Bama please respond to this post. Bama, please define what you mean by "socialism" and "work". Please list ten countries that you consider are working and that have what you consider capitalist economic systems? Then we might be able to have a conversation, because as it is I have no idea how you define socialism versus capitalism. Is Canada a socialist system or capitalist one in your mind? How about France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy? These are sincere questions.
Who gloats that the 40-hour workweek is a thing of the past? Fat cat business owners who benefit from the destruction of organized labor, you might guess? No. The workers are celebrating how much they have to work. We all see this behavior, yes even (gasp!) in universities. My colleagues and I frequently talk about all-night experiments, runs that last the whole weekend, etc, etc. Such a successful screwing over of American labor could never have been imagined by the employers of the early 20th century. We've bought it hook, line, and sinker. It's amazing really.
My Lord Chancellor, Mr. Speaker: The journey of which this visit forms a part is a long one. Already it has taken me to two great cities of the West, Rome and Paris, and to the economic summit at Versailles. And there, once again, our sister democracies have proved that even in a time of severe economic strain, free peoples can work together freely and voluntarily to address problems as serious as inflation, unemployment, trade, and economic development in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Other milestones lie ahead. Later this week, in Germany, we and our NATO allies will discuss measures for our joint defense and America's latest initiatives for a more peaceful, secure world through arms reductions. Each stop of this trip is important, but among them all, this moment occupies a special place in my heart and in the hearts of my countrymen -- a moment of kinship and homecoming in these hallowed halls. Speaking for all Americans, I want to say how very much at home we feel in your house. Every American would, because this is, as we have been so eloquently told, one of democracy's shrines. Here the rights of free people and the processes of representation have been debated and refined. It has been said that an institution is the lengthening shadow of a man. This institution is the lengthening shadow of all the men and women who have sat here and all those who have voted to send representatives here. This is my second visit to Great Britain as President of the United States. My first opportunity to stand on British soil occurred almost a year and a half ago when your Prime Minister graciously hosted a diplomatic dinner at the British Embassy in Washington. Mrs. Thatcher said then that she hoped I was not distressed to find staring down at me from the grand staircase a portrait of His Royal Majesty King George III. She suggested it was best to let bygones be bygones, and in view of our two countries' remarkable friendship in succeeding years, she added that most Englishmen today would agree with Thomas Jefferson that ``a little rebellion now and then is a very good thing.'' Well, from here I will go to Bonn and then Berlin, where there stands a grim symbol of power untamed. The Berlin Wall, that dreadful gray gash across the city, is in its third decade. It is the fitting signature of the regime that built it. And a few hundred kilometers behind the Berlin Wall, there is another symbol. In the center of Warsaw, there is a sign that notes the distances to two capitals. In one direction it points toward Moscow. In the other it points toward Brussels, headquarters of Western Europe's tangible unity. The marker says that the distances from Warsaw to Moscow and Warsaw to Brussels are equal. The sign makes this point: Poland is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. Poland's struggle to be Poland and to secure the basic rights we often take for granted demonstrates why we dare not take those rights for granted. Gladstone, defending the Reform Bill of 1866, declared, ``You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side.'' It was easier to believe in the march of democracy in Gladstone's day -- in that high noon of Victorian optimism. We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention -- totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order, because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a not-at-all-fragile flower. From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy. But none -- not one regime -- has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root. The strength of the Solidarity movement in Poland demonstrates the truth told in an underground joke in the Soviet Union. It is that the Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted, because everyone would join the opposition party. America's time as a player on the stage of world history has been brief. I think understanding this fact has always made you patient with your younger cousins -- well, not always patient. I do recall that on one occasion, Sir Winston Churchill said in exasperation about one of our most distinguished diplomats: ``He is the only case I know of a bull who carries his china shop with him.'' But witty as Sir Winston was, he also had that special attribute of great statesmen -- the gift of vision, the willingness to see the future based on the experience of the past. It is this sense of history, this understanding of the past that I want to talk with you about today, for it is in remembering what we share of the past that our two nations can make common cause for the future. We have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the Industrial Revolution, which began here in England, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined. There is first the threat of global war. No President, no Congress, no Prime Minister, no Parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. And I don't have to tell you that in today's world the existence of nuclear weapons could mean, if not the extinction of mankind, then surely the end of civilization as we know it. That's why negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces now underway in Europe and the START talks -- Strategic Arms Reduction Talks -- which will begin later this month, are not just critical to American or Western policy; they are critical to mankind. Our commitment to early success in these negotiations is firm and unshakable, and our purpose is clear: reducing the risk of war by reducing the means of waging war on both sides. At the same time there is a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the dangers of government that overreaches -- political control taking precedence over free economic growth, secret police, mindless bureaucracy, all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom. Now, I'm aware that among us here and throughout Europe there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the public sector should play a role in a nation's economy and life. But on one point all of us are united -- our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms, but most particularly totalitarianism and the terrible inhumanities it has caused in our time -- the great purge, Auschwitz and Dachau, the Gulag, and Cambodia. Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe -- indeed, the world -- would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan or supressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. If history teaches anything it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today the marks of our terrible dilemma -- predictions of doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in which the West must, for its own protection, be an unwilling participant. At the same time we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil? Sir Winston Churchill refused to accept the inevitability of war or even that it was imminent. He said, ``I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.'' Well, this is precisely our mission today: to preserve freedom as well as peace. It may not be easy to see; but I believe we live now at a turning point. In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the national product has been steadily declining since the fifties and is less than half of what it was then. The dimensions of this failure are astounding: A country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the private sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. These private plots occupy a bare 3 percent of the arable land but account for nearly one-quarter of Soviet farm output and nearly one-third of meat products and vegetables. Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resource into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet people. What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones. The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies -- West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam -- it is the democratic countries what are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving. The hard evidence of totalitarian rule has caused in mankind an uprising of the intellect and will. Whether it is the growth of the new schools of economics in America or England or the appearance of the so-called new philosophers in France, there is one unifying thread running through the intellectual work of these groups -- rejection of the arbitrary power of the state, the refusal to subordinate the rights of the individual to the superstate, the realization that collectivism stifles all the best human impulses. Since the exodus from Egypt, historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom -- the stand at Thermopylae, the revolt of Spartacus, the storming of the Bastille, the Warsaw uprising in World War II. More recently we've seen evidence of this same human impulse in one of the developing nations in Central America. For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in El Salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave freedom-fighters battling oppressive government forces in behalf of the silent, suffering people of that tortured country. And then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom-fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are -- Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves, and their backers, not democracy for the people. They threatened death to any who voted, and destroyed hundreds of buses and trucks to keep the people from getting to the polling places. But on election day, the people of El Salvador, an unprecedented 1.4 million of them, braved ambush and gunfire, and trudged for miles to vote for freedom. They stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for their turn to vote. Members of our Congress who went there as observers told me of a women who was wounded by rifle fire on the way to the polls, who refused to leave the line to have her wound treated until after she had voted. A grandmother, who had been told by the guerrillas she would be killed when she returned from the polls, and she told the guerrillas, ``You can kill me, you can kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you can't kill us all.'' The real freedom-fighters of El Salvador turned out to be the people of that country -- the young, the old, the in-between. Strange, but in my own country there's been little if any news coverage of that war since the election. Now, perhaps they'll say it's -- well, because there are newer struggles now. On distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And, yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifice for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren't fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause -- for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed, and the people must participate in the decisions of government -- [applause] -- the decisions of government under the rule of law. If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn't have suffered the bloodletting of World War II. In the Middle East now the guns sound once more, this time in Lebanon, a country that for too long has had to endure the tragedy of civil war, terrorism, and foreign intervention and occupation. The fighting in Lebanon on the part of all parties must stop, and Israel should bring its forces home. But this is not enough. We must all work to stamp out the scourge of terrorism that in the Middle East makes war an ever-present threat. But beyond the troublespots lies a deeper, more positive pattern. Around the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength. In India a critical test has been passed with the peaceful change of governing political parties. In Africa, Nigeria is moving into remarkable and unmistakable ways to build and strengthen its democratic institutions. In the Caribbean and Central America, 16 of 24 countries have freely elected governments. And in the United Nations, 8 of the 10 developing nations which have joined that body in the past 5 years are democracies. In the Communist world as well, man's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-rule -- 1953 in East Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1981 in Poland. But the struggle continues in Poland. And we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soviet Union itself. How we conduct ourselves here in the Western democracies will determine whether this trend continues. No, democracy is not a fragile flower. Still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy. Some argue that we should encourage democratic change in right-wing dictatorships, but not in Communist regimes. Well, to accept this preposterous notion -- as some well-meaning people have -- is to invite the argument that once countries achieve a nuclear capability, they should be allowed an undisturbed reign of terror over their own citizens. We reject this course. As for the Soviet view, Chairman Brezhnev repeatedly has stressed that the competition of ideas and systems must continue and that this is entirely consistent with relaxation of tensions and peace. Well, we ask only that these systems begin by living up to their own constitutions, abiding by their own laws, and complying with the international obligations they have undertaken. We ask only for a process, a direction, a basic code of decency, not for an instant transformation. We cannot ignore the fact that even without our encouragement there has been and will continue to be repeated explosions against repression and dictatorships. The Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it, if necessary, by force. While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections. The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity? Since 1917 the Soviet Union has given covert political training and assistance to Marxist-Leninists in many countries. Of course, it also has promoted the use of violence and subversion by these same forces. Over the past several decades, West European and other Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, and leaders have offered open assistance to fraternal, political, and social institutions to bring about peaceful and democratic progress. Appropriately, for a vigorous new democracy, the Federal Republic of Germany's political foundations have become a major force in this effort. We in America now intend to take additional steps, as many of our allies have already done, toward realizing this same goal. The chairmen and other leaders of the national Republican and Democratic Party organizations are initiating a study with the bipartisan American political foundation to determine how the United States can best contribute as a nation to the global campaign for democracy now gathering force. They will have the cooperation of congressional leaders of both parties, along with representatives of business, labor, and other major institutions in our society. I look forward to receiving their recommendations and to working with these institutions and the Congress in the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world. It is time that we committed ourselves as a nation -- in both the pubic and private sectors -- to assisting democratic development. We plan to consult with leaders of other nations as well. There is a proposal before the Council of Europe to invite parliamentarians from democratic countries to a meeting next year in Strasbourg. That prestigious gathering could consider ways to help democratic political movements. This November in Washington there will take place an international meeting on free elections. And next spring there will be a conference of world authorities on constitutionalism and self-goverment hosted by the Chief Justice of the United States. Authorities from a number of developing and developed countries -- judges, philosophers, and politicians with practical experience -- have agreed to explore how to turn principle into practice and further the rule of law. At the same time, we invite the Soviet Union to consider with us how the competition of ideas and values -- which it is committed to support -- can be conducted on a peaceful and reciprocal basis. For example, I am prepared to offer President Brezhnev an opportunity to speak to the American people on our television if he will allow me the same opportunity with the Soviet people. We also suggest that panels of our newsmen periodically appear on each other's television to discuss major events. Now, I don't wish to sound overly optimistic, yet the Soviet Union is not immune from the reality of what is going on in the world. It has happened in the past -- a small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure, or it chooses a wiser course. It begins to allow its people a voice in their own destiny. Even if this latter process is not realized soon, I believe the renewed strength of the democratic movement, complemented by a global campaign for freedom, will strengthen the prospects for arms control and a world at peace. I have discussed on other occasions, including my address on May 9th, the elements of Western policies toward the Soviet Union to safeguard our interests and protect the peace. What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. And that's why we must continue our efforts to strengthen NATO even as we move forward with our Zero-Option initiative in the negotiations on intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a one-third reduction in strategic ballistic missile warheads. Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets, but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. The British people know that, given strong leadership, time and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil. Here among you is the cradle of self-government, the Mother of Parliaments. Here is the enduring greatness of the British contribution to mankind, the great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under God. I've often wondered about the shyness of some of us in the West about standing for these ideals that have done so much to ease the plight of man and the hardships of our imperfect world. This reluctance to use those vast resources at our command reminds me of the elderly lady whose home was bombed in the Blitz. As the rescuers moved about, they found a bottle of brandy she'd stored behind the staircase, which was all that was left standing. And since she was barely conscious, one of the workers pulled the cork to give her a taste of it. She came around immediately and said, ``Here now -- there now, put it back. That's for emergencies.'' Well, the emergency is upon us. Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable. During the dark days of the Second World War, when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain's adversaries, ``What kind of a people do they think we are?'' Well, Britain's adversaries found out what extraordinary people the British are. But all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that mistake again. So, let us ask ourselves, ``What kind of people do we think we are?'' And let us answer, ``Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.'' Sir Winston led his people to great victory in war and then lost an election just as the fruits of victory were about to be enjoyed. But he left office honorably, and, as it turned out, temporarily, knowing that the liberty of his people was more important than the fate of any single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message of hope for the future, as timely now as when he first uttered it, as opposition leader in the Commons nearly 27 years ago, when he said, ``When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have,'' he said, ``come safely through the worst.'' Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny. Thank you. Ronald Reagan, before the House of Commons In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us. Natan Sharansky, in yesterday's Jerusalem Post
Many Still Troubled by Reagan's Legacy By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - As one of the first physicians to confront AIDS when it began its rampage through the gay community, Dr. Marcus Conant lobbied the Reagan administration in 1982 to launch an emergency campaign to educate Americans about the disease. It took the president five more years to publicly mention the crisis. By then, almost 21,000 Americans had died and thousands more had been diagnosed. Conant, who lost scores of friends and patients to the disease, is still deeply angry — one of many Americans who view Reagan's legacy in a harsh light. "Ronald Reagan and his administration could have made a substantial difference, but for ideological reasons, political reasons, moral reasons, they didn't do it," said the San Francisco dermatologist, who now deals with a new generation of AIDS patients. "President Reagan and his administration committed a crime, not just a sin." Despite the accolades lavished upon Reagan since his death Saturday — for ending the Cold War, for restoring the nation's optimism — his many detractors remember him as a right-wing ideologue beholden to monied interests and insensitive to the needs of the most vulnerable Americans. Bruce Cain, a political analyst at the University of California, Berkeley, said Reagan singularly brought conservatism into the mainstream during his presidency, an orthodoxy that has made Democrats and liberals an enduring minority in Washington. "What made things worse for them is that he was an extremely influential figure, and his ideas had lasting impact," Cain said. Elected on a promise to slash taxes and crack down on freeloading "welfare queens," Reagan depicted government as wasteful and minimized its capacity to help people, ideas that survive today. Reagan also dealt a blow to organized labor by firing the striking air traffic controllers, and appointed Antonin Scalia, still the Supreme Court's most conservative jurist. Reagan's weakening of the social safety net by dismantling longtime Democratic "Great Society" programs arguably vexes his critics the most. By persuading Congress to approve sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing welfare benefits and other social services like the federal housing assistance program, Reagan was blamed for a huge surge in the nation's poor and homeless population. Many won't forget his administration's proposal to classify ketchup as a vegetable as a way of further reducing spending on federally subsidized school lunches. "Ronald Reagan really was a modern day Robin Hood in reverse — he stole from the poor and gave to the rich," said Michael Stoops, a longtime advocate for the homeless in Washington. Critics give Reagan grudging credit for his ability to connect with working-class voters, who would come to be known as Reagan Democrats. He also galvanized conservative Christians to participate in the political process — even while putting some of their more prized goals on the back burner, like restricting abortion rights or restoring prayer in public school. But other activists point to Reagan's early silence on the AIDS crisis as doing the bidding of the far right, with devastating results. In San Francisco, the number of AIDS cases peaked during the Reagan administration. AIDS activist Rene Durazzo remembers it as a frightening time when "chronic death" seemed to pervade the city streets. "The number of people dying was horrific. The disease was very visible — people were suffering and wasting," Durazzo said. "It was a very volatile environment, there was so much anger at the government for not paying attention." In the end, critics say Reagan's enduring legacy may be the generation of Republican leaders — including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Majority Leader Tom Delay, and to some extent George W. Bush — who came of age during his presidency and have pursued a conservative social agenda with even greater gusto. That, in turn, helped create the bitterly divided political environment that exists to this day. "The tone has gotten more venomous, largely because of the people who came after Reagan and carried the Reagan banner," said Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, a liberal advocacy group. "I give him full credit for unleashing the vast right-wing conspiracy."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18898 Ronald Reagan: Still the Teflon President? By Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher June 8, 2004 The death of Ronald Reagan has become yet another reminder that news organizations often turn sentimental at the death of a former leader, no matter what legacy he or she leaves behind. Reagan's death, especially following the tragedy and torture of Alzheimer's disease, likely struck editors and reporters with a responsibility to go easy on the former president. Few, after all, protested the sacking of the CBS television movie about Reagan a few months back. And the man did win two presidential elections, the second by a landslide, and led a rebirth of a Republican party that had been rocked by Watergate and other scandals. But let's not forget that the often-mocked Bill Clinton accomplished much the same for his party, and despite the Lewinsky disgrace, left office with approval ratings higher than Reagan's (and no federal budget deficit, to boot). So the overwhelming praise for a president who plunged the nation into its worst deficit ever, ignored and cut public money for the poor, while also ignoring the AIDS crisis, is a bit tough to take. During my years at Brooklyn College, between 1984 and 1988, countless classmates had to drop out or find other ways to pay for school because of Reagan's policies, which included slashing federal grants for poor students and cutting survivor benefits for families of the disabled. Not to mention the Iran-contra scandal, failed 'supply-side economics,' the ludicrous invasion of Grenada, 241 dead Marines in Lebanon, and a costly military buildup that may have contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union (there were plenty of other reasons too) but also kept us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, besides leaving us billions of dollars in debt. And should we even mention the many senior Reagan officials, including ex-White House aide Michael Deaver and national security adviser Robert McFarlane, convicted of various offenses? What about Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, indicted but later pardoned by the first President Bush? Paying respect is one thing, and well deserved, but the way the press is gushing over Reagan is too much to take, sparking renewed talk of putting him on the $10 bill or Mount Rushmore. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz noted today that when the media, back in the 1980s, dubbed Reagan the "Teflon" president "it was not meant as a compliment." Apparently, he is still the Teflon president, even in death. Some newspapers, at least, have readily acknowledged some of his many shortcomings in editorials, even if it's only a fraction of their overall rosy review. The Philadelphia Inquirer stated, "Yes, he butchered facts, invented anecdotes, indulged White House chaos, and seemed dreamily unaware of the illegal deeds done during Iran-contra. He was guilty of all that, as well as union-busting, callousness to the poor, a failure to grasp America's multicultural destiny." The Boston Globe, meanwhile, declared the "Reagan legacy also includes the improbable Star Wars' missile defense proposal and the shameful Iran-Contra scandal. And the humming economy was energized in large part by deep tax cuts and heavy military spending that together produced crippling budget deficits. Reagan did little to advance such goals as education or civil rights." The New York Times recalled, "Mr. Reagan's decision to send marines to Lebanon was disastrous, however, and his invasion of Grenada pure melodrama. His most reckless episode involved the scheme to supply weapons to Iran as ransom for Americans who were being held hostage in Lebanon, and to use the proceeds to illegally finance contra insurgents in Nicaragua." Had you read the Washington Post, you would have found, "A lot of people were hurt by these policies, a fact that in our view did not weigh heavily enough on this president. His intermittent denigration of government, and of people who depended on government services, fed into and bolstered hurtful and unfair stereotypes." For me, however, the Los Angeles Times, which had the advantage of following Reagan from his first days as California governor, seemed to offer the best assessment, declaring that his administration had far more problems than most other papers admitted. "As president, Reagan was genial, ever-smiling – ignoring unpleasant facts, idealizing hopeful fantasies," the paper's editorial said. "The mark of Reagan's presidency was paradox. Having campaigned as an implacable foe of government deficit spending, he left office with a federal debt that was nearly triple its level when he was inaugurated. He succumbed, as Bush has, to the fallacious 'supply side' economic notion that government revenues rise if taxes are cut." The L.A. Times continued, "Hero though Reagan was to so many Americans, his legacy is marred. Economically, the Reagan years were epitomized by a freewheeling entrepreneurialism and free spending. But the affluent got more affluent and the poor got poorer. The number of families living below the poverty line increased by one-third. The Reagan administration's zeal for deregulation of industry helped create the savings and loan debacle, which left taxpayers holding the bag for billions of dollars in losses." Still, the fact that enough other papers all but glossed over his troubles concerns me. Newspapers, especially on the editorial page, are looked upon to give fair assessments of politicians, especially one as powerful and impactful as Reagan. And yet we see The Las Vegas Review- Journal rewriting history in defending Reagan's poor economic practices by blaming Congress: "Critics will no doubt point to ballooning budget deficits in the 1980s, ignoring the fact that Congress refused to implement the lean budgets the Reagan administration proposed and instead went on a spending spree facilitated by the overflowing federal coffers triggered when the president's tax cuts pulled the country out of its economic doldrums and led to unprecedented growth." Among the worst, however, was The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, which also apparently likes to ignore the facts, in claiming that Reagan "took full responsibility" for Iran-contra. When was this? When he continuously claimed not to remember his involvement? Maybe that is just what happens when people die. The death of Richard Nixon 10 years ago – the last U.S. president to pass on – also sparked positive reviews of many elements of his life, but his Watergate legacy and other lowly acts often held center stage. In Nixon's case, however, it was hard to ignore such an obvious downfall. In Reagan's case, his genial public persona, and Alzheimer's end, may have made it more difficult to knock down a popular leader, despite the fact that some argue Iran-Contra was a more impeachable offense than Watergate. Maybe it's to be expected that the press, when covering a leader's death, will take a kinder, gentler approach. But in the interests of fair, accurate journalism – something that has become a leading issue in the media today – no former leader should be above a frank, complete, and balanced assessment. Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is senior editor for E&P.
As a non-American, I can notice that all the props given to Reagon's presidency in the media lately. Of course, his passing away is a big event, and to pay tribute to him, especially a very likable person, is surely good gesture. But I heard a lot about that he boosted confidence in American and caused the collapse of Soviet Union, which I can not quite understand. I always think American people as a whole, is a very confident nation, although sometimes appears to me a little bit over-confident And Gorbachov should have taken the most credit of UdSSR's collapse and Berlin Wall's break-down. And I am also very puzzled, how come Clinton is not liked that much. In his term, you guys actually had a surplus, and the unemployment was low, and US became the sole super power in the world and super rich. Remember the early 90s, when Japanese real estate giants took most of the seats in Top 10 richest person in the world, and all the large US organizations were screming to adapt Japanese enterprise management models? Whether it should be credited to him or not, but those were good times for you I guess. He cheated on his wife, like the other 50% men. Of course he said "American people, I did not have sex with this woman", under oath. But the starting point was still his relationship with a intern, which of course became a critical "national secret" issue, so that he had to decribe all the details in front of everyone. But I couldn't understand why everyone is making fun of him on TV, and critisizing everything he did.
The Reagan administration's zeal for deregulation of industry helped create the savings and loan debacle, which left taxpayers holding the bag for billions of dollars in losses. Make that a $500 billion loss, which was accounted for off-the-books during GHWB's Presidency.
The thing that's funny is people's credit with Reagan for winning the cold war. He did play a part, and he does deserve some credit. But the Berlin wall was not torn down because Reagan got out there and said, 'tear down this wall Mr. Gorbachev' The fact is that Gorbachev had as much if not more to do with the end of the Soviet Union's communism. He entered office with the idea of Glasnost and reform firmly in hand. To ignore his own ideas of change and sweeping reforms is to ignore the whole picture. Yes there has been some over positive looks on his legacy, but I believe it will even out over time.
watching the funeral procession now. i can remember where i was when i heard kennedy was shot (i was 5!), but i don't remember the funeral, nor do i remember seeing anything like this when Ike, LBJ, or truman died. nixon's funeral, although i think wall street was closed, wasn't a state affair. was JFK's the last such funeral?
I don't know, but this is the most obsessively news covered traveling corpse since, uh, since Reagan was in office! Zing!
damn, a friend just called and accused reagan of going to tehran to prevent the hostages from being released until he could be inaugurated. i chose not to...engage...
must be pool cameras. cnn and fox have the same feed. a general just said a 21 "ship" flyover will occur. are these flying boats? i knew reagan was old, but....
ok, fox says a "cassion" carried eisenhower and lbj, so obviously they got the parade. ike died in '69, truman in '72, LBJ in '73.
It's a state funeral for a former President. I remember watching JFK's on TV, and it was similar. For some reason, the ones you mentioned are hazy for me. Honestly can't recall how elaborate they were, but I don't think this one is too unusual and certainly not inappropriate. Reagan made quite an impact on the country for 8 years, whether one liked the impact or not. I enjoyed voting against him twice and didn't enjoy his election victories, but there's no denying that he was a presence. When Clinton dies, I suspect we'll see a similar event and reaction, although some may find that hard to believe. Time puts everything in a different lens... often in soft focus. These events draw us closer together as a nation. They are our Presidents, whether we voted for them or not.
yeah, i think the circumstances of JFK's death are why we remember that event, and the others died before the ubiquity of cable TV and the internet. nixon's funeral was more subdude, for obvious reasons. i thought all of this was friday, for some reason. isn't the street closed then?
Isn't he going to be placed under the Capitol rotunda until Friday? I thought that was where he was going today.
bnb said: These are places where you can find good Samosa, no doubt, not to be confused with Samoza, which would undoubtedly be quite a bit tougher and not nearly as satisfying. Thanks for the compliment, and you raise a very good point. The macro/micro perspectives you mention are a good way to look at it. Ken Wilber talked about something like this in one of his books and it struck me as being quite true. He also pointed out that liberals tend to view the world from the macro perspective, thinking about things deterministically, in terms of programs and policies which will shape society, and not really considering the role of personal responsibility or how many of these policies look and work from the perspective of the individual. Conservatives on the other hand tend to look only at the micro level view, the world of personal responsibility and personal freedoms. The result, says Wilber, is that the two often tend to talk past one another, essentially talking about two different perspective of the same issue. Future leaders, that would be our generation, must learn to look at the world from both perspectives, he says, and find the appropriate balances and positive sum gains based on an understanding of both perspectives. In answer to the problems you pose, a typical answer from the traditional liberal perspective would be that a simgle individual’s opinion and rights don't take precedence over the majority’s opinion and rights. And this is true, but it's only one part of issue. Looking at it from the individual’s perspective we may well be able to identify concerns that could be addressed without taking away from the rights of the majority. I think we’d have to know more about what the Chilean Dr.’s concerns were to address that particular situation here, but let’s say his concerns were with an oppressive bureaucracy. Typically that can be changed and streamlined without compromising the higher level objectives. If he objected to an extra 10% income tax that was being used for education or healthcare or infrastructure otoh, then I would say that that should not be changed and he should be helped to understand that what is good for the nation and the people will also be good for him, i.e. he will have more business because more people will be able to afford his services. He will be safer with better policing and less poverty, etc. In short, there are positive sum gains in almost every situation that are good for almost everybody concerned, and these are what should be sought without consideration for whether the fit traditional liberal views or traditional conservative views. I agree that the complexities are huge, but if you are suggesting that this should be an excuse to throw up our hands and claim we can’t know anything and therefore we shouldn’t do anything, then I would wholeheartedly disagree. That point of view is the postmodernist/poststructuralist type thinking that Habermas calls a new conservatism. "There are no metanarratives, there no universal moralities, so we should just do nothing let the status quo be." This works fine if you happen to be in a privileged position, but it does nothing to help you if you’re not. This is why Habermas says it’s not progressive but really a new form of conservatism. I think we should try to do “good”, but never fool ourselves into believing we know exactly what that is. We need to continually and humbly reflect on what we’re doing and what is really going on in the contexts we’re intervening in, and to continually and perpetually strive to find our mistakes and correct them. Adorno and Lyotard were wrong, IMO. Habermas is pretty darn close to having it right. I think it’s generally acknowledged that the Soviet Union was collapsing on its own anyway, but that’s no trivial matter. The failure of a super power has all kinds of very significant risk factors associated with it. That this was negotiated without a shot (I don’t recall one being fired internally either, or any kind of coup attempt) is remarkable. I will agree that Reagan played a part in this, a very significant part, but I think it’s more his simplemindedness that deserves the credit than his clever strategy. It allowed, IMO, Gorbachev to essentially work the situation for the USSR’s maximum benefit, which, thanks to Gorbachev’s intelligence and vision, was very much in line with what was in the best long term interests of both countries. Unless you think Reagan would have actually pushed the button and his handlers would have allowed this to happen, and more importantly unless you believe Gorbachev believed this, then all of Reagan’s theatrics were strictly for domestic consumption. The genius, IMO, is in what Gorbachev did, and heaven only knows how he did it. He would have had to convince a lot of powerful people that what he was proposing was best for the USSR, and best for them personally. Perhaps, for speculation sake, he used the burning platform approach. “Gentlemen, the situation we’re in now is unsustainable. The Soviet system as we have known it is doomed to collapse.” And he would have had to prove it to them. The huge inefficiencies and corruption in the system were well known. Nonetheless, this would have been a bitter, bitter pill for many of them to swallow. At this point a lot of options, many not very pleasant, would be floating through the heads of these still powerful men. What Gorbachev has to do then is paint a clear vision of a better future, and define a clear path how to get there. It may have gone something like this. (In your best Russian accent) “Gentlemen, this is what we are dealing with in Reagan. He sees the world this way, and what is important to him (even if he’s not aware of it) and his party is how this plays domestically. There is room for us to make a very good deal for ourselves here. If we don’t use the exit opportunity that is in front of us now, we may never get the same chance again. We may be able to hold out for another 10 years, but then we’ll all freeze in the dark and all hell will break lose domestically. What Reagan really wants is to be seen as strong and a hero at home. What we need is money, lots and lots of it, and time to radically restructure our economy. I can get this as part of the deal. Of course there will also be very nice nest eggs for all of you to take care of yourselves and your families too. So Gentlemen, will it be 10 more years of sliding down hill after which time we all freeze in the dark, or do you want an infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars to try to reform our economies, and, of course, to be independently wealthy yourselves? Remember that a future president may not be as easy to deal with. A smarter man will undoubtedly be more meddling and want a more complicated deal. Dealing with Carter or Nixon would not have been nearly as straightforward as dealing with Reagan. This is a one time opportunity that we should not pass up.” Of course he’s going to phrase it in a way that is most positive for them. The fact remains that their country/powerbase was collapsing, so he would have had to show them a better future and convince them that it was a realistic possibility. Agreed I’ll have to give a yes and no answer to this. There are honest mistakes, and there are foolish and self-serving mistakes. And if we look closer at the individual situation I think we can begin to tell which is which, although we can never claim 100% certainty. I think that perhaps you haven’t been around for some of our other political discussion, and I haven’t been around much myself for a while, but I have actually have a very similar opinion to yours. The US is in a very difficult position as the world’s most powerful nation. For some people they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. And other counties, like Canada for example, will never face the same kind of dilemmas. Further, we freeload off the American military essentially using them for our security while spending almost nothing on our own, so we are by no means as pure as the driven snow ourselves. (I wonder how many Texans are familiar with that saying ). That said, IMHO, Reagan was the scariest, least competent, most immoral president that I know anything about. But I’ve also said that that is my perspective as a non-American, as a Canadian. For reasons that escape me, he clearly played quite differently domestically, but I wasn’t there to see it.
Thanks for taking the time to respond Grizz. I pretty much agree with all of what you wrote. Except you called me a conservative. And that hurts. I was pretty cool with the "Post modernist/ Post structuralist" label, and was all set to grow a goatee and buy a turtle-neck, but then i read how you defined it, and wasn't so sure it was a compliment .
