This President is why America today is run by warmongers and traitors!

[Octafish]

First, the guy made it OK to be a racist in America, again.



Just to make sure people got the message of where he was coming from, Reagan declared his candidacy in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi.



President Obama would do well to learn, if not remember, the story from Terrel Bell, Prunefaces's shocked Secretary of Education, who heard White House staff refer to Dr. King as "Martin Lucifer Coon":



After he became one of the one-percent, Pruneface didn't care much for poor people or working people.

The Trickle Down crowd still holds sway in Washington, ask David Stockman or Penny Pritzker.

Then, the Prunefaced sumbitch made some kind of deal with the Ayatollah in order to hold the hostages until after the election.

Then, after the election, and after the Ayatollah blew up the US barracks in Beirut, Reagan did another deal with the Ayatollah to free another batch of hostages and used the profits to finance an illegal war in Central America.

Of course, Poppy Bush pardoned the various conspirators on behalf of the BFEE.

Poppy sort of took charge of things after Reagan, eh, slowed after that almost-assassin's bullet got him.



[font size="1"]In happier days, Detroit, July, 1980.[/font size]

[The Magistrate]

1. Cold Truth, Sir

No President has done such damage to the country and its people as he has done.

[polichick]

3. And yet half the country considers him a saint.

[The Magistrate]

11. A Sad Fact, Ma'am

A lot of those are 'aging out', at least.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. The next batch of 18 year old voters were born in Clinton's second term....

And were raised to think of Republicans as the Party of Dubya.

[calimary]

60. And Thank God for that!!!

Hope they take their bigotry and sexism to the grave with 'em, so the rest of us can live in relative peace and freedom.

I swear - hardly a week goes by when I do not see something else that reinforces everything I thought about the dreadful, dismal reagan years. That era was a downright miserable eight-year orgy of greed, selfishness, delusion, corner-cutting and cheating at the very highest levels, where it was ALL ABOUT rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer, rights-get-trampled, foxes guarding every henhouse, pirates and thieves running amok (because we simply could NOT have all those annoying pesky regulations in our way all the time, could we?!), and everyone but the one-percent not only got trickled on but flat-out PISSED and SHAT upon. That was such a grim, blighted, utterly God-forsaken time. America was literally drowning in Kool-aid. HORRIBLE. And in at least the last half of that era, that fucker was quite literally losing his frickin' mind and propped up for the gullible public like some pathetic, dog-eared cardboard cut-out.

It was the WORST of times in the most Dickensian sense. And there was no best of times for counterbalance. Unless of course you were a member of the coddled class. Everybody else was thoughtfully invited to go suck an egg or jump in the nearest lake, lulled into complacency by "Trickle-down! Rising tide raises all boats! You'll get yours too! One of these days reeeeeeeeeeal soon! We promise!"

Yeah, nobody realized what those fiends really meant when they insisted again and again and again - "Don't worry! Just keep on believin' and votin' for the GOP! Be patient! You'll get yours too!" Yeah. We got ours alright. In the shorts.

My hope is that I live long enough to see that bastard's name begin to be REMOVED from all the high schools and freeways and bridges and boulevards and government buildings out there from coast to coast. They can leave it on a dam or two if they absolutely have to see it emblazoned on some big public place somewhere (the more obscure the better). I want my Simi Valley Freeway BACK!!!! AND Washington National Airport, too!!!!

[ancianita]

114. He invented and fomented the Politics of Spite. It hit full on, domestically, and

much of a gullible public ate it up. I agree with you about that time. I was in misery over his election, over every single, spiteful, stinking piece of Gingrich shit that got shoveled onto his desk for signatures, and over the massive outsourcing of jobs he oversaw, the unions he smashed and the wreck he made of foreign policy.

[yeoman6987]

55. Ronald Reagan

He was reelected with 49 states only losing DC and Minnesota. I was too early to fully understand this but obviously he had something in the first four years that people liked. Don't ask me what it was because I was very young (not infant but a child).

[Sugarcoated]

89. Yeah

there was a reason he was called Rap Master Ronnie....he was an mediocre actor, but a fine salesman...

[dionysus]

100. my dad always said they sold reagan to us a product, like a bar of soap.

and we bought the product

[Beer Swiller]

96. The 49 state Electoral College victory was why the Democratic Leadership Council,

...of which Al Gore was a founding member, and which turned the Democratic Party away from its New Deal and Great Society ideals, was founded. I think those are worthy ideals which posed a real threat to the power of the wealthy in this country, and that THAT was the reason why powerful corporate interests backed Reagan. The DLC only cared about winning elections for the Blue Team; it cared nothing about the working people of America, as Bill Clinton proved when he pushed through NAFTA.

Going back to the 1984 election, however, it is important to remember that Walter Mondale, who was something of a European-style Social Democrat, got a solid 40% of the popular vote. He openly ran on a platform of peace with the Soviet Union, of opposition to imperial intervention in Third World countries, of some kind of real national health care system, and of raising taxes on the rich and upper middle class in order to provide services and lower the deficit. No matter how you slice it, 40% is a sizable minority. Just a 5% swing in Reagan voters would have put a Mondale into the White House.

New Democrats never, ever talk about that. For good reason.

I think what appealed to many voters back then was the constant drumbeat of "If you work hard, you too can be wealthy." Look at the TV shows that came out in the early '80's. Dallas, Dynasty, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, all these shows that celebrated wealth. It was a sharp change from the more socially aware shows of the '70's, such at All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, and, of course, M*A*S*H. I think it was a very deliberate, very calculated, and very insidious, propaganda campaign to roll back all of the reforms that had been accomplished over the previous 50 years.

Reagan himself was just the figurehead.

[CrispyQ]

107. An excellent post.

Instead of pointing out that Mondale got 40% of the popular vote running on liberal principals & standing by those principals, dem leadership used the shocking electoral red map to justify abandoning liberal principals & hopping on the gravy train. At the same time they were running as fast as they could from the word 'liberal' because a two bit actor poked fun at it. IMO, they have looked weak ever since.

An astute observation on the difference in TV shows. Look at the crap we have now. The top shows are 'reality' based TV, pitting one team against the other. Us vs. them, red vs. blue.

[truebluegreen]

135. Very good analysis, thank you!

After the oil shocks of the 70s and the defeat in Vietnam, many people just wanted to feel good about America, even if it meant denying reality. Saint Ronnie tapped into that, and put in motion policies that have this country teetering on the brink of disaster. He and his masters and henchmen deliberately undermined everything that made this country great for most of us, and instead fostered the oligarchy we have now...with, as you point out, the active participation of the so-called Democrats.

[ReasonableToo]

151. Great OP and great reply

Thanks for the analysis. My theory on the DLC is that they create a wall of sorts on the left that prevents the Dems from going as far left as progressive would like to go to actually fix the country for the 99%. The DLC seems to help limit the Dems to what Republicans will allow and put in place measures that Dems would not otherwise support.

Imagine if a non-DLC candidate came in after Reagan/Bush with a similar campaign (not exact) and still did the "are you better now than 4/8 years ago" spiel and then really fixed problems? WITHOUT repealing Glass-Steagall. WITHOUT the 3 strikes mentality for the department of corrections. WITHOUT NAFTA.

Can we unbrainwash some tea partiers to join the 99%? Can we carve support for a 99% candidate out of 99% of the population?

To do list before we have a chance to elect a 99% candidate:
-Election reform to bring back a representative gov't
-campaign finance reform
-preserve net neutrality
-stop allowing lying on news shows and news networks (dust off and reinstall the Fairness Doctrine)

Also, cross-kick for this net neutrality thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023659882

[indepat]

137. A saint clearly on the fast track to deification.

All hail the power of the mighty gipper and his virulent right-wing vision of America that is fast-ly reaching maturation, thanks to every successive Congress and administration and a virulently corrupt right-wing Supreme Court.

[Octafish]

4. His ''legacy'' continues, Sir, through the Federal Courts...

Reagan and the courts: A sober assessment

Michael C. Dorf
FindLaw Columnist
Special to CNN.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2004 Posted: 2:17 PM EDT (1817 GMT)

EXCERPT...

The lower federal courts: A one-sided impact

Because the Supreme Court hears very few cases, most of the decisional federal law in the United States is generated by the lower courts. Reagan's impact on the lower federal courts was more clearly one-sided than his impact on the Supreme Court.

To be sure, President Reagan made a number of truly stellar appointments to the lower federal courts -- powerful intellects such as Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. While every judge who honors his or her oath of office attempts to follow the law as he or she best understands it, these judges -- and some others -- distinguish themselves from their colleagues by ruling in no ideologically predictable pattern. Instead, they write persuasive and interesting opinions reaching an array of liberal, moderate, and conservative results.

The run of judges appointed by President Reagan, however, have followed a distressing pattern. To paint with broad strokes, where possible, they take a stingy view of the rights the law affords people.

A former law clerk to a prominent Reagan appointee to the federal appellate court once told me that his erstwhile boss said he liked to dismiss at least one case per week on jurisdictional grounds. The former clerk was not joking, and the judge's remark was consistent with his and many of his colleagues' rulings.

One might explain some of what I am calling stinginess as compassion directed elsewhere. Many petitioners in the federal courts are people who have been convicted of crimes; by denying their rights, Reagan judges may claim they are protecting the rights of crime victims.

Fair enough, but Reagan's appointees have fashioned legal doctrine and issued particular rulings that deny the rights of minorities facing race discrimination, asylum seekers, workers, the disabled, and other innocents whose losses do not translate into victories for anyone but the government.

Reagan v. Reagan's judges

Perhaps the best way to evaluate Reagan's legal legacy is by juxtaposing his own compassion with the philosophy of his appointees.

In his efforts to shrink the size of the government, President Reagan cut federal programs on which many people relied. Some of these people contacted Reagan and explained the hardships that resulted. It was reported that Reagan would sometimes try to help the individuals about whose cases he learned but that he would not revise the general policy that led to the particular hardship and to the many more hardships about which he did not have firsthand knowledge.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/09/dorf.reagan.courts/

[golfguru]

13. Are judges influencing war decisions?

That would be news to me. I thought it was the commander in chief along with his national security council and secretary of defense and secretary of state decide war issues. Which judge wants attack on Syria?

[Octafish]

32. The Courts certainly play a role in Secret Government.

For instance, the nation's top judge gets to set up the FISA court with his hand-picked crew:

Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA’s surveillance state?

By Ezra Klein
Washington Post, July 5

Chief justice of the United States is a pretty big job. You lead the Supreme Court conferences where cases are discussed and voted on. You preside over oral arguments. When in the majority, you decide who writes the opinion. You get a cool robe that you can decorate with awesome gold stripes.

Oh, and one more thing: You have exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime power to shape the surveillance state.

To use its surveillance powers — tapping phones or reading e-mails — the federal government must ask permission of the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A FISA judge can deny the request or force the government to limit the scope of its investigation. It’s the only plausible check in the system. Whether it actually checks government surveillance power or acts as a rubber stamp is up to whichever FISA judge presides that day.

The 11 FISA judges, chosen from throughout the federal bench for seven-year terms, are all appointed by the chief justice. In fact, every FISA judge currently serving was appointed by Roberts, who will continue making such appointments until he retires or dies. FISA judges don’t need confirmation — by Congress or anyone else.

No other part of U.S. law works this way. The chief justice can’t choose the judges who rule on health law, or preside over labor cases, or decide software patents. But when it comes to surveillance, the composition of the bench is entirely in his hands, and, as a result, so is the extent to which the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation can spy on citizens.

“It really is up to these FISA judges to decide what the law means and what the NSA and FBI gets to do,” said Julian Sanchez, a privacy scholar at the Cato Institute. “So Roberts is single-handedly choosing the people who get to decide how much surveillance we’re subject to.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/05/did-you-know-john-roberts-is-also-chief-justice-of-the-nsas-surveillance-state/

And the Secret Government plays a central role in war and the profits generated thereby. WikiLeaks let us know just how insidious a role this Secret Government plays:

Wikileaks Release Suggests STRATFOR Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec

By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST

WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.

A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.

"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.

"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea."

CONTINUED...

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm

So, yes, the judges do play a big role in war and its profits. And, yes, while Reagan did not appoint Roberts to SCROTUS, Reagan did enjoy Robert's racist thinking. Of course, Roberts would go on to play a role in foisting George W Bush on us, 5-4, as an attorney working Florida.

Almost forgot:

Know your BFEE: Siegelman Judge is a big-time War Profiteer

[The Magistrate]

15. I Know, Sir

Serious, long-lasting harm was done by that person.

[leftstreet]

16. DURec

[Overseas]

62. I hadn't thought much about this part of his legacy either.

The Reagan Machine.

[George II]

47. Probably the most damaging president ever....

....his smoke and mirrors economic policies made him look good, but destroyed the economy of the US for decades:

He solved the "inflation" problem by removing petroleum prices and credit/mortgage rates from the calculation

He solved the unemployment problem by reducing those on unemployment benefits from 52 weeks to 26 weeks, instantly reducing the "unemployment rate" by about 50%

He allowed the beginning of outsourcing to other countries

He "created" jobs by allowing high paying skilled jobs to go overseas, being replaced by almost twice as many jobs at less than half the wages - more jobs, less net income for Americans

He "reduced" taxes by lowering the tax rates but at the same time eliminating a slew of middle class tax deductions, resulting in a net tax increase for millions at a lower tax rate

I can go on and on but you all get the point.

[Rockyj]

48. I agree & Thom Hartman addresses this fact a lot on his radio show!

Institutional racism ran rampart during Reagan's rein! Nancy Reagan reminds me of Ann Romney; you can almost here them say please don't touch me brown person. Ronald Reagan was a diabolical human being and I hope he, both Bushes & Cheney rot in hell!

[calimary]

63. HAH! Remember when Queen Nancy commented - "look at all those beautiful white faces"

one hapless moment when she stepped up to the podium to address some fawning crowd? The handlers fell all over themselves and each other trying to massage that one away. Oh, she didn't mean it! She misspoke! It came out wrong. Inartfully worded. MY ASS.

There is no level of Hell low enough for that schmuck OR bush/cheney to rot, as properly and thoroughly as needed.

[Overseas]

70. I'm so glad Thom keeps reminding us all of the damage Reagan did.

[wryter2000]

99. Too true

He was the one who made stupidity and mean-spiritedness popular. Without him, George W. Bush could never have been president.

[harun]

130. The electorate is getting what they asked for...

They wanted cut throat capitalism, they voted for it and they are getting it.

[Whisp]

2. evil monsters.

[Octafish]

8. My precise sentiments, Whisp.

Evil men who created an Empire of Evil, marking 50 years on Nov. 22, 1963.



As for the stooge, Ronald Wilson Reagan, a resource of Truth:

The Reagan Page, courtesy of Third World Traveler.

[Overseas]

64. Great link on the Reagan PR machine. So much destruction.

[gopiscrap]

5. Yup I have been saying it for a long time

he is an absolute fucking douchebag and the worst president we have ever had. Not only was Reagan a racist and mean spirited...he was a whore for business at the expense of the poor. He made it popular to be a selfish asshole.

[Octafish]

12. Reaganomics Revealed

EXCERPT...

Reagan’s story at GE is, to a startling degree, the story of labor relations executive Lemuel Boulware. When Boulware hired Ronald Reagan he was a conventional, patriotic, anti-communist liberal Democrat. He was not thought to be particularly well-informed or articulate. Under Boulware’s guidance, Reagan sparred with GE’s unionized employees and received what he termed his “post-graduate education in political science” from 1954 to 1962. He became thoroughly familiar with basic economics, and came to share Boulware’s strong conviction that business performs an essential public service. He also thought about a wide range of other public policy matters stretching even to the core concept of what was to become the Strategic Defense Initiative.

SOURCE: The American Enterprise Institute

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/february-0207/how-reagan-became-conservative/

Lemuel Bulware helped create the standard model for making things sound "right" and why so few among the exploited realize they are being screwed royal.

[HangOnKids]

31. Lots Of Words To Say Reagan Was A Dumb Ass

Thanks for the thread Octa. Lemuel Boulware is straight out of a Dickens's novel.

[noiretextatique]

6. thanks for countering all the revisionism

with the hard, cold reality. reagan did make it okay to be racist again.

[Catherina]

10. And kill brown people and destabilize countries and steal and exploit AND FLAUNT IT ALL!

[noiretextatique]

17. yes...was reading about Pinochet and the CIA just today

and to think: he won with a lot of votes from those formerly known as democrats. I can't even post what I really think here, but suffice it to say, they were little different than today's teabaggers by voting against their own best interests. or rather: voting for hurting brown people. there I said it...because it is true. be in touch soon

[Overseas]

65. Mourning in the Americas

[LongTomH]

111. Don't forget the Salvadoran baby skulls!

Reagan and the Salvadoran Baby Skulls by Robert Parry, Consortium News 2007:

Ronald Reagan’s many admirers may find this idea offensive, but – given a new report by the Washington Post – it might be fitting to have a display at Reagan National Airport to show how Salvadoran baby skulls were used as candle holders and good luck charms. Perhaps the presentation could contain skeletal remains of Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, too.

It might be modeled after skeletons on display in Cambodia from the slaughters by the Khmer Rouge. After all, it was President Reagan – more than any other person – who justified and facilitated the barbarity that raged through Central America in the 1980s, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of peasants, clergy and students, men, women and children.

Reagan portrayed the bloody conflicts as a necessary front in the Cold War, but the Central American violence was always more about entrenched ruling elites determined to retain their privileges against impoverished peasants, including descendants of the region’s Maya Indians, seeking social, political and economic reforms.

Edited to add: This reference has been posted to DU multiple times (A couple by me!); but, it's something that we should never be allowed to forget.

[Catherina]

121. Oh Gawd. I had no idea

I live in Guatemala now. Every single day I see the living reminders of the US-inflicted horrors where over 250,000 Guatemalans were slaughtered a few short decades ago. Skulls? Baby skulls as candle holders and good luck charms?

"We soldiers were tricked -- they told us the threat was communism," Salgado said as bodyguards with pistols tucked into their waistbands hovered nearby at his home, ringed by barbed wire. "But I look back and realize those weren't communists out there that we were fighting -- we were just poor country people killing poor country people."

...

Salgada kept the skulls for years. They were reminders of how deeply he had sunk into depravity, yet somehow they also represented his awakening, he said. Witnessing the aftermath of what his colleagues did in El Mozote and reflecting on those skulls changed his mind about how the war was being fought.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/28/AR2007012801353.html

[Octafish]

18. Reagan, White As Snow

by Alec Dubro
www.tompaine.com/, May 13, 2007

EXCERPT...

Domestically, he opposed every legislative remedy for African Americans, betraying a meanness of spirit and an open racism. As Sidney Blumenthal wrote in The Guardian in 2003:

Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South&quot , and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," he said, "he has a right to do so." After the Republican convention in 1980, Reagan traveled to the county fair in Neshoba, Mississippi, where, in 1964, three Freedom Riders had been slain by the Ku Klux Klan. Before an all-white crowd of tens of thousands, Reagan declared: "I believe in states' rights."

It's hard to believe now, but in 1965, a higher percentage of congressional Republicans voted for the Voting Rights Act than Democrats. Reagan, then, wasn't following party tradition; he was making a grab for the white racist vote-and it worked. Southern Democrats abandoned the party en masse for one more welcoming to white supremacy. No wonder so many loved, and still love, the man: He validated people's whiteness.

It's true that Reagan knew enough to occasionally disguise his racism. He appointed Samuel Pierce to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where Pierce presided over the halving of housing subsidies. No matter. Reagan couldn't remember the man's name. Once, at a reception for the nation's mayors, he greeted Pierce with a '"Hello, Mr. Mayor." Despite this, a few black conservatives, such as Armstrong Williams, were willing to validate him as someone who knew better than the "civil rights establishment" what was good for African Americans.

But it was in foreign affairs that he showed that he could rise above mere opportunism and flaunt his racism for all the world to see. He was the best friend that South Africa's apartheid government had in the developed world.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/Reagan_WhiteAsSnow.html

You are most welcome, noiretextatique! Truth is what Democracy craves.

[noiretextatique]

20. i literally could feel the mood of the country change overnight when he was elected

and as an African-American, his election was not "morning in America". it was a white backlash, plan and simple, to perceived gains by non-whites, women, etc., and that's exactly how it felt. I know a lot of people here voted for him and changed later, but the damage had already been done, here and abroad. and we never really recovered.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

45. thank you Octafish...lotta good reads you're sharing

Wish I were a fast reader! Takes me forever...


Hate how he's given (cleverly took) credit for changing US - Russian relations, with that "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev" sound bite. He was good at simple-minded one liners, and too many people accept that kind of thing.

Edit: no, not cleverly... Camera hogs have an instinct for punch lines.

[Overseas]

66. Such a mean man. Posing as friendly grandpa.

[Scuba]

7. Kick

[Octafish]

28. ''Like I Wasn’t President at All''

"Like I Wasn’t President at All"

By Robert Parry
May 26, 1999

In 1992, less than four years after leaving the White House, Ronald Reagan claimed to have forgotten virtually every fact about the Iran-contra scandal, according to a newly released transcript of a formal deposition.

"It's like I wasn't president at all," Reagan said in response to one inquiry.

Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh accepted that Reagan's memory loss was a consequence of the ex-president's Alzheimer's disease. But the deposition also reveals that Reagan answered in rich detail when questioned about coincidental events not connected to alleged Iran-contra crimes.

Despite Reagan's unresponsive answers, the deposition offered a look at unreleased Reagan diary entries that were read into the record. The diary demonstrated that Reagan was intimately involved with the Iran-contra operations and fully aware that some of his actions violated the law.

Yet, when Walsh and his prosecutors questioned Reagan about even basic facts that connected to the scandal, the ex-president asserted a near-total lack of memory.

SNIP...

At another point, Reagan was reminded that "you had a task force on counter-terrorism. Do you remember? I think Vice President Bush headed it."

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699c.html

And so Poppy took charge...

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://books.google.com/books?id=YZqRyj_QXf8C&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=christopher+simpson+The+Uses+of+%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&source=bl&ots=8klB0PzATX&sig=hi9DpE3qF43Oefh7iGn79W4jXQs&hl=en&ei=zAFQTeriBsr2gAfu1Mgc&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=christopher%20simpson%20The%20Uses%20of%20%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&f=false

And We the People are left holding the bag, trillions and trillions and trillions worth, again and again and again.

[Scuba]

29. I never believed that either Ronald Reagan nor Nancy's astrologer were in charge.

I believe Bill Hicks had it right.

[Old and In the Way]

36. RR: A USEFUL IDIOT FOR FRIENDS OF BUSH

He could deliver the lines and hit his marks, but really had no clue about the long term consequences his Presidency would have no this country. Can you imagine if Ron had used his acting talents to further a progressive agenda? Me neither...he'd never have been seriously considered for a Republican Presidency.

Great post, as always Octafish.

[madrchsod]

72. my dad knew ronny when he was in high school

when he was elected my dad cringed at the thought of him running the country.

[Overseas]

67. He may have forgotten. We still suffer.

[kelliekat44]

9. I hope this is posted to FB. It will be on my page. nt

[Octafish]

23. John Perkins put it thusly...

"Reagan ... was most definitely a global empire builder, a servant of the corporatocracy. At the time of his election, I found it fitting that he was a Hollywood actor, a man who had followed orders passed down from moguls, who knew how to take direction. That would be his signature. He would cater to the men who shuttled back and forth from corporate CEO offices to bank boards and into the halls of government. He would serve the men who appeared to serve him but who in fact ran the government - men like Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Richard Cheney, Richard Helms, and Robert McNamara. He would advocate what those men wanted: an America that controlled the world and all its resources, a world that answered to the commands of that America, a U.S. military that would enforce the rules as they were written by America, and an international trade and banking system that supported America as CEO of the global empire."

SOURCE: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/RonaldReagan_page.html

Details on Perkins and his work, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man":

http://www.wanttoknow.info/johnperkinseconomichitman

[kelliekat44]

39. Read Perkins' book Real eye-opener. nt

[DhhD]

56. These words describe the ring of the speech that Obama gave this evening; that America controls the

world and all of it resources, an al-Assad that answers to the command of the American President , a military that can handle writing it own rules when it invades Syria and a banking system that can sanction Iran. Same old corporatist rule speaking on the World.

[bobclark86]

14. Who honestly thought electing the guy...

from "Bedtime for Bonzo" was a good idea?

[Octafish]

43. It's this thing called PROPAGANDA and its main organ of promulgation, Corporate McPravda...

The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making

Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html

Once you control what people think about -- or can think about -- it's easy to get them to think about what YOU want them to think about. And that makes it a LOT easier to get them to do what you want.

[xfundy]

49. Then just a few years later

we got Bonzo himself.

[bobclark86]

53. I'm going to guess you're talking about something named Bush... n/t

[Hydra]

19. I don't think anyone has a real grasp of what they were really doing

We got some hints here and there through Iran Contra, but do we really know? And how much of it has really gone away? Trickle down and welfare queens have been in vogue ever since.

[Octafish]

51. The High and Mighty Royals...

Jimmy Savile's extraordinary access to Margaret Thatcher detailed in secret files



Jimmy Savile gleefully informed the prime minister about "my girl patients" after meeting her at a Downing Street fund-raising ceremony where he sought advice on charities' tax deductions.

A letter preserved in Downing Street's records sheds fresh light on the extraordinary access the now disgraced BBC television presenter enjoyed at the height of his popularity.

In the letter sent to Margaret Thatcher during her first year in office, Savile displayed all his brazen charms. The note, featuring a prominent colour photo of himself, declared: "Dear Prime Minister, I waited a week before writing to thank you for my lunch invitation because I had such a superb time I didn't want to be too effusive.

"My girl patients pretended to be madly jealous and wanted to know what you wore and what you ate. All the paralysed lads called me 'Sir James' all week. They all love you. Me too!! Jimmy Savile OBE xxx."

CONTINUED...

http://m.guardiannews.com/uk/2012/dec/28/jimmy-savile-access-margaret-thatcher

Thanks to Corporate McPravda, Hydra, we now know that questions like yours will never be asked! Thank you for your concern, Citizen! Good luck with the Trickle 10 Downing Street Memo and all that, wot?

[noiretextatique]

22. reagan's was the most corrupt administration in the 20th century

well...then there was shrub.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/17/157477/-List-of-Reagan-administration-convictions#

"By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."

[Octafish]

88. George Herbert Walker Bush, American Caligula

The OCTOPUS in Dallas: Poppy involved in JFK Assassination

May his son's "administration" be remembered as the worst of the 21st Century, or Heaven help us all.

PS: Agree about corruption, in terms of venality and using power for the revolving door. For example, Ed Meese and associates may remember WEDTECH. The national security advisor Richard Allen may remember a gift from friends in Japan. 136 more that never seem to get mentioned in history or when their perpetrators are mentioned in Corporate McPravda.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Octafish]

52. Pruneface called President Kennedy a SOCIALIST in 1961...

...for proposing universal health care.



Operation COFFEECUP - How Reagan Worked to Stop Universal Health Coverage in 1961

In December 1961, the AMA pulled out all the stops to prevent President John F. Kennedy from proposing universal health coverage. For their effort, they recruited a TV-personality.

Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don't, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day . . . we will awake to find that we have so­cialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.

Sounds familiar to Tea Party crapola of today. Ironic: Corporate McPravda avoids mentioning how one has-been B-movie actor took part in the organized opposition to Medicare in the early 1960s. Here's the story, thanks to Mr. Scott E. Starr:

The Campaign Against Medicare

Monday, March 22, 2010
By Scott E. Starr

EXCERPT...

In order to maintain the illusion of spontaneity, the AMA did not announce the existence of Operation Coffeecup or publicize the Reagan recording. The record was to be used, campaign organizers cautioned, only in the groups meeting under the controlled conditions of the informal coffees. Under no circumstances, recipients of the record were warned, were they to permit commercial broadcast of the recording.

Operation Coffeecup was kept deliberately low-key and internal to the AMA, its Woman’s Auxiliary, and the trusted friends and neighbors of the Auxiliary women. Reagan’s efforts against Medicare were revealed, however, in a scoop by Drew Pearson in his Washington Merry-Go-Round column of June 17th. Pearson titled his item on Reagan, “Star vs. JFK,” and he told his readers:

Ronald Reagan of Hollywood has pitted his mellifluous voice against President Kennedy in the battle for medical aid for the elderly. As a result it looks as if the old folks would lose out. He has caused such a deluge of mail to swamp Congress that Congressmen want to postpone action on the medical bill until 1962. What they don’t know, of course, is that Ron Reagan is behind the mail; also that the American Medical Association is paying for it.

Reagan is the handsome TV star for General Electric . . . Just how this background qualifies him as an expert on medical care for the elderly remains a mystery. Nevertheless, thanks to a deal with the AMA, and the acquiescence of General Electric, Ronald may be able to outinfluence the President of the United States with Congress.24
Reagan’s recorded remarks are quite extensive, and reveal a determined and in-depth attack on the principles of Medicare (and Social Security), going well beyond opposition to King-Anderson or any other particular piece of legislation.
My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . .

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . .

But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. . . . Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.25

And what was this frightful threat that Reagan perceived as “imminent”?

. . . Congressman Forand introduced the Forand Bill. This was the idea that all people of Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. Now, this would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the de­pendents and those who are disabled, this would be young peo­ple if they are dependents of someone eligible for Social Security. . . .

It should be obvious that Reagan’s description of the Forand bill is a description of any Medicare-type program, not just a specific piece of legislation.26 The idea that people of “Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance,” just is the idea of Medicare.

CONTINUED...

http://geotheology.blogspot.com /

If you get a chance, the geotheology blog continues with details on Operation COFFEECUP. The American Medical Association bankrolled the "mellifluous voice" of Ol' Pruneface.

PS: I bring this all up because so many believe history started only yesterday. The rightwing warmongers and greedheads have been organized for a long time. They've demonized liberals like me and my political heroes as socialists and communists. The nation has devolved politically to the point where even the leaders of our own party run away from the word, "Liberal." It's past time America realizes supporting the causes of the rich helped launch the political career of America’s first presidential Reverse Robin Hood.

PPS: You are most welcome, Uncle Joe!

[Uncle Joe]

54. It's too bad he didn't remain an actor instead of pretending to be a President.

Peace to you, OctaFish.

[Overseas]

68. More cruelty.

[HughBeaumont]

83. This is something that can never be forgiven.

An accomplice to murder, if I may be so bold . . . .

[LongTomH]

25. "Ronnie Raygun vs. the Welfare Queens from Outer Space"

Reagan began his campaign talking about mythical 'welfare queens' riding around Harlem in Cadillacs and ended it talking about the nations of the world uniting to fight off an invasion from outer space.

A few DUers may remember Reagan's rhetoric about how great it would be for the world to unite to fight off.....say an invasion from outer space. Actually, Uncle Ronnie had aliens on the brain. His handlers had to delete some references to an alien attack from his later speeches.

There's a story that Reagan grabbed Steven Spielberg, after a showing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind to give him a 'if-you-knew-what-I-know talk about UFOs.

And of course, there's the famous: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles" statement.

If it wasn't for the lasting damage done by this TV-cowboy-turned-politician, he'd be nothing but a joke!

Thanks for helping destroy the myth, Octafish!

[Octafish]

91. That would make a heckuva picture!

A real WOW! What's ironic is I knew somebody who DID do in real life what Reagan only imagined remembering from a movie:

Sonny Eliot, famous Detroit weatherman, flew a B-24 over Germany. On one mission, the bomber was badly shot up. Sonny, the pilot, stayed at the controls until everyone managed to bail out -- including a wounded crewman who had to be loaded into a parachute and tossed out the bomb bay. THEN Sonny himself bailed out. The entire crew was taken prisoner, but survived the war. A great man who put others ahead of himself.

ETA what Roseanne said about the Business:

Roseanne Barr - MK ULTRA Rules In Hollywood

EXCERPT...

Hollywood is the one that keeps all of this power structure. They perpetuate the culture of racism, sexism, classism, genderism and keep it all in place. They continue to feed it, and they make a lot of money doing it. They do it at the behest of their masters, who run everything.

I speak on behalf of Hollywood. I go to parties, Oscar parties and things like that and big stars pull me aside, take my arm and whisper: “I just want to thank you for the things you say.” And it blows

[navarth]

139. You knew Sonny Eliot? Wow

I remember Sonny so very well, what a lovable guy. A great piece of Detroit History, thanks for the reminder.

Wonderful thread, sir. I'd still like to buy you a beer.

[JustAnotherGen]

26. Thank you Octafish

For taking the time to post this with the clear images, links, etc. etc. Well done!

[Octafish]

106. Ronald Reagan's War on Labor

EXCERPT...

He had little apparent reason to fear labor politically, with opinion polls at the time showing that unions were opposed by nearly half of all Americans and that nearly half of those who belonged to the unions had voted for him in 1980 and again in 1984.

Reagan,in any case, was a true ideologue of the anti-labor political right. Yes, he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild, but he was notoriously pro-management, leading the way to a strike-ending agreement in 1959 that greatly weakened the union and finally resigning under membership pressure before his term ended.

Reagan's war on labor began in the summer of 1981, when he fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, that was "an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad."

Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions.

Most important was Reagan's appointment of three management representatives to the five-member National Labor Relations Board which oversees union representation elections and labor-management bargaining, They included NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who believed that "unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once-healthy industries" and have caused "destruction of individual freedom."

Under Dotson, a House subcommittee found,the board abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to "a betrayal of American workers."

The NLRB settled only about half as many complaints of employers' illegal actions as had the board during the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter, and those that were settled upheld employers in three-fourths of the cases. Even under Republican Richard Nixon, employers won only about one-third of the time.

Most of the complaints were against employers who responded to organizing drives by illegally firing union supporters. The employers were well aware that under Reagan the NLRB was taking an average of three years to rule on complaints, and that in any case it generally did no more than order the discharged unionists reinstated with back pay. That's much cheaper than operating under a union contract.

The board stalled as long before acting on petitions from workers seeking union representation elections and stalled for another year or two after such votes before certifying winning unions as the workers' bargaining agents. Under Reagan, too, employers were allowed to permanently replace workers who dared exercise their legal right to strike.

Reagan's Labor Department was as one-sided as the NLRB. It became an anti-labor department, virtually ignoring, for instance, the union-busting consultants who were hired by many employers to fend off unionization. Very few consultants and very few of those who hired them were asked for the financial disclosure statements the law demands. Yet all unions were required to file the statements that the law required of them (and that could be used to advantage by their opponents). And though the department cut its overall budget by more than 10 percent, it increased the budget for such union-busting activities by almost 40 percent.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dickmeister.com/id89.html

PS: You are most welcome, JustAnotherGen! Truth is what Democracy craves.

[bluesbassman]

27. Some "gems" from Reagan...

"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" -- Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the Sacramento Bee, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park, March 3, 1966

"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." --Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980

"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." --Ronald Reagan (candidate for Governor of California), interviewed in the Fresno Bee, October 10, 1965

"...the moral equal of our Founding Fathers." --President Reagan, describing the Nicaraguan contras, March 1, 1985

"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." --Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time, May 17, 1976

"...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts." --Ronald Reagan, 1965. (Description of Medicaid recipients.)

"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders." --California Governor Ronald Reagan, in the Sacramento Bee, April 28, 1966

"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet." --Ronald Reagan, TV speech, October 27, 1964

[Overseas]

69. I'd forgotten some of those quotes.

[Blue_In_AK]

77. And who can forget,

"If there's to be a bloodbath, let it be now," with regard to student protests in the Vietnam days. I'll never forget that one.

[pinto]

103. +1. He was piece of work.

[malaise]

30. Great post

Rec

[Octafish]

109. Reagan, MCA, and the Mob

From Dan Moldea:

President Ronald Reagan's professional life--his acting career, his personal financial fortune, and his rise in politics--has been interwoven with and propelled by a powerful, Hollywood-based entertainment conglomerate named MCA. For nearly fifty years, Reagan has benefited both personally and financially from his association with this sixty-two-year-old company--formerly known as the Music Corporation of America--as well as from his close association with the firm's top executives: Jules Stein, Lew Wasserman, and Taft Schreiber.

Everyone involved has greatly profited from this relationship. MCA helped to make its client, actor Ronald Reagan, a multimillionaire; and the favors that were returned by Reagan, the former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the former governor of California, have helped to transform MCA into a billion-dollar empire and the most powerful force in the entertainment world today.

Reagan and his closest friends have portrayed and defended the president's business transactions with MCA, which date back to 1940, as being totally above suspicion. But there remain numerous unanswered questions and allegations about the relationship between Reagan and MCA. These doubts raise delicate issues that involve possible personal and political payoffs--as well as links to major Mafia figures, particularly Beverly Hills attorney Sidney Korshak, who has been described by federal investigators as the principal link between the legitimate business world and organized crime.

In 1962, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice tried to resolve some of these questions, but their secret investigation was settled out of court before the evidence could be presented. The results of the probe were never made public, and no one close to MCA was ever indicted. However, through the Freedom of Information Act, many of these documents have been recovered and are excerpted in this book.

These records show that Reagan, the president of SAG and an FBI informant against Hollywood communists, was the subject of a federal grand jury investigation whose focus was Reagan's possible role in a suspected conspiracy between MCA and the actors' union. According to Justice Department documents, government prosecutors had concluded that decisions made by SAG while under Reagan's leadership became "the central fact of MCA's whole rise to power."

CONTINUED...

http://www.moldea.com/MCA.html

PS: Tank yuh, malaise. You know how I feel about you and the Spanish ambassador -- JEALOOOUS!

[1-Old-Man]

33. Reagan was our worst President,but don't forget Nixon's Southern Stratrgy

[Octafish]

118. Kevin Phillips, the guy behind that, was shocked to see how it was used.

Last edited Wed Sep 11, 2013, 05:06 PM - Edit history (1)

He saw it devolve into the neo-Confederacy of today, overseen by the Bushes, which he justifiably loathes as a "multi-generational family of fibbers."

As for Tricky Dick, he was a tool.



Sen. Richard Nixon, a made man of the BFEE, with with Sen. Prescott S. Bush.

The compassion of Richard Nixon: 'If he gets shot, it's too damn bad.' (on Ted Kennedy)

Nixon Dug Deep For Dirt On Ted Kennedy

CALVIN WOODWARD | 08/28/09 03:20 PM | AP

EXCERPT...

Nixon pressed for more wiretaps and a combing of tax records, not only on Kennedy but other leading Democrats. "I could only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting," he said.

SNIP...

But Nixon's motives for the offer were not pure. He worried that if a third Kennedy were shot, and while not having Secret Service protection, he'd be blamed.

Plus, he wanted dirt. And the best way to get it was to have a Secret Service agent rat on the senator. There is no evidence an agent turned into such an informer.

"You understand what the problem is," Nixon told Haldeman and Ehrlichman on Sept. 7, 1972. "If the (SOB) gets shot they'll say we didn't furnish it (protection). So you just buy his insurance.

"After the election, he doesn't get a ... thing. If he gets shot, it's too damn bad. Do it under the basis, though, that we pick the Secret Service men.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/28/nixon-dug-deep-for-dirt-o_n_271012.html

[Zorra]

34. I look forward to the day we change the name of Reagan Airport to Martin Luther King Memorial

Airport, and hang Reagan in effigy from the eaves between the pillars in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

[Octafish]

119. The guy changed Cape Kennedy back to Cape Canaveral.

The peaceful exploration of space was the best thing to happen to jobs in history. At its peak, 400,000 Americans were employed in the Apollo Project.



Imagine if President Kennedy had lived, where the nation would be today? I believe, if we could figure out how to the moon and back, we could face any problem on earth and solve it -- from ending hunger, poverty and ignorance to creating a lasting peace.

Problems today's GOP considers intractable (see Poppy Bush inaugural "More will than Wallet&quot such as joblessness, poverty, crime, would be tackled, instead of ignored, like they've done with public education. And the treasures accumulated since would be used to make life better for everybody on earth instead of sitting in a secret Swiss bank account.

But, no. The conservatives killed the New Deal after LBJ and the Great Society. For the space program, it started with Nixon. Instead, they gave the store away to War Inc, who sank the national treasure into the "Money trumps peace" crowd.

Other than that, for some greedy warmongering treasonous reasons, the rightwing loathes everything good in this world. Not that it was only the Democratic president what got us to the moon, let alone kept us out of nuclear war and integrated the FBI and Secret Service.

[bigwillq]

35. Damn. Here I thought this was going to be another Obama thread.

[Octafish]

124. Seeing how war criminals walk free and good men are in prison...

Know your BFEE: Siegelman Judge is a big-time War Profiteer

...and...

Ex-CIA officer John Kiriakou sentenced for leaking name on agency's use of torture.....

...and...

[TeamPooka]

37. Reagan, Hoover, Bush are the 3 best examples of why you shouldn't let your kids grow...

up to be Republicans.

[iamthebandfanman]

80. Screw hoover

Coolidge was the master mind behind the depression of the 30s..

in fact, once hoover realized he was screwed he attempted to throw government money at the problem.. it was just too little too late :p

[Octafish]

125. Absolutely. The people who tried to overthrow FDR in 1933 had kids, though.

And they are the ones* screwing America now.

What's different today, is we don't have Smedley Butler or FDR to stop them.



Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush, share a moment and some information, back in the day.

* Of course, it's not just a few rich families's offspring who screw the majority today. They've hired help and built up the giant noise machine to continue their work overthrowing the progress FDR and the New Deal brought America for 80 years.

Why would the nation and world's richest people do that? Progress costs money. And they don't want to pay for it, even when they've gained seven times more wealth than all of history put together. Instead, whey continue to work -- quasi-legally, through government and lobbyists -- to amass even more, transferring the wealth of the many to themselves.

And instead of an armed mob led by a war hero on a white horse, their weapon is "Supply Side Economics." To most Americans, that means getting trickled down upon.

[TeamPooka]

133. +1000

[Coyotl]

38. The beginning of the Great Demise.

[starroute]

40. "Big Bigot" and "Baby Bigot"

(Cribb, an old-line Paleoconservative, was the longtime head of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which funds such promising young campus conservatives as James O'Keefe.)

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/hijakjustice.html

According to The Washington Post, James A. Baker III and Michael K. Deaver referred to Meese as the "Big Bigot," and conservatives referred to his top assistant, T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., as the "Baby Bigot."

[Octafish]

144. T. Kenneth Cribb Jr is called a ''Welfare Queen'' by a fellow conservative.

When Swells Collide:

Welfare Queen Kenneth Cribb And Christine O’Donnell

Socialize RWV:

By Dan Riehl
September 12, 2010

Just for the record and for people keeping score, since they are willing to put out anything and everything about Christine O'Donnell to damage her reputation, the reason McCormack includes this disclosure is because behind the scenes people know it is Ken Cribb at ISI pushing this crap.

*Disclosure: I had a 2006 summer internship at National Review and a 2007-2008 writing fellowship at The Weekly Standard that were funded by the Collegiate Network, a program administered by ISI. To the best of my recollection, I've only spoken to one person named in O'Donnell's lawsuit, Kenneth Cribb, only once in my life, back in 2005. I have not spoken to any current or former ISI/CN employees in months and did not obtain any information in this report from current or former ISI/CN employees.

Just so we know what kind of guardian of conservativism Cribb, who would profess to be a gatekeeper of Washington by destroying a young woman over her finances and an old lawsuit, is, he's a Beltway welfare queen, the kind who rode Reagan to Washington and has been chowing down on donor money out of proportion to the private sector ever since – all for charity, of course. This is the decrepit and dying conservative establishment we have to overthrow to take back Washington, again. But, don't worry, they've all gotten rich off conservative donors over the years, so I expect they'll be just fine. At least they won't have to try to make it in the private sector like most of us. I doubt many of them ever could.

CEO Ken Cribb's actual salary is $600,000 or so, as he also serves as president of the Collegiate Network, which is basically just a unit within the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The organizations together have about an $11 million budget. So Cribb makes about 5.5% of the total budget. In comparison, the CEO of Dupont, a Fortune 500 company, makes only twice Cribb's salary.

A statement released by ISI Chairman Alfred Regnery and Trustee Edwin Meese indicates that “a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article resulted in an inaccurate picture of the compensation of ISI president T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr. . . . ISI’s Board annually sets Mr. Cribb’s compensation at levels commensurate with ISI’s growth and comparable to salaries at peer institutions. The salary levels mentioned in the Chronicle story were awarded to Mr. Cribb following years of programmatic and financial growth in a vibrant economy, well before the economic downturn in the last quarter of 2008 (contrary to the inaccurate timeline in the Chronicle article). When that downturn materialized, Mr. Cribb voluntarily took deep cuts in late 2008 and early 2009 that dramatically reduced his total compensation.” For a complete copy of the full statement, please contact [e-mail].

From 2006:

I asked ISI for a copy of the test, hoping to get an easy column and maybe show it off to friends. But they said "since the test will be administered annually, ISI would like to protect the integrity of the test." If they can't come up with new questions about the Revolutionary War, Reconstruction, the Bill of Rights, the Monroe Doctrine, and the New Deal every year, then we really do have a crisis. I looked into ISI a little. The nonprofit organization (motto: "Educating for Liberty&quot was founded in 1953. The president, T. Kenneth Cribb, made $425,000 last year. Consultant Lt. Gen. Josiah Bunting, a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan, made $146,500. ISI doesn't tell you this either. I had to find it on its tax form. Other board members include notable conservatives from The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal editorial page staff, the Hoover Institution, and the military.

SOURCE: http://riehlworldview.com/2010/09/welfare-queen-kenneth-cribb-and-christine-odonnell.html

Mille grazi, starroute! I had no idea about the little feller. Such a warmonger for an "academic." And a son of Dixie, to boot!

[starroute]

147. There's a lot more of interest on Cribb

He and Ed Feulner at the Heritage Foundation both retired recently, but they've been pals forever and are on the same old-line, hard-right page. For example, an old ISI organization list from the 90's included William H. Regnery -- he's the white supremacist member of the Regnery family

There's also this (quoted at http://llamabutchers.mu.nu/archives/066998.php): "Ken Cribb, president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, once told me this story: A South Carolinian of many generations, he had just decided to attend Washington & Lee, and his grandmother remonstrated, 'Why would you want to go to a Yankee school?' 'But Grandma,' Ken pleaded, 'Virginia seceded!' His grandmother stared at him for a moment and then replied, 'Mighty damn late.'”

I find in my notes that at one point Sidney Bluimenthal was claiming that ISI was at the heart of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. That may be overstated, but they're certainly near the top of a tight nexus of groups that includes the Heritage Foundation, Young America's Foundation, Citizen's United, and the Capital Research Center (whose Matthew Vadum did more than anyone else to destroy ACORN and taught Glenn Beck everything he knows.) The last I checked, ISI was the second-largest recipient of grants from conservative foundations, after the Heritage Foundation.

Here's an article on ISI's campus activities from 1997 that still provides good background: http://influx.uoregon.edu/1997/cons/

And the Internet Archive cache of another, from 1996: http://web.archive.org/web/20110526185409/http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1996/mar/madison.html

And something on the Collegiate Network from 2004: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/thomism/conversations/topics/930

And just to cap it off, there's something about Scalia and ISI that appeared at Newsmax in 2003:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060618214337/http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/24/145151.shtml

Oct. 24, 2003

WASHINGTON – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says though “it would be foolish” to say that the “one-sided nature of institutions of learning” is the product of “some left-wing academic conspiracy,” “it would also be unrealistic to think [such a conspiracy] does not exist.”

Speaking Thursday to about 800 guests at the 50th anniversary dinner of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), the respected jurist faulted many academic “experts” on constitutional law for ignorance and for attitudes he considers uninformed and arrogant. What’s more, he despairs that many in academia and the judiciary, including some of his colleagues on the high court, are following such wrongheaded legal interpretations. ...

Scalia, who as a college student once received a fellowship from ISI, said the organization’s educational approach had been marked “by a special concern for an historical understanding of our constitutional traditions, conveying to students the contemporary elements of what [the late scholar and author] Russell Kirk called ‘the roots of American order.’"

[Octafish]

148. White Power and Dark Forces

Thank you for the heads-up on Cribb, Feulner and Regnery the Twisted. I will learn more about them.

The Russell Kirk guy was most insiduous, a founder of the neo-conservatives, and one of the greedheads Galbraith warned us about:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

Kirk has roots in the Great Lakes State, which became a testbed for friendly fascism (a repost below):

Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College recently used the phrase "dark ones" to refer to his institution's minority enrollment.

“The state of Michigan sent a group of people down to my campus, with clipboards … to look at the colors of people’s faces and write down what they saw,” Arnn explained. “We don’t keep records of that information. What were they looking for besides dark ones?”

Hillsdale is home to a very nice bronze of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, BFF of Ronald Reagan and conservatives everywhere, including Arnn. People the world over feel her politics reverberate today, unfortunately.

The great DUer Junkdrawer reminded me that it wasn't just Thatcher and the modern conservatives who use nefarious tactics to rule over the Untermenschen. In fact, it goes back quite a ways, to the time when one group feels itself superior to another. News today about events from almost 75 years ago show that these oligarchs and racialists did big business with evil, and that the UK helped Hitler sell a billion in gold after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Thankfully, not all Caucasians with power are evil. Untold thousands if not millions volunteered to defend the union and defeat the slavemasters in the Civil War, as did thousands more to fight the fascists in Spain and millions in World War II to defeat the NAZIs.

What's maddening is that the NAZIs and their ideology are still around. The reason for that can be found in the heart of America's national security state.

I know you know most of this, but I'd like others who stumble on it to see the connections. Truly appreciate your input and all you do. Thank you, starroute!

[U4ikLefty]

41. WRONG!!! Reagan was our greatest modern President.

Proof: http://www.hulu.com/watch/531137

[deutsey]

86. LOL...tore down the Berlin Wall with his nut sack!

Thanks for posting that. Colbert is brilliant.

[kelliekat44]

42. Someone, please tell me how I can preserve this thread forever. I want to be able to use excerpts

often.

It's a great thread. Thanks for posting with links and documentation.

[SunSeeker]

44. Excellent post. Thanks for pointing out he announced in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

That wasn't a dog whistle. That was a bull horn.

[Ohio Joe]

46. I do agree that reagan was a pos and responsible for a lot of shit wrong today but...

Not so much on the Obama is a warmonger and traitor... I think that is pretty much bullshit.

[Scootaloo]

58. Don't think he meant obama. I think he means the trans-administration "government"

The guys who are there no matter who's smiling for the cameras. The Greenspans and the Cheneys and the whole pack of insiders, experts, and advisers who all seem to suckle from the same Friedmanite and imperialist tits. That sort of "in charge,"

[Ohio Joe]

93. It appears he does...

Read his reply to me just below.

[Octafish]

113. So what? Like I wrote, not entirely. But here's more on why I feel that way...

President Obama has appointed the people who emptied $16 trillion from the nation's banks to positions for reinfusing $16 trillion into the nation's banks, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. I call it more than a case of being "Buy-Partisan." Here are a few of the Big Wigs on Team Obama:

Larry Summers and Jacob Lew and Penny Pritzker.

Buy-Partisan to the core of money and power. Which is a sign they're buy-partisan pretty much on domestic policy and foreign policy, too. Of course, people don't like to talk about these unseemly subjects. Like this guy, Cass Sunstein, who helped get Bush and Cheney off the hook...

Government Nanny Censoring "Conspiracy Theories" Is Also Responsible for Letting Bush Era Torture and Spying Conspiracies Go Unpunished

Washingtons Blog, Oct. 7, 2010

EXCERPT...

Prosecuting government officials risks a “cycle” of criminalizing public service, (Sunstein) argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton — or even the “slight appearance” of it.

SOURCE w links n details: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/10/main-obama-adviser-blocking-prosecution.html?m=1

Then there's When $16 Trillion poured into the banks and no one asked ...I knew we had a problem. When the tee vee started blaming the poor schmoes who got screwed with variable interest mortgages, it was obvious. Now that years have passed, they'll trot out the statute of limitations or get some retroactive immunity get forgiven before trial or jail cards making everything legal.

Leadership? The traitors were in on it. Seeing how there wasn't even an investigation makes it easy to understand how the little turd from Crawford could lie America into wars for profit and get away.

And one more point about why I wrote not entirely, Justice Kagan sent Don Siegelman back to the slammer:

Elena Kagan - Willing Accomplice

By Michael Collins

Then, when Siegelman appealed his case to the Supreme Court in 2009, President Obama's Attorney General dispatched Solicitor General Elena Kagan to argue against the appeal in November.

Before accepting the case, Elena Kagan knew or should have known: that the U.S. Attorney who began the Siegelman investigation was closely tied to Karl Rove; that Siegelman never benefited personally from the contribution to an education funding initiative; that the case was so outrageous, forty-four attorneys general petitioned Congress; and, that the presiding judge in the case owned a major interest in a defense firm that received a $178 million federal contract between Siegelman's indictment and trial, a massive conflict of interest.

Most revealing, before her argument against the former governor's appeal, Kagan knew or should have known the following. After two charges had been dropped in a 2009 appeal, Justice Department attorneys recommended a twenty year sentence instead of the seven years already rendered. Fewer offenses for sentencing meant thirteen additional years by the strange logic of federal justice.

Kagan knew or should have known all this and more. That didn't stop her from arguing that Don Siegelman should be kept in jail. ...

That judgment is that Elena Kagan was a willing accomplice in one of the most outrageous political prosecutions of our time. Why should anyone ever trust her?

Her nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States should be rejected unanimously.

CONTINUED...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8614514

So, while I absolutely love Justice Sotomayor, no matter what your or some people say, there are many important reasons to be concerned about the current administration, a Democratic administration and president, for whom I voted twice in general elections and support.

That said, it is my responsibility as a citizen of the United States and as a writer who believes in democracy and the Democratic Party to spell out the truth as I see it. Want me to spell out a few more, Ohio Joe? Better yet, want to show where I'm wrong?

[Ohio Joe]

115. "no matter what your or some people say" - Thanks for putting words in my mouth

I don't recall saying or even implying there is nothing to be concerned about. I have in fact expressed concerns about a number of things. I also don't rise anywhere close to the level of calling the President a traitor.

[Octafish]

120. That's what you implied in Reply 46.

46. I do agree that reagan was a pos and responsible for a lot of shit wrong today but...

Not so much on the Obama is a warmonger and traitor... I think that is pretty much bullshit.

PS: Sorry about the typo, Ohio Joe. I meant to write, "you."

[Ohio Joe]

123. Not thinking Obama is a traitor = Nothing is wrong?

Yeah... I see what you are doing there.

[Octafish]

126. Show where I call Obama a traitor.

Otherwise, please don't libel me.

[Ohio Joe]

128. You first did it in the OP

"his President is why America today is run by warmongers and traitors!"

Wait... Let me guess... The President has nothing to do with running the country? Yeah...

Me, having the foolish notion that the President does have something to do with running the country, stated my opinion that he is not a traitor, to which you replied:

"Not entirely."

Just a little bit of a traitor? Sheesh... At least have the conviction to own it if you are going to do it.

[Octafish]

129. ''Not entirely'' is different from what you imply, isn't it?

So where, in the entirety of what I wrote on in part of what I wrote, am I wrong?

[Octafish]

92. Not entirely.

Is This Barack Obama's 2nd Term? Is it Bill Clinton's 3rd? Or Is It Ronald Reagan's 9th?

They say that elections do matter, and that there are real differences between Republican and Democratic presidents. But backing up the view to 30 years, that difference looks a lot more like continuity, both at home and in America's global empire.

By Bruce A. Dixon
Black Agenda Report managing editor

The answer is yes to all three. Ronald Reagan hasn't darkened the White House door in decades. But his policy objectives have been what every president, Democrat and Republican have pursued relentlessly ever since. Barack Obama is only the latest and most successful of Reagan's disciples.

SNIP...

In Barack Obama's case all he had to say was that he wasn't necessarily against wars, just against what he called “stupid wars.” Corporate media and “liberal” shills morphed that lone statement into a false narrative that Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq, making him an instantly viable presidential candidate at a time when the American people overwhelmingly opposed that war. Once in office, Barack Obama strove mightily to abrogate the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq which would have allowed US forces to remain there indefinitely. But when the Iraqi puppet government, faced with a near revolt on the part of what remained of Iraqi civil society, dared not do his bidding, insisting that uniformed US troops (but not the American and multinational mercenaries we pay to remain there) stick to the withdrawal timetable agreed upon under Bush, liberal shills and corporate media hailed the withdrawal from Iraq as Obama's “victory.”

Barack Obama doubled down on the invasion and occupation of large areas of Afghanistan, and increased the size of the army and marines, which in fact he pledged to do during his presidential campaign. Presidential candidate Obama promised to end secret imprisonment and torture. The best one can say about President Obama on this score is that he seems to prefer murderous and indiscriminate drone attacks, in many cases, over the Bush policy of international kidnapping secret imprisonment and torture. The Obama administration's reliance on drones combined with US penetration of the African continent, means that a Democratic, ostensibly “antiwar” president has been able to openly deploy US troops to every part of that continent in support of its drive to control the oil, water, and other resources there.

The objectives President Obama's Africa policies fulfill today were put down on paper by the Bush administration, pursued by Bill Clinton before that, and still earlier pursued by Ronald Reagan, when it funded murderous contra armies of UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambque. It was UNITA and RENAMO's campaigns, assisted by the apartheid regimes of Israel and South Africa that pioneered the genocidal use of child soldiers. Today, cruise missile liberals hail the Obama administration's use of pit bull puppet regimes like Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, all of which shot their way into power with child soldiers, to invade Somalia and Congo, sometimes ostensibly to go after other bad actors on the grounds that they are using child soldiers.

CONTINUED...

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th

"Cruise Missile Liberals"...ouch!

[AzDar]

50. K & R

[Octafish]

145. Pruneface wanted to ban the Department of Education and classify ketchup as a vegetable.

Not just a cheapskate, but the scum of the earth, a guy happy to take food out of the mouths of hungry children, which is Satanic, let alone one of the most un-democratic people ever "elected" president.

Ketchup Is a Vegetable & Other Republican Myths - Remember Reagan

by H Scott Prosterman
Daily Kos, SUN FEB 06, 2011

Mainstream Republicans argue that the Tea Party is disgracing Reagan's legacy. But they're forgetting how Reagan created the template and blueprint for them.

Reagan was the first president to brazenly place foxes in charge of the henhouses at the Cabinet level. Reagan Attorneys General Edwin Meese and William French Smith viciously attacked the very civil rights and equal protection laws they were charged with upholding.

Reagan made a deal with the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in advance of the 1980 Election, in order to ensure that the American hostages would remain in captivity until after the election.

Under Reagan, the US went from being the world's largest creditor to being the largest debtor nation. Until Reagan, a balanced budget was a sacred cow of the Republican philosophy.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/06/941664/-Ketchup-Is-a-Vegetable-Other-Republican-Myths-Remember-Reagan#

[Segami]

57. K&R

[Octafish]

146. Pruneface brought death to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocents in Central America.

Their "offense"? Being in the way of capital.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and most of the rest of Corporate McPravda looked away.

FWIW: They're as much traitors as Poppy, Smirko and the rest of the Bush Crime Empire.

Remember "El Mozote"?



Lost History (Part 1): Death, Lies and Bodywashing

WASHINGTON -- On Sunday, May 5, a solemn ceremony took place in an open grassy space at Arlington National Cemetery. A small memorial stone was unveiled to honor 21 American soldiers who died in secret combat against leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. As family members wiped tears from their eyes, Salvadoran children placed tiny American flags next to the soldiers' names, unknown casualties from the 1980s.

"For too long, we have failed to recognize the contributions, the sacrifices, of those who served with distinction under the most dangerous conditions," said former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, William G. Walker. The next day, The Washington Post focused on the human interest side of the story in a front-page piece entitled "Public Honors for Secret Combat."

But what received short-shrift amid the honors and the tears was the remarkable confirmation that for much of a decade, the Reagan-Bush administrations had conducted a secret war in which American soldiers engaged in not-infrequent combat. The 21 dead surpassed the number who died in the 1989 invasion of Panama.

Yet, the war in El Salvador was waged with hardly anyone in Congress or the national news media catching on to the U.S. combat role. Indeed, throughout the 1980s, the White House and Pentagon routinely denied that U.S. soldiers were in combat in El Salvador -- and few reporters challenged the official story.

Shortly after taking office in 1981, President Reagan dispatched 55 Green Beret trainers to El Salvador to teach the Salvadoran army better techniques for defeating a resilient band of Marxist-led guerrillas. For years, the Salvadoran military had been more adept at running death squads against civilian targets than at cornering an armed enemy in the country's mountainous terrain.

To allay public fears about another Vietnam War, however, Reagan limited the number of Green Berets to 55 and ordered them to avoid combat zones. They were to train only, not advise the Salvadorans in combat situations as Green Berets had done in Vietnam. They also were forbidden to carry M-16s. They were to have only side arms, for self-defense.

Missing the Story

All of these U.S. government pronouncements, the Arlington ceremony made clear, had been lies. But the Post story made only a passing attempt to explain why so little was known about these years of classified combat and why the government cover-ups had been so successful.

"Reports of firefights involving U.S. troops were closely held, and field commanders were told in no uncertain terms not to nominate soldiers for combat awards," the Post reported. It then quoted Joseph Stringham, a retired one-star Army general who commanded U.S. military forces in El Salvador in 1983-84.

"It had been determined this was not a combat zone, and they were going to hold the line on that," Stringham said. "I've puzzled over why. It may be something as fundamental as the bureaucracy not wanting to reverse itself."

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/lost1.html

[mountain grammy]

59. Thanks for the memories. I probably won't sleep tonight.

Like my son said last week, if there's military action in Syria, it's Reagan's fault!

[Octafish]

116. I am sorry, Grammy. The actor played Boogeyman for keeps.

Let me pile on:

Noam Chomsky: Ronald Reagan's Secret, Genocidal Wars

Reagan waged a murderous assault on Central America.

June 6, 2013 |

EXCERPT...

Rios Montt’s forces killed tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly Mayans, in the year 1982 alone.

As that bloody year ended, President Reagan assured the nation that the killer was “a man of great personal integrity and commitment,” who was getting a “bum rap” from human-rights organizations and who “wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.” Therefore, the president continued, “My administration will do all it can to support his progressive efforts.”

Ample evidence of Rios Montt’s “progressive efforts” was available to Washington, not only from rights organizations, but also from U.S. intelligence.

But truth was unwelcome. It interfered with the objectives set by Reagan’s national security team in 1981. As reported by the journalist Robert Parry, working from a document he discovered in the Reagan Library, the team’s goal was to supply military aid to the right-wing regime in Guatemala in order to exterminate not only “Marxist guerrillas” but also their “civilian support mechanisms” – which means, effectively, genocide.

The task was carried out with dedication. Reagan sent “nonlethal” equipment to the killers, including Bell helicopters that were immediately armed and sent on their missions of death and destruction.

But the most effective method was to enlist a network of client states to take over the task, including Taiwan and South Korea, still under U.S.-backed dictatorships, as well as apartheid South Africa and the Argentine and Chilean dictatorships.

At the forefront was Israel, which became the major arms supplier to Guatemala. It provided instructors for the killers and participated in counterinsurgency operations.

The background bears restating. In 1954, a CIA-run military coup ended a 10-year democratic interlude in Guatemala – “the years of spring,” as they are known there – and restored a savage elite to power.

In the 1990s, international organizations conducting inquiries into the fighting reported that since 1954 some 200,000 people had been killed in Guatemala, 80 percent of whom were indigenous. The killers were mostly from the Guatemalan security forces and closely linked paramilitaries.

The atrocities were carried out with vigorous U.S. support and participation. Among the standard Cold War pretexts was that Guatemala was a Russian “beachhead” in Latin America.

The real reasons, amply documented, were also standard: concern for the interests of U.S. investors and fear that a democratic experiment empowering the harshly repressed peasant majority “might be a virus” that would “spread contagion,” in Henry Kissinger’s thoughtful phrase, referring to Salvador Allende’s democratic socialist Chile.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-nuclear

This nightmare is ongoing and the only way We as a Nation will wake up is with the bracing cold water of hard truth.

You, though, I'd knock, gently, on the outside door sill.

[Overseas]

61. Thank you. Until recently I didn't know about the significance of the location of his announcement.

Hated him for many other reasons, didn't know about this dog whistle deal.

[Octafish]

152. It's like the South won the Civil War.

The Bush Family's Slaveholding Past

Was their dynasty built on slavery?

By: Edward Ball|Posted: February 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM
TheRoot.com

The image most people have of slavery involves a cotton plantation with a big white house, a black village where 300 people live in cabins and a cruel overseer in the wings. This was not the model followed by the ancestors of President George W. Bush when, 175 years ago, they enslaved about 30 people on the shores of the upper Chesapeake.

SNIP...

A new book by Jacob Weisberg, The Bush Tragedy, mentions in passing that at one time some of the president's family owned slaves. Weisberg doesn't dwell on the links between the White House and the antebellum past except to say the Bush clan's story is a long-held "family secret." The Bush Tragedy, a revealing book about family dynamics in the Bush political dynasty, treats the slavery matter only briefly, focusing instead on the "spectacular, avoidable flame-out" of the receding administration. But the story that joins the 43rd president to predecessors who held title to dozens of people bears retelling in detail.

The skeletal facts surfaced in April 2007, when an amateur historian named Robert Hughes published his research in the IllinoisTimes, a small paper out of Springfield. Hughes found census records showing that during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, in Cecil County, Maryland, five households of the Walker family, the president's ancestors via his father's mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, had been slaveholding farmers. The evidence is simple but persuasive: genealogies of the Bush family match up with census data that counted farmers who used enslaved workers. With this, the president joins perhaps fifteen million living white Americans who trace their roots to the long-gone master class.

SNIP...

The family, nevertheless, seems to have looked back with nostalgia on their old slave hold. There are two pieces of evidence for this. In The Bush Tragedy, Jacob Weisberg refers to one of the later patriarchs, David Walker, as "a believer in eugenics and the 'unwritten law' of lynching," and cites as proof a letter Walker published in the St. Louis Republic in 1914. Black people, he wrote at the time, were more insidious than prostitution and "all the other evils combined."

The second piece of evidence is within living memory. In 1930, when they could afford it, the family again embraced the antebellum lifestyle. That year President Bush's great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, bought Duncannon plantation, an old cotton estate in South Carolina, to use as a hunting retreat and vacation home. His namesake, George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president's father, spent many youthful vacations on Duncannon, where teams of black cooks, valets, and drivers served him and opened doors when he approached. The Bush heirs no longer own Duncannon plantation; but for a time, the estate provided a version of the baronial life, to which the antebellum Walkers aspired, but never achieved.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theroot.com/views/bush-familys-slaveholding-past



Then there's the Old Money from overseas...

[Overseas]

156. So much I don't know...

[madrchsod]

71. when his dad and brother worked for the wpa in dixon il he became a fdr democrat.

he endorsed humphrey in 46...then in meant nancy.

even as a kid in dixon ronnie was always a suck up . he knew how to charm his way into their hearts.

[Old and In the Way]

73. Lets not forget how Ron changed our energy policy.

Kicked DOE out of the cabinet and removed those solar water heaters off the WH. Thank George for that. Way too much money to be made keeping us energy independent of the Kingdom of Saud. We know the Bush family did very, very well keeping us energy dependent on ME oil. It only cost taxpayers 3-4 trillion dollars, 10,000 US lives, and a lowered standard of living to make their dream come true. Ronnie was too stupid to understand who was really running this country.

[Octafish]

105. BCCI: The Bank of the CIA

BCCI -- the miracle Bank of Crooks and Criminals International* -- where the petrodollars met Old Money, as well as narco traffickers, Mafia, NAZIs, Terror Inc, Abu Nidhal, Ollie North and the rest of the BFEE did their banking.

From one great reporter:

BCCI: The Bank of the CIA

by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quaterly
Spring 1993

Jack Colhoun was Washington correspondent for the (New York)
Guardian news weekly from 1980 to 1992. He has a Ph.D. in
history and specializes in post-World War II U.S. foreign
policy. His soon-to-be-published book The George Bush File (Los
Angeles: ACCESS, 1993) includes reprints of several of his
articles cited below.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal
opens a window with a spectacular view of a subject usually
shrouded in secrecy: How the CIA uses banks to finance
clandestine operations.

The view is spectacular because BCCI, which earned the
moniker the “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International,” worked
closely with former Director of Central Intelligence William
Casey and the Reagan administration’s off-the-shelf arms
Enterprise. BCCI financed some of the Enterprise’s arms-for-
hostages deals with Iran. Arms merchants linked to the October
Surprise banked with BCCI. The CIA funneled funds through the
bank to underwrite the Agency’s secret wars in Afghanistan and
Nicaragua.

But BCCI’s ties to the shadowy world of intelligence go deeper.
Clark Clifford and Richard Helms--retired, but still connected
senior members of the U.S. intelligence community--helped pave
the way for BCCI’s secret acquisition of the Washington, D.C.-
based banking network, Financial General Bankshares. Sheikh
Kamal Adham, the founder of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service,
also played a key role on behalf of BCCI in the takeover of
Financial General, which was renamed First American Bankshares.

Casey met “every few months” with Agha Hassan Abedi, the
Pakistani founder of BCCI, in Washington, D.C. and Islamabad,
Pakistan, over a three-year period in the 1980s. Casey and Abedi
talked about Iran-Contra arms deals, the Agency-funded war in
Afghanistan, and the ever volatile situation in the Persian
Gulf. Abedi even made arrangements for Casey’s travels in
Pakistan.1

1. For the Casey-Abedi meetings, see Peter Truell and Larry
Gutwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, The
World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1992), p. 133; and NBC News, Sunday Today, February 23, 1992.

Abedi founded BCCI in 1972 in Pakistan, but the bank’s main
office was in London. BCCI also had major international banking
centers in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, where banking
regulations are virtually nonexistent. By 1991, when it was shut
down by international banking regulators, BCCI had branches in
more than 70 countries. This far-flung network was well suited
as a clandestine conduit for financing weapons transactions,
arranging bribes, and laundering money. Not surprisingly, the
CIA had accounts at BCCI branches around the world, including
more than 40 separate accounts at First American in Washington.

BCCI, utilizing its operations in the Cayman Islands and
Luxembourg, escaped the scrutiny of international banking
regulators. It moved money around the world for weapons
merchants and intelligence operatives through a convoluted web
of BCCI accounts and shell companies designed to camouflage
the transactions. The bank’s good connections in the Third World
enabled it to provide local financing for arms deals and covert
operations.

CONTINUED via PDF:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/152972118/BCCI-pdf

Some more background on the Petrodollar-BFEE axis of weasels:

The Family That Preys Together - the Bush Family

by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quarterly, 1992

EXCERPT...

Junior's value to Harken soon became apparent when the company needed an infusion of cash in the spring of 1987. Junior and other Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., a large investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens made a $100,000 contribution to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.)

In 1987, Stephens made arrangements with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to provide $25 million to Harken in return for a stock interest in Harken. As part of the Stephens-brokered deal, Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi real estate tycoon and financier, joined Harken's board as a major investor. Stephens, UBS and Bakhsh each have ties to the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

It was Stephens who suggested in the late 1970s that BCCI purchase what became First American Bankshares in Washington, D.C. BCCI later acquired First American's predecessor, Financial General Bankshares. At the time of the Harken investment, UBS was a joint-venture partner with BCCI in a bank in Geneva, Switzerland. Bakhsh has been an investment partner in Saudi Arabia with Gaith Pharoan, identified by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board as a "front man" for BCCI's secret acquisitions of U.S. banks.

Stephens, Inc. played a role in the Harken deal with Bahrain as well. Former Stephens bankers David and Mike Edwards contacted Michael Ameen, the former chief of Mobil Oil's Middle East operations, when Bahrain broke off 1989 talks with Amoco for a gas and oil exploration contract. The Edwardses recommended Harken for the job and urged Ameen to get in touch with Bahrain, which he did.

"In the midst of Harken's talks with Bahrain, Ameen-simultaneously working as a State Department consultant-briefed the incoming U.S. ambassador in Bahrain, Charles Hostler," the Wall Street Journal noted, adding that Hostler, a San Diego real estate investor, was a $100,000 contributor to the Republican Party. Hostler claimed he never discussed Harken with the Bahrainis.

CONTINUED...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3352.htm

Thank you for grokking the situation and doing what you do. Telling the truth is why you are so great and all, NeverOld.

PS: I used to have better links, but the articles no longer are available online from their original sources. Even the Waybac Machine no longer coughs 'em out to see the light of day. Oh well. If anyone wants them, PM me and I'll send a copy.

* how Robert Gates famously called the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

[Iliyah]

74. How about Medicare?

He had a democratic congress. Said that Medicare would destroy America. 65% of the medicare recipients vote gop.

[johnnyreb]

75. Bonzo Goes to Bitburg

Remember that? The young'uns made a song out of it.

The song was written in reaction to the visit paid by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985. Reagan laid a wreath at the cemetery and then gave a public address at a nearby air base. (....)
Reagan's plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery had been widely criticized in the United States, Europe, and Israel because among the approximately 2,000 German soldiers buried there were 49 members of the Waffen-SS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonzo_Goes_to_Bitburg

Bonzo goes to Bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down
I need something to slow me down

Thanks for all the info, Octafish!!

[LongTomH]

112. I'm curious about the connections between the Nazis who escaped after WWII and today's "Neo-Nazis"

Maybe this is changing the subject a bit; but, we're learning about the Nazi war criminals who escaped to South America, or just went home and were missed by Allied prosecutors after the war.

Is anyone trying to trace their influence on the rightwing movements sweeping Europe right now?

[Blue_In_AK]

76. Thank you, Octafish.

He is the one I chose as worst president in someone's poll a little while ago. He ruined the country, and how anyone can claim that he was "great" is way beyond my comprehension.

[rhett o rick]

78. k&r thanks for posting.

[demosincebirth]

79. Ok.

[annabanana]

81. yep . . . .kick. . .n/t

[TBF]

82. He may have been coming down with dementia -

but he was a lot smarter than folks give him credit for.

He had his agenda and he pushed it masterfully. And the result is the stark income inequality we see in this country today.

[deutsey]

84. I wonder if we'll ever come out from under the dark, right-wing shadow

his presidency continues to cast over this country?

I used to believe we would, but I'm not so sure any more.

[HughBeaumont]

85. "Speed it up, puppet!!"

http://m.

Donald Regan . . . king pimp fixer of the Friedman/Feldstein Doctrine.

[CanSocDem]

95. Good reminder.

Thank you and Octafish and of course Michael Moore.

.

[Sugarcoated]

87. A hearty vociferous REC

The Rap Master SUCKED HARD...did so much damage to America...

[florida08]

90. won't forget this gem

My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

He damned near destroyed us with his downward tax redistribution called supply side economics. Some of our hardest times personally was during his administration. Home interest rates shot through the roof.

People still quote his line "I'm from the gov't and I'm here to help" Of course Reagan set out to hurt the working class.

Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn’t invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.

But what really chaps my fanny is they credit him with winning the cold war because of his speech where he states "Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall." But we know that's another lie. The Soviet Union began falling in the 70's because their economic policies were failing. I give Gorbachev that credit.

Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, U.S. intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the propaganda demands from above. In effect, Reagan’s team created a faux reality for the American public.

Yet even as working-class white men were rallying to the Republican banner (as so-called “Reagan Democrats”), their economic interests were being savaged. Unions were broken and marginalized; “free trade” policies shipped manufacturing jobs abroad; old neighborhoods were decaying; drug use among the young was soaring.
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/20/ronald-reagan-worst-president-ever/

ok I must stop. As you have shown there is just so much bad this man did that even though he's dead his infamous legacy lives on.

Kudos Octafish on a wealth of knowledge that is sorely needed if we are to understand how we got the neocon/teabagger ideology

[DhhD]

98. Home interest rates set at 13.5%; underwater until the last few years of the home loan. Then came

the Savings and Loan failure and FIRST bailout.

"Restructuring", was the term used in the 1980s. It was like the First Reconstruction of the Confederacy after the Civil War (Reagan and his ties to the resurrection of the Old South. So in my opinion, the Reagan Administration and the administrations thereafter, are still in a Reconstruction. GOP Governors like Rick Perry are just bold enough to put it into the word, secede, from the United States.

[florida08]

117. geez forgot about the S&L thing

Never looked at it that way but I still see that damn rebel flag in FL. No doubt the dream lives on

[Octafish]

122. S&L Scams were a dry run for what was to come in 2008.

Get the taxpayer to make whole all they ripped off.

Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

Then, the Washington-Wall Street insiders got the wink and scam was on:

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

[florida08]

143. Damn skippy Octafish

[heaven05]

94. doesn't surprise me

typical day in amerikkkan high political office from 1970 nixon all the way through 2008 when we finally were rid of bushmoney, condiliar and rumbucket. And now we're at a point where the poor and blacks are waiting for their voting rights to be restored in numerous states and localities. All brought to us by Reagan clones and the virulently racist RW and Teahadists. Gimme break! Land of the free, home of the brave? BULLSHIT! And yes as soon as I'm thrown out of my 60,000 dollar property that the bank wants 600,000 for, I'm outta here. My bad. Had a lawyer that I shouldn't have trusted. Oh, his office has weeds growing in the front and he's no where to be found. Disbarred I think. Ain't amerikkka great? Yeah, for certain people.

[hootinholler]

97. See, there's the difference between you and I

I would have chosen Nixon who set the stage for this. I have trouble believing that Raygun was anything more than a figurehead and the real power was wielded by poppy.

[suffragette]

101. Siphoning from the poor to give to the rich

Trickle down is more like spit on.

[dionysus]

102. he started out as an FDR supporter, then completely lost his fucking mind.

wonder what happened to make him so cruel and heartless.

[BarbaRosa]

104. I think Ford deserves special mention,

when he pardoned Nixon, it sent a message to the republicans/gop that they could get away with anything. Reagan was the tool that got the ball rolling.

[L0oniX]

108. Can we dig that fuckers casket up and put it in prison forever?

[TeeYiYi]

110. k+r & bookmarked. Thanks Octafish. ..nt

TYY

[Voice for Peace]

127. terrifying photo.

[Octafish]

131. That was summer 1980.

Pruneface had no idea that his new friend also was friends with the Hinckleys.

http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/neil.htm

[raouldukelives]

132. Only took a couple hundred years and they managed to turn us into what we escaped from.

If not worse. Corporate Feudalism 2.0
The blood of those who place a love of power above liberty are alive and as we can plainly see, quite well.

[bobthedrummer]

134. For many of US these are truly Death Valley Days, Sir. I'll add a few related links this Patriot's

Day.
Ronald Reagan: Racism and Racial Politics (Scoobie Davis)
http://reaganandracism.blogspot.com

Ronald Reagan: A Legacy of Crack and Cheese (6-16-04 Common Dreams repost by Bob Fitrakis)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0617-06.htm

SDI lives on
Recent DoD contracts
http://www.defense.gov/contracts

[Blanks]

136. Sure, it's fun to beat up on Reagan...

but, if the republicans would have picked an actor instead of Romney, that person would be president now.

Aside from that - there were other things that changed when Reagan became president that were new. For example: the republicans hadn't controlled either body of congress except for the two years under Truman (when they controlled both) and two years under Eisenhower since the Great Depression. The reason that they hadn't is because the American people blamed the Great Depression on the republicans. That generation (of people who's fat was pulled out of the fire by democratic programs) had pretty much passed the baton when Reagan ran for president.

http://wiredpen.com/resources/political-commentary-and-analysis/a-visual-guide-balance-of-power-congress-presidency/

...and everyone can wail and gnash their teeth all they want about how great the government is, and how great unions are, but both were pretty unpopular with a lot of people at the time. There are still a lot of times that the government tends to look out for itself at the expense of the people and unions are very often portrayed as selfish by the press. People were ready to fight back against them. Some people are still angry at unions and the government.

The other thing that happened was that Reagan very successfully blamed the recession on Carter (mostly because of interest rates on homes as high as 18%) and the recession in the early 80's was very deep (many were calling it a depression) and Reagan successfully took credit for the recovery.

Shit is getting worse in this country because we let the republicans take control of congress. It isn't all Reagan's fault, it isn't all Clinton's fault or Obama's fault. It's our fault. We need to get democratic control of congress. The democrats worked for us when they controlled congress. We got some health care reform, we got some banking reform and we got some reduction in the MIC. It would have continued if the republicans hadn't taken control of the house.

For those of you that think FDR did such a wonderful job - he had a democratic controlled congress his entire time in office, LBJ same thing. You want this president to fight for liberal ideals - give the president a democratic controlled congress.

Reagan wouldn't have been able to do nearly the damage if he'd always had a democratic controlled congress and Clinton would have been able to do more. Proof - Nixon (clean water act, EPA, etc) Eisenhower (top marginal tax rate 91%, interstate highway system). Clinton - impeached.

It isn't Reagan's fault (or the people that voted for him) it's those of us who are getting sidetracked about the important things. The democrats' hands are tied as long as those fuckwads control the US House of Representatives - blaming it on Reagan is not productive.

[Octafish]

140. You know who I REALLY like to pound on?

THIS guy.



Here's why:

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

I am tired of Big Oil and Wall Street running Washington.

Know your BFEE: The Secret Government

Things haven't been the same since November 22, 1963. Presidents no longer strive to keep the peace. Instead, a different philosophy prevails: What Poppy's Dim Son called "money trumps peace."

PS: Thanks for the history lesson. I disagree with you in that I think FDR did do a marvelous job. So did the rest of the presidents who gave a damn about ALL Americans -- not just the rich.

[Blanks]

141. I didn't say FDR didn't do a marvelous job.

I just don't think you're comparing apples with apples when you set him up against Clinton or Obama because FDR had 12 years of democratic controlled congress.

Both Nixon and Eisenhower had pretty liberal administrations - not because they were liberal themselves, but because the president is somewhat limited by the 'work' coming out if congress.

It doesn't matter how much you care about ALL Americans - when all congress does is hold votes to repeal Obamacare. The president's hands are tied.

It's the same with Dubya, pound on him all you want - he would have been a liberal president if he'd had 8 years of democratic congress. Unfortunately the makeup of congress is somewhat representative of the attitude of Americans, and there's still too many people leaning right to push an extreme left position.

[Zorra]

154. If Obama had started a New Deal type program soon after he was first elected, like FDR did,

he would have an even larger majority in both Houses than he had during the first two years of his Presidency, again, like FDR did.

Many of us here at DU were screaming for Obama to implement New Deal type policies. Some, (like myself) were screaming for Reid to change Senate rules to simple majority so that we could steamroll necessary traditional Democratic Party reforms and policies into law. We knew it was our chance to beat down the republicans and make them our punks for decades. We knew that if Obama pulled an FDR, we could eventually wipe out Reaganism and 8 destructive years of Bush.

But no, instead of damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead with traditional Democratic reforms, Obama, assisted by his trusty corporatist Third Way Wall St tool Harry Reid, proceeded to squander our large majorities in both Houses by embarking on a destructive, completely ludicrous agenda of compromising for the sake of "bipartisanship", pandering to republicans and appeasing Wall St banksters, republicans, and all other wealthy private interests.

The result for our large majority Congress?



Gosh, who knew? Who could have predicted that would happen?!?

We got 6 years of what has basically been a lame duck Presidency, with a deranged republican conservative/Third Way congress bullying Democrats into whining, pathetic helplessness as republicans filibuster anything that might lead to productive change like schoolyard bullies. Because they can. Because Democrats gave them the power by not standing up to them like adults and setting the boundaries from the get go.

And we stood by, outraged, unbelieving, and helpless, as Democrats squandered all our hard earned and well deserved hope.

It's almost like it was all planned this way.

Let's hope the ACA exchange system that will be implemented in 2014 is successful in giving people real time unquestionable relief, or we could lose even more seats next year.

And Reagan was obviously a sick, twisted creep, in case you didn't get that from observing his personal actions.

[Blanks]

155. That's your opinion...

and I was never defending Reagan (just so we're clear on that).

I don't believe that the republicans got as much blame for the economic melt down in 2008 as they did for the Great Depression. The democrats did try some pretty aggressive legislation (health care was one of Clinton's biggest goals, and he got nowhere with it 10+ years earlier), it takes more than one legislative session to undo 30 years of right-wing 'America screwing'.

You must not have moronic right-wing friends and family on Facebook. I do, and as a result - I see what sort of things 'regular people' believe about what caused the recession. In a word: Obama. Of course after reading your post, I wonder how much you blame it on him.

There are problems that Obama faces that FDR didn't have to face. The biggest thing that he faces is the MIC ownership of the press. When FDR was president he ruled the radio waves - he had mastered the medium. The folks who brought about this last crash have much more control over what goes out to the public.

FDR tried to establish 15 Supreme Court justices because his programs were declared unconstitutional (New Deal programs) by the sitting conservative justices. So the idea that Obama could have done a better job with just one democratic controlled congressional session is absurd. It took years to turn around the economic policies that led to the Great Depression and if Americans hadn't blamed it on the republicans, it never would have happened. That, IMHO, is the big difference between then and now - not the leadership (or lack thereof) of the president. It's because of who controls the press.

[felix_numinous]

138. I wish America could declare independence from the BIG Money

interests, who are NOT American. They may hold passports but they want to drive this country into the ground, and buy up the land out from under us.

I wish we could vote in OUR government representatives, and negotiate with these internationals as if they were a foreign country--because in essence that is exactly what they are--and not benevolent one, but actually very threatening.

[Taverner]

142. Yougottit!

[DLevine]

149. K&R. Ray-gun was a vile pos. nt

[GoCubsGo]

150. It was his handlers as much as it was him.

Brain-Dead Ronnie did what he was told most of the time.

Hard to believe that Ron, Jr. is that fuckstick's son.

[adirondacker]

153. This is one of the Best threads I've read in a long time! Much of it should be in history books. nt