One weekend afternoon I was in that room struggling with homework due the next Monday. My younger sister was out in the yard playing with a young collie puppy she had gotten for her birthday some weeks before. I then heard her go inside, leaving the puppy out. Not unusually, especially after a Saturday night out with pals, I dozed off, my head cluncked down on my geometry text. A commotion outside woke me up.posted by ennui.bz at 12:53 PM on February 6, 2011 [8 favorites]
There was a great of shouting and screaming outside in the back yard. I couldn't imagine what it was and I went out. I saw a kind of rhumba line being led by the puppy happily romping about, followed by Ronnie who, with a 6' long 2"x4", was taking great swipes at the puppy's head, followed by my sister sobbing and shouting at Ronnie to stop, followed by my father who was trying to get everyone to stop the infernal dance. The puppy had apparently gotten under the fence and had been cavorting around Ronnie's ice plant, doing about as much damage as a 2 MPH breeze could do to the hardy plant.
Regan's mighty swipes, however, were churning the plant up in great clumps of earth and greenery. Had the puppy not been quicker and more agile than Ronnie, its head would have been exploded by the viciously swinging timber which the enraged Reagan was wielding. The aw, shucks facade of the public figure were gone, replaced by a sweating, enraged, snarling, out of control destroyer of any young puppies who had dared tread on the field of his ice plants.
I think the pinnacle of his foreign policy was getting 241 Marines and other Americans killed in Lebanon, for nothing at all.
"And what did Santa Claus give Gerald Ford for Christmas?posted by wcfields at 2:19 PM on February 6, 2011 [2 favorites]
...
Historical revisionism!"
Neil Hamburger. Hot February Night. Drag City, 2010.
Reagan's silence about AIDS is unforgivable.What if this is the REAL big lie -- that Ronald Reagan and the GOP carried out a willful act of neglect, if not biological warfare that resulted in the deaths of more Gay/Bi/IV Drug users than Jews died during the Holocaust?
"Our murderer is dead. The man who murdered more gay people than anyone in the entire history of the world, is dead. More people than Hitler even. In all the tributes to [Reagan's] passing, as I write this two days after his death, not one that I have seen has mentioned this." - Larry Kramer
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:14 PM on February 6
As an effort to reorient public policy, Carter’s appeal failed completely. Americans showed little enthusiasm for the president’s brand of freedom with its connotations of virtuous austerity. Not liking the message, Americans shot the messenger.posted by russilwvong at 4:51 PM on February 7, 2011 [4 favorites]
Carter’s speech did enjoy a long and fruitful life—chiefly as fodder for his political opponents. The most formidable was Ronald Reagan. He portrayed himself as conservative but was, in fact, the modern prophet of profligacy—the politician who gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption. Beguiling his fellow citizens with talk of “morning in America,” Reagan added to America’s civic religion two crucial beliefs: credit has no limits, and the bills will never come due. Balance the books, pay as you go, save for a rainy day—Reagan’s abrogation of these ancient bits of folk wisdom did as much to recast America’s moral constitution as did sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
When it came to confidence, the former governor wanted it known that he had lots of it. In a jab at Carter, he alluded to those “who would have us believe that the United States, like other great civilizations of the past, has reached the zenith of its power” and who “tell us we must learn to live with less.” Reagan rejected these propositions. He envisioned a future in which the U.S. would gain even greater power while Americans would enjoy ever greater prosperity. The sole obstacle was the federal government. His solution was to pare down the bureaucracy, reduce federal spending, and cut taxes.
... During the Carter years, the federal deficit had averaged $54.5 billion annually. During the Reagan era, deficits skyrocketed, averaging $210.6 billion over the course of Reagan’s two terms. Federal spending nearly doubled, from $590.9 billion in 1980 to $1.14 trillion in 1989. The federal government did not shrink. It grew, the bureaucracy swelling by nearly 5 percent.
To call Reagan a hypocrite is to miss the point. The Reagan Revolution was never about fiscal responsibility or small government. Far more accurately than Carter, Reagan understood what made Americans tick: they wanted self-gratification, not self-denial. Although always careful to embroider his speeches with inspirational homilies and testimonials to old-fashioned virtues, Reagan mainly indulged American self-indulgence.
There was a revolution; it just had little to do with the tenets of conservatism. The true nature of the revolution becomes apparent only in retrospect. Reagan unveiled it in remarks that he made on March 23, 1983. History remembers this as the occasion when the president announced his Strategic Defense Initiative. Embedded in Reagan’s remarks were two radical propositions: the minimum requirements of U.S. security required a status akin to invulnerability and modern technology was bringing this utopian goal within reach. Star Wars introduced into mainstream politics the proposition that Americans could be safe only if the United States enjoyed permanent global military supremacy. Here was Reagan’s preferred response to the crisis that Carter had identified. Here, too, can be found the strategic underpinnings of George W. Bush’s global war on terror.
Reagan's Failure to ActOh, in case you missed my sentiment: Fuck You, Ronald Reagan!"As Ronald Reagan's legacy is discussed around his 100th birthday, it's important to remember his devastating failure to act on AIDS, which surely cost many lives.
Via Scott Wooledge at DailyKos, who has a more thorough look at those years.
Veteran journalist Hank Plante also recalls those years.
The Failure to Act: The Reagan Administration's Deliberate Failure to Address the AIDS Epidemic [video | 05:32]"
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Asshat
posted by pianomover at 11:42 AM on February 6, 2011 [6 favorites]