IS THIS WHY YOU HATE RONALD REAGAN ?

On 16 November 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin López y López, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado López); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. The assassinations galvanized the Society's peace and justice movements, including annual protests at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, where the assassins had been trained under US government sponsorship. [PASTE FROM WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON "JESUITS"] ---------------------------------------- IVAR WROTE: for me, yes, the dirty wars are a big reason. also iran-contra: selling arms to iran in defiance of congress so that the money could be sent -- in defiance of congress -- to the contras. and accelerating the destruction of organized labor, dismantling the regulatory state, initiating the assault on social insurance, and aggressively redistributing income and wealth to the top ("class warfare", warren buffet calls it). i maintained throughout the bush years and even now that reagan was worse by a long shot. that said, it should be noted that some of the worst trends continued or accelerated under clinton -- though not as a matter of principle, rather as part of an effort to catch up to the republican party in donations as business interests consolidated (early 70s) and labor's political influence waned. -- my two cents. --------------------------------------------------------------- PRO OPINION: On the contrary, my opinion is that he was a great president. When Reagan came into office, he inherited an economy that was fundamentally damaged, worse off than the current one has been. Unemployment and inflation were high. Any little move to fix it would cause one or the other. It was a condition known as Stagflation. There was a malaise over the country that the best days of the US were behind it. Even President Carter implied this. Americans would just have to get used to the new reality. The solution was one that prior administrations didn't want to face, reigning in the money supply. Paul Volcker (Fed Chairman) had a plan on how to do this. Reagan had the guts to give Volcker support, cover and to ride it out. This exacerbated a recession that started in December 1981, contributing to unemployment rate of 10.8%. It hurt, but was deemed necessary to fix the problem. By the beginning of 1983, like an addiction breaking, inflation dropped like a rock from double digits to about 2-3%. Unemployment started dropping. Economic growth took off in 1983, averaging around 6%. Throughout his presidency, Reagan lowered the income tax rate from 70% to 28% and did a 15% across the board tax cut. This kept the economy stimulated and growing. Unemployment dropped throughout the rest of his presidency, reaching a low of 5% into Bush's (41). This, with the highest Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) over a period of 37 years. All this created a new, solid economic foundation that supported an economic boom that lasted the next 17 years. It was strong enough to shrug off things like an S&L bailout and '91 recession without breaking a sweat. Revenues doubled to government from $500 billion to $1 trillion. His policies were a fundamental change in the direction the country was heading. He put the country back on the road to prosperity. On defense, Reagan dropped the policy of Détente with the Soviets and started a new, aggressive “Peace through Strength” approach that challenged them at every turn. He opened a new front in the Cold War on the economic battlefield. He funded proxy wars around the globe anywhere there was Soviet support or expansion. Afghanistan was one of the larger and more successful campaigns. He spent large sums on programs like the B-1B, B-2, Cruise Missile and "Star Wars" the Soviets went crazy trying to defend against. They ended up spending 50% of their GNP (GNP was the measure then) on defense by the time they collapsed. Their pulling out of Afghanistan was considered the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. He also led very verbal support to all who would support Soviet defiance. This was especially so with Polish Solidarity. He joined forces with Pope John Paul II on this. He didn’t worry about if he offended the Soviets or not in doing so. Whether with the economy or the Cold War, his positive rhetoric was not unlike FDR’s during the Great Depression, inspiring but not empty words. He projected and practiced leadership. He was the biggest fan of the USA. It showed in his talk. After the self doubt and even some self-loathing of the late '70's, Reagan was a teacher that reminded the country of it's greatness in strength, economics, unique principles, it's great heart and in it's people. He put the American Dream back on track and gave people the confidence to reach for it again. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/17/opinion/the-reagan-boom-greatest-ever.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew wrote: No response ? Your silence encourages me to believe that you have proper simplicity of a man of books. In contrast to your opinions, I showed you what the what the real master-narrative of the Reagan presidency will be for the American public, as I believe it will be un-shadowed by your lowercase penny-lining Liberal ideas etc. ---------------------------------------------- Ivar wrote: I try to think like an investor; master-narratives are above my pay grade. A cold look at the numbers shows that Reaganism is bad for the economy. ------------------------ TONY wrote: Reagan was an actor, and simply read his lines. His a happy face on policies that stabbed the adoring dummies, who couldn't see what he was doing, in the back. ---------- The economy was not "damaged;" it was working through the economic havoc of the Vietnam war. Stagflation was a result of conservative cold war politics, conservative cold war ideology, and military-industrial puppet masters manipulating the facts about the enemy, to make a huge amount of money. War profiteering. Huge spending on war materiel immediately got blown up and remanufactured, bought again and again on credit, only to be blown up. ---------- As a result, some of the most horrible people on the planet became powerful billionaires, and in our system that makes them political players in conservative circles. ---------- Thus Reagan got the snowball going on an economic debacle for the middle class: propaganda for the dummies, votes for amoral demagogues, policies sold as one thing, but actually about much different things, massive wealth transfers from dummies to the worst humans on the planet, more political power to people who have no qualms lying to the dummies (playing to the simpleton 'shoot first, think later (or never)' crowd.) see, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/opinion/paul-krugman-nobody-said-that.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&_r=0 ---------- Andrew, the sad fact is that the weak and the non-wealthy are seen as less than human, and unworthy. Weak means you and everyone you know, unless you are running in Koch, et. al. circles. If you are on public assistance, your life is ground zero for the guys who want to squash something. "Something" is used advisedly. The Reagan ideology takes from everyone who is not savage enough to take it themselves. I honestly think the only thing the conservatives are interested in about the insurrection is whether they are strong enough to get what they want. Bad Nietzsche notions for the USA and its governance. ---------- Reagan was the guy who sold the then-current "big lies" on a public that wanted spectacle instead of reason. Those ideas are pretty inadequate for the real world, but conservatives are still holding them up. Pretty sad, actually. Thinking is too hard for conservatives, they rather parrot what the head ditto-head in charge says they should think. The irony is that people who think they are independent thinkers are actually regurgitating the sad ideas that the conservative puppet masters are feeding them. The result is that the vast majority of everyone else's lives are harder, meaner, poorer. Suckers to conservative puppet masters are bringing down the rest of us. Thanks a lot, idiots. ---------- "Trickle down" was one such a lie that took decades to utterly and completely debunk. Conservatism as a political ideology is incapable of learning, recognizing they are wrong, so you might hear some conservatives still championing that notion... But the point is that conservatism is NOT about a coherent, functional political ideology. The reality is it works as propaganda: if people never check the facts, and conservatives never admit they are lying, people will continue to back them. As Chomsky says, the game is to affect what goes on between people's heads; and with the 24/7 media blitz, manipulating thought by managing "facts" is working better here than anywhere else the world. The truth is "conservatism" and its "facts" is controlled by some of the most evil humans on the planet, because their game is not only empowering evil people, but also doing irreparable damage to everyday people and the planet. ---------- America's best days ARE behind it. Just watch the news, America's rivals are fast running past an America dragged down by conservative idiocy. Sure, billionaires are making a killing, but the country you and I know is sinking fast, growing weaker, poorer, more dysfunctional. The USA is a big ship, and it is only a matter of time before it's real situation is understood by the dummies who champion the conservative champions. ---------- Medicaid reduces health expenses by 40% in states where Medicaid was expanded (states with "liberal" governors). How does this play out? Conservative states are getting poorer. Maybe they will wake up when they see how conservationism has sold them out? Don't count on it; people are so easily manipulated.... ---------- If there is any clear economic problem we can point to that is sure to destroy the USA, it is exploding health care costs. Our medical system is the most inefficient on the planet, and something has to be done to get costs under control, yet conservatives are protecting drug companies, unethical doctors, rapacious medical suppliers, psychopath medical system execs. It is a wonderful thing, if you are conservative, to have a desperate, captive audience that has no other choice than to pay up or die. Conservatives are protecting the absolutely worst, most evil players in the health system, while the people who depend on our health system to work well so they can get on with their lives are the ones who are poorer and sicker for it. You have to be pretty gullible to believe conservative BS on health care policy, but the dummies are pretty clearly taken by the propaganda. ---------- Volcker was head of an independent regulatory agency; Reagan had nothing to do with Fed policies. ---------- Reagan's cost cuts destroyed the government as an honest cop to society. Without an honest cop, we see what happens in places like Yemen, where there is no governance, there is desperation and unbridled conflict. A plethora of gangs is the alternative to a central government. Andrew, what gang are you and I a part of, that has any chance of living with any security? The guy on AM radio is NOT going to have "conservative" boosters' back; he is in it to be richer. A prostitute to conservative puppet masters, like so many Republican politicians who will say or do whatever the puppet masters say to. ---------- I lived in Washington DC when Reagan replaced highly competent lifelong professionals who won WW2, replaced with the most incompetent political hacks he could find. "Government is the problem" meant undermine government, and make it look incompetent to the gullible voters who can't think for themselves. ---------- The USA government went from being the most effective, smart and professional on the planet, to a shabby stump of itself. USA started to lose ground against global rivals as policies that would take decades to play out were sold under false premises. ---------- The truth is that Reagan actually sold out the USA, in order to create a small cohort of conservative billionaires with an internationalist outlook, shipping jobs abroad, and because Republicans are corrupt and psychopathic sell outs, billionaires had the power to define and control "conservatism" by buying the Republicans who toed the rhetorical and propagandist line. The result is "we" are weaker and poorer because of Reagan. Bad hero to have, if you have any sense of the facts. ---------- And, Reagan's economy was actually mediocre. It would have been better if someone who actually knows how the economy works had managed fiscal policy. Reagan's big "idea" was to make a small number of people very, very, very rich, and everyone else poorer. Where the middle class consumer is so important, this was idiocy; Reagan killed the goose the lays the golden egg, because absolute power over the LIVES of consumers is more manageable and valuable. Conservatives are selling us all into servitude to rapacious monsters. ---------- The truth is, voters liked Reagan's ideas,but their economic lives have been adversely shaped by these same policies, and they are actually poorer. But conservatives cannot connect the dots. Maybe conservatives tend to blame themselves if they don't "make it" but the truth is not unlike blaming yourself for not winning the lotto: it's a rigged game. Losers are losers because they are not up to snuff, whatever the reason, rigged games included. Suckers can't complain in the conservative game! ---------- My feeling is that rich people are not better than us. They may have been lucky. Or they are really, really dishonest. That does not make them superior, or even good at running other people's lives. Some are really, really stupid. More of them are high-functioning psychopaths. And the family dynasties they create are a demonstrable monument to mediocrity. Playboy oil sheikhs are no better at governing other people's lives, than are the kids of american plutocrats, and the proof is in the pudding. Cutting your eye teeth in country clubs does not prepare you to govern in the real world. Spoiled rich kids, separated from their crutches, used to get beat up in the real world. As expected, they will try to buy the police to their exclusive service. That is what is making Baltimore interesting. The community is trying to get the police there to stop protecting property, and start protecting the communities, ALL the communities. I am not holding my breath, but this may be a sea change in political uses of policing... sorry for the aside. ---------- So, the children of the most rapacious, ruthlessly evil fucks on the planet who don't run the world any better than their parents, are likely to run the world because they can buy elections. Conservatives ideologically believe that by only virtue of rising to the top of the economic heap (honestly, morally, corruptly or otherwise), these are the people best able to run your life. Right... ---------- Reagan heroic role in bringing down the Soviet Union is easily disputed, and in the final analysis not necessarily a good thing for the USA, if you are a patriot. Hero-worship is normal for the masses, but Reagan was an empty suit created by public relations men. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew wrote: That was great, Tony! Really passionate and convincing - we really went loggerheads on this one ! By the way, Ivar, your reliance on the clichés of the petite bourgeois ("above my pay grade") does you a marked disservice. ========== END OF EMAIL CHAIN