Ronald Reagan at 100: I Remember His Presidency...Well Enough to Skip the Hype

 

Grenada...does anyone even remember the tiny Caribbean island we invaded in the 1980s to keep Cuba from going all Communistic? The one that had a population of 100,000 at the time?

I didn't think so. The people at The Reagan Library are hoping that people born after 1980 don't remember either. Which is why they're so eager to push St. Ronnie. The man already has an airport that had a perfectly good name, Washington National, re-named after him instead, and TWO frickin' postage stamps in the past 6 years. Enough is enough.

Just because George W. "broke" the GOP, conservatives have been forced to look elsewhere for heroes. Handily, Reagan died in 2004 of Alzheimer's that had probably been plaguing him for some time before, so exhuming and embroidering on his reputation is easier than actually creating a platform, legislating like grown-ups, or creating jobs.

Take a listen to This American Life, where a group of schoolkids are literally shepherded (railoroaded?) into Reagan worship on a visit to his library. What happens when one student decides to think for himself and NOT invade a small island nation that probably excels at turning fruit ripe in the heat of its warm sun, but probably couldn't turn any nation 2500 times its size into a communist one?

And enjoy this compilation of recollections of Ronald Reagan's real record:

• Advocate of the useless "Star Wars" (Strategic Defense Initiative) missile defense technology boondoggle that the Heritage Foundation estimated would cost $115 billion in 1987, which we haven't seemed to utilize since spending all the money.
• Indifferent and insensitive to the AIDS epidemic, whose lack of concern spurred the AIDS quilt & the Silence=Death campaign.
• Aider and abettor of thugs who always seem to evolve into our next enemy: Reagan's Osama Connection: How He Turned a Jihadist Into a Terrorist Kingpin
• Myth-maker-in-chief: 5 Myths About Ronald Reagan (#4, under him, the national debt went from $700 mn to $3 billion).
• Liar-in-chief: We Fought A War on Lies, and the Lies Won 
• Slasher of funding for the arts: Reagan and the NEA
• Simultaneous tax cutter and big government deficit spender
• Supporter of South African apartheid (said sanctions wouldn't work)
• "States' rights" advocate (of the Southern Strategy, code word for racial/economic inequality)
• Reagan's real legacy as a precursor to the Tea Party: he was quoted as saying, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem"

The Reagan Library may be eager for kids to learn a slanted version of history, but they won't so long as I can testify to what I know about that time.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Comments

[annie]

First of all, I don't get birthdays for dead people. But more importantly, this willful reconstruction of Reagan should make thinking people everywhere take to the web to refute every myth being pushed.

Here is a guy that should have been impeached. Iran=Contra? Where is that in this new history?

And it was Gorbachev who deserves the lion-share of the credit for bringing down Communism, which, let's be real, was an unsustainable model. Even China had to tweak it with a bit of capitalism.

I never voted for the man. Was ridiculed for my stubbornness about his legacy being meh at best and I will never buy into this revisionist ploy.

[Dennis Daryl Shamblin]

All I recall about President Reagan's presidency was continous recessions. Please visit my website in your free time.

[ilinap]

Hear! Hear! When he died we happened to be walking around downtown Raleigh with our sons and saw a throng of people heading towards the state Capitol. Being curious lemmings, we followed. It turns out they all wanted to sign some guest book with remarks about how awesome Reagan was and add to the undeserved hero worship. We took one look at that book, told our sons that Reagan didn't deserve an airport named after him or our signatures on that book, and we left.

[Silvertongue62]

This was a fine read indeed. I often hear these republicants blowing Reagan and wonder if they missed those eight years or if they were in a coma. The biggest reason we are in the fix that we are in today was a DIRECT of Reagan's Presidency.

The United States used to have something called an embargo. Within this embargo fair trade was established. Reagan through all of that out the window so his rich friends could move their companies off shore to cheap labor and make all kinds of profits. It gets deeper but i won't consume the blog with my distaste for his Presidency.

I am just glad to have found this Blog. Great insight!
Women do your thing, I'm reading...

[arizona estate sale]

He has done what he have to do.