Musing On Ronald Reagan...

Oh gee no responses to anything yet so I think I'll "reprint" an "essay" I wrote on another blog when the subject of Ronald Reagan came up. With maybe some "alterations." Here goes:

Reagan was a fascinating character really and neither as "bad" a president as claimed nor as "great" as his worshipers "divine" -- but then that was never "the point."

In 1980 there was a strange rather "configuration of forces in the zeitgeist" so to speak in which a well meaning but usually inept president named Jimmy Carter proved himself inordinately snake bitten and/or incompetent except that he had beaten in the Democratic presidential primaries none other than TEDDY KENNEDY, heir presumptive, who it seems had to be punished for behaving so ridiculously and recklessly and getting away with it because he was a Kennedy.

And also at that time there was a country of so little account in Americans' perception that had a "shah" and "shahette" who were mainly social figures to "US" which suddenly and to our great confusion thrust the beginning of the Islamic wars on the American consciousness. (And we didn't even know what "Islam" was! It was "Mohammedism" hm.)

That country proceeded to have a weird "revolution" in which what struck Americans as "medievalists" took over and then took over an embassy, the American embassy no less!, and "held hostage" the US tv audience for 444 days no less! (night after night) and made "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" a POPULAR song!

In the meantime Reagan talked of "killer trees," fired his first campaign manager and had "everyone" declaring he was too old and too dumb to win but "There you go again!" and with his magnetic (and shit eating) grin he seemingly banished the awful 1960s with its race riots, Vietnam war, multiple assassinations and lost hopes as well as the banal '70s with its "Partridge Family" and jail baiting "Marsha!" and its president who finally became a combination of "The Godfather" and "The French Connection" -- no "Camelot" he!

(And he brought back the legend of the '50s, the Ike smile, "Father Knows Best" -- Reagan's persona as prez -- and the idea that all was "right" with the world because you could see "Wagon Train" every Wednesday evening and "Gunsmoke" Saturday night! Not to mention "General Electric Theater" with its amiable host on Sunday eh!)

Reagan himself was a fantasy, a collective fantasy of course, that Americans conspired with to keep at bay the boogie men of its recent unhappy even tragic past. When Reagan admitted he had abjured reading the "briefing book" for his next "summit" in order to watch a rerun of "The Sound of Music" on tv some were appalled but most applauded -- it was EXACTLY what "they" would have done! (It was EXACTLY their fantasy of having "power" and never having to answer to "the boss" for not getting your work done huh.)

Perhaps no odder man (but Lincoln) occupied the white house and then -- magically! -- vanished, evaporated into his own private mental fantasia, leaving "US" to the out of the loopy Bushes and the Boy Clinton with his sexophone and getting the girls to "play doctor."

Yes whenever the world gets too tough we can always summon up the Reagan fantasy and recall what FUN it was to have a president having fun! (Even at our -- AND others' -- "expense" eh.)

'Til Daddy took the T-bird away! hm...

". . .recall what FUN it was to have a president having fun!

I never thought of the possibility of RR having "Fun" in the presidency, still less
of We the Voters (except for a small elite) having fun.
He may not have found the conventional wisdom that "he wasnʻt even a GOOD actor!" very joy-enhancing.
Same with the conventional wisdom that
he "starred in B movies." (He didnʻt, or at least in none that I can remember,
and I started attending double features, which always had an an "A" AND a "B", ca. 1938.
All his roles were in A (though this isnʻt synonymous with "Good" or "Great")
movies. The worst role ever inflicted on him was probably that of the Professor in
"Sheʻs Working her Way through College" co-starring him and Virginia Mayo. The film was loosely based on a James Thurber play, the Male Animal
As for being a good actor, Iʻve always
thought that, if you can fool people into
thinking youʻre more Conservative than Gerald R. Ford, you ARE -- in real life -- a damn good actor.

And if you didn't say the word 'AIDS' for six(?) years, then AIDS wouldn't exist, and everyone could carry on having fun. That was pure GENIUS!

" ....(Reagan) didnʻt say the word ʻAIDSʻ for six(?) years. . ." (3)

Did Reagan eschew the very word? (with his Adminstration following suit?) I was in Tonga throughout his 1st term, and for much of his 2nd. (My wife and I voted, absentee, for Walter Mondale, in 1984, and heard, on radio the re-elected Reagan saying "You ainʻt seen anything# YET!") We did get occasional mentions of AIDS, but then our news reports emanated mainly from
Australia, Aotearoa,* and the UK.

#or was it "Nothing, yet" ?

*Aotearoa: aka New Zealand; aka "Newsworthyland"

If you've seen one tree you've seen them all, ketchup is a vegetable, I'm paying for this microphone, Mr. Green, Presidential schedule based on astrology, calling his wife "mommie", StarWars, lambasting "welfare queens" as the ultimate evil, in bed by 10 PM and up at 8 AM, firing all the travel controllers, cutting lose the insane to live on the streets, ......

Yep, those were the good old days.

Oh, yeah - he was on the cutting edge of social change, being the first divorced President. And he raised taxes and he "cut and run" in Lebanon, yet he is the darling of right-wingers today. Stupid.

Given your views on religion, JGL,
you may be happy to hear Robert Kaplanʻs pedantic but delightful correction of capsule accounts of RR:
"They say that he ʻSeldom goes to churchʻ, and that isnʻt quite right, but itʻs close. To be perfectly accurate, they should just change the
adverb ʻseldomʻ to ʻneverʻ."

Reagan was a horrible president--meant more of Mr. Kissinger. He did much to destroy labor unions in this country. His economic policies, foreign policy--his war on drugs--it was all crap. His legacy is very dark.

Is there someone here who voted for Reagan and can explain his appeal? Or just liked the guy? Because there are a lot of people who did.

He was a puppet not a president.

I voted against Reagan/Bush in both 1980
and 1984, in the latter by absentee ballot, all the way from Tonga.

This year I have taken an intense dislike to the casual voting absentee, (encouraged by the Election Commission here!) whether youʻre really "absent" or not -- i.e. instead of going to the polls when youʻre very much "present" near. This "absentee" voting by non-absentees creates countless problems,
post-election is, for 11/14, an "accident waiting to happen." In a primary
with incumbent Brian Schatz (D HI), U. S. representative Colleen Hanabusa (D, HI) was disputing
former Lt. Gov. and appointed incumbent senator Brian Schatzʻs narrow victory over her, a hassle that started because
one district had to vote 10 or so days late, due to
Hurricane Issele, (But Schatz won THAT district, so end of
dispute.

Reagan reminded folk in the US after a lost war, after a (caught red handed) crook president, after being humbled by the Arabs, after a slow economy and Japanese cars, after all that he reminded people that the US was a shining city on a hill; ironically he gave the nation alzheimer's before he himself got it. He was an actor with personal appeal, simple messages however bizarre, tough talk to Soviets...

I don't know what there is good to say about Reagan. I can't think of a fucking thing--honestly. I think the idea of the thread is show open-mindedness towards the other side--which is nice I suppose but it definitely doesn't work here for me. #11--shining city on the hill ='s pie in the sky.

And yeah Carter was a bumbling fuck up but IMO he is probably our best president since FDR. The one real nasty blemish of his is his friendship with the Shah. Gas prices went up--comparitively speaking that's a whoopty do when you look back at it. They were going to go up anyway. They were going to go to where they are now. I don't particularly care for most democrats either. I really didn't like Clinton but compared to Reagan and the Bush's--no contest that the republican's are the worst.

Here's a clip of Mr Reagan as candidate for Governor of California (starting at 50 secs) from the documentary "Berkeley in the Sixties." http://youtu.be/rGd_EsNCM4Y

THREE rock and roll bands!

And let's not forget his chummy collaboration with the Witch of Westminster.

I voted for Reagan the first time. My only excuse was that I was young, newly married and my husband was being mentored/befriended/brainwashed by an Amway consultant. After a while I had a hard time swallowing the whole anti-feminist bent of said business opportunity, and we quit selling the stuff (in their defense my husband & I are total losses when it comes to selling anything). After watching Iran-Contra hearings, Anita Hill's testimony, the rise of homelessness, the closing of state mental institutions and subsequent rise in prison population, the do-nothingness of AIDS, the stupidity of trickle down economics, etc etc etc, I did not vote for him the 2nd time around, and have never voted for a Republican president since. The last 10 years or so, I have in fact voted a straight Dem ticket. About the only thing I can say good about the man was his "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall" was a pretty good sound bite. IMO, the Wall would have come down eventually anyway.
My husband, OTOH, thinks Reagan hung the moon, Nixon was a good president, and don't even get me started on his delusions about both Bushes. But then, the man is still convinced that OJ Simpson was innocent of murder. Honestly, I just have to overlook these serious flaws in the man. :)

The glove didn't fit.

>16 theretiredlibrarian:
Either you must have some interesting dinner conversations or you agree to disagree about certain topics.

The question is why does the man believe these things? What would change his mind?

Interesting article on the consequences of releasing the inmates from the asylums:
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_home...

I've also read that Reagan's housing policies led to the massive increase in homelessness.

>14 RickHarsch: I like that after saying he couldn't read the DA report because it described events "so contrary to our standards of human behavior", he reads it anyway.

18--Great article. It relates things I kinda sorta knew, but didn't know about the documentation. I've forwarderd it to my husband, but I doubt he'll change his mind about anything. Still, hope springs eternal...and yes, we have interesting conversations, and some things we just agree to disagree. However, the OJ thing just boggles my mind...

>20 theretiredlibrarian:
Maybe husband should join us.

Not likely to happen...he (gasp) seldom reads anything not work related. (I did get him to read the Hunger Games trilogy though...) He's a pretty conservative pastor, and I can't get him to agree with me that Jesus was a Democrat, lol. I'm always sending him stuff from The Christian Left though. He's mellowed on a few things, but really we're just worlds apart politically. The first half of our marriage we were both pretty apolitical, so it was a nonissue. I'm the one who's done the most changing (including being more vocal about my beliefs), so I can't really bash him too much. We've got 32 years invested in each other, so we just keep canceling out each other's votes, and (mostly) let it go at that.

Ronald Reagan had acted tough on the Iranian crisis hostage as soon as he took office.

The crisis ended swiftly when President-elect Ronald Reagan send the Iranian government a message saying the hostages were to be released and returned unharmed or he would despatched the full might of US military's forces against Iran as soon as he took office.

Would the out-going President Jimmy Carter could had done the same thing?

Carter was too timid and afraid to do so.

"Carter was too timid and afraid to (threaten the Iranian government with "the full might of the U. S. military... ..."

Hmm, I donʻt know. Carter WAS courageous enough to invite the deposed Shah to get medical treatment in the U. S. , and that was what became the given reason for
the seizure of the diplomats
as hostages. I think a "timid" president would have given the Shah no more than a polite "no".
Not that I think Carter made the RIGHT decision, but it
must be acknowledged that it was a decision, so he canʻt be faulted for timidity or undecisivness. (Itʻs rumored that he made the decision on the advice of two "Internationalist" Republicans:
Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller.)
Also, I somehow missed the newspaper/TV account (if any) of the incoming president "threat", and I couldnʻt swear that what you describe ever happened. But Reagan did manage to give the impression that the Iranians would not dare to keep the hostages for even 24 hours of a Reagan administration. But the timing of the whole thing
makes it seem quite possible
that the Iraniansʻ minds were, by 01/81, already made up, already
resigned to a release,
worked out, on the U. S side, mainly by Warren Christopher* --but with the proviso that they would NOT be released TO the
the hated Carter administration.

*later Clintonʻs Sec. of State.

14...I'll have no more racist posts, thank you.

22...Jesus was an anarchist with a socialist's heart.

'Jesus was an anarchist with a socialist's heart'---pretty much right on. That's why he had to die. The Romans didn't give a rat's ass what his religious beliefs were or weren't. The temple elder's maybe did more-so but the main problem was he was a threat to their little set-up.

Hmmm, things haven't changed much in 2000 years. Now the ultra conservatives talk about What Would Jesus Do, wrap themselves up in the American flag (which they worship on par with the Cross), and vilify the poor at the same time bemoaning the fact their tax dollars are being used to help the unfortunate. Those hippies Reagan railed against...any many ways they were more Christian than the "silent majority". Well, except maybe for the drugs and sex. But the "love they neighbor" and "share" was right up there with Jesus' crew. :)

See what Ronald Reagan had done to a nation.

National Debt: Jan 20,1981 - US$934,073,000,000

National Debt: Jan 20,1989 - US$2,697,000,000

In Office: 2,922 days

He was a "figurehead President" who smiled and waved a lot,warming his seat at Oval Office, White House.

Was RR a well-liked President or a monster?

Was RR a well-liked President or a monster?The former, but I didnʻt share the affection that the majority of the U. S. voters had for him. I voted for his opponent* both times, though neither was a favorite of mine. In his first term his popularity was understandable. His 2nd term featured the "Iran/Contra imbroglio and the term was a disaster, but no more so than those of Eisenhower, L. Johnson,
Nixon and Clinton. His vice-president, George H.W. Bush (neither was a great admirer of the other) won easily, and became a 1-term
president, and then was defeated by Bill Clinton. Bush had been appointed to run for vice president, BECAUSE OF, not IN SPITE OF Bushʻs being from the opposite "wing" of the Party.

*1980: John Anderson ( I, IN)
(a Republican who ran as an Independent). He won no states, with incumbent Jimmy Carter (D, GA) winning 6 while Reagan was
winning 44.

1984 (absentee vote):
Walter Mondale (D, MN)

RR also used the services of the Chinese geomancers for Feng Shui?

What a revelation, he was such a President dabbling in occult and astrological readings with the influence coming from First Lady, Nancy Reagan. Yes, a successful man had a backing of his wife,

"Reaganʻs . . .dabbling in the occult." (31)

I wouldnʻt consider Reagansʻ
use of astrology as "dabbling" in the occult. I havenʻt known any professional astrologers, but Iʻve known some seemingly good amateurs, and they were generally pretty down-to-earth.no-nonsense people. So I donʻt much connect astrology with esoterica.

This is how I remember him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FaH7ATXkWg

Was RR having a hint of dementia while in office?

Read his Gallup Poll rating.

www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx

He was an average President.

I think there are those who over esteem Reagan's influence on the breakup the Soviet Union. For them he's a champion on a white horse for freedom. All the while though he supported right wing dictatorships especially Latin American ones and not just Nicaragua. He supported Pinochet. He supported the Argentine generals and admirals at least until they got under the skin of his bosom body Margaret with the Falklands debacle. So much for freedom. The Soviet Union in any case was heading for a breakup. The Politburo could no longer logistically or economically hold it all together. They had strung things out to the point they were no longer tenable. Reagan more than less just happened to be POTUS at the time it all started to unravel. Like almost any other politician would--he and his people took full advantage of taking credit for it.

A good friend of late Margaret Thatcher.

He was at "the right place at the right time" to dismantle Soviet Union.

Why he supported the Latin American tyranny and leaders?

" . . .Why he supported the Latin American tyrrany and leaders?" (37)

For one thing, (because of term limits) imposed during his predecessor Eisenhowerʻs time, NOT having to face another re-election campaign, so he could do pretty much whatever he felt like. My own take on it is that he would have been re-elected in 1988, if eligible, no matter what was his Latin American policy.
Ike, by contrast, had a policy of "Merely a cold handshake for a dictator and save the ʻabrazosʻ* for democratic regimes. A policy that, it is said was under the
influence of his brother Milton Eisenhower, and that M. E. in turn was influenced by the head of Boston Universityʻs Latin American Program, a moderate conservative, who had (mid-1950s) replaced
Maurice Halperin, a staunch socialist, as director of the program.

>36 lriley:

The Soviet Union in any case was heading for a breakup. The Politburo could no longer logistically or economically hold it all together. They had strung things out to the point they were no longer tenable.

Not to support Reagan, but that can not be assumed. Just look at North Korea.

In any case, if they had more time and breathing space, the Soviet Union might have been able to adopt some kind of sustainable totalitarian model. Like perhaps what China has done.

Soviet Russia was once a totalitarian state under Josef Stalin after the collapse of The Russian Empire under Nicholas II after the revolution in November 1917.

Vladimir Putin now have the agenda to capture back the former territories forming into a New Soviet Union, first accession to a portion of Ukraine.

Is Putin now turning back the clock?

Communist China have prospered under a totalitarian regime but democratic freedom and human rights of her people is zero and being monitored closely.
The rich, the capitalists are contented but not the poor 90 million citizens.

The citizens of Hong Kong do not want the "puppet" leaders under the strict rein of the Communist China's regime.

Can the H K's population win their battles of "self-rule" with their own choice of office bearers in the H K's government?

I doubt they are going to achieve their goals, surely there will be a massive clampdown and arrests of dissidents.

Can two countries and one government really works?

There is not much news from Macau, is everything all right over there?

39 'Not to support Reagan, but that can not be assumed. Just look at North Korea.'

I agree with Iriley, but even if I did not I would have found the above utterly hilarious. Imagine the other way round, about the US...Just look at Costa Rica.

Further, I believe the intellectual (so to speak), maybe better said, the propaganda, fallout from the breakup of the Soviet Union is likely to be looked upon as a humanitarian disaster, as so many states have suffered economically from following the US model, or trying to, while often being manipulated by the US and/or EU. I would guess that no former Soviet Satellite would like to be under the Soviets again, but I do know that many people in these countries lament basic social-economic security. In Slovenia, the difference is that Yugoslavia was not a Soviet Satellite, and since I have been here (13 years now) people openly long for the past, pre-independence.

>41 RickHarsch:

I agree with Iriley, but even if I did not I would have found the above utterly hilarious. Imagine the other way round, about the US...Just look at Costa Rica.

Why, may I ask? The only point was that being an economic basket case does not require the collapse of a regime. And North Korea is undoubtedly in a much worse economic situation then the USSR ever was, and yet it endures.

What on earth does the US or Costa Rica have to do with it? Last time I checked the US was also still in place, despite whatever economic issues it might currently have.

#41--Naomi Klein had quite a bit to say about the manipulation done by global economic entities as to why the peoples of those former soviet states were to suffer. For one Lech Walesa went from a hero to most Poles to one of the biggest assholes who ever lived. For allowing them to join the Western economies--the World Bank the IMF and other globe trotting free trading entities were given carte blanche to impose their agenda and Eastern Europeans got a royal fucking.

CEE ( Central & Eastern Europe Countries) in the European Union have experienced good economic growth.

www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/europe_map.htm

Eastern Europe's most important trading partners are the central European countries of Germany,France,Great Britain,Austria,Spain,Italy and the Netherlands as well as Russia and Sweden.

Surely,there are trade being frequently conducted among these countries as well.

CEE have much to enjoy the prosperity of the European Union entity.

From a political standpoint, the emergence of Gorbachev is certainly neither explained nor caused by Reagan. From an economic standpoint, scholars and critics in the 1970s and 80s noticed the un-sustainability of the Soviet economic model (i.e., the succession of Five Year Plans that failed the test of economic rationality). From a military standpoint, the USSR's failure in Afghanistan predates Reagan. In short, the idea that Reagan "defeated communism" is revisionist punditry. But it satisfies the rapacious appetite of American exceptionalists.

>39 hf22:

What I took away from William Taubman's biography Khrushchev : the man and his era was that the Soviet leadership knew next to nothing about governance — they appear to have been more-or-less playing at countries, a sort of real-time RPG that lasted for seven decades.

Well I succeeded beyond my "dreams" of getting "discussion" going by just saying "Reagan" and whadaya know "S-l-o-w-l-y I turned, step by step --"! Obviously the guy is still worth "copy."

First he wasn't a "bad" actor -- just "ordinary," i. e., by Hollywood standards he had a "limited" but still "useful" range, like SO many others. In "Kings Row" (his favorite film) he was quite effective and also in "Voice of the Turtle" and "Prisoner of War" but sure "they" were right not to give him the part of "Rick" in "Casablanca" (he was discussed for it) or of "Curtin" in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (Huston considered him).

And EVERY prez has his downsides (which is why Harsch "likes" only one -- the "deadest" one eh) and no, Reagan wasn't the guy who "won the cold war" single handed -- that was a "process" starting with one Harry Truman eh but RR made important "deals" with Gorby that actually REDUCED the numbers of nukes rather than set mere "ceilings" on the next "rise" and effectively eased that "cold" aspect -- warmed it up for its next (and fatal -- to communism) phase.

And of course Gorbachev had more to do with the fall of the "iron curtain" by what he DIDN'T do -- send in the clowns er the tanks. Gorby, the "reform" ("perestroika" remember?) communist, was the man who "destroyed communism" by not understanding that it had no longer any "room" for reform, something by the way Reagan had perceived in predicting its "inevitable" demise.

I voted for the guy TWICE! although I "kind of" regret it. I NEVER "warmed" to Carter (Mo Udall was "my man" in the '76 Demo primaries -- anybody recall "Mo"?) and so I voted for Eugene McCarthy running as a third party candydandy partially because I felt guilty for not voting for him in the Wisconsin primary in 1972 (I voted for McGovern, another "loser" though a winner in the Wis primary!) and I was too young to vote for him in '68 (although NOT "too young" to be posted to uh "southeast Asia" eh).

In 1980 said McCarthy actually endorsed Reagan (I kid you not!) thereby giving me for one the opening you might say to vote for oh "glamour" as per Hollywood in the White House! and forget those bad ol' boring Carter years!

I sort of "fell in love" with the guy while thinking of myself as did other "liberal lovers" like Paul Nitze and Jeane Kirkpatrick (remember them?) as a "neo con," i. e., a lib anti commie and therefore apologist for Reagan's foreign policy which included such clutzy stuff as "invading Beirut" during a civil war (THAT was a um "blast" hm), knocking off Grenada and thereby "saving" the leeward islands from uh "communism" and then going after the Sandinistas in Nicaragua who were sort of bumbling their way along anyway and then "we" funded the brutish and rather inept "contras" in a "secret war" that didn't "need" to be and which resulted in the machinations with Iran and paying ransom for hostages and nearly getting RR impeached!

(Luckily the Democrats had spent YEARS contending that Reagan was "out of the loop," a "forgetful" president, so when he insisted that he couldn't REMEMBER paying off for hostages "they" HAD to believe him!)

And yeah he looked (most of the time sans the Iran-contra stuff) like he was having FUN being prez (plenty of naps, nice quarters above the office, free trips to anywhere, a whole "camp" at one's disposal in the Maryland mountains -- what's NOT to like?) and Carter never looked like that, much less Nixon.

Reagan's time was a kind of "interlude," almost a Fantasy Island" ("De plane! De plane!") in which one was "president for a day!" only it went on and on for several thousands of days. His leaving in January 1989 was "necessary" in order to "get serious" again but sigh! The cocked head, the shit eating grin -- the untroubled innocence of the undisturbed mind! Never to see his like again -- and maybe that's a "relief"!?...

44 Central and eastern Europe? Which is which? Which is where? Poland is doing well. The economies of Czech, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, all are in the shitter. I don't know about Slovakia. I checked your site and found a map and an EU symbol.

I'm sure you didn't mean to include Spain in central Europe, but it'll get you in a good fight in Warszaw if you tell the Poles they are in eastern Europe.

One of the reasons ex-Jugoslav countries are in shit is because the country had, largely, its own economy, and now each country is an unequal trading partner of your big EU nations. Banks, coastal properties, brewerys, etc., are bought up by Germans, Brits, Italians.

Take note, too, that Greece has its capital east of virtually the entirety of Poland.

The US will never recover from your Reagan interlude, I'm afraid. The disparity of income became a growth target and continues to grow. The progressive income tax was nixed. He pulled off his job of front man for the greatest heist in human history, allowing a very small number of people to impoverish the majority of the people in the wealthiest country in the world.

>45 theoria:

an economic standpoint, scholars and critics in the 1970s and 80s noticed the un-sustainability of the Soviet economic model (i.e., the succession of Five Year Plans that failed the test of economic rationality). From a military standpoint, the USSR's failure in Afghanistan predates Reagan.

Except the US also had economic issues in say the 1970s, and its own military failures in Vietnam. Further the fact that the USSR would collapse was not well predicted.

And as I said above, mere economic un-sustainability does not require a collapse of a political system on the scale of the USSR, as they can carry on (as in say North Korea) or reform economically within the same political system (as in say China).

In that context, forcing the USSR to continue a global pissing contest had to increase the pressure on it, and contribute to its collapse. Not to mention the massive propaganda war which underminded its ideology - There was clearly a loss of confidence in the USSR's ideology from the people who lead the USSR.

>46 librorumamans:

What I took away from William Taubman's biography Khrushchev : the man and his era was that the Soviet leadership knew next to nothing about governance — they appear to have been more-or-less playing at countries, a sort of real-time RPG that lasted for seven decades.

Except it was not only them. Read some of the output of the US Council on Foreign Relations during the period, and the thinking of people such as the Dulles brothers who ran much of US foreign policy for a significant amount of time.

It was not really top draw stuff.

The closest Americans came to income "equality" was actually during the great depression, and in the latter '30s under the New Deal, for reasons of a more "general" deprivation AND more progressive policies. Since then that "equality" has tracked "upward" for the richest and "downward" for the rest as you say.

Like Sean Connery I "never say never again" so I remain hopeful. Reagan certainly had a "role" in such but so did Walmart, the revival of Germany and Japan as well as the rest of Europe post WWII and the increasingly "international" economy.

The "future" is never really onward and upward or down and downward but more up and down and up and down. The economics of the 1970s were hardly "encouraging" and that was the MAJOR reason for Reagan's success in 1980. That "superinflation" was "beat" by Volcker and land and oil prices consequently tumbled (farmers NEVER "liked" Reagan) made 1984 not a "banner" year but a "better" one. Reagan "survived" on that nicely of course and on his "charm" -- even the SUGGESTION that he was well a little "off" in that first debate with Mondale was dismissed with a bon mot in the second.

Mondale might indeed have been a better prez and maybe in a sense "revived" liberalism but it was likely that Lyndon Johnson (ironically!) and the Vietnam war and even Richard Nixon (Garry Wills' "last liberal") had damaged it beyond any immediate repair?...

Gee I'm sorry it was deleted -- I'd be interested, agree or disagree.

Unless of course the "message" was "Fuck you!"...

>50 hf22:

Agreed. The Dulles brothers were nightmarish.

"sorry it was deleted . . . Unless ....(52>53>54)

Iʻve forgotten what 52 was about, and where it went wrong, but Iʻm sure it was NOT what 53 suggests.
Probably was an anecdote about the 1984 very one-sided race between Ray Gun and Moon Dial.
That was the elction that taught us that we can afford better comunication with outer space (a D-vote), or
state-of-the-art weapons, but NOT BOTH! So it was the election that most clearly brought bout the differences of philosophy between the 2 parties. (And where most voters
stand (?) - - I hope NOT!)

People make TOO much of presidents -- they're not "gods" and everything that happens isn't because "they" did it.

I mean gee I'M more of a "Marxist" here in that I see Reagan as a "product of history," the "times," whatever, than as the Greaat Mover & Shaker Who Changed It All For Everyone Forever. Essentially THAT is his present day worshipers' view...