MetaFilter posts tagged with ronaldreagan

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

Astro Zombie — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:59:54 -0800

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. Via Wikipedia: Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine is a 1961 LP recorded by Ronald Reagan. In this 11-minute recording, Reagan "criticized Social Security for supplanting private savings and warned that subsidized medicine would curtail Americans' freedom" and that "pretty soon your son won't decide when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him." The LP was a product of Operation Coffee Cup, a stealth program by the American Medical Associaltion in opposition to what would later be Medicare. A history of the campaign from HuffPost.

The Fifties: an invention of Sha Na Na / Scottish Highlanders / Rondald Reagan

stbalbach — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:50:29 -0800

Remember the Fifties? For a certain generation, who could forget those golden innocent days as depicted in shows like Happy Days, Grease and the band Sha Na Na. But it turns out that vision of the 50's is mostly fantasy and never existed, largely invented by a group of Columbia U students around 1969. Teasers:

The idea of the Fifties that America still holds — the happy, "greasy" Fifties — was an "invented History." Up until 1969, quite an opposite cultural memory held sway. When Americans remembered "the Fifties," they thought of Joe McCarthy witch hunts, of an "age of anxiety," of the "shook-up generation" diving under their desks during A-Bomb drills, of the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit selling out and Holden Caulfield cracking up, or Allen Ginsberg '48 and Jack Kerouac '44 too "beat" to fight back. (see article for more) ..around 1969, “history” had been deliberately rewritten — almost invented. The "new Fifties" was no older than Columbia College, spring 1969, when the Kingsmen put on two shows: "The Glory That Was Grease" and the "First East Coast Grease Festival," attended by 5,000 students from Massachusetts to Maryland. That had been the first appearance of the word "Grease" and the first appearance of the greaser, who rapidly replaced the popular image of Beatniks and the Beat era. "This ascription of the social domain and style of hoods (in 1950s slang) or greasers (as they came to be known in the 1970s) as the emblematic experience of 1950s youth came to be a common trope in later media discussions of the era". (see article for more) The Sha Na Na greaser, it turns out, has an unexpected Old World cousin: the Scottish Highlander. (see article for more) In Ronald Reagan's time politicians began invoking [the fantasy fifties] as if it had been history, and trying to ally themselves with it. "Conservatives [in the Reagan Era] parlay(ed) the cultural nostalgia for the Fifties that had circulated in the 1970s into the basis for a political offensive …(see article for more)

Chaka, When the Walls Fell.

rzklkng — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:14:54 -0800

Reagan at Neshoba. Some time ago, a blog post was authored at Mahablog which suggested that movement politics can best be understood when their rhetoric is viewed as a series of metaphors, with an allegory made to a spectacular episode of Stark Trek: The Next Generation featuring Paul Winfield titled "Darmok". Picard and crew stumble across an alien race that speaks only in metaphor. The alien captain, frustrated by the failure to communicate, transports Picard to the surface of a planet, where they must learn to communicate or die. The alien captain does finally reach Picard, but dies as a result of his injuries battling an invisible predator. By way of comparison, examine Candidate Ronald Reagan's speech at Neshoba [audio, 57MB, via, additional context here]. Some pundits are claiming that it is an example of the Southern Strategy codified as dog-whistle politics, whilst others view it as an honest mistake, and others still find an inconvenient long sequence of other "honest mistakes". Bonus YouTubery: The Star Trek:TNG Episode Guide Song.

Thompson's Glitch-Folk Debut

digaman — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:47:29 -0800

"I want those two minutes of my life back." Musique concrète Fred Thompson-style -- a merciless videohack of the candidate's performance at the GOP debate on MSNBC, October 9, 2007. While almost anyone can be made to look foolish edited this way, not everyone was impressed by Thompson's unedited presence at the debate, his TV debut as a presidential contender. Some believe, however, that the former Law and Order D.A. is just the man to "restore the Republican Party to Reagan's default settings."

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:09:27 -0800

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography From the writers of Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography. [via]

Welcome to Night Flight

Methylviolet — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:37:15 -0800

Night Flight aired Friday and Saturday nights on the USA Network from 1981-1988 in the heady early days of cable. It was one of the first places to see shorts old and new, music documentaries, and conceptual, artistically-intended music videos -- not to mention MST3K-style parody, general weirdness, and 420-addled wonderfulness.

Tim O'Brien: Every Time You...ah, forget it.

gottabefunky — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:53:12 -0800

Tim O’Brien – the painter and illustrator, not the writer – is so good with Photoshop (not to mention paintbrushes) that he can make Ronald Reagan cry.

A Modest Gay Proposal

chinese_fashion — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:25:38 -0800

Following in the footsteps of Gipper followers -- The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is on a mission to put the Gipper on the ten-spot and rename a road in every U.S. County after Ronald Reagan. Kenny Hill of AOL's gay blog Worth Repeating has his own mission: name a landmark in every state after Brokeback Mountain.

Celebraties turned Politicians

Rastafari — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:42:00 -0800

Top 25 Celebrities Turned Politicians

Reagan should be on a $3 bill

Postroad — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:03:21 -0800

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."

Margaret Thatcher writes about Reagan

David Dark — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 03:33:55 -0800

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.

Juan Cole remembers Reagan.

skallas — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 01:17:25 -0800

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.

R.I.P. R.W.R.

wendell — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 14:03:29 -0800

Breaking History: Ronald Reagan dead at 93.
Will today be marked as the culmination of his achievements or the "end of the Reagan Era"?
MeFites are advised to please avoid piling onto the subject or the messenger

CBS may cancel 'Reagans' mini-series over GOP protests.

skallas — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 02:17:37 -0800

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.

Because they don't take American Express

MrBaliHai — Sun, 13 Jul 2003 11:24:52 -0800

I'll take the Ronald Reagan and JonBenet Ramsey velvet paintings please. Do you accept John Wayne Gacy Discover Cards?

Term limits

Durwood — Thu, 29 May 2003 07:38:27 -0800

Guess who wants presidential term limits to be repealed... Putting aside your feelings for Bill Clinton (or Ronald Reagan for that matter), should the U.S. president be allowed to serve more than two terms?

Mr. Bush goes to Palestine

Hammerikaner — Wed, 28 May 2003 14:17:47 -0800

Mr. Bush goes to Palestine Everyone in the White House must be incredibly giddy. The most incredible political and cultural schism in the world may finally be patched up in the event of a successful round of talks done Texan style--face to face and man to man. George W. Bush will be leaving shortly for a trip to the Middle East to take a crack at solving a little disagreement among the neighbors.

In a way, he is as much the son of Jimmy Carter as he is of Ronnie Reagan. Just a simple man, with more than a few complicated plans, a big, broad smile, and a ten-gallon hat. But will his down-to-earth working man's values be able to put an end to a simmering and increasingly, explosive animosity? Assuming everything works out for the United States and the world in general, is it actually possible that this man could go down as one of the most influential presidents of all time? Or will he ultimately fail like the others that failed before him?

Assassinating foreign leaders: Okay!

Mo Nickels — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 04:06:45 -0800

Is trying to assassinate a foreign leader illegal? Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan, says "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination," which confirmed and expanded the bans on assassination laid down by his two prior presidential predecessors. So why is the US government targeting Saddam Hussein and his sons? Has the executive order been secretly (and legitimately) revoked? Should it be? Does it even need to be revoked, even if just for appearance's sake? Has ignoring or revoking it been part of the plan all along? Does the Fourth Convention of the Hague really forbid assassination as well?

Do Americans want more God in government?

Gilbert — Tue, 04 Mar 2003 12:18:31 -0800

Governing by The Book? While reading this column from Nicholas Kristof (NY Times, reg. required), I was struck by the following quote: "President Bush has said that he doesn't believe in evolution (he thinks the jury is still out). President Ronald Reagan felt the same way, and such views are typically American." Lots more info here, including stats that 46% of Americans consider themselves "Evangelical" or "Born Again" Christians, and that more than twice as many Americans believe in a red guy with a pitchfork than natural selection. I have no doubt that me-fites will have much to gripe about here, but my question is this: Do a majority of Americans want a Christian government? How far away are they from getting it?

The Evil Empire?

quirked — Wed, 19 Feb 2003 06:38:27 -0800

Ronald Reagan used many of the same good vs evil themes we are hearing from the current Administration. However, a comparison of his famous Evil Empire Speech with the recent words and actions of the U.S. makes you wonder if we are becoming what we once fought against.

iconomy — Sat, 01 Jun 2002 21:34:29 -0800

Steven Lightfoot believes that author Stephen King murdered John Lennon, with the blessings of Ronald Reagan. Mark David Chapman was just an innocent pawn in their evil game. Witness the lengths Steven Lightfoot goes to to prove his theories. Here's the story that the media doesn't want you to read.

Kevin Sanders — Wed, 22 May 2002 16:43:12 -0800

Ronald Reagan is joining the war on speeders in Malvern, IA. "Someone had put a dummy in there with a uniform and he has a big smile on his face," City Clerk Julie Powles said. I don't think it's very nice to call a former president a dummy, though.

mathowie — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 17:07:59 -0800

THESE PAGES ARE EMBARGOED UNTIL REAGAN'S DEATH. Like looking into the future, Scripps Howard News Service has produced a 12 page newspaper insert that serves as a touching tribute to Ronald Reagan. Promise not to read any of it until he's really dead, okay?

BarneyFifesBullet — Wed, 20 Mar 2002 23:58:11 -0800

This a bronze sculpted bust of President Ronald Reagan that Arnold Schwarzenegger commisioned.Did he get his money's worth?

bunnyfire — Fri, 08 Feb 2002 12:26:04 -0800

"Why we talk about Reagan"