Reagan
Reagan Administration Corruption (source: Liberals Like Christ)
 Conservative Republicans are such paragons of virtue and truth that they claim that Bill Clinton's administration was "the most corrupt administration in American history" despite the fact that history contradicts everything about that statement.
Ronald Reagan's Criminal Administration: "By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."
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| "Divine Guidance"geocities.com/thereaganyears/divineguidance.htm shows that the Reagans' idea of "Divine Guidance" was fortune-tellers: "Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise." --Donald Regan (Reagan's former chief of staff), For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington "It wasn't widely circulated until the publication of Donald Regan's memoir, For the Record in 1988, that President Reagan and his influential wife sought the advice of an astrologer. Time magazine would later identify Ron and Nancy's chart reader as being San Francisco astrologist Joan Quigley. Quigley was not the first astrologer the Reagans had consulted. Ronald and Nancy Reagan had a long history of involvement with astrologers and psychics. During the 1950's and 1960's, Ron and Nancy enlisted the services of Hollywood astrologer Carroll Righter, and later Jeane Dixon. In his 1965 autobiography, Where's the Rest of Me?, Reagan said that he and Righter were friends, and that he and Nancy read Righter's column "regularly." (It was on Righter's advice that Reagan postponed his inauguration as governor of California for 9 minutes until the auspicious moment of 12:10 a.m.)" "For fundamentalist preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell--who proclaimed Reagan a standard-bearer of Christian righteousness--the astrology matter should have been of particular concern. Astrology is a branch of the occult and is inimical to Christianity. However, if the fundamentalist leaders were concerned or embarrassed by the astrology revelations, they didn't show it. (They also ignored the fact that Reagan rarely attended church.)" |
------------------- Ronald Reagan's Record "Firsts" --------------------
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| The Real Reagan Legacy Debunking Myths About Reagan by Mike Hersh  March 19, 2002 (Political Sanity/APJP) -- Let's begin our examination of the real Reagan Legacy by taking a look at myth number one: Democrats dominated Congress all through Reagan's terms, and called all his budgets Dead On Arrival. That's numerically and historically false. Reagan's people shoved his program through the Congress during the early Reagan years. James A. Baker, David Stockman and other Reaganites ran roughshod over Tip O'Neill and the divided Democrats in the House and Senate, and won every critical vote. This is because of the GOP majority in the Senate and the GOP-"Boll Weevil" (or "Dixiecrat") coalition in the House. Phil Gramm was a House Democrat at the time, and he even sponsored the most important Reagan budgets. Only after the huge Reagan recession -- made worse by utterly failed Reagan "Voodoo Economics" - did Democrats regain some control in Congress. They halted some Reagan initiatives, but couldn't do much on their own. That was a time of gridlock. Six years into Reagan's presidency, Democrats took back the Senate, and began to reverse some of Reagan's horrendous policies. By that time, Reaganomics had "accomplished" quite a bit: doubled the national debt, caused the S&L crisis, and nearly wrecked the financial system. Which brings us to myth number two: |
| Reagan's betrayal of the Air Traffic Controllers : Most people who have any memory of the Reagan years remember that he caused almost 11,350 of the Air Traffic Controllers' union (approximately 70 percent) to be fired and barred from ever working in their profession again. What most never knew is that in October 1980, candidate Reagan had met with the leaders of that same union and in response to their explaining their issues and concerns to him, he wrote them a letter putting in writing his promise to support them and address their concerns if elected. “You can rest assured that if I am elected president, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air-traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety. I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the air-traffic controllers. Such harmony can and must exist if we are to restore the people’s confidence in their government.” [ Ronald Reagan’s letter to Robert Poli, president of PATCO, Oct. 20, 1980 ] |
| Shed No Tears for Reagan Beyond Chron • 'The Voice Of The Rest' • San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily by Randy Shaw 07.JUN.04 "The media love celebrity politicians, and Reagan got the sort of media reverence now on display with Arnold Schwarzenegger. This adoration of the B-movie actor-turned Governor-turned President enabled him to engage in conduct---the illegal sending of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras-that should have brought his impeachment. Reagan's legacy was the massive redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the rich, which he accomplished through massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Reagan all but killed off federal housing funding, paving the way for homelessness to remain a persistent problem in America two decades later Reagan refused to mention the word "AIDS," and his delayed response to the epidemic caused tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. Reagan sent American weapons to thugs seeking to over the democratically-elected Sandinista Government in Nicaragua, despite a congressional ban of such weapon transfers. He was directly responsible for the murder of thousands of Nicaraguans, and that nation's continued poverty is a legacy of the Reagan.- backed wars. Reagan sent weapons to prop up El Salvador's phony "democratic" government, and indirectly supported the death squads that preyed on human rights activists and workers seeking to impose real democracy in that land. Reagan pushed for the destruction of federally-funded legal services, arts and humanities, and volunteer programs such as the then activist-oriented VISTA program. What programs Reagan could not kill, he weakened. Reagan's environmental record may actually have been worse than George W. Bush's---impossible as that seems. Reagan threw billions down the tubes in a failed attempt to create a Star Wars Missile Defense System. Reagan's 1981 tax cut plan was the major force for gentrification and displacement in urban America during the 1980's, as it provided unprecedented tax incentives for real estate speculation. In a not unrelated impact of the measure, saving and loan institutions faced collapse around America, resulting in a multibillion dollar taxpayer bailout of the S & L industry. The list of Reagan wrongs could go on and on. This is a man who held a press conference eating grapes during the UFW grape boycott-Reagan called the farmworkers "outside agitators." This is a man who held his campaign kickoff for the Presidency in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site where three civil rights workers were murdered in the 1960's. Reagan chose the site not to highlight the abuses of racism, but to send a message that he would do his best to bring the return of the old ways to the South. Ronald Reagan was responsible for more evil and destruction than any American of his generation. May he rest in peace." |
| A top notch liar was the gipper! Killer Trees. After opining in August 1980 that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," Reagan arrived at a campaign rally to find a tree decorated with this sign: "Chop me down before I kill again." Guns of Brixton. The Liberator. Cadillac Queens. Arms for Hostages. Prior to his Presidency : "...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts." -- "Today a newcomer to the state is automatically eligible for our many aid programs the moment he crosses the border." -- (In fact, immigrants to California had to wait five years before becoming eligible for benefits. Reagan later acknowledged his error, but repeated the same thing nine months later.) "For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. It can't be too long now. Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean that they will be destroyed by nuclear weapons." -- "A tree is a tree. How many more do you have to look at?" - "Hollywood has no blacklist." -- ( FBI records have since shown that this was a lie, and that Reagan personally informed on several actors, later shown to be innocent, destroying their careers in the process.) "I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964." -- "A small minority of beatniks, radicals, and filthy speech advocates . . . brought such shame to a great university." -- "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with." -- ( The protesters were tear-gassed and fired upon with buckshot. One protester was killed and at least 128 others wounded. ) ". . . a tragic illness." -- (When two of his aides were found to be gay that year, he asked for their resignations.) "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal.." -- "Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine." -- "...humiliating to the South..." -- "I believe in states' rights..." -- ("States rights" is used in the South as a code word indicating support of Jim Crow laws.) "80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees." -- (This is still a personal favorite.) As President : "I have flown twice over Mt St Helens out on our west coast. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that that one little mountain has probably released more sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere of the world than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind that people are so concerned about." -- (At its peak, Mt. St. Helens released 1/40th as much sulfur dioxide as cars do every day.) "There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge." -- "I've said it before and I'll say it again. The U.S. Geological Survey has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone is greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia." -- . (Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are approximately 17 times those of Alaska.) "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." (In fact, a single nuclear power plant can produce up to 22,000 cubic feet of of radioactive waste per year.) "I never knew anything above C's." -- (describing his academic record.) "Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" -- "Facts are stupid things." -- "We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years." -- "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything." "I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." -- "He wrote in Braille to tell me that if cutting his pension would help get this country back on its feet, he'd like to have me cut his pension." -- (After reporter inqueries, no such letter was ever shown to have existed.) "They turned out the lights. That tells me I can't talk anymore." -- "It would be a user fee..." - "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." -- (He spent WWII in Hollywood, making films.) "They haven't been there. I have." (Ronald Reagan had never visited Nicaragua.) "They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country..." "They've done away with those committees. That shows the success of what the Soviets were able to do in this country." -- "In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use it, he was not tried for burglary or theft or whatever he was doing. He was tried for first degree murder and hung if he was found guilty" -- "I never wear (makeup). I didn't wear it when I was in pictures." -- "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." -- "I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli sale in advance or whether I approved replenishment of Israeli stocks around August of 1985. My answer therefore and the simple truth is, 'I don't remember, period'." -- "They are the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers." -- "Well, because we want to keep on obeying the laws of our country, which we are now obeying." "Doesn't the United States want that government replaced?" "No, because that would be a violation of the law." - "If the question comes up at the Tower Board meeting, you might want to say that you were surprised." -- "A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." -- "...an example to the world of the ideals we hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence." -- "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." - "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice" - At the nationally broadcast state funeral for President Ronald |
 Collective Amnesia or Collective Alzheimer's:America 'Remembers' Ronald Reagan by Paul Douglas Newman To remember Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest Presidents of the twentieth century, to replace FDR on the dime with Reagan's profile as Republicans wish to do, we are being asked to forget too much. We are asked to forget the Iran-Contra Scandal, an event that he evidently "could not recall" in response to more than one hundred questions during the Congressional hearings. We are asked to forget, and forget, and forget. And by the looks of the New York Times and Washington Post's memorials to the "Great Communicator," it appears that what historian Studs Terkel has referred to as "America's collective amnesia" is still acute. Hopefully Studs Terkel is right, and we've just suffered another blow to the head from which the American people will recover, and remember, and remember, and remember. Paul Douglas Newman (paulnewman52868@hotmail.com) is Associate Professor of American History at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, PA . An "Unbiased Reporter" wrote the following : "For anyone who was there (the Reagan Years) and paying attention, : |
| Here's a very insightful article comparing Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush : DON'T CRY FOR REAGAN But Republicans shouldn't cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There's no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity. In 1993 Jonathan Cohn - the author, by the way, of a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system - published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words in that article makes it read as if it were written in 2007. Thus, Mr. Cohn described how the Interior Department had been packed with opponents of environmental protection, who "presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands to industry and developers" that "deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue." Oil leases, anyone? Meanwhile, privatization had run amok, because "the ranks of public officials necessary to supervise contractors have been so thinned that the putative gains of contracting out have evaporated. Agencies have been left with the worst of both worlds - demoralized and disorganized public officials and unaccountable private contractors." Holy Halliburton! Not mentioned in Mr. Cohn's article, but equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, including the deputy attorney general and the chief of the criminal division, resigned in protest. Why is there such a strong family resemblance between the Reagan years and recent events? Mr. Reagan's administration, like Mr. Bush's, was run by movement conservatives - people who built their careers by serving the alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package. In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs. If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be "loyal Bushies." The movement's apparatchik culture, in turn, explains much of its contempt for the rule of law. Someone who has risen through the ranks of a movement that prizes political loyalty above all isn't likely to balk at, say, using bogus claims of voter fraud to disenfranchise Democrats, or suppressing potentially damaging investigations of Republicans. As Franklin Foer of The New Republic has pointed out, in College Republican elections, dirty tricks and double crosses are considered acceptable, even praiseworthy. Still, Mr. Reagan's misgovernment never went as far as Mr. Bush's. As a result, he managed to leave office with an approval rating about as high as that of Bill Clinton, who, as we now realize with the benefit of hindsight, governed very well. But the key to Reagan's relative success, I believe, is that he was lucky in his limitations. Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Reagan never controlled both houses of Congress - and the pre-Gingrich Republican Party still contained moderates who imposed limits on his ability to govern badly. Also, there was no Reagan-era equivalent of the rush, after 9/11, to give the Bush administration whatever it wanted in the name of fighting terrorism. Mr. Reagan may even have been helped, perversely, by the fact that in the 1980s there were still two superpowers. This helped prevent the hubris, the delusions of grandeur, that led the Bush administration to believe that a splendid little war in Iraq was just the thing to secure its position. But what this tells us is that Mr. Bush, not Mr. |