Reply #12: It just kills me to see all this idiot Repigs try to Beatify their Saint Ronnie [View All]

I was a child in California when he became gov. First of all, the only reason he did become gov is because J Edgar Hoover was looking for someone to put down the Berkeley students and their Free Speech movement--in Hoover's eyes they were all a bunch of terrorists and Gov Pat Brown wasn't doing enough to oppress them. So at the time, in order to run for political office in Cali, you had to be sure there was nothing on your record that showed you'd ever been associated with a "subversive" group. Ronnie had once been a part of some organisation not beloved by the crazy, cold war-fearing idiots, but Hoover hid that association so St Ronnie could become what he did best: a puppet, a figurehead whose strings were pulled by someone else.

So in Cali in the 60s, we saw Ronnie cut state funds to mental hospitals, starting the first wave of homelessness and schizophrenics without care or meds that had to live on the streets. Fifteen years later, he took his act national--and we still have repercussions to this day.

I for one will NEVER get over how cold and unresponsive Reagan's regime was towards AIDS. Those fuckers made it obvious they didn't care because it was only affecting an "undesirable" part of the population, so your friends and mine, your family and mine, all died needlessly while St Ronnie and Nancy lived in their bubble. A man like that should be reviled not reveared!

Anyway, the whole J Edgar/Ronnie connection was printed in the Sunday Chronicle in June 2002--a whole huge exposee written by a Chron reporter who spent SEVENTEEN years petitioning for it under the Freedom of Information act. It's full of reality-based-not-so-nice stuff about ST Ronnie. I'll find the link and post it for those interested.