Coming of Age Before Reagan

[localroger]

The Plaid Adder's latest article really brought back memories. I came of age just ahead of her, and what a difference that makes. I do feel the kind of rage at Reagan that makes me want to hope he's turning crispy brown right now. And I feel that way about very few people.

Here's something I wrote back in 1998 that explains why:

/begin retro rant/

I came of age in the late 1970's. While it wasn't a perfect world, it was a world full of hope. We had conquered the Moon and serious people were seriously talking about colonization and about putting a man on Mars. The horrible and indefensible war in Vietnam had been ended largely due to the protests of common people. Women were starting to take the word _equality_ seriously. Homosexuals were starting to peep out of the closet without getting murdered. There were widespread movements toward sexual freedom. Discrimination was an ugly word.

Then, just before I graduated from high school, we idiots elected a senile B-movie actor to lead our country.

I don't blame what happened on Ronald Reagan -- how can you blame the collapse of a world on the rantings of someone who spent his entire adminstration watching reruns of his own movies? -- but I can't help feeling betrayed and ripped off. I was promised a world in which we would be conquering Mars and racism and poverty all at once, and I got something like what the Martinique natives must have felt a couple of years after Columbus landed on their island.

We sit here and swap strategies for survival, and that's good, because oppressed people need to survive. But we also have to endure a rain of invective from our peers who have been brainwashed by the Great Propaganda Machine and who really believe that obeisance to the Capitalist Machine will favor them in the end, even though the lesson of history is crystal clear on the plight of such folk.

I've been going through a period of personal difficulty, and re-reading some of my notes made in younger days. And it's made me MAD. I'd forgotten exactly what I expected when I was 18. It's been so long, with one retreat after another by the people I am supposed to admire, that I forgot what I felt in those days when our computers still worked well enough to navigate a moon shot.

There is a beautiful example of Capitalism, our modern religion, at its finest. Does any of you wish to board a moon rocket if it is controlled by the products of Our Friends In Redmond? I sure wouldn't. Once upon a time we expected products to WORK. And if they didn't, we SUED. That isn't always a bad thing, folks. Torts were invented because, a lot of times, they right wrongs. The people who would have you believe in "reform" of the tort system are the same hucksters who have profited from everything else evil in the modern world.

But now we have the philosophy of "What's good for business is good for you, even if you starve as a result." Or if your computer crashes. Or if you happen to be struck with an illness your insurance company deems too expensive to treat. Or a lot of other stuff.

I was raised to believe that individual humans are important. That can be defined as a religious belief, because I can't substantiate it with numbers or graphs. I think it is a pretty simple and basic religious belief, though, that a lot of people would share even if they don't share other elements of my thought. I think it's an idea most of you would agree with. If not, I'd have to wonder why you are interested in frugality; you could just steal what you need.

But individual humans went out in 1980. We got "supply-side economics," which even its _inventor_ once admitted was a fraud to let the rich do whatever they wanted. Whenever anyone says "people suffer," we are answered with "they will suffer more if business suffers." Well, maybe so, but the record has been accumulating for several decades and it looks like people are suffering (in the USA) more and in more ways than they ever did in 1979. Not that 1979 was so good; there was a lot of room for improvement. But the subsequent developments have been much worse.

The government takes over 40% of my income. I don't have any choice about that. Inasmuch as it is spent on things like nuclear weapons,
occupational forces, and other things I find abhorrent, it can be considered (by dictionary definition) theft. Mind you, I don't mind when the government takes my money to build storm drains, provide flood insurance, or fund other emergency or support services. But I don't like it when my money is used to suppress a legitimate election (such as those in Chile or Nicaragua) just because our politicians didn't like the results, and I don't like it when they fund torturers and death squads (as in Chile and Honduras). But they don't ask me about that. They just take the money and do what they want, whether it's good or ill. And too often, it's ill.

My girlfriend, who is a bit older than me, often rants "I want my jet-pack," because in her age she was promised jet-packs and VTOLs and other nifty Popular Mechanics pablum. I understand how she feels.

I don't want a jet-pack, though. I just want justice.

Sometimes -- more and more often -- it seems like her wishes and mine are equally likely to be met.

/end retro rant/

Six years (almost to the day) later, I find that I can in fact blame Reagan. He was the enabler who allowed all those reptiles to position themselves; that warm smile and fatherly image were the mask worn by a monster we couldn't even imagine.

Now the monster has its claws in us and it doesn't need the mask any more.

Crispy brown. That's the ticket.

[lapfog_1]

1. God help me, I have a confession

while still a young whippersnapper, my first vote for president
was in 1976. I voted for Gerald Ford. Not because I wanted
Mr. Ford to be President, or even that Mr. Carter would be a
worse one. My logic was that IF Carter won in '76, then Reagan
would be nominated and win in 1980. I even explained this to
my college friends ONLY to be laughed at and ridiculed. Further
I was told if Reagan was elected, all of my friends would move
to Canada because he was so clearly hard right and out of touch.

Of course, events proved me correct.

I always wondered what would have happened if Ford had beat
Carter... might have only delayed things by a few years, but then
again, you never know.

[localroger]

2. The Cassandra Syndrome?

Maybe we should start a support group.

[neebob]

3. I loved the Plaid Adder's article

and I was impressed with how much she remembers and her level of political awareness at such a young age.

I graduated from high school in 1978, and I would be hard pressed to remember as much about Reagan or any president before him. I remember the day he was shot, but not having any particular feelings about it. I remember thinking he was lying when he said he didn't know about Iran-Contra. I remember his bobbly head and made-up red cheeks and his general silliness.

Mostly I remember thinking he was a senile old B-movie actor; otherwise, I guess I was too caught up in the yuppiness of the 80s to pay much attention.

[Nay]

4. Your girlfirend wants her jet pack, I want my 20-hour workweek.

Remember when technology was going to be so productive that we all would only have to work 20 hours a week, and we'd have all this leisure time for fun, study, hobbies? Where did that rosy promise go? Straight into the pockets of the rich, where EVERYTHING goes. It was all lies, a bait-and-switch operation, to keep us all slaving away. Now they are tightening down the screws and all the population does is keep voting Republican. I hope that changes, but the nature of the corporate structure built by these neocons will be nearly impossible to control.