I share this post on Reagan's birthday for with those who start dripping with sentimentality forgetting what he did, what his legacy is still doing, and worst of all, (for my conservative friends), that they wouldn't have liked him today anyway! Enjoy:
Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan:
No Scalia, No Rumsfeld, No Cheney. No Bushes and all of their appointments and disasters. No funding of dictators like Saddam Hussein (Reagan propped him up big time) or psychopaths like Osama Bin Laden (that worked out well).
An America far less dependent on oil. A superpower respected for skilled diplomacy in ending conflicts, instead of starting them. And a healthy economy with a strong middle class instead of a world where the labor movement has been viciously attacked, and the middle class is systematically being dismantled. Under Reagan, corporations gained massive power to the point today where they have become "people". Unions, the worker's last protection, were severely weakened, and the socioeconomic gap exploded. He also bankrupted us, pouring hundreds of billions into wasteful spending, like the failed and ridiculous Star Wars missile-defense system. All in just 8 short years.
Reagan created the modern plutocracy. He introduced us to the whole "take from the poor, give to the rich" supply-side economics that we still suffer today. He turned compassion to the less fortunate to villianization... created the mythical "welfare queen", mocked AIDS patients, and let his fellow "Christians" know it was okay to belittle the homeless.
CEOs before Reagan made 78 times their minimum wage workers. Today, its almost 3500 times! Without Reagan, America might have had the same income distribution we had in the 1970s, which would mean we would be averaging $120,000 annually--not $40,000.
Reagan was the realization of Barry Goldwater's failed dream that put the GOP on the path of crazytown where it is today. He somehow managed to blend the selfish, plutocratic Ayn Randian economic philosophy with fundamental Christianity and wrap it all up into a cowboy, patriotic image that was as phony as this ranch. Bottom line. REAGAN WAS A BASTARD.
And we are still hurting. So when I hear the idiot conservatives longing for him on social media, the radio and the "specials" on Faux News, I want them to hurt. And the best way to do that? HIT THEM WHERE IT HURTS.
Next time someone starts revising history or just starts a syrupy tribute, hit them with this. Comparing their St. Ronnie with the man that literally drives them insane... Mr. O'Barry himself. Shoot them the following information...then just watch them squirm and enjoy the fireworks:
REAGAN CUT AND RUN, OBAMA DIDN'T COWER
Remember when the GOP loved to say "cut and run" as an excuse to keep our troops in Iraq forever? Even after they said "Mission Accomplished"? But who invented cut and run?
The Gipper.
OBAMA: Our troops were repeatedly attacked in Afghanistan, yet when Obama came into office, he increased troop strength by 68,000. (Along with an actual plan, unlike his predecessor.) His track record of killing terrorists far outweighs his predecessors.
REAGAN: Reagan retreated from Lebanon immediately after the 1983 terror attack by Hezbollah that resulted in the murder of 243 Marines. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 96), Reagan's cut and run INSPIRED Bin Laden, who viewed the United States as a “paper tiger” because of its rapid withdrawal after the attack.
OBAMA KILLED TERRORISTS, REAGAN GAVE THEM WEAPONS
OBAMA:
Gave the naval commander the go ahead to kill several pirates, which resulted in saving the life of Captain Richard Phillips. (PS--Even though terrorists were killed and the captain rescued, f--king Rush Limbaugh, who originally accused Obama of dithering on saving Capt. Phillips, then cried that Obama killed teenagers when the snipers took out the pirates. Obama-Derangement-Syndrome.)
OH! And there was also that whole killing of Osama thing you might of heard about. Obama went against the advice of his own vice president and Defense Secretary Gates and ordered the assault. He is even responsible for ordering the two backup helicopters in case of problems, which was a good thing since one of the assault choppers crashed outside the compound.
I would also like to point out that Obama's military intervention thru a multi-state coalition resulted in the death of Muammar Gaddafi and ended his regime without the death of one American soldier. Reagan tried a unilateral action against Gaddafi and failed miserably. You're welcome.
REAGAN: Reagan APPEASED terrorists. He ignored their atrocities and spent taxpayer dollars to train, arm, equip, fund and overall coddle Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan for his proxy war with the Soviets. He is directly responsible for making a terrorist kingpin out of Osama Bin Laden. Reagan loved him some Taliban
Scoll down this link to see Reagan meeting with leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House 1985
But all I really need to say is two words: IRAN-CONTRA. Reagan was so bad he SECRETLY TRADED F*^KING arms for HOSTAGES! DO I really need to say more?? Can you just imagine the wingnut explosion if Obama did that?
Reagan also met with our enemies without preconditions (1985, Soviet Union)... something that Obama was attacked for saying he just wanted to do. But again, giving weapons to terrorists pretty much takes the cake.
AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS:
This drives the GOP NUTS when I point this out. Who knew?
REAGAN:
I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.
-Ronald Reagan 10/28/1984
OBAMA:
No matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these law should be held accountable.Made that up, did I? Watch it yourself
-Barack Obama July 2010
REAGAN RAISED INCOME TAXES 11 TIMES, OBAMA NEVER
OBAMA:
In fact, wound up being the largest tax-cutter in presidential history cutting $654 billion in 2011 and 2012 alone. He was in favor of letting the Bush tax cuts EXPIRE for the super wealthy, (which no, is not the same as a tax hike), but even that didn't come to pass. Romney in 2012 even admitted Obama didn't raise taxes.
Obama has consistently CUT taxes, not raised them.
REAGAN: He got through a big tax cut once he took office. But to hear conservatives talk, that's where the story ends. They forget he raised income taxes in 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.
Actually, he raised taxes 11 times to include four MASSIVE tax increases!
DEFICIT SPENDING
REAGAN:
Whether you are looking at the economic policies of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, reining in the deficit was clearly of no concern. Reagan tripled the Gross Federal Debt, from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. Ford and Carter in their combined terms could only double it. It took 31 years to accomplish the first postwar debt tripling, yet Reagan did it in eight. Reagan soared the spending, Clinton brought in back down a bit, and W. took it way back up. To be fair to the Gipper, NO ONE did deficit like W. He spent the Clinton surplus like a drunken sailor. And by the way, Obama's spending initiatives were less than half of his predecessor.
OBAMA: Even though Obama inherited a huge debt from W., and focused on a stimulus that benefited the people instead of Bush's stimulus for Wall Street, he still has a much better record on spending than the Gipper and much better than W. Obama did not triple the gross federal debt like Reagan did. Obama is following the Clinton model of spending up front and then focusing on deficit reduction. I predict at the end of Obama's term in 2016, the deficit will be cut drastically--but it can't be anywhere close to what Reagan or Bush had at the end of their two terms. Why? Because the GOP loves to throw money at their base...tax cuts for Big Oil and the wealthiest amongst us which add hundreds of billions to the debt but create nothing. That ain't happening--you are welcome teabaggers.
UPDATE: From politifact, Obama has cut the national deficit in half!
Another politifact article was actually sent to me from a wingnut troll to prove Obama was bad on the deficit and Reagan was good. Idiot never read his own link. The article clearly stated the worst ever were Reagan and Bush! Facts just don't work on some people.
ABORTION
OBAMA:
Believes abortion should be safe, legal and rare. And they are. Abortions under Obama are at their lowest rate since 1973. Granted, as the article says it has more to do with advances in birth control than anything a politician does, but once again shows conservatives to be liars when they claimed abortions would skyrocket under Obama. Although Obama supports reproductive freedom, when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress, he proposed no legislation that would make abortion access easier (which would have been nice because of the constant assault from conservatives).
REAGAN: Stauchly forced-birth. Yet wingnuts never talk about his policies as governor. Reagan signed the "Therapeutic Abortion Act" only six months as California governor. There were 518 legal abortions in California in 1967, and the number of abortions would soar to an annual average of 100,000 in the remaining years of Reagan’s two terms. This was more abortions than in any U.S. state prior to the advent of Roe v. Wade. Just sayin'
GUN CONTROL
(I give Reagan props for this, even though it was only because he got shot. But like his abortion law, conservatives sweep this under the rug:)
REAGAN: COMPLETELY supported the Brady Bill, the holy grail of gun control. Reagan even wrote an op-ed piece for it in the evil NY Times.
OBAMA: The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence flunked Obama on every single gun control issue. Proposed nothing for federal gun control laws when he had a super majority Dem Congress. When he had that Dem majority, in fact, federal gun rights EXPANDED by allowing guns on trains and in our national parks. Yet the NRA still told their idiot members that Obama was coming to take their guns.... and gun sales skyrocketed.
So what's the verdict? Conservatives love affair with Reagan and their hate affair with Obama seems to be bassackwards.
I submit it was REAGAN who was the illegal amnesty-supporting, gun control loving, deficit spending, tax raising, terrorist coddling coward. (As for support of "traditional family values", Obama has a great relationship with his family--Reagan was the first divorced president and was estranged from his children.)
Challenge a conservative to disprove anything I mentioned here. I supported it with the facts. Just be prepared for all kinds of name-calling.
And just to turn the screws... presidential scholars think Obama outranks Reagan as president. So in a few years I expect to be flying into Obama National in DC! Oh, it is going to happen.
Happy birthday Wingnuts!
Absolutely Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI don't know who you will actually piss off, besides the history buffs perhaps. I certainly didn't get pissed off in the least bit, but maybe I'm not what you would classify as a wingnut. I look at facts and analyse them. I don't have time to address all of your misinformation, but I have a passion for economics, so lets start with that.
ReplyDeleteLooking the at the period from 1967-2013, in inflation adjusted dollars, median household income never broke $50,000 and was on it's way down when Reagan took office and until his economic policies took effect, which resulted in an unusually strong and long period of economic growth. The year Reagan left office, 1989, median income was $52,432, higher than 2013 which was $51,900, and significantly higher than any time in history for as long as we have data for. Another fact to point out is that during the Reagan recovery (recovery from the recession at the beginning of his term) there was consistently strong growth in median household income, where there was a downward trend in median household income during the Obama recovery.
All economic classes increased household income. Yes, the rich got richer, but the poor got less poor and the middle class climbed. Your fallacy is in equating "income inequity" to level of income. Well, Margaret Thatcher said it best, "he would rather have the poor poorer, provided the rich was less rich": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnOGaQX04Cs
*inequity=inequality
DeleteThe only facts you cite are about a statistic that the author never even mentioned. So how, exactly, are you "addressing misinformation"? You haven't pointed at anything he got wrong.
DeleteEven worse than that, you fail to understand that severe income inequality distorts the economy in ways that cannot be captured by "median income" statistics alone -- even if they are "adjusted for inflation." When an extremely small group of people control a significant fraction of the total wealth (as they do now), the cost of things like medical care, education, etc. -- which may not be essential to life itself, but are essential to quality of life -- skyrocket as the market bends to the wants of the super-rich and away from the needs of the general population. So actually, you are wrong -- the poor and middle class are significantly poorer even on roughly the same "inflation adjusted" median income precisely BECAUSE the rich have taken too much -- and in general, by financial manipulation and political corruption, not by productive effort.
It seems you are so desperate to spout a talking point that you ignore the fact fact that it is BOTH out of context and misleading.
Before Reagan, increases in the income of people who worked for a living tracked very closely with increases in their productivity. Almost all of the increases in GNP since 1981 have gone to a small group of wealthy investors. SOMETHING changed -- if it wasn't the introduction of trickle-down voodoonomics, what was it?
DeleteThanks for your replies! The facts I mentioned are to put things in perspective. As I wrote in the last paragraph, I think that the author is incorrect to assert that income inequality is of important significance, as level of income (adjusted for inflation) is what we should really be focused on. Sorry if that was not clear. Having people at all income levels wealthier would contradict the idea that the wealthy have gained more power simply because of increased wealth. Wealth has long been a method of gaining power, before/after Reagan, I really don't think much has changed.
DeleteHowever, when the wealthy gain more wealth, there are only a few possible scenarios for how they use their wealth.
1. Invest- Probably the most likely. Investments into pretty much anything, benefits everyone. It's the way business works. Many people have jobs, many well paying jobs at that, because of investments into x,y,z.
2. Save - When money is saved at a financial institution, it can be loaned out. This is how people who aren't wealthy buy things they do not have the money up front to purchase. Again, this benefits most people, especially the middle class.
3. Spend- When wealthy spend money on lavish things, non-wealthy people who provide the products or services benefit merely by having work to meet the demand. I know someone who installs home theater systems. Most all of his customers are well into the "top 10%", he makes decent money and loves his job.
4. Bury their money in a hole in the ground or under their mattress- By far the least likely scenario, but I'm sure there are a few of these out their. This is the only scenario where wealth would not provide any significant benefit to the rest of society.
It seems that you may not understand what the premise behind "adjusting for inflation" is. There are a few ways to measure inflation, but basically, inflation adjustment, by definition, takes into account the cost of common purchases, that is how it is calculated. Contrary to what you state, standard of living has actually gone up respective to inflation adjusted income. Examples: I recently purchased a high spec laptop from Dell for about $1000. I also purchased a laptop from Dell over 12 years ago, that was equivalently highly spec'd, respective to the period of time, which cost me well over $2000. Even though it's equivalently spec's based on age, it's still significantly more powerful and capable, which give a better experience than I got 12 yrs ago. Cheaper and Better. A pre-Reagan era VW Beetle, which was considered an affordable car, is roughly the same price as a new car of the same class (like a Nissan Versa for instance), but the Versa is faster, safer, has more features, more comfort and gets better gas mileage. I could keep going on and on with comparisons, but you get the point. Standard of living is undoubtedly better.
DeleteYou specifically mentioned Health Care and Education. Let's be honest with this. Having more wealth at the top does not cause a doctor's visit or an Xray to go up in price. There are other reasons for that (some of which is inflation). The healthcare today is leaps and bounds above and beyond what we had in the 70's, better and more options happen to cost more than the old ones. Education cost is actually a very sore subject for me, but from a different angle than you are coming. Again, having a few people with more money does not cause prices to go up. It's almost the exact opposite, more people with more money allows prices to go up (the more people can afford, and the larger the demand, the more institutions can charge). The factor that has permitted education costs to skyrocket: Federally backed Student Loans. I'm not going to say that the principle is completely bad, but the effects of what we have, have been disastrous. The more money people can borrow to pay for education, the more institutions can charge. If you study the rise of education cost in accordance with the availability of student loan dollars, you will see the correlation.
Regarding the argument of income vs. productivity, this is a false premise. The rise of productivity has largely come because of the explosion of technology. Factory workers did not train so super hard that they were able to increase their own personal productivity 1000%. It's was done with technology. Which, by the way, the wealthy had to dump tons of money in investing in the research of, often times losing, well in advance of being able to actually use it, with no guarantee of results, all while still covering the normal expenses like salaries of the employees. Merely not knowing the cause of something, does not make a given theory true.
I am waiting for the New Super carrier the USS OBAMA
ReplyDeleteGrreat reading this
ReplyDelete