25 years ago,
the Reagans spoke out on drugs, and they were, rather surprisingly, in support of a variety of substances. This wasn't a new video showing a sudden change of heart, but the work of two years, editing
a longer speech to the nation that was originally broadcast in 1986. The new video couldn't be seen on TV, but was shared, traded, and bootlegged on
VHS tapes. The case was originally labeled "A uniquely edited version of a real televised address to the American people," noting that it was made by
Cliff Roth, an audio/visual geek and teacher who had access to a high quality film reel and audio source, plus the time and resources to make a piece of "editing art".
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 5, 2013 -
25 comments
"Liberals have not always been very good at communicating why liberalism works. There’s many reasons for this, but part of it is that it can be hard to defend the obvious from an absurd and deceptive attack. For half a century you had to be a crank to oppose what Roosevelt accomplished; liberals got out of the habit of arguing for their beliefs.
I hope this page will help. Liberals don’t need to apologize for their vision of how American society should work. Liberalism saved American capitalism and democracy, defeated Naziism, created a prosperous middle class, and benefited every sector of society, from the back streets to Wall Street. " Mefi's own Zompist (
previously) on
Why Liberalism Works.
posted by The Whelk
on Sep 30, 2012 -
109 comments
"I call it the destruction of shared prosperity hypothesis. ... [A]round 1980 the U.S. adopted a fundamentally flawed economic paradigm ... that abandoned full employment and severed the link between wages and productivity growth. ... Financial deregulation, regulatory forbearance, financial innovation, financial mania, and plain vanilla financial fraud kept the economy going by making ever more credit available, However, as the economy cannibalized itself by undercutting income distribution and accumulating debt, it needed ever larger speculative bubbles to grow. The house price bubble was simply the last and biggest bubble and was effectively the only way around the stagnation that would otherwise have developed in 2001." -
an interview with
Thomas Palley on the origins and prognosis for the crisis
posted by crayz
on Apr 18, 2012 -
31 comments
Most of us reading on the blue lived through at least a portion of it. Forty-plus years of tension between the world's two superpowers and their allies. That's right: The Cold War.
Then, they
made a documentary. Aired on CNN in 1998, and never released on DVD,
the 24 episode, 20 hour series features tons of archival footage, along with many interviews with individuals directly involved at some of the highest levels.
You might not be able to see it on DVD, but you can watch the full series on Youtube, starting with
Part 1: Comrades (1917-1945).
posted by symbioid
on Mar 27, 2012 -
78 comments
A year after Jared Loughner's shooting of 20 people, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, The Exiled Online has published transcripts of
an interview with some of his closest friends. Their story was recorded the week of the shootings and describes the enviornment that nurtured Loughner's mania.
This piece is a part of
a category of eXiled reporting based on Mark Ames's
Going Postal premise: Reaganomics begat a new era of desparation, and people with mental instabilities have been the first to attempt thier own abortive rebellions. The idea was explored by
a 2009 BBC documentary of the same name.
posted by clarknova
on Jan 12, 2012 -
32 comments
HealtH (1980)
[part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] was the film which ended Robert Altman’s relationship with Twentieth Century Fox, the studio for whom he had made M*A*S*H. ... During the editing of the film Altman’s main supporter, Alan Ladd Jr., left the studio and release was shelved. Altman distributed the film himself to the festival circuit. ... But it has never been released on VHS, DVD or BluRay and thus remains one of the least seen of Altman’s ouvre. This is unfortunate as it is a very entertaining film, even if it falls short of its ambitions as a political satire. Ronald Reagan disagreed - calling it "the world's worst movie".
posted by Trurl
on Jul 8, 2011 -
18 comments
Challenger . . . . go with throttle up.
Twenty-five years ago today the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger
exploded 73 seconds into the 25th space shuttle flight.
The reports (pdf) tell us of O-Ring failures. Today,
we remember one of the
most tragic days in the history of the U.S. manned spaceflight program. Today, January 28, 2011, we remember:
Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
posted by IvoShandor
on Jan 28, 2011 -
100 comments
The United States was engaged in the largest two-front war of its, or any nation's history. Though victory was not yet certain, there were discussions on a multi-national level regarding the future peace, and on the President of the United States was looking to the post-war prospects for the nation. With that in mind, the annual address of the President to Congress and the nation was summed up in one word: Security. "And that means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security, social security, moral security -- in a family of nations." This was Franklin D. Roosevelt's third-to-last
Fireside Chat, presented on Tuesday, January 11, 1944, which included what he proposed to be the
Second Bill of Rights.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jul 16, 2010 -
67 comments
When "The Dark, Dark Hours" episode of General Electric Theater aired live from Hollywood on December 12, 1954, Ronald Reagan and James Dean were just two actors yet to find the roles that would define them. –
The Atlantic has a six-minute video clip and some background.
posted by The Mouthchew
on Apr 27, 2010 -
6 comments
He was... "...the meanest, toughest, most ambitious S.O.B. I ever knew but he'll be a hell of a secretary of state." -- Richard Nixon
Alexander Meigs
Haig, Jr.,, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, who served US Presidents Nixon (as a military adviser, deputy assistant for national-security affairs, and chief of staff), Ford (chief of staff), and Reagan (secretary of state),
has died at the age of 85. Haig
commanded a batallion during the Vietnam War (where he was seriously wounded), managed the White House during the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon, and was himself a former Presidential candidate.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 20, 2010 -
40 comments
Stockman agreed that supply-side theory was, in Greider's words, "only new language and argument to conceal a hoary old Republican doctrine: give the tax cuts to the top brackets, the wealthiest individuals and largest enterprises, and let the good effects 'trickle down' through the economy to reach everyone else." Said Stockman: "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down' .. . Kemp-Roth [the supply-side tax bill] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate."
Reagon's Budget Director,
David Stockman "was indicted for defrauding investors and banks of $1.6 billion while chairman of Collins & Aikman Corp., an auto-parts maker that collapsed days after he quit."
via
posted by afu
on Mar 30, 2007 -
14 comments
Keep Bush away from the press. Joe Scarborough (in the
news lately for asking rude questions about the President's intelligence) opines that "If George Bush has lost his ability to give a commanding presser, then stage manage him differently. Play to his strengths... Show him only in settings where he is in control." Curiously, while Bush's press conferences have become unsetllingly less coherent in recent days -- even for him -- the so-called liberal media and even the blogosphere have barely mentioned it (perhaps in the spirit of preserving the dignity of the office, like
FDR's wheelchair?) Example:
watch this video --
what happens at 1:34 or so, right before the President abruptly terminates the questioning? Will Bush in his twilight years, as Foxborough advises, become like Ronald Reagan, protected from public humiliation by his faithful staff?
posted by digaman
on Aug 22, 2006 -
156 comments
Why are we not talking about Haiti? "No one has asked questions about the wildly partisan officials in U.S. State Department now running U.S. policy in the Caribbean and Latin America. These include such Blast-from-the-Past supporters of Reagan era highjinks in Central America as
Otto Reich,
John Negroponte,
Elliot Abrams, and (before his ignominious departure last summer)
John Poindexter."
posted by j-urb
on Aug 10, 2005 -
13 comments
Thanks for the memories ..."I know it’s a fallacy * That grown men never cry
Baby, that’s a lie * We had our bed of roses
But forgot that roses die * And thank you so much..."
posted by growabrain
on Jan 28, 2005 -
10 comments
Reagan should be on a $3 bill "For the funeral of Ronald Reagan, they took the body from Beverly Hills to Simi Valley, the white Los Angeles suburb, where it stayed for a day and a half or so then they drove it in one of these two hearses to the airport and flew it to Washington and then they had a march and afterwards put the casket into the Capitol for crowds to pass by and now there was to be another march and a religous service and then a drive to the airport, where the casket will be shuttled back to the airport south of Los Angeles and in a hearse to the final ceremony at his library on Friday. That is quite a funeral. They buried George Washingon in half the time.
You keep thinking of Harry Truman, whose code was, "Do not impose." He left an order that there were to be no eulogies at his funeral."
posted by Postroad
on Jun 11, 2004 -
104 comments
Bush has a new running mate: Zombie Reagan. From the
FAQ:
What are some other advanatages of adding Zombie Reagan to the ticket? He will demonstrate America's resolve to continue the battle against terrorism. Instead of retreating to an undisclosed location, for instance, Zombie Reagan will be on the front lines, eating illegal combatants.
posted by mathowie
on Jun 9, 2004 -
42 comments
Flashback: Margaret Thatcher writes about Ronald Reagan. President Reagan saw instinctively that pessimism itself was the disease and that the cure for pessimism is optimism. He set about restoring faith in the prospects of the American dream — a dream of boundless opportunity built on enterprise, individual effort, and personal generosity. He infused his own belief in America's economic future in the American people. That was farsighted. It carried America through the difficult early days of the 1981-82 recession, because people are prepared to put up with sacrifices if they know that those sacrifices are the foundations of future prosperity.
posted by David Dark
on Jun 7, 2004 -
56 comments
Juan Cole remembers Reagan. Cole: I did not say anything yesterday about Ronald Reagan's death. The day a person dies he has a right to be left alone.
But yesterday is now history, and Reagan's legacy should not pass without comment.
posted by skallas
on Jun 7, 2004 -
25 comments
CBS may cancel 'The Reagans' mini-series over GOP protests. Rep. John Dingall has some thoughts on the matter: As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scandal; voodoo economics; record budget deficits; double digit unemployment; farm bankruptcies; trade deficits; astrologers in the White House; Star Wars; and influence peddling.
posted by skallas
on Nov 4, 2003 -
102 comments
Reagan's Son... It took me all week to get around to reading this article from last Sunday's Times Magazine. I was astonished to discover no discussion of the story here. This strikes me as one of the most interesting recent pieces written about the president, and from the pen of a journalist who doesn't pull punches...NYT OpEd writer, Bill Keller. (NYT reg required)
posted by cyclopz
on Jan 31, 2003 -
11 comments
