Sure, the entire global economic and cultural security happens to be at stake in the Middle East at the moment, but that hasn't quite stopped the mainstream media from gushing over this weekend's "100th Birthday" of Ronald Wilson Reagan. When he passed away in the middle of the 2004 Presidential Election, no major media outlet passed up the opportunity to canonize St. Ronnie and thank him endlessly for fluffy insignificant accolades about "restoring America's Confidence" and "Tearing Down the Wall". Let's set aside the fact that both bestowals are not only grossly exaggerated but factually misguided. Despite horrific evidence around us to the contrary, the general reputation and perception of the man was whitewashed to nearly unfathomable degrees then - and with that evidence strengthened one-hundred-fold in the past 7 years - it's being done so once again.
I don't have the time, patience or desire (at the moment) to craft the necessary thousand-page indictment of what Ronald Reagan did to the country, let alone the planet. Fortunately, the abridged version is just as compelling. To speak bluntly: Just about every crisis we've dealt with in the last 10 years is Reagan's chickens coming home to roost.
From a fiscal point of view, the basic premise of Reaganomics was lower taxes and looser financial regulations. Theoretically government spending reduction was supposed to be a key pillar of the plan but the Military Industrial Complex begs to differ. You know what? It all sounds dandy and responsible in theory, but in sheer practicality, the rich have never been richer, and the rest of us haven't budged. Working class dollars don't go nearly as far as they used to, while the upper tax brackets - who've never paid as little in taxes as they do now - have never been so prosperous.
This doesn't even take into account his firing the first salvo in the ongoing war against union workers that continues to this day.
A return to pre-Reagan tax codes would do wonders to our budget deficit, but you'll never hear a teabagger say that. Hell no, they'd rather just make grandma eat 9 Lives.
And how did that banking de-regulation work out?
Socially, Ronald Reagan makes Rick Santorum look like Harvey Milk. His blatant disregard (or if you prefer, criminal negligence) for the gay community and inner city "welfare queens" as he called them allowed both the AIDS and crack-cocaine epidemics spread like bedbugs in a brothel. 1985 wasn't 1685. We had the capabilities and resources at our disposal to educate and combat these societal plagues, but ol' Ronny thought it was much more important to send his wife out there to lecture white kids on smoking pot instead.
Oh, yeah, the Cold War. While we were engaged in a global game of Monopoly with the "Evil Empire", the Soviets found themselves knee-deep in their own Vietnam, in a lovely little paradise known as Afghanistan. I think you heard of it. The Reagan Administration Policy? Arm Afghan militants to the teeth, educate them in guerrilla warfare, and then abandon them when all was said and done so they could continue living in the Stone Age with a massive power vacuum. That vacuum? Filled by the Taliban. Those guerrillas? The eventual Al Qaeda. One Republican's Guerrilla is another Republican's Terrorist I guess.
But hey, would you expect any less from the men who sold Weapons of Mass Destruction to Saddam Hussein?
I'd also be remiss to point out that his Executive Order slashing foreign aid to third world countries that provide or push any form of birth control has not only increased the already horrific poverty they live in, but allowed diseases such as AIDS to completely ravage indigenous regions across the southern hemisphere.
So forgive me if I refuse to get caught up in the hoopla of the Gipper's Birthday, or conveniently sweep the overwhelming evidence of his fuckupedness under the rug. I know no President is perfect. FDR interred Japanese in concentration camps. Nixon was a crook. But we don't have internment camps anymore and Watergate was actually one of the better incidents in recent Presidential history, leading not only to Nixon's resignation, but tighter oversight of elected officials and campaign finance. (Well, it did until Reagan appointees like Antonin Scalia and Reagan staffers like John Roberts said "No".) To this day, we're still swimming with our heads barely above water in Reagan's cesspool.
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