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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-well, as near as I've heard it stated, this is why it was hard living under Reagan for so many of them po' folk. and everyone else, only they just didn't know it.
"Steve (KG6TXH)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 07 June 2004
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
- e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's Defunct"
Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is
appropriate. He was a husband and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be
missed by those he was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the
Alzheimer's Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died
ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took ten years
to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.
The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to the American people was as
magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but
the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and
friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to
all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have
seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to
die.
In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth. Writer Edward
Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to
speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe
you; your fellow writers will shake their heads."
The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American
people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan
administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once
again, staring apocalypse in the eye.
How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was one of the most beloved Presidents
of the 20th century. He won two national elections, the second by a margin so
overwhelming that all future landslides will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved
against Walter Mondale. How can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the
evils which corrupt our days?
The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is
the absolute triumph of image over reality, of flash over substance, of the pervasive
need within most Americans to believe in a happy-face version of the nation they call
home, and to spurn the reality of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will
always be, the undisputed heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.
Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American
people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against
their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this
day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald
Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.
Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation
policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive
- information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came
from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the
Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto
themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched
news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to
tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.
The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just deliver journalism to these
massive corporations, but handed virtually every facet of our lives into the hands of
this privileged few. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all
tainted because Reagan battered down every environmental regulation he came across so
corporations could improve their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries
of the corporations that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The
Savings and Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of
billions of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be fine
guards in the henhouse.
Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite the fact that he grew government
massively during his time. Social programs which protected the weakest of our citizens
were gutted by Reagan's policies, delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do
this by caricaturing the "welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who
drove the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she didn't
have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the decimation of a
generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot because Ronald Reagan
believed in 'self-sufficiency.'
Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS
virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable home in America. The aftershocks from this
callous disregard for people whose homosexuality was deemed evil by religious
conservatives cannot be overstated. Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease
which was allowed to burn unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with
the subconscious idea that sex equals death.
The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a
myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom
mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration
timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan
administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct
and/or criminal activities.
Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard
Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob
Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh
Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin
Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory
Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick.
Many of these names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us
today, 'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.
Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth.
Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were
embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many
nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a
friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was
the proper way to run a civilized society?
One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a
creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite
his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence
information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield
against Iran to great effect. The deadly bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan
administration are a laundry list of horrors.
The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam
Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite public American condemnation of the use of
those chemical weapons, the Reagan administration still considered him a welcome friend
and ally. This happened while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a
nation notorious for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation
of scores of laws.
Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan
administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in
Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this
action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed,
funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson
he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden
believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald
Reagan.
In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted into rubble by Osama bin Laden,
who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the Reagan administration to do the job. In
2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger into the heart of the United States, using men who
became skilled at the art of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are
827 American soldiers and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam
Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who
you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him as the man in charge, the man who defeated
Soviet communism, the man whose vision and charisma made Americans feel good about
themselves after Vietnam and the malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him
as nothing more than a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to
become a virtue, the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the
government for him.
In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan - whether he had an active
hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous
question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We
are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty.
We are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most
corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.
William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New
York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team
Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
KG6TXH
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