Ronald Reagan - rot!

POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Sunday, July 11, 2004 22:01
VIEWED: 16699
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HANOVERFIST

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 7:22 PM

Wow, what a bunch of @ssholes many of you have turned out to be. I have to say that I am incredibly disappointed with how this thread started and turned nasty on a forum that I (until now) used to enjoy.

I am at a loss for words right now. I am not a Reagan backer and do not think he was the best president ever, but he deserves better than this. People like DBELL46 gloating about how people cheered when our president was almost killed. Jack@sses like THOREAU talking about dancing on people's graves. You are no better than the people you are criticizing. Worse, as a matter of fact.

This disgusting thread will mark my leaving this forum and will make me question whether or not I am even interested in calling myself a 'browncoat'. I love Firefly, but too many of you people suck. Go to hell.

GHOULMAN

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 7:42 PM

^^^ don't let the door hit your rightous ass on the way out.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 7:44 PM

Umm, I LIVED through the Reagan years. I don't need anyone to tell me about it, and I'm pretty damn good at taking the spin out of the news.

What I SAW was the rich getting richer, "Star Wars", Iran-Contra, an exploding stock market, a triumph of speculation over investment while big companies gobbled up little companies. Sure, the economy improved under Reagan, but he did it the good old-fashioned way- by massive deficit spending. (He accumulated more deficit than all previous Presidents combined.)

Fortunately for us, Reagan was smart enough to take Gorbachev up on his offer of mutual disarament. Unfortunately, the process was not completed so we still have thousands of warheads hanging about. And now that we dominate the world, have we seen a peace dividend in the form of -oh, say- universal health insurance? Have we created a kinder, gentler nation? A better world?

The legacy of Ronald Reagan still lives with us. When Paul O'Neill, W. Bush's former Scy of Treasury approached the administration with his concerns about the deficit, he was told "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." YUP, the torch has been passed.

GHOULMAN

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 8:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by thoreau:
"a fellow human being has died"

yeah, that doesn't happen every single second of every day. oh wait, yeah it does. twice, actually, as a very conservative estimate of the average.

we're really not that special.

Good point.

SIGNYM

Thursday, June 10, 2004 1:20 AM

Actually, the other thing I remember about the time is the explosion of the Challenger.

Now, to give you an idea of how abnormal my reactions are, I wasn't really too concerned about the death of the astronauts, even if one was a civilian. After all, about 100 people managed to wrap themselves around a telephone pole (or something equally stupid) EVERY DAY that year. All I could think of was "1.5 billion dollars...." To put it in perspective, that was more than the Women, Infants, and Children's (WIC) nutrition program and Head Start COMBINED. What a waste for a publicity stunt.

So, some day when our feelings are not so raw, I'll share some gallows humor about the Challenger. heh heh heh

RUE

Thursday, June 10, 2004 2:00 AM

Vilavon,

You are under the mistaken impression that Bush made the US safer. Even by the admin's own measure - has the threat alert come down to, say, green? - his 'war on terror' has been a failure. And knowing what goes on to detect actual weapons on US home ground, I can tell you no one involved thinks like you do.

But that impression - that Bush has made us safer - is part of a whole cloth fabrication from the propaganda machine. After the lies (yes lies) about WMD and Iraq being in cahoots with al-Qaida, the next major lie piped directly onto your TV was: if the US didn't go into Iraq, *NOTHING* would be done about WMD.

A little history first for those who don't mind facts. First Bush said, on the record, Iraq had to declare its WMD to avoid war. But it had to be a complete declaration, mind you. So Iraq filed a massive report with the UN one day ahead of the deadline. After some castigation that it was too large a report, Bush then said, again on the record, that for Iraq to avoid war, it had to PROVE there were NO weapons (a logical impossibility, but never mind). So Iraq negotiated a return of UN inspectors who went back with a new coercive inspection protocol. (BTW Iraq never 'threw the inspectors out', the UN withdrew them due to safety concerns after the US and Britain started bombing Iraq.) As a matter of HISTORICAL fact, UN inspectors were IN Iraq, had been doing coercive inspections for weeks, and were findling diddly. They estimated it would have taken them two to three months to conclude their inspections. (If the US had waited for them, it would have run the war timetable into summer.) So then Bush said, once again undeniably on the record, that Hussein and his regime had to leave Iraq to avoid war.

Now, Iraq had filed its report, and the UN was in Iraq doing inspections. The WMD 'threat' was being addressed.

So much for the lie (that impolite word again) that 'nothing' was being done.

World-wide terrorism needs a coordinated world-wide response. Now, you CAN p*ss-off your allies, tweak your information gathering, refuse to cooperate with global financial institutions, and generally act like a loose cannon. Or you can get real and coordinate with other nations to set up monitoring systems, write laws, create information-sharing capability etc.

Which one do you believe Bush picked?

THOREAU

Thursday, June 10, 2004 6:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kalathena:
Dancing on Reagan's grave?!?! No, no, I'm saving that for Fred Phelps.

a fellow Topekan?

t

Jayne: "These are stone killers, little man. They ain't cuddly like me."

HKCAVALIER

Thursday, June 10, 2004 7:50 PM

Hey Rue,

What gets me is why the United States of America--arguably the richest, most successful, mightiest, most all-over influencial nation the world has ever seen, culturally, militarily, economically, we are it--why do we continually have to make up this grandiose crap about ourselves? We're like a fifty-foot titan with short-man's disease.

Is it all a crazy conspiracy to make us feel weak and scared and in constant danger, so the overlords can continue their protection racket unabated? Why in the world do we buy into it? Why is America so damn scared? We have everything! What do we, as a nation, as a people, have to be so scared of? What have we got to lose? No one is a threat to this country, not even George W. Bush, not in the long run. We survived Reagan, bounced back after just one democratic administration. We'll bounce back from this. Some terrorists kill 3000 people in New York and we bomb two whole countries all to hell without breaking a sweat, look around at the rest of the world saying, "Give me a reason..."

I just don't get it.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

RUE

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 3:44 AM

HKCavalier,

Sorry to bump this up at such a late date.

"fifty-foot titan with short-man's disease"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA .... (gasp) .... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha hee hee hee hee (snark) hee hee hee hee ...

Why DOES the US get so agitated?

When I saw the towers go down I thought - Yes, of course it's horrific, but it's not going to derail the entire US. I even said so to my co-workers.

Boy was I wrong.

Only I saw the derailing as deliberate. Day by day, speech by speech, Bush's rhetoric amped-up until the country was ready for war. Within two weeks the entire world was 'either with the US or with the terrorists'. Now, how that got swallowed without a peep I truly can't fathom. It sounds like a recipe for dictatorship.

People I work with suggest Bush intentionally scares people to create an unthinking, easily manipulated population. Or, another angle I've heard - to unify a country behind you, fight an enemy. Or another suggestion - the neocons were determined to pounce on Iraq, and 9/11 was a handy excuse. And, as they were running the country, they had the wherewithal. They all sound plausible to me. In any case, the common perception among people I know is that US 'outrage' wasn't/isn't entirely spontaneous, that it was/is fostered for political gain. (Then there is the unfortunate tendency of people in the US to want to 'kick butt'- any butt - even at the risk of kicking their own.)

I do think some terrorism is a bona fide threat and not to be ignored.

There are people for whom this really is a war of cultures. But sometimes terrorism is a reaction to overwhelming injustice. Address the injustice and the terrorism loses support. There is also legitimate political opposition. But with Bush's approach, all countries have the excuse they need to suppress everybody with any disagreement.

The trick I think is to get *legitimate* global anti-terrorism going to address global threats.

As to why people get so agitated about individuals like Reagan, Bush, and Bush the Lesser etc. I understand the long view. I try to remind myself of it. But I, and I guess others, react to personal circumstances.

For example, as I was struggling my way through college, I went to get food stamps. I was TOLD by the person reviewing my application that there was no way I could be working the (minimum-wage) jobs I was working, paying rent, paying tuition etc and not be receiving substantial $ off the books. My application was denied w/out appeal. That was at the time Reagan was castigating 'welfare queens' and cutting Federal aid programs. It was at the same time that I also couldn't get my government scholarship (a scholarship I earned via high exam placement) b/c there was a hold on the funds. You wouldn't believe how difficult it made things. I almost didn't make it through college. And the difficulty of doing what I did was THE single deterrent going on to graduate or medical school. The political whims of those in office were inflicted on my life. I have sympathy when I see it happen to others. That's the source of my agitation. Maybe that's what agitates other people as well.

As for is there a serious threat to the US - as was pointed out to me by someone much smarter, the biggest threat to the US is China. Before you know it, they'll be driving the world economy. The US will get left in the dust.

VILAVON

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:25 PM

Thanks for setting me straight. You're right. I'm wrong. Simple as that.
Ain't fiction great?
P.S. How many terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have there been since Bush's failed war on terror?

Vilavon AKA Claude

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