On Reagan Passing....
 

For me, another one of those "eh" moments. Makes me no difference, really. I sympathize with his family in terms of losing a loved one, but otherwise, I don't relate.

Am I alone?

You are not alone.

Yeah frat, I feel the same way you do.

I thought I was the only one. I am relieved that him and his family's suffering is over, because Alzheimer's is hell--but that's pretty much it.

Same here. I understand that he was a president and all but the man was 93!! He lived a VERY long time and unfortunately had to suffer for the last ten years. I think people should understand that he is in a better place now.

same here
 

I'm not feeling the barrage of media coverage nor the revisionist history of the Reagan Era.

Re: On Reagan Passing....
 

You are not alone. Personally I think he was a rotten president, and I really don't care if the fine folks in Chit Chat have my head on a platter because I think that way. :)

Re: same here
 

I just saw a retropective on Fox News and a comment was made that "we are currently enjoying freedoms he fought for".. I was a kid in the 80's but I studied his presidency and I must have missed or be missing those freedoms... "trickle down economics huh":(

Re: Re: same here
 

Crash...I agree with you! Trickle down economics does not work. The only economics that would really work is "bubble up economics". Work the economy at the point where people need it. To put it metaphorically, you don't water plants through their leaves, you water them through their roots if you want them to grow!!!

Thanks everyone.....I thought maybe I was just trippin' for a minute.

Re: same here
 

That's exactly what I was thinking! I'm sick of seeing him on all of these channels.

Count me in as one of the "Meh, whatever" folks. Ever since his 'welfare queens' comment, I've been counting down the days until he was rid of this Earth.

Wow, I feel better, I was wondering if something was wrong with me as I felt nothing while listening to CNN and all the coverage. Thanks! :)

I lost all respect for him when he REFUSED to even say the word AIDS until late 1985, when he was already re-elected and didn't have to worry about his Radical Religious Reich friends lashing out at him. :mad: If it hadn't been for C. Everett Koop urging some sense of sanity in the public health policy of the administration, or of his friend Rock finally admitting that he was ill, it may have happened later.

Count Me In
 

I feel the same way as all of you do. While I sympathize with his family and friends for their loss, he WAS NOT AT ALL a great president (Reaganomics and the trickle-down theory...hmm...well, nothing "trickled" down...giving tax breaks to the rich and cutting social welfare spending :mad: )...

You're not alone.
I guess I"ll have to find someothing to do during the day until they lay him to rest. All of the channels will be covering the services....

I agree with all of ya'll. Regan was not that great of a president, and as an actor he was marginal. I feel for his family and having Alzheimer's is total hell, but the man was 93. He did good to live that long. I just hope that they are not going to pre-empt Passions or any of my other shows for more coverage of his life. Like CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News haven't already saturated the TV enough this weekend.

*poking my lip out becaue they pre-empted the Family Plots marathon on A&E for Regan's Biography*

Re: same here
 

Me either, and this morning on the readio they were talking as if the man's life was short. I mean damn he was 93 years old...

I'd forgotten about that! Thanks for the reminder. Pardon me if I don't shed a tear that that evil sumb*tch is gone.

I certainly had no love jones for Reagan. One of the saddest/funniest things I read in Sunday's paper was that during both terms of his presidency he never once visited HUD offices. In addition, on one situation where his HUD Secretary, Samuel Pierce who was black, was visiting the White House he greeted him as "Mr. Mayor". He didn't know who the man was!

That being said, I think it is STILL important for us to be respectful of the people, who for what ever reason, supported him and mourn now. Saying things like "evil sumb*ich" only serve to polarize us. I can only imagine how we would react (me included) if some of our "friends" on this board said the same thing about one of our icons, say Martin Luther King.

In other words, kinda like what my grandmomma useta say...."If you can't say nothin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."

ETA: I am NOT saying you need to pretend to agree with the man or talk about how great he was. I DO think it is important for people to tell the truth about Reaganomics (I loved explaining this in a Econ class I taught for a certification program!) and some of his other programs, or lack thereof, but I think it is all about the way we do it and the language we use.

I see your point Eclipse, but I also respectfully disagree. Respect is earned, not automatically given, and while Reagan might have achieved some things that changed the face of history, in my mind, he did precious little that warranted my respect.

Martin Luther King isn't only a Black icon - he's a human icon. But even if someone said something disparaging about one of "our" icons (and the concept of 'black' or 'white' icons is, IMO, more polarizing than calling Reagan out of his name) that's the speaker's right, and that's what the First Amendment is all about. They don't have to like what I say or how I choose to say it - but as long as they support my right to say it, we're cool. :cool:

ETA - but if the ladies of AKA would rather not have such strong words in their forum, I support their choice to moderate as they see fit.

I can see this point and SisMad's points, too. I guess that's the squishy, fence-sitting Libra in me.
This post is coming from deep in "Reagan country" -- Orange County, Calif. Dude was revered here, even by socially moderate GOP folks.
I was 16 when Reagan was elected and I'm not surprised that he never visited a HUD office. Remember, in some ways he was the culmination of backlash that began in the 1960s with the Silent Majority concept. For instance, he did a campaign rally somewhere near Philadelphia, Miss.

I am happy to see this thread - it's always sad when somebody dies, and he is owed the respect of the office of the President, but NINETY THREE? That was a nice long life in which he accomplished a lot. I'm just glad his suffering is over and am pleased Nancy has chosen to speak out about stem cell research.

While there is not the level of dislike I had for Strom Thurmond upon his death, I certainly feel nothing above apathy.

I feel the same sadness I would feel on the passing of any human being.

Okay, maybe a lil less. Too bad, so sad.

He lived longer then any other president, so that's saying something right there.
Most people on GC were babies or minors when he was the president, so understandable that his death might not impact your lives, but he was the president and that should be recognized, if not respected.

several positives have come from Ronald Reagan's illness and passing:

1. he raised awareness on Alzheimers, an insidious disease.
2. Nancy Reagan and her children seem to be much closer, which is a good thing. they were estranged for a long time.
3. if you are a federal/bank/postal worker, you have Friday off for the Natl. Day of Mourning.

now we have this whole week to mourn him. unfortunately, that's not working for me and i wish all this coverage would stop (cutting into Y&R really irked me). i didn't support him in my Catholic school's election (Infant Jesus of Prague, 1980)
and i stand by my vote;)
as a human being his passing is sad but as a liberal, registered Democrat, this coverage is overblown:rolleyes:

Ok, get out of my head. I feel the same way, except my level of dislike for him is higher.

Like Ladygreek, I am just not looking forward to the eulogizing. This man did a lot of harmful things. While a certain group of people in this country loved this man (his economic policies helped a lot of folks), I cannot say that I feel the same. The nicest thing that I can say is that he always knew his speeches (thanks Hollywood!)

I am so happy to see the wonderful responses in this thread.

Makes that dumb bitch calling me ignorant earlier (because I don't believe everyone should lower their flags if they don't want to) sound so much better.

Well, people do not know how to disagree without being disgreeable.

I personally think it's ignorant to criticize someone for exercising their rights as Americans. Heck, I don't even OWN a flag. What does that make me...oh yeah, un-patriotic.

Generally speaking, this is how we do things on the Ave. We do have people who disagree on things, but we don't devolve into tasteless personal attacks.

Re: On Reagan Passing....
 

No, you're not alone.

I guess I am from the "don't speak ill of the dead" school of thought. I also see it as giving people time with their sorrow. AGain, I don't think that means we sugar coat everything and get ready to put a new face on Mt Rushmore, but I just remember how the conversation about Strom turned and didn't want to see it repeated.

I agree that MLK is a human icon, but sadly, many folks don't see it that way and considers his birthday a "Black holiday". I'm glad you can be so open minded, but I can tell ya, if it was hours or days after MLK's death and someone called him an "evil sumb*itch" I would have been royally pissed, no matter what the 1st Amendment says.

Posting entire thing...email
 

From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060704A.shtml
Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 07 June 2004

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

- e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's Defunct"
Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is appropriate. He was a husband and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be missed by those he was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the Alzheimer's Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took ten years to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.

The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.

In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth. Writer Edward Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads."

The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye.

How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was one of the most beloved Presidents of the 20th century. He won two national elections, the second by a margin so overwhelming that all future landslides will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved against Walter Mondale. How can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the evils which corrupt our days?

The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is the absolute triumph of image over reality, of flash over substance, of the pervasive need within most Americans to believe in a happy-face version of the nation they call home, and to spurn the reality of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will always be, the undisputed heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.

Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.

Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.

The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just deliver journalism to these massive corporations, but handed virtually every facet of our lives into the hands of this privileged few. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all tainted because Reagan battered down every environmental regulation he came across so corporations could improve their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporations that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The Savings and Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be fine guards in the henhouse.

Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite the fact that he grew government massively during his time. Social programs which protected the weakest of our citizens were gutted by Reagan's policies, delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do this by caricaturing the "welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who drove the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she didn't have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the decimation of a generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot because Ronald Reagan believed in 'self-sufficiency.'

Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable home in America. The aftershocks from this callous disregard for people whose homosexuality was deemed evil by religious conservatives cannot be overstated. Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease which was allowed to burn unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with the subconscious idea that sex equals death.

The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities.

Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick. Many of these names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us today, 'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.

Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way to run a civilized society?

One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great effect. The deadly bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry list of horrors.

The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite public American condemnation of the use of those chemical weapons, the Reagan administration still considered him a welcome friend and ally. This happened while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a nation notorious for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation of scores of laws.

Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald Reagan.

In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted into rubble by Osama bin Laden, who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the Reagan administration to do the job. In 2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger into the heart of the United States, using men who became skilled at the art of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are 827 American soldiers and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him as the man in charge, the man who defeated Soviet communism, the man whose vision and charisma made Americans feel good about themselves after Vietnam and the malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him as nothing more than a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to become a virtue, the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the government for him.

In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan - whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

I'm with Eclipse on the 'don't speak ill of the dead' thing. I couldn't stand him as a president, but I related to him having Alzheimer's b/c my grandmother had it. That's very difficult to deal with. I felt sad when I saw Nancy bow her head on the coffin. I just saw her as a little old lady that lost her husband. I won't miss him, but I do feel for his family. Maybe I'm just PMSing so I'm extra sensitive or something.

abaici, thank you for posting that. Nostalgia and reverence have their place, but that shouldn't result in a whitewashing of the facts.

...it's all relative, because some of us are gon act a straight-up fool should Clinton get up outta here. C-Span will need a special Negro correspondent to translate the services because mainstream America won't know WTH they watchin. ...the presidental coffin gon have people tryin to climb in; somebody's overweight, old aunt will come up front talkin bout "Get up, c'mon get up, Put your shoes on, we going home!!"

I heard the sororities was working on a joint funeral procession stroll, and the hearse has already been outfitted by "Pimp My Ride." :eek:

There's certainly a difference between "not speaking ill of the dead," and lack of objectivity. I think the Ave. is pretty objective. :cool: That's why I like it here, and not so much CC.

Tony, yoooo crazy! But it's true. Don't forget the Baptist choir's rendition of "Walk With Me." Folks are gonna be passing out, church fans with Bill's face are going to be going like hotcakes! ;)

...Bill is tight but he can't get on the church fan. We'll all be 150 years old before you see a black church fan w/out a pic of MLK (usually rocking that brown suit, with the slim tie and the fade....yall know the pic I'm talkin' 'bout) :D

Well, there's a lot of talk about putting Reagan on Mt. Rushmore. Now, if THAT can happen, surely Bill can go on the church fan! ;)

Yes, that's the suit he has on on our church fans and he's looking at a picture of his mother with the title of "Together Again" below the whole picture