This should be a "teaching moment"

I am pushing 50. Ronald Reagan dominated my young adulthood and drained the world of anything that looked like hope. For those not drinking the kool-aid it was a time of despair.

I was in Washington DC when about 25% of my art school class died of AIDS and the streets of Washington became open air flop-houses, jammed with homeless former mental patients.

And I saw the sharpest economic downturn since the depression fist hand. Granted, it was Paul Volker's doing, and it did wring runaway inflation out of the economy, but at an appalling human cost that Reagan had no interest in ameliorating.

But I realize that anyone under 30 knows Reagan primarily from his national myth. And we should not blame anyone who has been raised in a culture that covers Reagan's almost infinite flaws for not getting the full horror of the man.

So, to anyone to whom Reagan is merely an historical figure... he was the first-draft of George W. Bush. Really. I promise. In relative terms, he was that bad, that shocking. And all of Bush's atrocities are ripples emanating from 1) Nixon's Southern Strategy, and 2) Ronald Reagan and the birth of the modern proto-fascist conservative movement.

I am sure that most Duers my age and older can testify about the moment they first realized George W. Bush was more disgusting than Ronald Reagan. It was a shock to all of us because we didn't think that was possible!

I think Mondale may have had a shot if it wasn't for that stupid tank moment.

I was hoping that when Bush I was running the first time people would have "got it". Amazingly it took twelve fucking years for people to finally figure out what inept assholes those people were.

Unfortunatly, then came Clinton who ran on "Ending welfare as we know it" and threw in other ideas like energy independance and enviornmentalism. The Democrats at that time completely flubbed up any momentum they had to keep the right at bay for at least another generation.

I think in my lifetime (I'm 34 now) the people in charge have been the most inept group of nit wits ever assembled in the history of manking. I really believe this.

I also think they are extremely selfish and fucking greedy. Then again, no surprise that even some Democrats think Reagan was a hero.

The explosion of 1994 was driven by a sense of thwarted entitlement. During the period the Republican party became what it is today they held the Presidency and they thought they owned it... they were the king who dealt with a disorderly house of commons.

If Clinton had been George Washington things might have gone about the same way.

I think I saw my first "Impeach Clinton" sticker before he was even inaugurated.

I give him props for at least holding the fascists at bay for a while. And if it wasn't for the Butterfly ballot and 9/11, we would be looking at the Clinton legacy differently. His hand-picked successor was a good man and got more votes.

Terrible time, it's what got me *involved* in politics, that fuck Reagan.

He really was the ground work for Bush and the whole republican agenda.

We are LIVING his legacy NOW.

I followed politics in the late sixties and the seventies but in the eighties I let my world shrink around me and didn't bother to follow politics much. It wasn't till the first gulf war that I woke up again.

I came of age during the 80's. I grew up in a leftie household so it was not a surprise that I hated Reagan but Carter was the first Dem president I remembered.

Really, Reagan radicalized me, he was so bad, and then Bush, it was like it would never end.

Dare to study! Dare to pass!

to move us out of that agenda and vision of America. Clinton didn't do it.

Well said.

:kick:

But it would be a ridiculous strategy to ignore the fact that he was extremely popular and that his message to a certain extent resonated with the American people. That's the entire reason that the DLC was founded, which is why I find it really funny that Hillary's supporters are attacking Obama over this.

I knew it at 18... Haven't changed my mind since.

fell asleep during much of acting class.

I'm pushing 50 and saw the same crap unfold beginning with Mr. fucking Reagan. It was the ignition (though not the beginning) of the depressing situation we find ourselves in today.

One good thing I have gotten from this little research into what Mr. Obama said is that though I didn't much like Obama for a choice of nominee, I now have seen enough to be vehemently opposed to the chance of him winning nomination. I don't care for this sheep in sheep's clothing with the wolves behind his curtain of empty hope. I pray his facade is seen through in time by all the starry-eyed supporters who seem to think he is the best thing to come along since bubble-gum.

I learned to loathe Reagan when he was Governor of California and set the University of California on the road to hell. What used to be a fine almost FREE public university is today still a good university if you can afford to go there. The fact that it has kept up academically is certainly not due to Ronnie "Trees Cause Air Pollution" Reagan and the many ways he cut off support.

But maybe I'm being too hard on the doddering old fool. If it weren't for him, every dumpster would not have a homeless person to attend to it and harvest its bounty. If it weren't for him, Mr. Gorbachev might not have torn down that wall. If it wasn't for him, Iran might have fewer arms in their arsenal. And who can forget the brilliance of supply side economics, lighting the way to deficit spending like a red light in a whorehouse window?

put in the WH -- but I agree, Teflon Ronnie was the flight test. Just like the War on some Drugs was the test flight of the War on some Terrorists.

Same bullshit.

for what was to come next, the Bush WH I+II.

The Clintons interrupted their flow chart by winning the presidency and forestalling what we are experiencing today. The Iraq War for Oil, a depressed economy, joblessness, breaking of the Middle Class, designating the "Haves and the Have Nots".

Any wonder why Clinton hated runs so deep? The Neoconic fascists would be further along with their PNAC agenda had the Clintons not plucked their fascist agenda out of the jaws of Victory in 91'.

I, too, am pushing 50. I actually got fooled and voted for Reagan the first time he ran. I never got fooled again. I have friends who are dead from his horrendous policies regarding AIDS and family members who have never really recovered from his Reagonomics.

And, I wholeheartedly agree that it appears GWB will end up historically worse....and that says a bloody lot.

Thanks K&H.

Not a bad metaphor at all.

I will not kid myself or anybody else into the realities of life in the 70s. The job market sucked. Inflation was scary. Crime was rising. Cities were dying. Industry was leaving. Most of the country looked like Ohio and Michigan. There were Congressional scandals. The hostages. The Olympics boycott.

It was pretty gloomy and Reagan DID project optimism and did unite the country around his vision. That's how WE GOT WHERE WE ARE TODAY.

You can stay on that path, with tinkering around the edges - or you can elect someone who can give a new generation of Americans a new vision and image of America.

I lived through it, too. I thought Nixon was the most disgusting until Reagan came along. The true national nightmare from which we have yet to wake up is the Reagan Revolution. That is what Obama is looking to accomplish, ending the Reagan Revolution.

I would have felt more comfortable and trusting had Obama used FDR or JFK, die-hard Democrats, whos actions reflected his words.

for the shit we were perpetrating in Nicaragua.

But in early 1985 Ronnie described the contras as "the moral equal of our Founding Fathers."

I was 5 when Reagan first took office; what's up with the whole blame-Reagan-for-AIDS thing?

it was just a gay disease. Why should we get all worked up over that?

Essentially, as long as I've known about sex as such (say, since 1986) I've known about AIDS.

I'm only musing on this because it's been a generational gap whenever I've been doing GLBT advocacy work. People about my age or below don't have the anger about HIV/AIDS that older activists do. For that matter, we were always frankly irked that there were more AIDS protests than fundraisers (seriously, which one do you think would do more good?)

It just seemed odd because people with heart disease, emphysema, pancreatic cancer, etc., didn't explode with fury that Reagan wouldn't talk about their disease; they started fundraisers. I think I'm not the only young-thirty-something to ask why AIDS activists took so long to go that route.

His Surgeon General was under strict WH orders not to MENTION the word "AIDS." When health officials went on television, the media was called ahead of time and told the preconditions were that AIDS was not to be discussed. Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer were two of the domestic policy advisors/communications staff who had his ear on this, along with many of the major figures in the religious rightwing. Surgeon General Koop today admits that it was unforgivable - that the administration let people who hated the gay community dictate the policy. The epidemic raged on for six or seven long years, killing tens of thousands, before Reagan even ACKNOWLEDGED it.

...and as someone on the "younger" side of the gap I'm sick of older progressives telling me that Ronald Reagan's ends were so bad that we have to forswear his means.