Ronald Reagan's legacy is overblown »
Posted by: dexlovex2 6 months, 3 weeks ago204 Comments Report this Story
There is no evidence that Reagan was bothered by the rough and tumble of political campaigns. Mischaracterization of an opponent didn't even qualify as a "dirty trick" to Reagan, due to his fantastic ability to believe anything helpful.
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Teech6 months, 3 weeks ago
"...Theeere you go again!"
I guess you forgot those 21% interest rates to "slow down" the economy (Fatten the fat cats bank deposits even more while making it tough for a working person to buy a home) I guess you forgot how rich you are today because of "trickle down" theory. I guess you forgot "Today I have deregulated energy. That will increase supply and lower prices." That's when gas was 50 cents per gallon.
By God he taught those damn air traffic controllers a lesson! How dare they ask for a raise and medical benefits. Communism! He fired 'em all and busted up their union.
The "house that Reagan built" was a sh!thouse for a working person and the Taj Mahal for the wealthy.
Bush looks like, but has fewer smarts than a chimp, Ronnie made movies with one. "Bonzo Goes To College." Kinda describes Dumbya's Yale years perfectly.
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Blackacereturn6 months, 3 weeks ago
It's about time the truth came out about this guy! The media made him out to be more than he was, like they are doing with bush, which makes me wonder where the notion of the LIB media comes from. He was given credit for bringing down the iron curtin the truth is global economic down turn that did in the russians! He is over rated always have been!
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cowboygrandpa6 months, 3 weeks ago
Reagan was an actor. He was never the President. Corporate America was. He should have recieved an oscar for his eight years of acting as the president.
He was a worthless politician who was a so so actor.
I could not stand him nor could my dad. My dad used to say son we went to war for our country to protect it. He went to war on our country to destroy it. His trickle down economics trickled down his leg as he shook it like dog would.
I can only hope he is where he belongs right now and is seeing the error of his ways. LOL
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donald516 months, 3 weeks ago
The author left out the greatest fallacy of Reagan - giving him credit for bringing down the Soviet Union. Eisenhower said it waould fall on its own ills in time... just let it... and it did on Reagan's watch.
Another point requiring more emphasis is the fact that OBL credits his hatred of the US to America's spinelessness after the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon - thank you Reagan for doing nothing afterward other than shelling the hillside as we left.
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kedirian6 months, 3 weeks ago
For the American voter to ponder as he/she stands in the voting booth, November 2008:
What has the GOP and its members done to further OUR national interests, not Party Interest, these dismal 8-years just passed?
And what, in their actions, WARRANTS they should get another turn at the helm of the Ship of State?....
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marlenebomer6 months, 2 weeks ago
I love it when people refer to Iraq as a "war".
This was an illegal and immoral *invasion* and occupation of a sovereign country who had no designs of attacking the US or any other nation!
AFAIC, Bush is no better than Leonid Brezhnev when he invaded Afganistan back in the '80s, and the next presidnet should round up every official responsible for the invasion and turn them over to The Hage for war crimes trials!
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vvv63vvv6 months, 3 weeks ago
the last 8 years have been redacted
we usually get reviews of the lame duck prez around this time but we get glossed over ronnie re-runs instead
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
"""Mitt Romney, meanwhile, kept repeating, inanely, "We're in the house that Reagan built.""""
That is the problem. RayGun with his voodoo economics and militaristic imperialism started America on the road to ruin.
Wealth Distribution Statistics - 1999
United Nations Development Program
As of 1995, Federal Reserve research found that the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent.
From 1983-1995 only the top five percent of households saw an increase in their net worth while only the top 20 percent experienced an increase in their income.
Between 1983 and 1995, the bottom 40 percent of households lost 80 percent of their net worth. The middle fifth lost 11 percent.
Though average household income rose 10 percent between 1979 and 1994, 97 percent of that gain was claimed by the most well-to-do 20 percent.
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
In 1998, weekly wages were 12 percent lower than in 1973 on an inflation-adjusted basis. Productivity rose 33 percent over that period.
Between 1970 and 1990, the typical American worked an additional 163 hours per year. That's equivalent to adding an additional month of work per year - for the same or less pay.
In 1973, the income of the top 20 percent of American families was 7.5 times that of the bottom 20 percent. By 1996, it was 13 times.
Business Week reports that in 1999 top executives earned 419 times the average wage of a blue-collar worker, up from 326:1 in 1998. In 1980, the ratio was 42:1.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_...
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
Congress not pursuing those involved in Iran-Contra and putting them in jail for LONG periods was a major error in american history. If we had done sothen , we would not have had the right-wing christian imperialists (Cheney, Rumsfeld, ..) and the zioncon traitors (Wolfowtiz, Abrams, Feith, Libby, ...) back commiting more crimes against humanity.
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AnteUp6 months, 3 weeks ago
hyperbola ~
FTA:
....also sold weapons to Iran in order to raise money for a
terrorist war we were secretly financing in Nicaragua, while
denouncing terrorism.
It was the group whose earnings were in the stratosphere
- leaving us in the dust - who financed that little exercise
in terrorism.......oops! I mean patriotism!
You're right - There are many of the same cast of characters
in high positions today in our government. If not that, they
do guest shots on television or get a talk radio show with
"values" as their theme. Uh-uh, Does not make sense!
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djn3nunez36 months, 3 weeks ago
It is interesting to note that the same George H. W. Bush was fired from the CIA by President Carter in an attempt to get the "Cowboy" element out of that agency. He almost became President in 1980. Hmmm some funny stories about the guy that tried to kill Reagan and his association with the Bush family. Even so, 20 out of the last 28 years we've had a "Bush" influence in the WH.
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questionseverything6 months, 3 weeks ago
reagan and his war on drugs while his minnons were importing cocaine....he was certainly the smoothist republican hypocrite we have seen to date
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Bkumm6 months, 3 weeks ago
You have to admit the guy (or his advisers) were genius at getting many Americans to believe that it was a good idea to mortgage their grandchildren's future for their own personal benefit.
And now, with the debt at $9.8 trillion and climbing we're doing it some more.
Supply side economics is bunk in an open system. It doesn't work.
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sinophil496 months, 3 weeks ago
I also believe that it was Reagan (or one of his speech writers) that invented the phrase "trickle-down economics."
I have personally despised that term since the first time I heard it.
It is an accurate description of the Republican thinking on the spread of wealth in the nation. The super-rich and the very rich get the bulk of the financial gains from the tax cuts, rebates, and credits. Then, HOPEFULLY, some of the wealth trickles down to the middle class and the poor masses.
The mentality of this economic philosophy is atrocious.
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rimbaud6 months, 3 weeks ago
Reagan's legacy is "if you can't personally recall, you are not responsible": it's the defense used by Heads of Government as well as Heads of Industry (the "Teflon", nothing sticks to me, approach to leadership). The opposite of the "Buck stops here", I am responsible, I should have known, approach.
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not2needy6 months, 3 weeks ago
My feelings about Reagan have never been a secret on Propeller. Here is a link that best describes my true feelings about that terrible little man!
http://onepeoplesproject.com/index2.php?option=...
It's a long read, but worth it!
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Bkumm6 months, 3 weeks ago
Wow! Parts of it are a little over the top for me, but I couldn't believe this:
"A campaign to have Reagan's face etched into Mount Rushmore is ongoing."
I thought it was a complete JOKE until I found this:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow2...
and this
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rona...
Wow!!!
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AnteUp6 months, 3 weeks ago
not2needy ~
I love the title - not much indecision there!
I will read it later - hope they cover how he closed
the mental institutions in California. We're not talking
rehab facilities - they were for severe mental illness.
Families were crushed with the burden - not only of trying
to find care for loved ones completely unable to function but also deal with the physical disabilities so often associated with long-term (lifelong) mental illness. Wiped out financial and broken-hearted, some had to quit jobs
in order to stay home to care for them themselves.
It was exhausting,frustrating and in some cases, dangerous
but good old Ronnie left them with NO options.
His personal letters are charming to read - there's no hint
of a man that could wipe out that safety net with the stroke of a pen and a smile!
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MonkeyBiz6 months, 3 weeks ago
He single handedly created a homeless people crises. A lot of these people had nowhere to go. Crazy people tend to alienate their families and dry up any help from that quarter.
I also remember him claiming that pollution is caused by trees. Now there is some sparkling intellect. Stop regulating car exhausts and help cut down the forests!
His Bonzo movies were amusing, but you could tell that Bonzo didn't think that he had an intelligent co-star.
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Searchbeam6 months, 3 weeks ago
The only good thing that came out of Reagan is his son Ron!
Ron is a smart, intelligent and progressive minded person who strikes me as the atonement for Reagan's sins!
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walden36 months, 3 weeks ago
Bad Reagan Legacy = Central American death squads, Iran Contra (as SC said above), arming Saddam (I love that picture of Saddam shaking hands with Rummy, ignoring the spread of AIDs, building the Taliban, crazy Republican spending, the windmill of Star Wars SSDI and the War on Drugs.
Good Reagan = "Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" and the INF nuclear treaty with Russia.
He could speak. He was quite an actor as president.
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sinophil496 months, 3 weeks ago
I agree that his Berlin Wall comment was one of the memorable images of his tenure. However, I consider this just another opportunistic photo-op moment for this photogenic peson.
Gorbachev was the one who won the Nobel Peace Prize for having the courage to go against the Communist party and the politburo and years of Soviet inertia.
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flyonthewallzz6 months, 3 weeks ago
More Good Reagan=
"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God.""
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marlenebomer6 months, 3 weeks ago
I watched it live like many others, but because I saw so many before, knew it was in trouble, and called CNN to alert them to look at the SRB that had the leak.
I blame Reagan for murdering the seven astronauts because he wanted the shuttle in orbit during his State of the Union speech, crowing about his getting Christa McAuliffe in space.
The post-accident report and other news reports clearly exposed the pressure by the Reagan administration put on the Morton-Thiokol engineers who repeatedly said it was fatal to launch at the freezing temperatures on the pad.
It was also reported was that Morton-Thiokol was a major supporter of Reagan's two presidential campaigns.
Those who forced the engineers who okayed the launch should've been arrested and tried for seven counts of pre-meditated murder.
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david_nwpa6 months, 3 weeks ago
Then he should have played one on TV instead of in the White House. Although he is given considerable credit for the end of the Cold War, we should be applauding the efforts of Lech Walesa in Poland and John Paul II as Karol Wojteya and as Pope. Those two men did more for spreading Solidarity and encouraging democracy in Poland. Once Poland and neighboring countries began to end their communist grip, the East Germans had little choice. The fall of communism was going to happen soon anyway. Their monetary policy and their shortcomings on store shelves was their demise more so than Reagan.
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Searchbeam6 months, 2 weeks ago
Nobody has mentioned it so far, so I will go with it:
Right after he left Presidency, he went to Japan to cash in by giving a lecture there, and collecting Two Million Dollars!
Tacky!
Just like his presidency!
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