Some of my opinion of Reagan

[Craig234]

Ronald Reagan was mainly one thing: a spokesman.

He had a charm - boyish and innocent younger, and grandfatherly older.

The problem is, his function was to take something wrong, evil, and make it accepted using that 'spokesman' role.

Early on, his client to clean up was General Electric - not exactly evil, but an organization with its 'shadow agenda' and profiting from taxes for war, etc.

When a group of people wanted to deny Americans more healthcare, opposing JFK's Medicare expansion for their own profit - the AMA put Ronald Reagan out as their face.

He used his charm to convince many Americans that more healthcare was not in their interest, it was 'socialized medicine'.

He left the Democratic Party to support the bad causes of the right, when he decided he didn't like to pay taxes for the causes he had supported.

As Governor, you can actually find some liberal-friendly policies that would repulse his later Republican sycophants - but that mostly changed as President.

As President, he sold the American people on a variety of evil clients. They included the radical shifting of economic policy from traditional American values and a strong middle class, to a road to bankrupting the country and shifting wealth to the very top to a degree never seen. Sold them on the 'voodoo economics' of the discredited 'trickle down', the radical failed policies of Milton Friedman, on de-regulation that had protected societies' interests for decades (giving us, e.g., the Savings and Loan crisis).

He created, with Greenspan (an Ayn Rand acolyte), the Social Security surtax with no protection from the government spending it as borrowed money - which it has.

The clients included making the US - you and me - the sponsors of torture and murder, rape and death squads and terrorism, in Latin America.

Familiar with the maxim that an outrageous lie can be more easily accepted, he called the terrorist Contra army "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers".

It didn't matter so much if he knew what a huge lie serving evil that was - his role was a spokesperson for the interests behind them, to convince people.

He even attacked the founding fathers, indirectly, turning their victory of a democratically elected government - power for the people - into an attack against the founding fathers' government, teaching the American people to fear rather than to act as citizens regarding their government, controlling it and ensuring it served their interests - rather telling them to destroy it, and let the oligarchs have the power instead, after the founding fathers did so much to move that power to the people.

Ronald Reagan may have been charming, may have seemed 'nice', may not have understood a lot of the forces he pushed onto the country and the world.

But his role was to get the American people to drink the poison of the forces who backed him and his party - to make the phrase 'evil empire' ironic and hypocritical.

The nation largely took a good turn under FDR - Reagan is the anti-FDR, reversing the middle class gains, the democratic gains, prostituting America's values.

He wasn't an ideologue, a crusader - in fact, his personal views were often pretty reasonable - but he was a spokesman to empower the evil interests.

If Reagan was shocked, shocked that the interests he joined were sponsoring terrorism, using illegal drugs to fund illegal terrorist wars - he was not without blame.

President Carter, whatever his flaws, generally tried to serve the American people - for example, before his time on energy policy. The oil companies who to this day block such reforms for the US were Reagan's clients, as the symbolic solar panels were ripped out and oil companies have had their way to this day.

The citizen-rulers the founding fathers intended have turned into ignorant 'tea party' dupes, filled with rage over nonsense and misled to support powerful interests.

This is the legacy of Reagan - a damaged democratic spirit, a corrupt governmental culture that buys power with the borrowed money of coming Americans, the blind accepting of the US as a ruthless world power who can kill anyone, however just in their cause, by lying about them, for corrupt interests. pushing the US towards 'evil empire'. Even the degrading or our elections, as he used Lee Atwater - whose protege was Karl Rove.

Ronald Reagan's selling of poison so successfully, his corruption of American values in service of evil interests, was a great harm to the US, shifting the political goalposts for the worse, so that the former 'right' because the new 'left', and the former 'nut on the fringe of the right' became the new 'right'. He poisoned many of the things that helped this country, from good government to his former idol FDR's policies.

There was plenty of room for finding mistakes, improving, liberal policies. He didn't do that.

America as a failing empire, fiscally suffering, reversing gains form everyone but the most rich, no one can say they did more to cause these things than Reagan.

Americans had 'great leaders' to look at - FDR, JFK - and Reagan serves the same role for the right even now, pushing them to bad policies and ideology.

Reagan had some nice intentions - a world without nuclear weapons, a negative income tax and 'enterprise zones' to help the poor, legitimate criticisms of the Soviet sphere as a force harming freedom he'd like to challenge - but he was naive trying to do them. He let himself not only be used by, but he sold, evil forces.

He didn't invent these things - but he was an especially effective spokesman for evil and bad interests.

Reagan's influences need to be reversed - for war and empire, against labor, for redistribution of wealth to the most rich, against a strong democratic government.

In part, they have. They need to be much more - unfortunately, the only two Democratic presidents since Reagan have both been corporatists, reversing little.

 

[sandorski]

He was ok, but started a policy that is sinking the US. There certainly is a ridiculous amount of White Wash applied to him as he's far from the Super President some are attempting to make him out to be.

 

[ProfJohn]

Look at the condition the country was in when he took office and look at the condition it was in when he left office.

Look at the condition of the world when he took office and the condition it was in when he left office.

He main problem was piling up a ton of debt, otherwise both the country and the world were in much better shape when he left than when he took over.

 

[ProfJohn]

He was ok, but started a policy that is sinking the US.

1. Reagan left office 23 years ago. Blaming him for our problems today would be like Reagan blaming Eisenhower for the problems facing the country in 1980. The argument doesn't hold water, too much has changed between then and now.

2. What policy did he start that is sinking our country? It seems that our main problems are related to entitlement programs started by Democrats.

 

[sandorski]

1. Reagan left office 23 years ago. Blaming him for our problems today would be like Reagan blaming Eisenhower for the problems facing the country in 1980. The argument doesn't hold water, too much has changed between then and now.

2. What policy did he start that is sinking our country? It seems that our main problems are related to entitlement programs started by Democrats.

He set the US upon an ideological course, an unsustainable one. Bush didn't come up with the Tax Cut idea himself, Deficits "didn't matter" for the same reason, Regulation as an evil is also a mantra initiated by Reagan.

Sorry, dudes policies are a dud.

 

[Craig234]

Look at the condition the country was in when he took office and look at the condition it was in when he left office.

Look at the condition of the world when he took office and the condition it was in when he left office.

He main problem was piling up a ton of debt, otherwise both the country and the world were in much better shape when he left than when he took over.

So, one of his fans posts.

Much of the improvement of the economy can be credited to Paul Volcker, a Carter appointee re-nominated by Reagan.

Much of the improvement of the world political situation with the fall of the USSR was not caused by Reagan.

The country was not better off with financial deregulation leading to the Savings and Loan crisis, to the draining of the economy by the finance sector which went from 10-15% of the economy's generated profits to 40% later, the groundwork for more Wall Street abuses.

The country was not better off having fought democracy and freedom, having sponsored death squads in El Salvador and the Honduras and a terrorist army in Nicaragua, successfully forcing the people to abandon the government they wanted at the point of a gun and a bomb.

The country was not better off with the Social Security surtax in place borrowed by the government.

The country was not better off with citizens pushed away from being good citizens of a democracy, towards hating the government they could make theirs.

The country was not better off with labor worse and worse off, reversing the trends from the previous decades since FDR for a strong middle class.

The country was not better off with polluters' influence in the government policies.

The country was not better off as it began its climb from hundreds of lobbyists when Reagan too office, to over 35,000 today.

The country was not better off having allied with Saddam Hussein as he 'gassed his own people' and started a war with Iran inflicting a million casualties.

The world was not better off with a fledgling government serving the people in Grenada forcefully removed to prevent any examples of such governments.

The world was not better off for Reagan and Thatcher's right-wing moves against the interests of the people, for the rich.

The country was not better off for Reagan's helping the rise of the Bush family.

Those are a few.

 

[Craig234]

1. Reagan left office 23 years ago. Blaming him for our problems today would be like Reagan blaming Eisenhower for the problems facing the country in 1980. The argument doesn't hold water, too much has changed between then and now.

2. What policy did he start that is sinking our country? It seems that our main problems are related to entitlement programs started by Democrats.

Some things Presidents do start long-term trends. Others do not.

America is not a greatly changed nation from Ford's policies.

But FDR did change the country in ways still affecting it. And so did Reagan.

You asked a question already largely answered in my OP and you didn't read it there, so it seems pointless to repeat.

And BTW, Reagan *could* blame Eisenhower for precedents from the CIA since 1953.

The day Reagan was inaugurated, the other big news was the end of the Iranian hostage crisis - one that would not have happened without the CIA's 1953 Shah.

And there couldn't have been an 'Iran-Contra' scandal, without Iran in its post-Shah condition.

The fundamentalists were able to take power because of the Shah.

Before that, Iran was a more secular nation - all that lost for the Iranian people for over 50 years, in order to try to get a bit more cheap oil by abusing our power.

But of course I'm referring to the larger change as well, converting the CIA from 'intelligence gathering' to its role in violence and other covert operations ever since.

 

[ProfJohn]

He set the US upon an ideological course, an unsustainable one. Bush didn't come up with the Tax Cut idea himself, Deficits "didn't matter" for the same reason, Regulation as an evil is also a mantra initiated by Reagan.

Sorry, dudes policies are a dud.

JFK cut taxes, so I guess we can blame it all on him huh?

 

[ProfJohn]

Craig, I didn't even read your OP. Sorry but too much text and too much typical Craig/liberal BS.

The Soviet Union just accidently fell right after Reagan's term. Reagan had nothing to do with it at all of course, just sorta happened. Meanwhile a few years before Reagan took office liberals like you were running around talking about how we have to accept the fact that the Soviet Union will be around forever and we should work on ways to live with them in peace etc etc etc.


BTW simple question:
Was the country better off in 1988 than it was in 1980??

If we have re-elected Carter and followed his policies where would the world be today?

 

[Infohawk]

Craig, I didn't even read your OP. Sorry but too much text and too much typical Craig/liberal BS.

I love that this thread consists of hardcore partisans yelling past each other and not reading each other's posts. Couldn't this wall of text been posted inside the other Reagan thread?

 

[Craig234]

JFK cut taxes, so I guess we can blame it all on him huh?

Yes, JFK cut the top tax rate from 91% to not the current Bush 35%, not to the Reagan-Clinton 39.6%, but to about 70%, which Reagan then cut.

So, Reagan was opposed to JFK's tax rate - and slashed it beginning the massive deficit problems we have to this day threatening our fiscal health.

Funny how you try to say the President who CHANGED JFK's tax rate that lasted from JFK to 1981, was JUST LIKE JFK.

If your point is that Reagan and JFK agreed 70% was better by the 1960's than 91%, they and pretty much everyone agree on that.

If you are trying to argue they agreed 39.6% is better than 70%... kinda delusional.

Kennedy had a rational process for setting the tax rate, based on the economic growth, the benefits, and how low he could go while paying the bills.

That's not the blind ideology you and others on the right have that's an utterly irrational 'always cut taxes' mentality that has done so much to the nation.

 

[Greenman]

The reason so many of us are so fond of Regan is that we lived through Carter. I was there, I waited in long lines for gas, I watched consumer prices increase twice a week, life in the US sucked. Regan fixed all that, and while he did nothing to make the rest of the world like us, he sure as hell made them respect our power.
He had a few simple ideas that worked very well, and he had a backbone, it was a winning combination. He also spent us into a pretty deep hole, but in doing so he won the cold war without firing a single shot, that's a win in my book, and a price that was worth paying.

You may now return to your spinfest.

 

[Anarchist420]

I agree with most of the points the OP makes and I'm a right-leaning libertarian. That goes to show how terrible of a President Reagan was.

Reagan was actually worse than most based upon a merit system. Merits aside, he's the one I hate most because of his deception and influence. Unlike Hoover, he actually fucking claimed to be the stalwart of capitalism.

 

[Anarchist420]

Craig, I didn't even read your OP. Sorry but too much text and too much typical Craig/liberal BS.

The Soviet Union just accidently fell right after Reagan's term. Reagan had nothing to do with it at all of course, just sorta happened. Meanwhile a few years before Reagan took office liberals like you were running around talking about how we have to accept the fact that the Soviet Union will be around forever and we should work on ways to live with them in peace etc etc etc.


BTW simple question:
Was the country better off in 1988 than it was in 1980??

If we have re-elected Carter and followed his policies where would the world be today?

We would be a lot better if Carter had won re-election and Reagan had never become President. Carter would've made a few reasonable changes.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The reason so many of us are so fond of Regan is that we lived through Carter. I was there, I waited in long lines for gas, I watched consumer prices increase twice a week, life in the US sucked. Regan fixed all that, and while he did nothing to make the rest of the world like us, he sure as hell made them respect our power.
He had a few simple ideas that worked very well, and he had a backbone, it was a winning combination. He also spent us into a pretty deep hole, but in doing so he won the cold war without firing a single shot, that's a win in my book, and a price that was worth paying.

You may now return to your spinfest.

I was there too. Carter got stuck with the inflation largely because of the correction of Nixon's price and wage freezes, and the fallout of Vietnam. Carter for his faults tried to get us off of oil, but know what Ron did? He shut everything down. Energy independence- no. Dependence on ME dictators because of the strategic value of oil? Sure. Supporting terrorists? Well, why not?

Hey, then he blocked legislation which would have prevented raiding pension funds. Now what does that generation have? Social Security, that which Ron left them as their only alternative. He did spend us into a fantastic hole while pretending to be a conservative. As far as bringing down the USSR, he has to share that spotlight with a Pope, who was given equal credit by Gorby.

I don't know how long it took for Washington to toss that coin across the Potomac, or confess to cutting down the cherry tree because he couldn't tell a lie, but I hope it took longer than the fantasies that people constructed around Ron.

 

[Craig234]

The reason so many of us are so fond of Regan is that we lived through Carter. I was there, I waited in long lines for gas, I watched consumer prices increase twice a week, life in the US sucked. Regan fixed all that, and while he did nothing to make the rest of the world like us, he sure as hell made them respect our power.
He had a few simple ideas that worked very well, and he had a backbone, it was a winning combination. He also spent us into a pretty deep hole, but in doing so he won the cold war without firing a single shot, that's a win in my book, and a price that was worth paying.

You may now return to your spinfest.

The only spinfest here is yours. Your post is like a list of false cliches.

'long lines for gas' - you obviously don't understand how little Carter had to do with this, and how much it had to do with the cartel and more Nixon policies.

Things Carter did HELPED with the issue - the Camp David accord with the major nation in the region Egypt, prioritizing a new energy policy, etc.

High inflation - huge problem, Carter is the one who put Paul Volcker in place, who was the key leader in fixing it (while Ford gave out WIN buttons).

Again you don't understand the issues it seems, just 'wah Carter'.

Reagan did not 'fix all that' - he does get credit for re-appointing Volcker - but he did relieve the pain and prevent a real fix *by putting it on the credit card like no President had in US history*, paving the way for our current debt crisis. Could you be more reactionary? Reagan's borrowing did some good so he 'solved it all'?

Wait, the answer is yes, you could be more reactionary:

You parrot the 'Reagan won the cold war with big military spending' lie. Well, he was president when the USSR fell, and he spent big, so obviously that caused it.

You're hopeless.

You talk like an immoral thug with your 'made them respect' line about the abuses of power. ANY thuggish nation in history shares the praise you offer.

Murdering innocent men, women and children - torture - disappearing - the people for doing nothing at all, or trying to practice democracy - hell, raping nuns - you support.

No wonder you like the spokesmen for the 'moral equivalent of our founding fathers' terrorists, since you share his high praise for the terrorism - armchair tough guy.

You don't name the 'few simple ideas' - you should, so they can be shown for the disasters they actually were. I can see why you don't want to.

De-regulation for its own sake however industry wants, injecting the religious right as a political force, taking from labor to give to the rich, murder and lie about it.

Nice simple ideas.

Backbone????? Carter kept us out of war - while Reagan practices murderous policies - that happened to be cowardly as well.

Where was his BACKBONE as the forces his administration sponsored killed children, raped those nuns and many others?

Where was his backbone as he has the most powerful military in the world stomp on the democratic government of Grenada out of greed, based on a lie over the cries of the families of the US Medical students he claimed as his justification while they said the only danger would be if the US brought violence?

Where was his backbone as he sent US soldiers to do Israel's bidding in the wrongful invasion of Lebanon - and then when nearly 250 were killed in a suicide bombing, said he would not leaver weeks before leaving over it? Actually, leaving had more 'backbone' to face his bad policies, than sending the troops in or mouthing the platitude about 'staying the course' that was a lie did.

Your 'backbone' nonsense - you armchair children don't have to face the violence real people suffer to satisfy your moral immaturity and demand for cowboy heroes.

I see who is lacking in backbone as I read your post. Where's your backbone to stand against wrongful violence done in your name by your country? It is not there.

 

[MovingTarget]

We would be a lot better if Carter had won re-election and Reagan had never become President. Carter would've made a few reasonable changes.

How so? I know you typically lean more right than left, so I'd be interested to hear your view on this. How could a Carter reelection have been better? What changes should he have made in his theoretical term two?

 

[lothar]

We would be a lot better if Carter had won re-election and Reagan had never become President. Carter would've made a few reasonable changes.

Like what?

 

[Zebo]

I was not really sentient when Reagan was around but his South American/Schools of the Americas stuff was abhorrent. Millions tortured, raped, killed and impovershed for profit under guise of anti-communism. Nothing much different than his predecessors but a shame nevertheless. We are lucky South Americans don't hate us down to the man.

His right wing economic policies, and seemly unaltered since he departed, both by left and right, has destroyed the American Dream and bankrupted what was once largest creditor in the world. The only dream the past four decades, the the debt dream which was based solely upon credit expansion, from 8 trillion total to 57 trillion and is creating the ultimate bubble causing permanent contraction of America's employment, infrastructure, and competitiveness with that debt noose around our neck. Of course someone has all the money either offshore put to use in production, or even in shore put to use asset stripping us via financial/banking industry whatever is left.

His hatred of organized labor was yelled far and wide with the public firing of Air Traffic Controllers and set the visceral tone for businessmen to follow throughout the 1980's and followed since.

War on drugs was another huge catastrophe not withstanding unconstitutional it doubled prison populations, increased crime, asset forfeiture state, and militarized our police forces. Massive fail.

He does have some positives - we all do I personally like him cutting out loses in Lebanon and not getting involved with fundamentalists who don't want our help. Bloody protracted wars are not what we are supposed to be about but instead preserve our own liberty and democracy. I also how he handled Libya, no costly invasion or regime change and high death tolls, just break some shit and go home. Punish man responsible not everyone. His amnesty program was worth it. You can't have millions in financial limbo. And finally despite his critics denial I think he was instrumental in ending cold war with negotiations, tough talking and proxy wars.

All in all I say fail because while he did make Americans feel good, much of that faked via debt and cooperation from the FED, his policies have had lasting destructive effects.

 

[Zebo]

Yes, JFK cut the top tax rate from 91% to not the current Bush 35%, not to the Reagan-Clinton 39.6%, but to about 70%, which Reagan then cut.

So, Reagan was opposed to JFK's tax rate - and slashed it beginning the massive deficit problems we have to this day threatening our fiscal health.

Funny how you try to say the President who CHANGED JFK's tax rate that lasted from JFK to 1981, was JUST LIKE JFK.

If your point is that Reagan and JFK agreed 70% was better by the 1960's than 91%, they and pretty much everyone agree on that.

If you are trying to argue they agreed 39.6% is better than 70%... kinda delusional.

Kennedy had a rational process for setting the tax rate, based on the economic growth, the benefits, and how low he could go while paying the bills.

That's not the blind ideology you and others on the right have that's an utterly irrational 'always cut taxes' mentality that has done so much to the nation.

The bigger deal is the taxes not talked about. The deductions and exclusions which have the likes of GS and Exxon who make tens of billions in profit pay no taxes. Also capital gains used to be taxed same as income tax back in Ike's and JFK's day. While altered under Nixon and again under Carter it was slashed to almost nothing under Reagan and kept there since.

It's denial for anyone to argue the ideological shift did not dramatically shift to a greed is good mantra under Reagan and stayed there since.

 

[trenchfoot]

Typical republican Ronny was: Giving himself and all the richest people in the USA everything the treasury had in it, whilst giving everyone else a huge national debt to pay, "feel good" lip service and some more fine acting as a snake oil salesman to soothe the ills that he himself caused.

That's what happens when our Nation's critical decisions were being guided and determined with the help of Nancy's astologer.

 

[Craig234]

Typical republican Ronny was: Giving himself and all the richest people in the USA everything the treasury had in it, whilst giving everyone else a huge national debt to pay, "feel good" lip service and some more fine acting as a snake oil salesman to soothe the ills that he himself caused.

That's what happens when our Nation's critical decisions were being guided and determined with the help of Nancy's astologer.

Actually, I'm not sure what Nancy's astrology ever harmed much - it did have Reagan take the oath secretly at midnight for Governor as I recall.

The interesting thing about it to me is, imagine if it had been Michelle Obama, or Hillary Clinton, the right would go insane - showing once again the irrational inconsistency.

 

[Siddhartha]

I see Mr Reagan as the pivot point where the country began its turn away from the FDR\New Deal Era. Because of his role in this change I call where we are now the Reagan Era.

Before Reagan the conversation was about how to build and improve the national social safety net. Making education, healthcare, nutrition, etc a basic right for everyone. The Federal government was a positive solution for change.

Reagan talked about tomato ketchup being a vegetable and welfare queens. The mantra became the Federal government was the problem not the solution. Reagan talked about cutting taxes and reducing regulation to free the private sector to grow the economy which would raise everyone's quality of life.

 

[Karl Agathon]

I love that this thread consists of hardcore partisans yelling past each other and not reading each other's posts. Couldn't this wall of text been posted inside the other Reagan thread?

:thumbsup:

 

[soulcougher73]

I love that this thread consists of hardcore partisans yelling past each other and not reading each other's posts. Couldn't this wall of text been posted inside the other Reagan thread?

So true LOL...see sig