- That's what we called him when he took over the Golden
State and turned it into a pot-metal urinal for his agenda. Ronald Reagan
the b-grade actor with the skewed morality he displayed as the head of
the Screen Actorís Guild, during the McCarthy years. Ronnie helped
Tricky Dick with the ëtaskí of Blacklisting industry people
for the House Un-American Activities Committee. A fine fellow that Ronnie
was!
-
- By the time heíd become the governor of California,
Ronnie was well on his way back to the days of the Robber-Barons, back
to the days when money ruled every waking moment and the lot of ordinary
people was reserved for sweat and blood and dying. Regan hated dissent
in all its forms. He came to erase the 1960ís and to bring back
the image of the father that always ìknew best,î even as he
didnít.
-
- When Viet Nam protests began to get serious in Berkeley,
Ronnie took charge like an outraged highschool principal, determined to
punish the unruly and imprison those who could really make a difference.
He put fat-Ed in charge. Little Eddie Meese, the man who popularized the
hated plastic handcuffs, and used an American football stadium for a public
holding pen ñ in his journey to become a forefather for ëJ.
Edgarí Ashcroft. What a pair those two deficient lawyers wouldíve
made. Meese & Ashcroft like the smell of urine and feces wafting on
a summer breeze. There's been so much history that the public chooses to
forget, itís amazing weíve survived so long - with so little
remembrance of all things past.
-
- Remembering the flim-flam man brings out the patterns
in the sham that passes for a public life today. Men and women are known
by the words they choose, and by the way they speak them. Ronnie was really
good at that. But thereís a second part to that equation: and thatís
where the entire boatload of these imposters always fails. Itís
what ìone doesî that counts! Ronald Reagan set up California
for decades of corruption and massive failures on every front.
-
- Ronnie was the father of serious ìprivatization.î
He believed in it! He began to privatize everything, public health, public
libraries, public transportation, and all the public services he could
lay his filthy hands on. And when you look out over this country today
you will find that almost all our troubles stem directly from the greed
associated with the efforts toward privatization, that Ronald W. Reagan
built his political career upon.
-
- The second most obscene thing that Ronnie brought to
the world was the extension of power to include the idea of Empire. He
first coined the term "Evil Empire" and though people believe
he stood up to threats, his record was that of a coward incarnate. When
push came to shove "the Gipper" split. He ran from Lebanon, and
then attacked Granada, to distract the public from his failing.He was thought
to be strong, but the only place he excelled was in wasting ourmoney. He
talked tough, but he was an actor to the core - none of that bluster was
remotely real. By the time he left office "Morning in America"
stood for the worst hangover in the world. Now the Neo-cons quote his policies
as though they're speaking about god himself - and the very things they
look to (like deficit spending) is what brought us down immeasurably.
-
- He treated the whole of Central and South America as
our back-alley, to be scorned and used like some distant relative that
needed to use the back door, whenever they came to call. His global view
was small-town, movie-driven and limited to those he could charm or con
into his scheme of class divisions. There was only one standard for him
and that was money.
-
- People here seem genuinely moved by his death, but if
those people had watched what he did and come to understand why; they wouldíve
discovered that Reagan detested people, because people tended to get in
the way of the kinds of power he was there to restore - and ultimately
to serve.
-
- This is a Republic, not a Monarchy: This full week of
ceremony was designed by the Reaganís down to the last tiny detail,
right after he was elected the first time. He was NOT a king, NOT a god;
he was a man like any other. No country, especially today, can stop all
major activity for an entire week. This is nothing less than one huge free
ad for the policies and programs that Ronnie and the Neo-conservatives
have always pushed for: the divine right of power and money to rule over
everything and everyone ñ for as long as the sun rises in the east.
-
- The airtime devoted to the one-sided myopic "remember-whenís"
is disgusting. As Bush has said so often ìWe are AT war!î
Yet we have been forbidden to view the coffins of the slain, just as we
have been forbidden to know how many we have killed, or captured, or tortured
in this vainglory of the wars that Bush has declared in our names. Yet
ñ as a friend noted; a single coffin has become American televisionís
new test pattern for every event, for every story, and thatís going
to continue for an entire week? Reallyóis there nothing else, no
world events, no power struggles elsewhere even worthy of notice, to move
that flag-draped coffin from our center stage?
-
- The flim-flam man has done it again. The well-intentioned
public, to judge by the reporting on multitudes, would seem to confirm
that the reverence as genuine. Remember, those of you who watch this solemn
march of bodies that this was the man who stood not for public demonstrations,
but for law and order, and jail for anyone who disagreed with what his
government decreed. That is not what he said he stood for: Two of his pet
themes were smaller, more attentive government and controlled federal spending.
In reality:He increased the size of government 300 fold and hetook us from
the worldís leading creditor nation to the worldís leading
debtor nation in just eight years.
-
- Bush has done the same thing, in under four, and taken
us far deeper into debt than even Ronnie couldíve imagined. And
now Arnold, the permanent understudy, is waiting in the wings to do unto
the country after he's finished destroying "Cullifornia."
-
- These men are all cut from the same bolt of cloth, but
the enabler of all of this was Ronald W. Reagan ñ the original Flim
Flam man. And though it may not appear to be that way now, a longer view
of history will find the truth one day, and at least the later generations
(IF there are any) will come to see how gullible weíve all been.
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- kirwan
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