Should the records of Reagan/Bush now being held from every advocate of transparency be pried open nuggets of real Un American activity concerning these charlatans and see the mischief that their administration had done, the people with any common sense, wouldn’t let the face of either one of these master architects of the demolition derby of Democracy and the Constitution be sculptured on any mountain, except of course on a mountain where they were already strip mining. Should anyone find this excerpt offensive about these cretins, who created the largest Deficit in U.S. history, let me really upset your day, my popular opinion of these two primates is “I disapprove of these two clowns of their utterly destructive existence on this planet or any other planet which might support life as we know it.

The dot-com bubble would have burst anyway regardless of anything Greenspan did.  The actual pinprick was an article in the Wall Street Journal which pointed out how bad the financials and fundamentals of the dot-com companies were, that is, they weren’t making any money and didn’t know how to.  The boom didn’t bear close examination.

The same thing has happened with other new technologies in the past.  That is the nature of capitalism—‘The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the means of production.’  Thus, capitalists are always looking for the NBT and are often fooled—by themselves.

Anarcissie:

You forget a critical set of actions that led to the Dot-com bust AND the collapse in 2008, and they are both connected by one man: Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan, the most trusted man in the US economy since Paul Volcker, betrayed that trust.  He saw the market heating up and literally decided that the guys talking about “The New Economy” needed to be shown who was boss…so interest rates were jacked up arbitrarily to “cool” the economy—and the dot-com bubble burst.  Betrayal #1

That he did this just at the end of a Democratic Presidency with Clinton’s 2nd term expiring was no accident—AG is a Republican.  So making the economy look bad at the end of Clinton’s term helped the GOP. Betrayal #2.

When George W. Bush proposed totally irresponsible tax cuts, that may well have foundered, AG said these tax cuts (despite know what they would do to the deficit) were “Healthy” when he damn well knew they weren’t—but it was good for some and for helping KEEP a Republican in office. Betrayal #3.

The the Fed deliberately kept interests rates low when they should have risen from the vast deficit spending, and didn’t monitor much of what other banks were doing. Betrayal #4.

Finally, after it ALL collapsed, in an attempt to hide his vigorous role in making it happen, AG, looked baffled and stumped and said: “Aw, gee. I was really wrong about everything. How could I have made such a big blunder?” as if he was honestly incompetent, not criminally working to protect his party.  Betrayal # 5.

Every bit of trust and faith I ever had in Alan Greenspan’s intellect and honesty died with the first two items on this list.

Reagan helped to create al-Qaeda.

Reagan gave U.S. financial and arms support to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and praised the mujahideen as “freedom fighters.”

Al-Qaeda had its origins in the battle, which Reagan helped to fund, against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers came from around the Middle East to Afghanistan as mujahideen, warriors in the fight against the Soviets; Reagan praised them, hosted them at the White House and gave them money and arms.

Reagan said of the Taliban that they were the ‘moral equivalent’ of America’s founding fathers.

“What must be a source of embarrassment for Republicans and conservatives is Reagan’s creation of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Reagan was responsible for funding, training, arming, and equipping the Islamist mujahideen.in Afghanistan as a means of combating the former Soviet Union. Reagan was responsible for channeling billions of dollars and sophisticated weapons through Pakistan’s intelligence agency that is still responsible for helping the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan.”  http://tinyurl.com/4z4do45

Reagan gave the Taliban Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which were later used to kill Americans.

Starfish,
Clinton was just one of the many successful magicians we had in office. His ‘claimed’ surplus actually left us with a $95 Billion further deficit; it was all a paper shuffle which included social security. See the following lengthy discussion and that should put an end to that rumor. Also note the Andrew Biggs’ quote on 3/31/2009 on CBS.

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

In addition to Clinton’s trashing Glass-Steagall and having become outraged at a reporter for having the temerity to question him on the FEMA detention camps, Clinton also renegotiated the Paraquayan-US Extradition Treaty to exclude crimes of political and military nature, just in time for Bush to acquire his 99,980 acre parcel over the largest subterranean aquifer in South America. Nothing like a little insurance to sweeten that deal.

starfish, “President Clinton presided over the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.”

-

As did President George H.W. Bush.  Which, interestingly enough, began in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan!

You’re clearly whining on this thread.  Is it because Ronald Reagan was white, male and Christian?  Or is it due to his 70% popularity rating?  Or is it that you’re upset to be in the minuscule minority amongst hundreds of millions of Americans?

1987 was significant in that it not only hosted a mighty stock market crash, but a game-changing bailout as well.  Certain people involved in the market were told that the Federal government would lend them as much (freshly-printed) money as they needed to keep the market from cratering.  This mighty infusion of funds (and promise of more to come) indeed arrested the free fall of the market, but now the terms under which one traded had become very different from what they were before.  While an individual could still be wiped out, speculators as a class could not be wiped out.  The market would be upheld by Federal funny money.

The favorable outcome of this maneuver set the stage for the booms of the Clinton years.  The more general form of the policy came to be: give the rich money, or lend it at very low rates, and inflate the stock market.  Call this ‘prosperity’.  The policy led to the dot-com boom/bust and the real estate boom/bust.  Curiously, even as the American economy continues to decline, a new boom of this type is being rigged.

I see a lot of Reagan’s approach to government in 1987 and its sequel.  If you make things look a certain way, then you can act as if they are that way, at least for a while—long enough to win elections or take big wads of money to the Cayman Islands.  Who cares what happens decades later to other people?

****************

Clinton presided over the longest economic expansion, but he
also signed the legislation that gutted the economic regulations, signed legislation immunizing the perpetrators from
accountability and picked up where reekgan left off by signing
nafta into law in 1993.

I question clinton’s economic expansion because it had to have
had a lot to do with a the .com bubbles and real estate bubbles
which most likely have beginnings back into the old days of what
v.p. bush called reekgan’s voodoo economics and the s&l
debacle.

That is why I see any of the presidents from reekgan on until
today as out right horrible at their jobs which a chimpanzee
could do better. Both sides are equally culpable of incompetence
and loyalty to the ‘elite’.

President Clinton presided over the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

Has everyone forgotten? Late in Ronald Reagan’s second term, after nearly 7 years of his policies, in October of 1987, the nation was slammed with one of the hardest economic hits since the Great Depression, and only topped by the collapse under the next two-term Republican in 2008.

Who can remember that to hide the rising unemployment figures that TRULY showed who bore the burden of his policies, Reagan and his team had the statistic revamped to increase the denominator (the population) to include those serving in the armed forces, thus making it appear that the unemployment rate had gone down—without generating a single job.

Taxes rose under Bill Clinton, but during the WORST quarter of his administration more jobs were added to the economy than under the BEST quarter of Bush’s regime, when taxes were cut again.

Time and time again, tax cuts precede a rise in unemployment, and tax increases coincide with rising employment.  I cannot fully explain the mechanism but we’ve seen it again and again and again since 1929.  Yet the Right-wing thugs don’t give a shit about that: They just want to justify not paying taxes and being flat-out mean-spirited about those less fortunate—until misfortune hits them.

Peter Dreier at the Nation?  That’s how we should fact check and understand Ronald Reagan and his presidency?  Good Lord.

My opinion?  Less The Nation, Fox News, New York Times and haters of white, male, moderate and conservative republicans on clear display withn this thread and more IRS, HUD, CBO, Fed. Reserve and Foreign Relations Committee data if we desire historical context.

On the domestic front

According to the IRS, the SBA and HUD; by the end of the 1980’s small (middle class) business start-ups were soaring, new housing had dramatically increased from 1979, record numbers of the middle class moved into millionaire status (which continued well into the 90’s DotCom boom), record numbers of minority owned business’ were starting and the share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners, in real dollars, rose significantly from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988.

According the IRS statistics the wealthy and middle-call made more money thus paid more taxes.  Exactly as it should be in an progressive income tax structure.

According the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office, beginning in 1984 the entire nation, President Clinton included, benefited from the strongest and longest sustaining growth economy since the end of WWII.  Only the 1999-2000 recession ended economic growth.

Solid historical data changes the narrative.

****************

starfish,

Howdy doody is correct, it was by choice those people were
homeless and starving, HIS choice.
I hope he doesn’t get on rushmore, it would that a whole army
to keep the people from blowing it up.

Another of Reagan’s enduring legacies is the steep increase in the number of homeless people, which by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night—and 1.2 million over the course of a year. Many were Vietnam veterans, children and laid-off workers.

In early 1984 on “Good Morning America,” Reagan defended himself against charges of callousness toward the poor in a classic blaming-the-victim statement. He said that “people who are sleeping on the grates…the homeless…are homeless, you might say, by choice.”

(excerpt from http://tinyurl.com/4rak8hz)

During his two terms in the White House (1981–89), Reagan presided over a widening gap between the rich and everyone else, declining wages and living standards for working families, an assault on labor unions as a vehicle to lift Americans into the middle class, a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness, and the consolidation and deregulation of the financial industry that led to the current mortgage meltdown, foreclosure epidemic and lingering recession.

These trends were not caused by inevitable social and economic forces. They resulted from Reagan’s policy and political choices based on an underlying “you’re on your own” ideology.

Reagan was a dissembler:

To make it easy to cut programs that helped the poor, Reagan often told the story of a so-called “welfare queen” in Chicago who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using eighty aliases, thirty addresses, a dozen Social Security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Journalists searched for this “welfare cheat” in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she DIDN’T EXIST. But this phony imagery of “welfare cheats” persisted and helped lay the groundwork for cuts to programs that help the poor, including children.

Reagan increased government spending, cut taxes and turned the United States from a creditor to a debtor nation. During his presidency, Reagan escalated the military budget while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working-class Americans and protected consumers and the environment.

The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation’s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan’s two terms in the White House, the minimum wage was frozen at $3.35 an hour, while prices rose, thus eroding the standard of living of millions of low-wage workers. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 26.1 million in 1979 to 32.7 million in 1988. Meanwhile, the rich got much richer. By the end of the decade, the richest 1 percent of Americans had 39 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Reagan presided over the dramatic deregulation of the nation’s savings-and-loan industry.

When the dust settled in the late 1980s, hundreds of S&Ls; and banks had gone under, billions of dollars of commercial loans were useless and the federal government was left to bail out the depositors whose money the speculators had looted to the tune of over $130 billion.

The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks. But Reagan’s HUD and Department of Justice failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending.

(excerpts from http://tinyurl.com/4rak8hz)

Reagan raised taxes 11 times and tripled the federal debt. Income and wealth disparity soared during his administrations. Reagan grew the size of the federal govt; gave amnesty to 3 million immigrants; illegally funneled arms to Iran; and vetoed the anti-Apartheid Act. On the anniversary of his birth, instead of reality, we hear fantasies about the man.

I see there is even more whining going on here.

-

The Reagan years

The sale of arms to Iran was misguided.  Contra funding, illegal.  Deficit spending, unfortunate.  Yet none of that has anything to do with the unhinged and bigoted narrative of Reagan disliking brown people.  That charge is born of pure, unmitigated, blinding hatred rooted in bigotry.

The narrative concerning income-taxes during the Reagan years is, well, ignorance run-a-muck.

-

When Reagan took office the top income earners, those in the 70% tax bracket, were paying an effective tax rate of 7% after tax loopholes were applied.

After Reagan and the democratic House and Senate lowered the top marginal income tax rate, and closed several dozen tax loopholes, the wealthiest income earners tax liabilities doubled to 14%.

Yes, lowering the top income tax bracket and closing loopholes doubled the real mean income-tax for the wealthiest Americans.

President Reagan was able to pass sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. - Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).

The share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners jumped significantly, climbing from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. The top 1 percent saw their share of the income tax bill climb even more dramatically, from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent in 1988.

Sorry to be so blunt: Suggesting that Ronald Reagan cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans is a pure fantasy born of complete ignorance.

Reagan’s tax policies hit middle class Americans the hardest by reducing their deductions and effectively raising their taxes.

Reagan shifted the tax burden away from the richest 0.5% onto poorer Americans.

And, he hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

Reagan also sought to ice the Anti-Trust Division of DOJ.  His first appointment, Douglas Ginsburg, actually believed in anti-trust, but his successor, Charles F. Rule, never met a merger he didn’t like.

Rule’s refusal to allow clear-cut violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to be pursued crippled the Division and led many lawyers and economists to leave as a result.

Rule has since had a practice defending the biggest corporations against charges of illegal mergers and monopolization, most notably Microsoft; ExxonMobil; US Airways Inc.; Celanese Corporation; Northrop Grumman Corporation; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Morgan Stanley;  Financial Security Assurance; the National Basketball Association; Bacardi & Company Ltd.; Eli Lilly & Company, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
(from his own firm’s web sit: http://www.cadwalader.comview_attorney.php?attorney=1396)

The Iran–Contra affair.

The Reagan administration secretly and illegally sold arms to Iran. The Reagan team then used the money from those illegal arms sales to fund the human rights violating Nicaraguan Contras.  Such funding of the Contras by the Reagan administration had been prohibited by Congress (as were the arms sales to Iran).

In 1989, Human Rights Watch released a report on the situation, which stated: “[The] contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners.” Several other human rights organizations, including the Catholic Institute for International Relations, released similar reports, each coming to roughly the same conclusions.

Reagan claimed he knew nothing about all of this, which indicates that he was either lying or was already displaying symptoms of his Alzheimer’s problem.

as Justin Elliott wrote of Reagan four days ago:

- -

The regime of apartheid in South Africa, under which nonwhites were systematically oppressed and deprived of their rights, is remembered as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the 20th century. . . .  [Nevertheless, Reagan] vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa, only to be overruled by Congress.

On a trip to the United States after winning the Nobel Prize in 1984, Bishop Desmond Tutu memorably declared that Reagan’s policy was “immoral, evil and totally un-Christian.” Reagan’s record on South Africa was also marked by at least one embarrassing gaffe, when he told a radio interviewer in 1985: “They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country—the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated—that has all been eliminated.” Of course, that was simply not true, and Reagan later walked the statement back.

Reagan also put Antonin Scalia on his cushy little thrown. Scalia’s ‘constructionist’ policies of feeling it necessary to reinterpret to Constitution, on his own, fly in the face of the founders’ interpretation that the Constitution might have to be revisited from time to time with changes made through the people and NOT through slanted interpretations of political appointees. ‘Originalist’ Robert Bork, on the other hand, would have stuck hard and fast to the Constitution, as it was written.

As I may have stated earlier, had we been able to socially evolve beyond our existing Constitution, I would concede that we might be worthy of going beyond its current text. The Constitution (up to the Bill of Rights) was the evolution of at least four prior agreements, over a period of 144 years, but it had become apparent that each one of those prior documents didn’t possess enough muscle to guaranty the sovereign rights of states and individuals.

1643   Confederation of New England
1686   Dominion of New England
1754   Albany Plan of Union
1781   Articles of the Confederacy
1787   Constitution

Each of those was abandoned in order for something larger to emerge, whereas since Reagan/Scalia we have had a noticeable devolution within the final agreed upon document, our Constitution, by systematically constraining the stated rights. That isn’t what the founders had in mind AT ALL and there are 144 years worth of heated dialogues to remind Scalia of just what those issues were and still are; that’s if he ever gets his corporate head out of his federalist ass.

starfish,

Do you happen to know the reasons Ronald Reagan “OPPOSED” affirmative action?  I’m betting you believe it had something to do with not liking little brown babies. 

What say you?

Reagan OPPOSED affirmative action, which had helped many black-Americans (including the odious Clarence Thomas) have an opportunity to lift them selves out of despair and grinding poverty.

Reagan CUT FUNDING to the civil rights division of the Justice Department; the result of that nasty gesture was that the Justice Dept. brought virtually NO cases to court regarding discrimination in schools or housing.

****************

grym
You really are going all out defending all your favorite politicos.
For one, you try just by declaring that wallace was a life long
democrat. Hell, if I registered as a card carrying democrat
doesn’t mean I would vote for them only every time. That alone
shows you don’t know or just ignore the subversion of this
government and the players and the games they play. I don’t
suppose you lived in alabama and knew wallace. Further more
you definitely look and sound off at politics as being the last
word.

And in your defense of runny reagan, the man just never did
anything wrong, especially anything that has anything to do with
what is wrong with this country, the economy, the jobs market.
You probably will defend you idea of even runny and slick willie
as being poles apart in the political game. I’ve myself have never
seen a bigger creep of a president than runny reagan except
those I have seen in everyone of the last humans that have
served as president. So what you defend is an absolutely SIDED
idea of how everything goes wrong with democrats and
everything is perfection with republicans while NEVER EVER
considering they are both serving the same people who hide
behind the curtains and playing games that make the 1.3% or
less difference in chimpanzees and humans look like 100%
difference in dems and repubs.

Your ideas make me think you really do benefit from the
earmarks and pork doled out by congress to political favorites.

starfish,

I neglected to include: “Reagan was a terrible president for black-Americans…”

-

I know.  Tripling the number of minority owned business’ and nearly doubling minority home ownership was devastating!

I sincerely believe we all benefit with less MSNBC and New York Times and more SBA and HUD stats.

The deficit did nearly triple under Reagan and a democratic congress.  Not good.  As for the rest in your last post; well, I think you have a good handle on political folklore.

starfish, - “You are starting to whine…”

-

Wholly crap.  How ironic.  That is precisely what my eyes heard from your first, over-abundant, rationalization in explaining your unchecked hate of another human being….LOL

Good luck to you

Go Right Young Man:

You are starting to whine and make feeble arguments.

Reagan more than doubled and almost tripled the federal debt. His policy of de-regulating everything he could get his hands on led directly to the Savings & Loan disasters that hit during the H.W. Bush presidency and the stock swindles and market meltdown that hit during the G.W. Bush presidency.

Reagan was a terrible president for black-Americans and for the middle class in this country.

You really need to read something other than that rightwing baloney you seem so addicted to.

I actually feel sorry for you if you don’t have the excuse that you were one of the rich and powerful who benefited from Reagan’s policies, because everyone else was harmed by his policies.

In order to believe that Reagan was a good president, you would have to be (1) wealthy, or (2) powerful, or (4) mis-informed, or (4) stupid—or some combination of those four.

starfish,

National candidates are held to a different standard than State candidates?  Only candidates such as Reagan will say one thing to Eastern or Western crowds while saying something else to Northern or Southern crowds?  You’re upset that conservative groups are promoting Reagan and his legacy?  Democrats are honest and wholesome human beings?  A different type of politician?

Those are some MASSIVE rationalizations you draw upon in making your disdain of one man more palatable.  Yes?

-

Allow me to respond in kind.  Allow me to share with you my personal perceptions. - You dislike Ronald Reagan because he was white, conservative, immensely popular and, like or dislike Reagan, he was an effective politician.

Each of the democrat politicians I mentioned prior campaigned exactly as Ronald Reagan had in their respective Southern States.  Hell, Governor Carter and Governor Clinton each won the Southern states using all the same “Code Words” you dislike coming from the mouth of Reagan.  Yet you seem completely unfazed.

-

Are you aware that Al Gore Sr. proposed an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights legislation that would allow continued school segregation?  He never changed parties.  Nor did his Son after him.

Are you aware that Ernest Hollings was notorious for his use of racial slurs?  That he rose out of the Democrat Party’s segregationist wing as governor of South Carolina?  And while in office as governor, Hollings personally led the opposition to lunch counter integration in his state?  Hollings remained in office as a democratic party leader for decades.

Are you aware that Bill Clinton talked of “States Rights” in every campaign for Governor and Lt. Governor?  That he was actually caught saying three different things to three different groups concerning education funding during the 1991 presidential campaign?

Are you aware that George Wallace ran as a democrat because he was a LIFE-LONG democrat?  As was his parents and Grand-Parents before him? - The notion that Wallace was a republican in democrat clothing is pure wishful thinking.

I could go on and on.  But I’m hoping you see my point.  This fallacy you and others hold so tight, that white conservatives are, very necessarily, bigoted and/or racist, is pure bigotry at play.  You and others are writing and acting precisely as you claim to detest in Ronald Reagan.

****************

Apropos that howdydoody reagan was the ‘host’ of a t.v.  show
known presciently as ‘Death Valley Days’. This crumb sure lived
up to that name of the ages. And yet, from his willingness to
begin the selling out the american job market and economy,
don’t forget the s&l crises, keating 5 and the birth of ‘control
fraud’ which later matured into the insane idea of tossing all
regulations in the finance and banking industry by slick willie
where even today the grand larceny still continues unhindered.
Thank howdydoody reagan.

As New York Times columnists Bob Herbert wrote in Nov. 2007:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The murders [of the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss.] were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

That won’t wash.

poonckie, February 8 at 10:53 pm
“Reagan is a hero to the corporate masters because he broke the back of unions, period.”

Actually, it was one group of gangsters putting political muscle onto another group of gangsters who the first group thought was getting too big a piece on the pie.

Reagan is a hero to the corporate masters because he broke the back of unions, period. Just listen to the rants against unions even today. Most Americans have forgotten why unions came about in the first place. It’s the workers that generate profits, not the other way around. Unions ushered in an era of safe workplaces, fair wages and benefits for those generating the wealth. The fault of the controllers being fired lies at the feet of the union president who knew they would be fired but kept them out anyway. At the time controllers had great benefits but he promised them salaries comparable to airline pilots which was unrealistic.

I am saddened that our President has jumped on the “Reagan was a great POTUS” bandwagon because if Reagan had had his way blacks would still be excluded from the political process. We are witnessing the great re-write of history and even great literature, like Huckleberry Finn, is not safe and the planet is only a couple thousand years old.

****************

starfish,

One thing I am aware of is that back in the civil rights era of the
south, there were probably more than enough republicans
running as democrats just to get elected. Most notable was
george(really do despise that name)wallace who ran and served
as a democrat because at the time ala and a host of other
southern state were mostly democrat.

So true to heart being a republican wallace stood in the door to
prevent blacks getting into the ‘universities of higher learning’.
That was a slick political move as it wasn’t too long after that
repubs became the majority party there as well as in other
southern states.

Go Right Young Man wrote:

Reagan campaigned in the South, code or no code, precisely as Richard Russell, Mendell Rivers, William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings, Al Gore Sr and Al Gore Jr did, for decades, to get elected in the South.

- - - - - - -

But NO one is suggesting we put their likenesses on the dime, nor did any of them have their 100th birthdays celebrated with an homage at the Super Bowl, nor did the media whores ever make such a fuss over them as they have been doing with their drooling over Reagan.

There is a concerted and extremely well-funded rightwing effort in this country to revise history and rewrite Reagan’s record, and it is up to those who have better memories (or at least a willingness to look up Reagan’s actual record) to enlighten the rest of the population—because the media people certainly won’t.

Most of the politicians you list were Southerners running for office only in their southern state; Reagan was running for national office at the time he told that Southern racist audience he supported states’ rights.  And, he was so dishonest about his stance that two days later he told an Urban League audience in NYC that he supported civil rights. One thing for the Southern racist crowd and the opposite thing for the northern civil rights crowd!

Starfish,
“Reagan got away with what he got away with because he was better at faking sincerity than anyone in living memory.”

I might not have phrased it quite that way. I would have said that he set the precedent so that all presidents following him knew what they could get away with too further disenfranchise the American people from their own government.

The likes of Bush, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hillary and all their ilk have taken oaths till they’ve turned blue in the face and after so many times at bat, oaths mean nothing to these people anymore; those oaths are, as ‘Bush the Idiot’ so aptly said of our Constitution, “just a piece of paper.”

So will be the execution orders, when the American citizens stand by the gallows watching these bastards sway in the wind, ............ just a piece of paper. Germany and Spain, where are you when we need you?

starfish,

Reagan’s use of “Code Words” is, itself, code for; Let Me Make Something Up Out Of Thin Air And See If It Sticks! - In other words; your perceptions are just that, perception.

I never saw Reagan as a racist.  Not in word or deed (I voted for Carter).  You seem to desire to convict Reagan for being a politician. 

Reagan campaigned in the South, code or no code, precisely as Richard Russell, Mendell Rivers, William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings, Al Gore Sr and Al Gore Jr did, for decades, to get elected in the South. Yet you’re not here condemning these men with (D) next to their name.  Why is that?

There is nothing inherently racist about a white conservative.  Believing otherwise is a practice in bigotry.

Reagan got away with what he got away with because he was better at faking sincerity than anyone in living memory.

Reagan’s final role was simply a continuation of his
role as Movie Star. By the time he arrived in the
presidency, he had mastered the art, the art of being a
reserved presence.  Offer one’s self to the people and
yet keep private the hidden, unguessable sources of
that self. 

The truth is that he should be honored with a
posthumous Oscar - and that’s about all.

you’re a regular carl paladino with your keen insights.
don’t think about this; at the end of that movie, the
‘retard’ walks on water. phrase maker.

As he kicked of his 1980 campaign for the presidency, Reagan went into the South and told the white racists there he was for “states’ rights,” which is code for keeping blacks down and unable to fully participate in the political life of the South.

Reagan KNEW what he was doing; he was making an appeal to the white Southern racists for their support.

Go Right Young Man:

Republican Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower would be ashamed of the Republican Party of today.

And, I dare say the Republican Party of today would not even nominate much less elect any of the above Republicans to be president.

Lincoln freed the slaves and Teddy Roosevelt championed conservation and fought to break up the large monopolies.

Eisenhower supported federal investment in infrastructure and continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. Ike also sent federal troops into the South to enforce desegregation; he would be shunned by the Republicans of today.

I must be going colorblind. I was looking at a map of red states and blue states recently…

I’m starting to see the logic now. Reagan was a segregationist when he was a Democrat, but became all in favor of civil rights when he became a Republican.

I hate to obfuscate the obfuscation, but Reagan supported Nixon in 1960 and became a Republican in 1962, during the height of the civil rights movement.

“The federal commitment to civil rights diminished when Richard Nixon became president. Nixon was determined to consolidate his political base around conservative whites who felt that the movement for black equality had gone too far. The “Southern strategy” led the administration to reduce the appropriation for fair housing enforcement and in 1970, to prevent, unsuccessfully, the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

Reagan gave a speech in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964.

NPR

“The Civil Rights Act, signed July 2, 1964, by President Lyndon Johnson, ended legal discrimination against blacks at hotels, restaurants and department stores. It also made discrimination illegal in hiring. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee that year, decided to make himself a voice for opponents of the Act.
Goldwater said he supported the white Southern position on civil rights, which was that each and every state had a sovereign right to control its laws. The Arizona Republican argued that each American has the right to decide whom to hire, whom to do business with and whom to welcome in his or her restaurant. The senator was right at home with Southern politicians who called the Civil Rights Act an attack on ‘the Southern way of life.’”

It’s clear that white southerners from both parties in the South supported segregation, it’s also clear that nationally the Right supported Segregation.

Reagan was the quintessential Reagan Democrat.

In an effort not to get sidetracked by obfuscation, I’ll reiterate,

“Reagan was a B actor who had good looks, but lacked charisma. Reagan testified for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Reagan was the corrupt leader of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan associated with known underworld figures. Reagan contributed to the bankruptcy of the State of California, (and more so to the Federal Deficit of the United States.) Reagan authorized violence and murder perpetrated against People’s Park Demonstrators in Berkeley California. Reagan established his conservative credentials railing against Roosevelt, Democrats, Unions, Social Security, Medicare, and all things liberal on his weakly radio program. Reagan presided over, and approved of the horrific brutality that occurred in Central America. Reagan violated International Law. The Iran Contra Scandal was chump change in comparison to Reagan’s greater crimes. Reagan was a simple minded buffoon, whose legacy is the huge disparity in wealth distribution, deterioration of the middle class, an increase in poverty, an increase in homelessness, and on, and on.”

1.  We elect politicians who endeavor to convince us that they are trustworthy and as pure as the wind-driven snow.

2.  Just to play it safe, we require them to take a solemn oath.

3. They treat any swearing in ceremony merely as some trivial technicality.

4.  Once elected, it’s time to put their efforts into getting re-elected.

5.  They then continue lying to the public, stealing from the tax coffers, and cheating foreign countries out of their own sovereign land and resources.

6.  They always manage to vote themselves a raise while the economy is headed toward a death spiral.

7.  They pontificate in front of each other and the camera, ever convinced of their own importance and that the poor masses could not possibly survive without their exalted guidance.

8.  Their terms are up.

9.  Go to Step 1

Now that Ron has told us Ronnie had Alzheimer’s a lot earlier than previously thought, it actually looks like he was telling the truth in that post-Iran-Contra deposition where, about 28 times, he answered, “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall.”  Let’s face it, the guy was a spokesman for the plutocrat infomercial; he’d used his G.E. hype in a new context.  Lincoln was wrong.  You CAN fool all the people all the time.  We elected him twice, didn’t we?

starfish,

All I can say is, you are well versed on political folklore.

Most southern state governments remained under the control of segregationist Democrats decades after 1964.  Richard Russell, Mendell Rivers, Clinton’s mentor William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings and Al Gore Sr. remained Democrats till their dying day.

Most of the Dixiecrats did not become Republicans.  In fact it was democrats who created the Dixiecrats and then, when the civil rights movement succeeded, they returned to the Democratic fold. It was not till much later, with a new, younger breed of Southerner and the thousands of Northerners moving into the South, that Republicans began to make electoral gains decades later.

It was a Republican federal judge who desegregated many public facilities in the South. Appointed by President Eisenhower in 1955, Frank Johnson had overturned Montgomery, Alabama’s infamous “blacks in the back of the bus” law in his very first decision. During the 1960s, Judge Johnson continued to advance civil rights despite opposition from George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and a long line of Democrat Governors.

Real history.  Not perception.

Go Right Young Man:

That was when a lot of the white Southerners were still in the Democratic Party.

After LBJ got the Civil Rights legislation passed, he recognized that he had lost the South for at least a generation.

The white Southerners moved over to the Republican Party, which is why Reagan went to Philadelphia, Miss.—site of the earlier KKK murder of three civil right workers—to give his big campaign kick-off speech. He knew he’d win white Republican hearts with that gesture.

Go Right Young Man:

That was when a lot of the white racist Southerners were still in the Democratic Party.

After LBJ got the Civil Rights legislation passed, he recognized that he had lost the South for at least a generation.

The white racist Southerners moved over to the Republican Party, which is why Reagan went to Philadelphia, Miss.—site of the earlier KKK murder of three civil right workers—to give his big campaign kick-off speech. He knew he’d win white racist Republican hearts with that gesture.

starfish, - “Reagan OPPOSED passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act etc, etc….”

-

As did the majority of the democratic party just prior to 1964. 

The House of Representatives passed the bill by 289 to 126, a vote in which 79% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats voted yes. The Senate vote was 73 to 27, with 21 Democrats and only 6 Republicans voting no.

Ronald Reagan began his political career as a democrat.  A time in which most democrats had been voting nay to slave rights, woman’s rights and voting rights for well over a century.

Reagan based his economic policy on the Laffer Curve, assuming, because Laffer, like every economist drew a smooth curve.  Reagan assumed WITHOUT ANY DATA that the tax rate was above the turning point of the curve and therefore lowering taxes would raise revenue.  Laffer never had a clue if that turning point was at 20%, 30%, 50% or 96%—there was no evidence.

There is now—it was ABOVE every tax level we’ve cut since then, because revenue always fell and the deficit went up.

Or maybe Reagan knew all along and just wanted to start the Grover Nyquist plan to starve out ALL social programs and give that money to the richest Americans, to create huge deficits to make such spending impossible, except on the military.

Greatest President since Coolidge?  A little chronology is in order:
1) March 4, 1929: Coolidge leaves the White House to Herbert Hoover, former Secretary of Commerce.  Coolidge had had a Republican Congress and used it to help business in every way possible, and did nothing to help working people or farmers. He succeeded Harding who had the same since 1921.
2) October 24, 1929: Seven Months and 3 weeks after Hoover is in office, the Stock Market crashes setting off the great depression.

Then, like now, years of total Republican rule led to the biggest economic collapse in world history.

Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, with GOP Congresses, managed to destroy the American economy even as the bankers were raiding the international banking system.

Between 2001 and 2007, with a tame GOP congress most of the way (and wimpy Dems the rest) Bush managed to match Coolidge’s feat with another collapse in a different way.  TRUE unemployment figures show that the unemployment totals in a much bigger nation approach those of the Great Depression.

And it’s all based on Reagan policies.

Now I like Reagan…Ron Reagan that is, not his dad.

****************

Runny ‘howdy doody’ reagan was a walking corpse as
president. His only way of communication was squeezing
Carabelle Hornblow’s honker once for ‘I don’t know’ twice for
‘Let’s do it again’ every time the string masters pulled his
strings.

On a serious side though, let’s go to howdy doody reagan’s
home page:
http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?
entrycode=howdydoodys

In the view of the great “Austrian School” economist, Murray Rothbard, Reagan did great harm—perhaps irreparable harm—to the cause of liberty and limited government. From my libertarian perspective, I agree wholeheartedly.

Reagan excelled at using libertarian, free market rhetoric, while doing nothing to actually implement those ideas.

The 1980’s were a period of phenomenal growth of government; Federal spending was 40 percent higher when Reagan left office. Add to that the pointless wars in Lebanon and Grenada, and the nice little manufactured war between Iran and Iraq. Add meddling in Central American affairs. And of course, add the sheer idiocy of the arms for hostages deal with Iran.

Existentially, the Reagan years were terrible for the cause of limited government and freedom.

do you think maybe adam intended his comment to be
ironic, or don’t you think?

reagan’s “political legacy” was born in the era of huac
when he served as an fbi informant.

Reagan was a choice to go into the depths of materialism which we are now entrapped.  It was the polar opposite direction which Carter enunciated.  It was the decision for Christians to turn their back like those following Moses did and spend a generations’ time in a drunken orgy.  A time obsessing about acquiring of toys and in fascination of their stocks in companies who, by raping the commons, went into the stratoshphere.  It was a decision to worship false gods - money - and those whose greatest achievement was aquiring a great deal of it, often by raping the Federal Treasury.
At the beginning of the Reagan revolution there was a big push to get the current head of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters / Masters of Wisdom - the World Teacher Maitreya - into the world.  Nearly every major media source of the time attended a May 14, 1982 press conference in Los Angeles which provided evidence that Maitreya was in the world world and told that if any went through even the most simple investigation they would be provided the evidence that they would need. Yet none did. 
Reagan was the choice to ignore the Christ and go the opposite direction.  Yet many of his greatest supporters have most strongly stated their Christianity.  That is why judgment of history waits for time to pass and hidden information to find the light of day to properly assess a legacy.
“Let Me speak to you once more about Love, about Sharing and Justice, for these are the basis and the crown of your lives. When mankind knows Love, Justice and Sharing, mankind will know God.”
- Messages from Maitreya the Christ

Born in the filth of the Iran Hostage scandal, Reagan’s political legacy is one
that should shame all decent Americans.

Apart from Reagan’s numerous crimes against the constitution, his flouting of
congress in waging covert wars, and his crimes against the office of the
president in napping his way to “plausible deniability”, Reagan should and will
be forever vilified for his role in the rise of neoliberalism.

As a precursor of what we today call predatory global capitalism, neoliberalism,
in its sound-bite guise of “reaganomics”, was implemented as method to
systematically dis-empower labor, with the goal of setting in motion the
greatest upward transfer of wealth in history. Famously, Reagan had the
chutzpah, or the ironic humor, to refer to this transfer of wealth as ‘trickle
down economics”.

While cynically using the manufactured “moral majority” for short term political
gain, he unwittingly ushered in an era of anti-science. Armies of self-righteous
Christians felt emboldened by him to “take their country back”—back to the
middle ages apparently.

Yes, Mr Reagan, thanks to you, it truly is mourning in America.

and . . .

Reagan OPPOSED passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Reagan OPPOSED passage of the Open Housing Act.

Reagan OPPOSED the Voting Rights Act.

Reagan CUT funding for civil rights enforcement.

Reagan OPPOSED a Martin Luther King holiday.

prisnersdilema, February 7 at 6:03 pm
“The legacy of Raygun is what we all are living in now. A life, a country in ruins. a failing political system in which Americans are continuously manipulated by political delusions.”

Thank you for pointing this out. I would have just been a bit too blunt and called him an idiot, and I voted for him as well as the traitor that followed him. I honestly don’t think Reagan had enough brain cells to consider what he was actually being encouraged to support. It was clear within his first term that his cognitive impairment was being masked. That would have made him the perfect political puppet with all the corporate fingers reaching up to make the head and lips appear to move.

Don’t forget:

catsup is a vegetable

and

trees cause pollution

not mentioned, his ‘just say no’ attitude about the
aids catastrophe;

http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-san-
francisco/ronald-reagan-aids-a-legacy-of-silence

reagan’s legacy seems to be a frenzied fiction about
his legacy.

The legacy of Raygun is what we all are living in now. A life, a country in ruins. a failing
political system in which Americans are continuously manipulated by political delusions.
That legacy of political delusion is what defines us now.

Raygun was not the first fake president, but he was arguably the best, the greatest
political fraud this country has ever known. At least with Hitler you knew what you were
getting.

His falseness made him he perfect front man for the plutocracy. Taking his marching
orders from from Don Reagan, the race to gut this country began. Raygun was that rare
form of fake who can still sleep soundly with a smile on his face after funding central
America kill Teams. He was a fake man, a simulacra, who like all false idols is easy to
worship because his only demand is you believe in lies.

Like a cheap actor in a bad play, this country is facing its final curtain call. Thanks to
Raygun, and the dummies who believe in him.

“Reagan signed into law in 1982 the bill that gave US corps HUGE tax cuts and benefits for ‘helping’ 3rd world nations industrialize, which effectively lifted tens of millions of people,  (millions of at-risk children children), out of abject poverty. - And some people can’t stand this “fool” for helping so many millions of non-Americans feed their families and give them homes.

Years after leaving office Mikhail Gorbachev wrote that Reagan’s dismissal of illegally striking air traffic controllers illustrated to the ruling Soviets that Reagan was a “courageous man” who, unlike a politician, “meant what he said and said what he meant”. - The fact is the walk-out of air traffic controllers put domestic air travel at TREMENDOUS risk from coast to coast after leaving their posts.  After air controllers walked off their jobs, putting millions of people at risk, President Reagan directed the FAA to systematically slow air traffic.

Note: Air Traffic Union’s own by-laws prohibited strikes.  That prohibition was a condition of being in the union.  Strike and you have NO JOB!

- Some people deeply desire everyone forget how controllers attempted to blackmail the American public by putting millions of lives in jeopardy.  Others simply don’t fully comprehend or appreciate the fact that the walkout, which put millions of lives at risk, preceded Reagan’s firing of controllers.

Let us put this in context.  The charge has been made by some that President Reagan made air traffic unsafe by firing air controllers who refused to safely control air traffic? - It’s a dubious charge, at best.

Well, just as Reagan himself said, history will be distorted, and he won’t be around to read it.  He wasn’t so dumb.

When I read the first sentence, I thought it was a story on Reagan’s alzheimers.

patriot10101, February 7 at 9:44 am, JDmysticDJ, February 7 at 12:43 pm, RayLan, February 7 at 1:46 pm, surfnow, February 7 at 2:04 pm, MarthaA, February 7 at 7:37 am,

I am heartened to see that dialogue about Ronald Wilson Reagan, the Reagan Revolution and its legacy is being discussed on this thread in more objective realistic terms, rather than in the mythology of its creation and perpetuation.

There is hope for the American Populace, as a 90% Majority Common Population of the United States, when combined with the American Middle Class as a 20% minority population of the United States, if we can all come to realize the reality of the political manipulation that we have been subjected to from the time of Nixon through Goldwater, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and that continues into the present by the American Aristocracy, to redistribute the wealth of the many into the hands of the few; if we can come to be aware of and realize the damage that has been done by a willful, arrogant, and self serving American Aristocracy aided and abetted by a complicit, willful, arrogant, and self serving American Middle Class from the time of Nixon through Goldwater, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and continues in the present, we can begin to change the self serving paradigm that has bankrupted the United States with a 14 TRILLION Dollar National Debt and destroyed the U.S. Economy for self serving greedy benefit of an American Aristocracy and their complicit enablers of the American Middle Class.

No, we are still talking about Reagan because the super-rich in this country (who did Very Well under Reagan) have been financing a massive effort to have books written about Reagan—books that revise and rewrite Reagan’s actual record.

Given that the American people have the memory of a flea, it has been easy for those rightwing freaks to erase from Americans’ memory the sordid details of Reagan’s economic policies and foreign affairs blunders, such as WITHDRAWING ALL our troops from Lebanon after the terrorist attack on the Marine barracks there. That Reagan blunder gave the Middle East terrorists the idea that America had no stomach for the fight and would always cut and run if harmed. It was that belief—established by Reagan’s cut and run—that inspired Osama bin Laden to attack us; he thought we would leave the Middle East rather than fight. He was wrong, but thousands of Americans have had to die to prove both Reagan and bin Laden wrong about how much abuse we were willing to take and what we were willing to fight for.

Let’s not forget:
Reagan hated all unions, so much so he:
1) Was willing to put the entire air space of America in mortal danger by firing all of the air traffic controllers for illegally striking against horrendous working conditions.  As a result, close calls increased tenfold and, in response, the whole system had to be slowed down to maintain some level of safety.
2) Reagan signed into law in 1982 the bill that gave US corps HUGE tax cuts and benefits for “helping” 3rd world nations industrialize. In other words, he paid them WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS to move manufacturing jobs overseas.  You can blame most of the rise of Chinese manufacturing on Reagan.  3.5 million union jobs were lost, never to return.

And fools worship this fool.

Whoever controls the present, controls the past, and in so doing, the future. Just give Them ten years, and W. will be the second greatest president next to this boob CNN was raving endlessly about yesterday.
Jerzy Kosinski had it right three decades ago in ” Being There”  Television creates credibility, and just being seen on it, no matter the degree of your retardation, can get you elected.

Reeganomics planted the seeds of the deregulation that almost destroyed our economy.
Granted the Democrats after him followed through, but rabid corporatism is his legacy.

Reagan left office in 1981? The accuracy of the first sentence of this article reflects the accuracy of the article in its entirety.

Reagan was likeable? Only superficial fools would describe Reagan as being likeable. Reagan was a B actor who had good looks, but lacked charisma. Reagan testified for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Reagan was the corrupt leader of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan associated with known underworld figures. Reagan contributed to the bankruptcy of the State of California, (and more so to the Federal Deficit of the United States.) Reagan authorized violence and murder perpetrated against People’s Park Demonstrators in Berkeley California. Reagan established his conservative credentials railing against Roosevelt, Democrats, Unions, Social Security, Medicare, and all things liberal on his weakly radio program. Reagan presided over, and approved of the horrific brutality that occurred in Central America. Reagan violated International Law. The Iran Contra Scandal was chump change in comparison to Reagan’s greater crimes. Reagan was a simple minded buffoon, whose legacy is the huge disparity in wealth distribution, deterioration of the middle class, an increase in poverty, an increase in homelessness, and on, and on.

The Republican Party has moved so far to the Right that even people from the Left look back longingly at Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, Reagan, the Bushes et al., but all but Goldwater presided over administrations whose legacies are comprised of horrific and criminal acts of the worst sort. Fortunately for the people of United States and the World, Goldwater failed to become President, the others presided over idiotic Foreign and Domestic policies, whose legacies, if not obfuscated, would be evident to everyone.

Reagan did good for the Conservative Right-Wing Ruling Class and Republicans will gladly sing his praises, but Ronald Reagan was the beginning of the end of liberal democracy for the American Populace, being replace by autocratic rule of an authoritarian Conservative Ruling Class duopoly.