Gipper No More
So Ronald Reagan died yesterday. He seemed like a decent man, certainly compared to a lot of other conservative politicians, and I know from having dealt with it with my relatives that Alzheimer’s is not a fun way to go. But the lionization of his presidency by the media yesterday is making me sick. This is a president who deregulated Wall Street and the Securities industry, directly leading to the S&L scandals and all the corporate fraud that today we seem to think is expected and usual and normal. This is a president who dismantled the system of mental hospitals in this country, even after having nearly been killed by a deranged man, directly leading to an explosion in the homeless problem in cities across the country. This is a president who levied budget cuts on NASA and put pressure on that administration so much so that they rushed the launch of Challenger on a cold morning against the wishes of many of its engineers, resulting in tragedy. This is a president who worked with Saddam Hussein, the Contras, Manuel Noriega, despots who ruled for the advantage of American business interests but certainly not for the advantage of the common people in their struggling countries. This is a president whose idea of tackling the drug problem was “Just Say No” – no rehab, no treatment, if you were already addicted then fuck you – and wrote laws making penalties for crack cocaine orders of magnitude more severe than those for powder cocaine, sending inordinate numbers of young black men to prison and convincing Middle America that building prisons was more important than building schools. This is a president under whose watch the public education system crumbled, teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed as the Christian Coalition made birth control taboo, and white flight decimated urban areas. And I’m sorry, but his role in ending the Cold War has been VASTLY overstated, he was in the right place at the right time, especially considering how Gorbachev’s moves were a COMPLETE surprise to the CIA and all of the western intelligence community. Look, I don’t expect the media to ever rip on a former president who has just died, but a little fuller picture of his presidency should be warranted. I’ll be interested to see how balanced the coverage is when a real leader, President Jimmy Carter, passes on – which hopefully won’t be for decades, much to the betterment of struggling third world nations and countless millions.
- posted by Liebs @ 8:08 AM