Charlie Crystle Blog: The Reagan Myth

June 06, 2004

The Reagan Myth

This week, well-informed liberal politicians who know better will pay their respects to Ronald Reagan, saying things like "he always did things with a smile", or "he charmed America" and other "look! over there!" distractions. Telling the reality of Reagan's America this week is viewed as political death: he was a popular president with about half the country, and at least half the swing vote. But I don't feel quite as compelled to hold back.

Reagan was terrible for America, and Reagan's America was terrible for the world. Unemployment peaked in 1985 at over 10%. Homelessness and deaths of the homeless hit record levels. Poverty increased by 6% during the 80's. The Consumer Price Index rose from 126.1 in 1980 to 187.0 in 1989, the year Reagan left office.

Perhaps the most damaging statistic, though, is the national debt. Reagan lured the country into believing that massive deficit spending was good for the country, but it was only good for foreign investors and the US military-industrial complex. With a smile on his face, Reagan boasted of boosting the morale of the armed forces while lining the pockets of executives of Raytheon, Lockheed, and most disturbingly, GE. Reagan was the highly paid spokesman for GE from 1954 to 1962. And GE was well rewarded: during Reagan's presidency, no fewer than 12 Cabinet officers had been or went on to become members of the Board at GE.

The bill to US taxpayers for the Gipper's lavish expenditure? About $2 trillion, or 2/5 of our current debt. When he assumed office, the national debt was less than $1 trillion, and when he left, he had tripled it with record annual deficits that continued well into the Bush I years. Service on the national debt currently costs American taxpayers $318 billion a year--enough to vastly improve our schools and pay for the full health insurance for the America's 50 million uninsured citizens--a shameful waste of money.

Now George Bush II, who likes to think of himself as a disciple of Reagan, is borrowing over $500 billion a year to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, an illegal war full of human rights abuses and shameful top-down decisions to dehumanize the occupied, and the expansion of large multi-national corporations overseas, moving high-value jobs offshore while creating thousands of low-paying service jobs for the well-trained, highly educated workforce we once called "white collar". The Reagan Legacy lives on, sadly, in the shadow of the Reagan Myth.

Ronald "I'm a Contra" Reagan authorized the illegal funding of brutal Nicaraguan dictator Somosa's former national guard in Nicaragua--the "contras"-- skirting the Boland Amendment by arranging private funding through puppet nonprofit organizations such as Americares. Worse, Reagan's America authorized the trafficking of cocaine from Columbia's powerful Medellin drug cartel to help fund the contras to buy weapons from none other than the big evil--Iran--in exchange for Iran gaining the release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Reagan said at the time, "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 is true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not." Right. He authorized it, and encouraged illegal behavior by US officials in order to carry out his political agenda.

This was a man who lived above the law. And no wonder he felt he could--look who surrounded him. Ed Meese, Reagan's ruthless Attorney General banned a bike messenger from entering the Justice building for wearing a t-shirt that appropriately read "Meese is a Pig", sparking a wave of protests not only for violating the First Amendment, but doing it for personal reasons. To his credit, he sparked the rapid growth of the "Meese is a Pig" t-shirt market. Jim Baker, the devious and manipulative Texan who engineered the theft of the 2000 election, served as Reagan's Chief of Staff from 1981 to 1985, running the cynical agenda that literally killed thousands of people thorugh back-door proxy wars in Central America and East Asia. And let's not forget Donald Regan, the Treasury Secretary from Merrill Lynch who pushed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy, massive deficit spending at the expense of all of us today, and created the environment that led to the shameful S&L scandal of the late 80's. What a crew.

As part of the nation mourns Reagan's death, the other part still wonders, astonished, about how such a man could be elected president. Stop wondering and start acting--we've already made the mistake again and suffered through 4 years of mismanagement and scandals as a result. I wonder how Bush could have ever gotten elected, and wonder why this race is even close. But what scares me most is the voting public's failure to look more deeply into the actions and effect of those actions by our elected leaders.

Many Democrats out there think George Bush has no chance of winning. Think again. The voting public just isn't paying close enough attention to assure us of anything, except that they can--twice in 20 years--elect a man who's legacy is running the country into the ground while lining the pockets of the rich. Good riddance, I say.

Posted by Charlie Crystle at June 6, 2004 12:13 PM | TrackBack

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Posted by: fioricet at August 14, 2004 05:53 PM

I think a lot of people took advantage of Reagan's disconnected leadership. "Plausible deniability" was the standard for judging whether or not to pursue illegal means of accomplishing...well, whatever they were involved in. That administration cared little for the law and circumvented it like it was merely an inconvenience.

Thanks for your comments Neil, John, and Brian. Feel free to spread this essay!

Charlie

Posted by: Charlie Crystle at June 10, 2004 10:58 AM

This is what I truly believe Reagan's dangerous legacy to the U.S. is/will be:

A person who is not all-there, either because he is weak-minded innately or suffering from a mind-debilitating desease or both, can be used as a puppet by ideologues to do their bidding AND these ideologues can get away with it. This proved the mightly power of the media and suggested that media control is needed for power control! It also showed the group think, weak-mindedness to reality of much of the American public.

In this respect, GWB's administration is indeed much as Reagans.

Posted by: Neil at June 10, 2004 09:47 AM

This was one of the best pieces I've read in a while. I can't believe people are celebrating a man who's administration authorized the sales of arms to a state supporter of terrorism. We also can't forget the decimation of the nation's urban areas and black community. Reagan's greatest legacy is that he made it okay to be a greedy bigot. Cuomo put it in a nicer way, "he made it acceptable to not be compassionate."

Posted by: Kevin McKnight at June 10, 2004 12:34 AM

Thanks for reminding us what the 80's really were about. I quickly tired of the sentimental clap-trap about a guy who damaged this country more than any modern president not named George Bush. I can respect the office and the recently departed, but not the man.

John

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