Reagan was the greatest president in history?!

[proud2BlibKansan]

Help me debunk this crap. I am making a list. So far, here is what I have.

1. mentally ill people kicked out of hospitals, beginning the homeless crisis

2. the destruction of labor unions

3. trickle down economic policies, which destroy the middle class

[rucky]

1. What were his accomplishments?

Lemme guess - he single-handedly beat the Russkies

[Shiver]

20. By throwing us into the beginnings of the massive debt we are now in

The Soviet Union fell trying to outspend us. It was a game of economic chicken, essentially.

[malta blue]

28. he declared ketchup a vegetable. true story.

[BrotherBuzz]

35. Del Monte's Catsup, because of its spelling, was not on the approved school lunch menu list....

and changed the product's name to Del Monte Ketchup. True story.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Iran Contra / The war on drugs / Savings & Loan melt down

largest deficit in history / invaded Grenada and Panama /

[Thothmes]

3. All supported by a Congress who's majority

was what political party?

[polichick]

4. He ripped the solar panels off the White House and wed us to big oil.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Almost forgot that one

Thanks!

[riverdale]

6. Supply-side economics - voodoo economics

http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=38

Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world). The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan’s tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn’t been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s. And, most tragically, Reagan’s tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure.

[rasputin1952]

7. Pushed for de-regulation...which in turn gave us the S&L debacle...

(where few if any culprits were tried/convicted).

The one thing thast went through to benefit avg citizens,
the EIC.

[JHB]

8. That actually started under Carter; Reagan, however, gave it rocket boosters...

...and also brought in the culture that equates lax oversight with "deregulation" and "pro-business".

[chemp]

24. This deregulation affected ALL of our food

Especially chicken. Deregulation lead to <b>every chicken on the planet</b> being tainted with Salmonella.

[salguine]

9. Couldn't have cared less about AIDS epidemic, because it only affected "fags".

[The_Commonist]

10. He allowed GHW Bush a place at the table.

Personally, I think that HW tried to have Reagan killed, but you won't get anywhere with that one.
Anyway, after the primaries, Reagan really should have just ignored Bush, rather than give him the VP slot.
History may have been very different...

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. One of his worst deeds

[Clio the Leo]

18. Yep, that's where our problems began. NT

[RFKHumphreyObama]

25. Actually -and I'm going to be flamed for this -

Bush Senior may have been a crook but he was a much better President than Raygun. I'll give Raygun credit for making peace with the Soviets (NOT ending the Cold War) but Bush Senior's foreign policy was way better. He:
(1) Ended Reagan's excesses in Nicaragua and in much of Latin America
(2) Promoted multilateralism and bilateral cooperation as an essential cornerstone of his foreign policy
(3) Rejuvenated the Mideast peace process -which had largely laid dormant under Raygun -and made significant progress in that area. Clinton built upon this legacy of progress but unfortunately Dumbo Junior undid that progress during his two terms in office

I actually think that Bush's foreign policy expertise may have moderated Reagan's foreign policy agenda as well, even though it was still too extreme. Don't forget that Reagan and his cronies came up with such hare-brained proposed schemes as invading Libya and dividing it between Egypt and the US. I think, idiots such as Al Haig and Casper the Friendly Weinberger would have probably had greater influence over foreign policy decisions without Bush as VP and that could have been disastrous.

Dumbo Junior has been a disaster but I actually think that two terms of Bush Senior would have been much better than two terms of Raygun. Of course two terms of any Democrat would have been better than either choice but Bush Senior was the lesser of two evils in contrast to Raygun

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Sat in self absorbed silence

for years as the era's greatest gloabal heath crisis grew and grew. While it killed his own people, and even his old friends.
Ronny the moneky's sidekick said not a word.

[NatBurner]

12. ketchup = vegetable

[WinkyDink]

13. Anyone who thinks this isn't worth the effort. There ARE books.

James Watt, Ed Meese, Bitburg, Iran-Contra (and Hostage Crisis shenanigans), breaking unions....

"Ronald Reagan: Fiscal Disaster":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/ronald-reagan-fiscal-dis_b_82370.html

Privatizing mania and the environment, from "Sleepwalking through History":
http://books.google.com/books?id=_kFA6DGrlG8C&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=reagan+environmental+degradation&source=web&ots=pQ3_NrFse_&sig=R2xX1Ea385gY5Jcp6PPQnuh9shA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA167,M1

[polmaven]

15. Tripling

of the national debt.

[Richardo]

16. Funded the mujahadeen in Afghanistan

[mrs_p]

17. he is right behind bush as worst in my book

financially and strategically supported latin america atrocities
firing of air traffic controllers
ignoring AIDS epidemic

just a few i haven't seen yet. i'll post more as they come to me...

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I agree

[alwysdrunk]

21. Started the crack epidemic

Pushing crack into black neighborhood then locking up crack dealer for long as hell. His administration that is. The mandatory minimum for 5 grams of crack cocaine was the same as for 500 grams of crack cocaine. Crack was first created and introduced to street dealer by federal officers. There was a PBS special about it I think.

[bridgit]

22. He was a corporate shill & a liar, if not true in every case true enough in his...

as the product of an alcoholic parent:

Ronald Reagan's Presidency: The Impact of an Alcoholic Parent

Source: Political Psychology, Volume 29, Number 5, October 2008 , pp. 737-765(29)

Abstract:

Ronald Reagan enjoyed a successful political career. Nevertheless, his political life was affected dramatically by the fact that he was the son of an alcoholic parent. Alcoholic parents leave deep marks on their children's lives, even after those children become adults. As president of the United States, Reagan clearly demonstrated these marks. He was aloof and distant, was often a disengaged leader, showed inordinate loyalty to associates even when such loyalty became problematic, was prone to live in a world of make-believe, married compulsive women, and craved approval and applause. Each of these behavioral characteristics was part of the psychological legacy left to this president by his long-dead alcoholic father. Some of them damaged his presidency greatly; others, however, may well have assisted it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/40_reagan/tguide/index.html

So as to indicate to his corporate handlers his ability to conduct himself as a hard-hearted, like-minded Bohemian Grove Illuminati who's ultimate approval he sought; Reagan, as a mere for instance; well-establishing in advance his disdain for unions (and ultimately air controllers), sold his own SAG union flock down the river in wage negotiations by hood-winking & nodding behind the scenes with Hollywood studio moguls while securing his own, personal screen/tube longevity via the media base & source of his Gov & presidential launch into national & world politics through such seemingly innocuous projects as welcoming Disneyland (The Happiest Place On Earth) to a post world war II world of consumerism on behalf of Monsanto, IBM, ADM, flying elephants, fairies, plundered treasure, and dead men telling no tales, etc, oh! -- and Death Valley Days - 20 Mule Team & Borax laundry soap for that matter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIy-DIJKrdI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPN75715qAI

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jun/09/local/me-names9

Is there anything wrong with this? To seek the approval of oppressors & propagandist' so completely as to exclude everyone else but for one's self and one's *mommy*?

Maybe not...maybe so,

But a resultant can be that handlers of such people need only slip them platitudes for what amounts to the soul of a country; America for instance, while only needing to be convincing enough to deliver a line, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv13ZnkpWos">"The Bombing starts in 5min". But you can hear it in their voices. McCain's, while being an Irish smart ass as was Reagan, *bomb-bomb Iran* was half hearted. He couldn't get the words out right cause he didn't really reeeaallllly believe in them. He was just trying to be a M-I-C/Reagan-esque smart ass. Even Reagan's voice was hyperventilating, however...if nothing else he knew he was playing the part of his life and didn't want to blow it; so he'd be asked back at some point to 'read' again. And the right has been looking for someone that either believes it (the best of all cases), doesn't give a shit, or is able to deliver those lines while they do whatever they do for garden variety psychiatric response mechanism' such as applause, approval, and the smiling donations of a corporate world i.e. Reagan, Bush, and grab your whatever cause you know she's coming back: Sara Palin -- believes in well less than what she is saying, understands even less of it than that, able to deliver a line, tele-genic, and dumb as a bag of door knobs.

Try for a moment to forget Reagan's trickle down/voodoo economics as hard as that may be; Reagan's greater destruction of America has been in his having succeeded in debasing, devaluing, and rending not the office...but The President of These United States of America himself/herself, if not very careful, into a faceless smiling shape-shifting corporate shill that will do anything up to & including make war for no reason while pushing everyone else's GrandMa on their ass for a house in a secure community such as Pacific Palisades, CA

[Hamlette]

23. Goverment isn't the solution, government is the problem + anti intellectualism

getting ppl to believe the government is always incompetent and bad coupled with his anti intellectualism (he destroyed community colleges in CA which was the best education system in the world when he was gov there) led to a culture in our society where teachers are derided and education is laughed at.

It will be the death of us if we don't fix it.

[mtnsnake]

26. Maybe, but only if you're talking about when he was President of the Screen Actors Guild

and even then we'd have to research it.

As President of the US, I'd rank him in the bottom 25% because of his fucked-up trickle down bullshit that got us in such debt, among other things. Reagan's only claim to fame was riding on Gorbachev's coattails.

[ieoeja]

27. Runaway deficit. Two economic recessions. Surrendering to Iran. Lebanon. Islamic hostage-taking.

Rightwingers love to bring up Carter/Iran and Clinton/Somalia as examples of "weakness" that inspires Islamic terrorists. In reality, Carter refused to pay ransom to Iran, and Clinton refused to pay ransom in Somalia.

While Reagan got our hostages back from Iran by paying the ransom which resulted in Islamic terrorists taking Americans hostage repeatedly throughout the Reagan and Bush I administrations. This did not end until Clinton refused to pay ransom in Somalia.

And Reagan sending the Marines into Lebanon then immediately running away the first time we got hurt is #1 on the "proof Americans won't fight" offered by Al Qaeda. They also claim we ran away from Somalia, but they have to lie to do so. In truth we massacred the Somalis that night then sent the Marines *BACK* to Somalia afterwards to secure the release of the Blackhawk pilot they took. The Marines never actually disembarked as the threat alone was enough to make whatshisname piss his pants. Our phased withdrawal from Somalia had actually begun before that last raid.

[Dulcinea]

29. What was so great about Reagan?

To me, he'll always be the guy who cut student loans in the '80s so rich people could have more tax cuts. I was a student then, & even though it didn't affect me, I saw a lot of my friends struggle to finish school.

Saint Ronnie turned me into a Democrat.

[rasputin1952]

30. Trees = Pollution

One of the remakably stupid things Reqagan stated.

School lunch programs were cut back as well.

[stillcool]

31. He was responsible for building..

a coalition that gave the Republicans the majority for decades, and all the power to push what they wanted through Congress, and change the political landscape to their advantage. They had a good run, I'd say.

[TheKentuckian]

32. Reagan is to Satan as the shrub is to the Anti-Christ

There was little that the shrub did that wasn't already well under way under the RayGun. The shrub is just more Reagan.

[Vinca]

33. #3 should be sufficient. That's what got us here. nt

[book_worm]

34. Only right wingers say he is the greatest.

[TrogL]

36. Reagan did the best job of implementing fascism

[EFerrari]

37. AIDS. AIDS. AIDS.

Reagan was a criminal POS.

[L0oniX]

38. ...

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