rumguy
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 05:36 PM
Original message |
Juan Cole's thoughtful and devasting deconstruction of Ronnie's legacy |
|
This is worth a read.
"I remember seeing a tape of Reagan speaking in California from that era. He said that he had heard that some asserted there was hunger in America. He said it sarcastically. He said, "Sure there is; they're dieting!" or words to that effect. This handsome Hollywood millionnaire making fun of people so poor they sometimes went to bed hungry seemed to me monstrous. I remember his wealthy audience of suburbanites going wild with laughter and applause. I am still not entirely sure what was going on there. Did they think Harrington's and similar studies were lies? Did they blame the poor for being poor, and resent demands on them in the form of a few tax dollars, to address their hunger?"
snip
"Reagan hated environmentalism. His administration was not so mendacious as to deny the problems of increased ultraviolet radition (from a depleted ozone layer) and global warming. His government suggested people wear sunglasses and hats in response. At one point Reagan suggested that trees cause pollution. He was not completely wrong (natural processes can cause pollution), but his purpose in making the statement seems to have been that we should therefore just accept lung cancer from bad city air, which was caused by automobiles and industry, not by trees.
In foreign policy, Reagan abandoned containment of the Soviet Union as a goal and adopted a policy of active roll-back. Since the Soviet Union was already on its last legs and was not a system that could have survived long, Reagan's global aggressiveness was simply unnecessary. The argument that Reagan's increases in military funding bankrupted the Soviets by forcing them to try to keep up is simply wrong. Soviet defense spending was flat in the 1980s."
snip
"Reagan's aggression led him to shape our world in most unfortunate ways. Although it would be an exaggeration to say that Ronald Reagan created al-Qaeda, it would not be a vast exaggeration. The Carter administration began the policy of supporting the radical Muslim holy warriors in Afghanistan who were waging an insurgency against the Soviets after their invasion of that country. But Carter only threw a few tens of millions of dollars at them. By the mid-1980s, Reagan was giving the holy warriors half a billion dollars a year. His officials strong-armed the Saudis into matching the US contribution, so that Saudi Intelligence chief Faisal al-Turki turned to Usamah Bin Laden to funnel the money to the Afghans. This sort of thing was certainly done in coordination with the Reagan administration. Even the Pakistanis thought that Reagan was a wild man, and balked at giving the holy warriors ever more powerful weapons. Reagan sent Orrin Hatch to Beijing to try to talk the Chinese into pressuring the Pakistanis to allow the holy warriors to receive stingers and other sophisticated ordnance. The Pakistanis ultimately relented, even though they knew there was a severe danger that the holy warriors would eventually morph into a security threat in their own right."
www.juancole.com
|
kentuck
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 05:42 PM
Response to Original message |
1. This guy is always an interesting read.... |
|
Don't know much about him...
But I think he makes one salient point that bears repeating. The military spending of the Soviets was flat during the '80s. Reagan's big spending on defense with out tax dollars and deficit spending had no impact at all on what the Soviets spent on defense. A truth that needs to be told.
|
Malikshah
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #1 |
2. He's a professor of ME History at Michigan |
|
Had him as a grad student.
This part of his career is new, however-- and quite interesting.
|
kentuck
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #2 |
3. Quite interesting yourself, professor. |
rumguy
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #1 |
6. yep that little tidbit is very interesting |
|
Soviet military spending was FLAT during the eighties...
|
Miss Authoritiva
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 06:07 PM
Response to Original message |
4. Wild with laughter and applause: the well-fed laughing at the hungry |
|
"Reagan hated any social arrangement that empowered the poor and the weak."
Of course. The rich and the powerful can't exist without the poor and the weak. The incarnation of Sinclair Lewis's soulless Babbit, Reagan was the pitchman of clueless optimism (even as he begrudged schoolchildren vegetables with their lunches) and the heartless arbiter of those deserving to be stricken down by medical plagues (AIDs). Reagan was an empty, amoral figurehead. And he did his job well.
|
Nlighten1
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 06:13 PM
Response to Original message |
|
I read him almost every day.
|
SalParadise
(244 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 06:35 PM
Response to Original message |
|
If you don't read JC once a day, you're uninformed.
(IMHO)
|
peacetalksforall
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 06:40 PM
Response to Original message |
8. He was hateful with a smile and a joke. |
peekaloo
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 08:11 PM
Response to Reply #8 |
10. exactly......I still cringe whenever I hear him described as "folksy". |
|
Edited on Sun Jun-06-04 08:15 PM by peekaloo
Will Rogers was folksy.
p.s. thanks for posting rumguy......bookmarked.
|
rumguy
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Sun Jun-06-04 08:04 PM
Response to Original message |
DU
AdBot (1000+ posts) |
Thu May 02nd 2024, 11:41 PM
Response to Original message |