don't take me wrong. We are all being played by a huge ($200,000,000 a year) marketing campaign that cares nothing for the truth or justice but only for power. Until we stand up together against all of the crooks in DC, we will continue to get used as pawns without value by both sides. We have given up our right to govern ourselves. We refuse to take part in elections and political rallies and other policy setting oportunities. The citizens of the US are apathetic and on the verge of seeing their way of life gone. You will have to be rich to have a simple heart cath or chemotherapy. You will die in droves of maladies that we can cure. You will die because you do not have enough money.

I will not mourn the passing of any of these brutally corrupt people who serve in DC today or over the last 30 years. When we all rebel against the painful truth, we might see change. Until then, while we bark at each other over which side of the aisle is God's, they laugh at us and hold us in contempt. I am a cynic yes. But I have seen the way these people operate and what passes as legal inside the beltway. You would not want them as neighbors.

[To_The_Top]

The Reagan era did spawn some really good music, thats for sure.

[mattp]

One thing is for sure: the guy could deliver a speech.

 

"Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!"

 

Or that D-Day speech they've been playing on NPR: brlliant!

 

I used to get the creeps every time I heard him on the radio, because I found his politics horrendous, but the man had quite a gift. He definitely made you feel as if he believed in what he was saying, he was easy to listen to, and he was the master of the message.

[slothrop]

Right on, Bug.

[scott_harpell]

I think I am gonna take stock in "Seattle Foil Hat Co."

[cj001f]

"Ronald Reagan - A smiling whore who will someday be president" - H.S.Thompson

[jon]

Is there a president from the last 30 years that someone has something really nice to say about him? I can't think of one that has been discussed here in the endless political threads. (n)

[JoshK]

I'm sure everybody will tell me he was a shitty president, but Jimmy Carter, without a doubt is a champ of a human and the most productive ex-president in history.

[scott_harpell]

Werd

[jon]

I'm sure everybody will tell me he was a shitty president, but Jimmy Carter, without a doubt is a champ of a human and the most productive ex-president in history.

 

Agreed. I think the same can be said of Reagan pre presidency. Every presidency will be marred in scandle, just remember there are hundreds of people involved in what is called "the government" which fathered most of it, and in some cases are still around.

[Dru]

Carter has spent the time since he lost the office doing things which ameloirate his ineffective presidential record. Reagan did pretty much nothing after leaving office mostly as a result of accelerating Alzheimers. In fact many have noted that he displayed symptoms of Alzheimers while still in office. Sort of like the Soviet system where Brezhnev and successors ruled while on heavy life support. Mao also apparently ruled in delirium for the last years of his life.

 

Jon - you are totally correct about the government being many people. But the president as chief executive is ultimately responsible for what is carried out by the government.

[cracked]

Dru...when you fuck up your job, do you blame your boss?

[jon]

Dru, you are making the assumption that the president is the one running the country and having the final say in everything. I'm pretty sure people didn't come to Reagan and say "Ok here's the deal, we are going to kill thousands of people in Latin America, just sign here", or "There is this guy named Saddam, and we are going to give him money so he can eventually launch chemical attacks on people and we are going to go to two wars with him." During WWII we were allies with the Russians, but in the dynamics of this world things change and people change sides. Running up the deficit with STI is totally bunk, you really think we spent billions of dollars on defense research and got nothing? We already have a missle defense system, actually it is defending you as well, and we have had it for over a decade.

[JoshK]

Let's relize the fact that a huge amount of modern technology that we rely on and take for granted was a result of U.S. military research. It is quite fair to say that the rest of the world, Candians and Europeans included, have benifited from projects that spun out of the U.S. military. I'm not defending the military as a whole as always being used correctly, but it's pretty dumb to label research done as a waste.

 

I'd be curious to see what Clinton starts using the rest of his life for. Like him or hate him, he has a good opportunity to do a lot of good. He is very well liked around the world and is quite charismatic. I'd like to see him use that to do good.

Edited June 7, 2004 by JoshK

[willstrickland]

Good point Josh and Jon. One of the outposts protecting our collective asses is right down the road from me. And any of you that use GPS are using US military technology and sattelites. Remember that the next time you're navigating in a whiteout or heavy veg.