Move to China; Cut Out the Middle Man

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

If because your job has been out-sourced to China and you are reduced to shopping at Wal-Mart, you should consider a move to China to cut out the middle man! China is going to get your all but worthless dollars anyway by way of US retail outlet: Wal-Mart! And when the dollar is completely worthless, it 'won't matter anyhow'. We will all be living in Chinese made tents.

If because of GOP transfers of unearned wealth to the increasingly tiny elite of about one percent of the population, labor is unproductive or impoverished the productivity of the nation will decline and ultimately collapse.

If the poor can no longer afford decent housing or food it is because elites have bid up prices on commodities. But because conservative robber barons and huge corporations have consolidated control of markets, your threats of boycott are laughed at. If you can no longer afford decent housing, health care or food, you have most certainly fallen off the bottom rung. It is clear that big business doesn't care about your fate and because the GOP is owned, the GOP doesn't care either.

A Give a Shit Attitude!

Just this kind of arrogance preceded the crash of '29 and the Great Depression which followed. This is not, therefore, the first time in American history that 'big business' flouted its 'give a shit' attitude. In his great 'A Rendezvous with Destiny' speech to the Democratic National Convention of 1936, FDR' made it very clear what is wrong with America today. His great speech is just as true now as then. FDR called it what it was and remains: economic tyranny!

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor, other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

--A 'Rendezvous with Destiny, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936

There are but two recent root 'aggravations' of this economic tyranny:

• The political ascendancy of the Bush family --Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush, and, more recently, George W. Bush.
• The rise of Ronald Reagan, his disastrous and inequitable tax cut of 1982, the two year long depression caused by 'Reaganomics', his legacy of increased terrorism against US interests, rising inequalities of wealth and income, the deterioration of educational standards seemingly everywhere in the US.

The origins of our dollar's collapse may be found in the Nixon and Bush trips to China as well as Reagan's 'give away' to his elite and greedy base. These extremist right wing policies have eaten away at our economic health like wood worms. The right wing/GOP subversion of our currency resulted in exceptions for the ruling elites while lower and working classes pay more than their fair share of taxes. It's why the real elites --just one percent of the total population--often pay no tax whatsoever!

Labor is taxed but capital gets a free ride --a recipe for an impending economic collapse, a collapse that appears to be well underway and beyond anyone's power or ability to stop. Nevertheless, the government will play it's well-rehearsed role, that of shakedown arm of the nation's tiny but increasingly wealthy elite.

Nixon deplaned in Beijing on February 21, his flair for both diplomacy and drama well in evidence. Notes Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose, "He knew that when his old friend John Foster Dulles had refused to shake the hand of Chou En-lai in Geneva in 1954, Chou had felt insulted. He knew too that American television cameras would be at the Peking airport to film his arrival. A dozen times on the way to Peking, Nixon told Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers that they were to stay on the plane until he had descended the gangway and shaken Chou En-lai’s hand. As added insurance, a Secret Service agent blocked the aisle of Air Force One to make sure the president emerged alone."

Soon after their arrival, Nixon and Kissinger were summoned to a previously unannounced meeting with Chairman Mao, which Kissinger later referred to as their "encounter with history." Next came a formal welcome banquet hosted by Chou En-lai, broadcast live on the American morning news thanks to the 13-hour time difference. In the Great Hall of the People, as the People’s Liberation Army band played such American favorites as "America the Beautiful" and "Home on the Range," course after course was followed by seemingly endless rounds of toasts. "‘Seize the hour! Seize the day!’" Nixon quoted from Mao, raising his glass to his Chinese hosts. But beyond the pomp and spectacle, the banquets sent a clear and dramatic message to everyone watching that a new relationship was being forged.

--Nixon's China Game, The American Experience

Nixon's trip was preceded by a long buildup that included 'ping pong diplomacy' and a little known or written about advance trip by George Bush Sr.

Premier Chou En-lai worked the public relations opportunity beautifully, receiving the Americans at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People on April 14. "You have opened a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people," he told the unlikely diplomats. "I am confident that this beginning again of our friendship will certainly meet with majority support of our two peoples." He also extended an invitation for more American journalists to visit China, provided they do not "all come at one time." That same day, the US announced plans to remove a 20-year embargo on trade with China. A Chinese table tennis team reciprocated by visiting the United States.

Ping-Pong was "an apt metaphor for the relations between Washington and Peking" noted a Time reporter, as each nation signaled, in turn, its openness to change. Despite the public warming trend, Nixon and Kissinger decided to keep their back-channel negotiations with China to themselves. It was not until July 15, after Kissinger's secret mission to Beijing, that Nixon announced that he, too, would make the journey the following year, as the first American president to visit China.

--Ping-Pong Diplomacy, The American Experience

Bush's bailouts proved Marx correct but, like everything else GOP, they' mucked it up. It's not even 'good' Marxism. The bailouts have benefited only the nation's elites, the same gang that had benefited most from Reagan's tax cut of 1982. Marx said that Capitalism would collapse of its own inconsistencies, 'internal tensions which will lead to its destruction.' The GOP, the greater of two major sellouts to the MIC and K-Street, merely hastened that result. The 'elites' who benefit do not merely maintain offices on K-Street, they OWN K-Street! The Military/Industrial complex serves at their pleasure. The MIC is expected to defend 'their' interests (not yours) abroad with the lives of YOUR sons and daughters.

Some recent history may illustrate the point: the Wall Street crash of 1929 was followed by a severe world wide depression acutely felt in the US, Germany, France, and to a lesser degree --Great Britain and Sweden. Nevertheless, unemployment was high in Sweden when that nation returned a Labor government committed to a program of public investment to address the high unemployment problem. It worked. By 1935 real output in Sweden was 7 percent above its 1929 level. Unemployment was reduced and the finance minister was said to have been happy to suffer another budget deficit to stimulate the economy.

Ronald Reagan's budget deficit did not have as happy a result. So --why did Keynesian economics work for Sweden in 1929-30 but not for Ronald Reagan more recently? The answer is simple: Sweden was then --as it is now --among the world's most egalitarian economies. The US --among the very least egalitarian! Reagan's tax cut of 1982 benefited only the investor class at a time when increased consumer spending might have stimulated the economy. A 'Keynesian' deficit might have stimulated growth! The Reagan deficit had the opposite effect.

What's Wrong with the American Economy is Wealth and Income Inequities and the Dysfunctional Mentalities That Create Them

The proof of my assertion is the public record. Reagan's tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by the nation's worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession of some 18 months characterized by record levels of unemployment and home losses. The economy contracted, people had less money to spend, many lost their homes and slept under bridges in 'boomtown' Houston. I know --I saw it. I was one of the lucky ones who somehow managed to keep a cozy home to sleep in. Luck! But for the grace of God go I! And no thanks to Unca Ronnie!

Reagan's best critics were found inside his regime, primarily, budget director David Stockman who blamed a "noisy faction of Republicans" for Reagan's infamous tax cut and the debacle that followed. Reagan might have achieved the prosperity that Keynes had predicted. That might have happened had his policies rewarded the working and middle classes instead of the rich and idle elites. Fact is --Ronnie was owned! The government is owned! The MIC is owned! We are owned! We are slaves to a system that may be beyond out ability to reform short of revolution.

The Reagan-heads forgot that the wealth of a nation is the result of the 'work' that is done by its people --not the 'offshore investments' of an utterly worthless, idle leisure class.

The US economy has entered into a contraction not seen since 1929. Private and public payrolls combined have shrunk for 14 straight months. Just recently, the US economy lost some 650,000 jobs over a period of four months. At the time, I asked: why had not GWB's bailouts worked? Obviously, as was the case with Reagan's 'voodoo economics', the wrong people got the money. Most certainly, the wrong people continue to get the money. The wrong 'people' were bailed out. The wrong people still get rich. You still get poorer whether you still have a job or not.

There was no Reagan recovery!

The record shows that the growth rate was 3% between 1979 and 1989 --the same as the growth rate between 1973 and 1979! There was, then, no improvement with "voodoo economics" than without it. Did Reagan's tax cuts bring about more growth than would have normally occurred? Of course not! The opposite occurred. The GOP/right wing is happy when you swallow whatever they puke up.

Worth repeating:

The opposite occurred. The record shows that the growth rate was 3% between 1979 and 1989 --the same as the growth rate between 1973 and 1979! There was, then, no improvement with "voodoo economics" than without it.

There was no Reagan recovery. Punch out the next gopper who tries to tell you that there was. Wealth did not trickle down! Rather, wealth has continued to be transferred upward to about one percent of the total population. Recently, the bailouts just wound up in the wrong hands and may have made matters worse! As Santayana said: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it!"

I am inclined to believe that this transfer was deliberate, planned and executed. It abated only briefly in Clinton's second term. That is but one reason Clinton is officially and systematically demonized and reviled. I have my own problems with Clinton, that is, he did not go far enough. But everything said about Clinton by Republicans are lies! Likewise, I have problems with Obama --but everything said about him by Republicans can be dismissed summarily.

The rise of Ronald Reagan brought with it a spreading of wealth upward to the upper classes and Wall Street insiders, in fact, an increasingly tiny elite of just one percent of the nation which owns more than 90 percent of the nation's total wealth. That fact is graphically illustrated above. The result is factually documented by the government's own agencies --Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Commerce-BEA, et al. Income inequality is measured by what economists call the GINI index. The higher the GINI, the greater the inequality. These numbers, recognized and cited by economists from Friedman to Krugman, from Keynes to Galbraith, invariably increase during GOP regimes.

Now --as the late Steve Kangas pointed out, 'conservatives' will claim that correlation is not 'causation'. I think conservatives are wrong on that point, but if, in fact, GINIS always go up under GOP regimes, what difference does it make? The pragmatic solution is simply this: fire the GOP! Permanently! We cannot afford to continue to support both the GOP and its elite, pampered, privileged sponsors in business, industry and government. See more about 'income inequalities' at: What do liberals believe about income inequality? Also: Myth: The rich get rich because of merit. The rich get rich because they are born rich and get obscene tax cuts for producing nothing.

There are many parallels with the American economy of the 1920s. The economy was booming but by 1927 the nation had overproduced goods for which there was no market. Overproduction led to a slowdown in both manufacturing and agriculture. This is evidence --if not proof --that 'trickle down/supply side' economics is a deliberate right wing fraud. Transferring monies to manufacturers that are over-produced is economic disaster. Why should a capitalist get a tax cut for producing product that cannot and will not be sold? Wealth does not 'trickle down', rather, it is transferred to tax heavens offshore. Clearly --a bailout for big banks is a mistake that will continue to have the effect of reducing the supply of money in circulation --a 'contraction'. The so-called 'Great Depression' was, in fact, a great contraction in which those who would have spent monies were deprived of it.

During the Great Depression and, later, Ronald Reagan's depression of about two years, millions lost their jobs. Earlier, in 1929, bankers and financiers continued to speculate on stocks, borrowing the money and buying stocks 'on margin'. More recently, 'short sellers' made fortunes that you can rest assured have already been transferred into offshore tax havens.

The wealth of a nation is not the money it prints, borrows or coins. The wealth of a nation is the productivity of its people and their industries. Both declined under Reagan and declined again under Bush and declined yet again under the other Bush!

One wonders why Reagan didn't just cut out the middle man. A more equitable tax cut or better a more progressive tax might have put more spendable income directly into the hands of consumers. Spent money circulates and drives an economy. That consumers spend money seems to be a fact lost on the likes of Reagan, Bush, and the nation's rich and callous elites.

Surely, there were knowledgeable advisers in Reagan's regime who knew better. The tax cut, therefore, was entirely political, a pay off to the rich for their support, or more precisely, their investment! Nothing has changed in the GOP. The Bush administration has made several such "payoffs" during his catastrophic and criminal regime.

The 'contraction' of an economy is typically called a 'depression'. The US economy is contracting due to

• the transfer of wealth to but about one percent of the population;
• this 'elite' has transferred most of its wealth offshore where it has absolutely no good effect on the domestic US economy.

The current collapse of the US is the end result of a trend that was begun with the passage of Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut for his rich, elite base. The year was 1982. Historians willl write of that date that it was the beginning of the end of the American empire.

---

"Death on a pale horse with hell following after": The Civil War Remembered

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Mark Twain said of the Civil War that it "...uprooted institutions that were centuries old... transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." Twain's description of it as "death-on-the pale-horse-with-hell-following-after" remains the most vivid, the most haunting, the most relevant.

On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner commented on what is now called the 'Gettysburg Address', certainly Lincoln's most famous speech and among his and history's shortest. In his eulogy on the slain Lincoln, he called Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, a "monumental act". It was in that address that Lincoln had said that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." But, according to Sumner, the battle itself was less important than the speech.

The Civil War is as alive today as are current headlines. As had been the case, our nation is again divided. In 1863, the divisions were geographical. But the exploitation of labor by privilege was more profoundly divisive.

Most recently, the Civil War was brought to life by filmmaker Ken Burns whose documentary aired on PBS for five consecutive nights in September, 1990. At the time, some forty million viewers watched. It remains one of the most popular programs ever broadcast on PBS.

"Ashokan Farewell" is a waltz in D Major composed by Jay Ungar in 1982 and later used as the title theme of the Burns miniseries, The Civil War. Unger said the piece resulted from his desire to write a 'Scottish lament'. The most popular arrangement begins with a violin solo later joined by the guitar.

Before its use in the PBS Series, 'The Civil War', it was included in the album, "Waltz of the Wind." The musicians included Ungar and his wife, Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name. It has served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps that Ungar and Mason run at the lakefront Ashokan Field Campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz.

As a documentary of 11 hours, 'The Civil War' drew heavily upon more than 16,000 archival photographs, paintings, and newspaper images of the period. Much of the cinematopgraphy was contemporary. The narration by David McCullough was enhanced with anecdotes and insights from historians Shelby Foote, Barbara J. Fields, Ed Bearss, and Stephen B. Oates. Gifted actors provided voice characterizations: Sam Waterston as Abraham Lincoln, Jason Robards as Ulysses S. Grant, Garrison Keillor as Walt Whitman, and Morgan Freeman as Frederick Douglass. A re-mastered film was released on its twelfth anniversary of its release.

The Best of Shelby Foote

Filmmaker Ken Burns heard "Ashokan Farewell" in 1984 and "was moved by it", using it in two films, most prominently 'The Civil War' and his 1985 documentary --Huey Long. But it was certainly 'The Civil War' which brought the tune national attention. It was played 25 times during the eleven hours of the series.

It was popularly but erroneously believed that the tune was a traditional tune of the Civil War era. In fact, it is the only contemporary composition in the series. Every other piece of music is authentic 19th Century.

Indeed, Burns' effort --as superb as it was --was enhanced immeasurably by this 'instant' American classic. Jay and Molly are now immortal.

"The Civil War" hit all the buttons perfectly ---McCullough's voice was absolutely perfect for the narration; Shelby Foote's analysis was unmatched for its poignancy and humanity. The actors might never have played more lasting, better or more challenging roles. Through them, we relived this tragic chapter.

Mark Twain said of the Civil War that it "...uprooted institutions that were centuries old... transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations."

Twain's description of it as "death-on-the pale-horse-with-hell-following-after" remains the most vivid, the most haunting, the most relevant.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

---

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Reagan was no hero but he played one in a movie

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Bush leaves in his wake a divided GOP, reduced to summoning up the corpse of Ronald Reagan about whom his party will tell you the same old lies, the same old GOP propaganda. This is to be expected from a party that regurgitates the same failed policies, the same old formulae. Whomever gets the GOP nod will use Reagan's name a lot. Short on results, short on heroes, short on truth, the GOP noise and propaganda machine can be counted to invoke Reagan's ghost as Giuliani summoned up the specter of 911. Give these poor schmucks a break! A glossed-over, revisionist memory of Reagan is all this miserable, morally bankrupt party has left.
The truth is Reagan failed this nation in three significant areas --the economy, the prospects for world peace, and a case of treason: Iran-Contra.
The origins of the biggest myth about Ronald Reagan are most certainly found in Reagan's words when he accepted the party's nomination in 1980.

We need rebirth of the American tradition of leadership at every level of government and in private life as well. The United States of America is unique in world history because it has a genius for leaders -- many leaders -- on many levels. But, back in 1976, Mr. Carter said, "Trust me." And a lot of people did. Now, many of those people are out of work.
--Ronald Reagan, Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention

A promise never kept. Here's the truth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents⁸

Johnson   3.8%
Carter    3.1
Clinton   2.4
Kennedy   2.3
Nixon     2.3
Reagan    2.1
Bush      0.6--Steve Kangas, quoting Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey 

The Reagan economy never equaled the Carter economy. The job creation rate under Reagan never equaled that of the GOPs demon du jour --Jimmy Carter. Carter is still unfairly libeled and reviled by the extremists and liars of the GOP mainstream.
In the following chart, notice that the 1979 unemployment rate was not recovered until 1988.

Unemployment Rate⁵

1960   5.5%
1965   4.5
1970   5.0
1975   8.5
1976   7.7
1977   7.1
1978   6.1
1979   5.9
1980   7.2
1981   7.6
1982   9.7
1983   9.6
1984   7.5
1985   7.2
1986   7.0
1987   6.2
1988   5.5
1989   5.3
1990   5.5
1991   6.7
1992   7.4

In fairness, it must be pointed out that many Reagan policies originated with the Carter administration; notably, Carter actually increased defense spending. If the policies worked, Reagan could take credit for them. If they didn't work, Reagan and the GOP noise machine always had Carter to blame! The GOP still bad-mouths Carter though there is not a Republican who can carry Carter's water.

When I talk of tax cuts, I am reminded that every major tax cut in this century has strengthened the economy, generated renewed productivity and ended up yielding new revenues for the government by creating new investment, new jobs and more commerce among our people.
--Ronald Reagan, Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention

That's a famous Reagan half-truth. Keynesian, Democratic tax cuts, indeed, stimulate economies but only under Democratic regimes --not under GOP regimes. The reason: Democratic tax cuts are egalitarian, benefiting all income groups and classes. GOP tax cuts, by contrast, are deliberately inequitable, benefiting only rich cronies, the corporate establishment, the Military/Industrial complex and other corporate supporters of the GOP establishment. GOP tax cuts are a payoff, just as were the no-bid contracts to Halliburton, Blackwater et al! I've got the stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and the BEA to prove it.

Despite his over-blown, high sounding rhetoric, Reagan's "trickle down" tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by a depression lasting some two years --the longest and deepest depression since Herbert Hoover's "Great Depression".

At the end of two years of hardship, Americans were no better off. The GDP growth rate of some three percent was no better at the end of two years of hardship than it had been before the Reagan crash. Nothing had been gained.

The Reagan years can be summed up briefly. He doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy and tripled the national deficit. The most pernicious effect of GOP economic policy is the effect of declining opportunity, a corollary of decline in wealth among all but the very rich.

It is merely rhetorical to ask: why does the GOP seem to repeat ad nauseum utterly failed strategies that have never been shown to work? Reagan's Budget Director, David Stockman called Reaganomics a 'Trojan Horse'. He understood that the purpose of the tax was not really intended to trickle down. Rather, the tax cuts always do precisely what the GOP insiders know they will do: they enrich the GOP base! Here is how someone who lived through the Reagan nightmare remembers it:

I was in the automotive field at the time, and dozens and dozens of established tool manufacturers, unionized shops, producing high quality tools, small companies with deep roots and real a commitment to the towns they were in all across the Midwest and the local communities, went out of business.

Why? Because with deregulation any hustler could get virtually unlimited financing and set up manufacturing plants overseas producing exact copies of American made tools and flood the US market with them with no fear of the Reagan administration enforcing any laws against them. It also became easier, and far less risky, to get financing to set up a thousand junky identical chain outlets than it did for small local businesses to get credit or tax relief - restaurants, auto parts stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, florists - thousands and thousands of small businesses chewed up and destroyed.

We have a younger generation of people who have no personal experience with so many things - local businesses and tight knit communities, affordable, convenient and efficient public transportation, wages that allowed one person in a household enough income to support the family, homes that were homes, not investments, easy access to public recreation, confidence in the safety of food and other consumer items, all regulated and inspected for the public welfare, freedom from the relentless intrusion of corporations into our lives, and on and on and on.

Reagan destroyed the country, and if we try to gloss over that (which at the very least Obama's remarks have done) or if we buy into the dishonest rationales and excuses and obfuscations that the Reagan administration used to disguise their agenda and to sell it to the public, we surrender any chance at real change, we bury the coffin forever into which the right wingers have put the left - and by extension, the majority of the American people, and we condemn ourselves to living in this ongoing nightmare of destruction and human suffering.

It is not time to make nice with the Reagan legacy propagandists, even by implication or omission. It is time to relentlessly and fearlessly point out that the crisis the country is in is best described and analyzed as the chickens coming home to roost from the Reagan era.

It is time to fight. It is not time to heal or move on—no matter how attractive and appealing this may be—it is not time to paper over the profound divide in the country, it is not time to accommodate or apologize for
--Found on the Democratic Underground

Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:

• Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
• When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year; best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
• Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush.
• The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
• The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" were Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush being worst with Reagan in the middle.
• Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
• Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor.
• By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
• Put another way: Any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.

Along the way, Reagan made up a whopper --his story about a Cadillac driving welfare gran'ma. It became his administration's rationalization for cutting back social programs. Then there was the attack and invasion of tiny Grenada. Does anyone remember how Grenada became an imminent threat to US security such that a war of aggression against it was necessitated or justified under international law?
One of the most harmful myths coughed up by the cult of Reagan is the myth of Reykjavik about which it is believed that Ronald Reagan put total nuclear disarmament on the table. In fact, it was Mikhail Gorbachev who raised the stakes. It was Reagan who folded, blinked and turned down what might have been our last chance to rid the world of nukes. If the world should wink out in a nuclear winter, you will have Ronald Reagan and the GOP to blame.

If, that is, the ensuing “Great Society,” to borrow a term from JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, were laid low by a nuclear attack on an American city (or seven, if al Qaeda had its way).
This is the territory into which Gorbachev launched his most daring raids. First, in 1985, he announced that the Soviet Union would no longer deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs) in Eastern Europe. Later that year, he proposed that both his country and the US slice their nuclear arsenals in half.
The next year, at the memorable Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev got Ronald Reagan to agree in principle to his plan for removal of all INFs from Europe, as well as to draw them down worldwide. Caught up in Gorbachev’s enthusiasm, Reagan expressed a willingness to join Russia in eliminating all nuclear weapons in 10 years.
In the end, though, Reagan clung to his blankie, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Gorbachev feared SDI would lead to nukes in space, not to mention leave the Soviet defense establishment with the impression he’d been played. Their dreams of saving the world came crashing back down to earth.
--It’s not a new JFK we need in Obama, but the next Gorbachev

Reagan was a typical Republican, that is, he said many things and did the opposite. That's because every Republican has two stories to tell: one they tell to their base via "code words" like "family values"; the other, they tell to the world. This second category often consists of lies and pure BS. In this case, Reagan had talked the talked ---world peace, nuclear disarmament, etc. When Gorbachev raised the stakes --total nuclear disarmament --Reagan suddenly recalled his base, the clique, the Military/Industrial complex, the moneyed class that "brung 'em"! He blinked!

Here is what Reagan himself said about the threat of nuclear war.

The Russians sometimes kept submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles that could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radarscope and decide whether to unleash Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that? There were some people in the Pentagon who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war. To me it was simple common sense: A nuclear war couldn't be won by either side. It must never be fought. Advocates of the MAD policy believed it had served a purpose: The balance of terror it created had prevented nuclear war for decades. But as far as I was concerned, the MAD policy was madness.
--Ronald Reagan, The Official Site

So, if that's how Ronald Reagan really felt about nuclear madness, why did he blow what is perhaps our last chance at peace? The answer is simple. Reagan was not his own man.
Iran/Contra almost gave the game away. Ronald Reagan, playing stupid and senile, beat a high treason rap. The source of this treason against the people of the US lay in GOP efforts to get the US government to fund the "Contras" in Nicaragua despite a US prohibition on such military assistance. In a convoluted scheme that involved what seemed like most of the Reagan administration, arms were sold to Iran --then on the State Department's list of enemy states. Then, in violation of US law, the proceeds were funneled to the 'Contra' rebels in Nicaragua.
Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh concluded that the sale of arms to Iran violated the Arms Export Control Act, the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua, and the entire procedure had been "fully reviewed and developed" at the very highest levels of the Reagan Administration. Walsh clearly believed Reagan himself complicit in this treasonous scheme.

The underlying facts of Iran/Contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.
-- Concluding Observations, Investigations and Prosecutions, Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters

The bolding is mine. Clearly --Walsh believed Reagan guilty. How did he escape indictment? The fix was in, of course, but who was behind it? Nevertheless, thirteen high level officials in the Reagan administration either pleaded guilty or were indicted, including Caspar Weinberger, Oliver North, and John Poindexter. Duane Claridge and Weinberger were pardoned! Ronald Reagan got off with a scolding paragraph at the end of Walsh's lengthy, detailed report, in which it is clear that Walsh thought Reagan, himself, personally involved with what many considered a treasonous act --that of arming an avowed "enemy" of the US. Now, Bush is credibly reported to have promised Israel that it will join an Israel nuclear attack on Iran, a nation that had been armed by the United States during yet another GOP administration. Does it get any more crooked than this?
In addition to the panoply of lies and crap, Reagan, as Albert Speer said of Adolph Hitler, rallied the bigoted, the extremist, the fascist with his seemingly endless fussilade of meaningless platitudes, slogans, and high sounding catch phrases --"family values", for one.

Reagan was, in fact, the leader of the "Cult of Reagan". His sorry minions themselves revealed the secret of his success: "He made us feel good about ourselves," they swooned. Maybe they should not have! These are the same folk who gave us Bush!
An addendum: 20 things you have to believe to be a Republican today

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
4. "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.
5. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.
6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.
9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.
12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
13. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war crime in which thousands were killed or murdered is a solid defense policy.
16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
17. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's AWOL record, cocaine abuse, and queer exploits is none of our business.
18. You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.
19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1980s is irrelevant.
20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist; but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.--
20 things you have to believe to be a Republican today

Blogosphere reaction to this post:

Posted by Kaz at 2/1/2008 1:51 PM and is filed under Presidential Race,Republicans,Government,Repuglicans
What a contrast between the Clinton-Obama debate last night and the previous evening's Republican "debate." The Democrats discussed substantive issues important to the American people, while the Republicans lambasted each other, hurling accusations and again wrapping themselves in Ronald Reagan's mantle at the former president's library.

Ah, yes, Saint Ronnie and Republican revisionist history. Reagan is featured in a number of my posts debunking his sainthood. (Just plug in Reagan on the search menu button on this site.)
The Existentialist Cowboy has an excellent piece on the incompetent Reagan and the damage he and his Reaganites caused during his two term presidency. Here is an excerpt:

"Ronald Reagan is remembered for doubling the Federal Bureaucracy, tripling the national debt, and ushering in a two year long depression. He is remembered for making the rich, richer, the poor, poorer and all at taxpayer expense. As bad as all that is, Reagan's lasting legacy is his worst and most dangerous. Reagan may have blown the world's last chance to achieve a non-nuclear peace."

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran Contra stories during the Reagan era, has written a number of articles at Consortium News about the deceitful, criminal Reagan administration, including his most recent that states:

"On the domestic side, Reagan oversaw the dismantling of regulatory structures that restrained the excesses of Wall Street investment banks, the energy industry and other economic powerhouses. Many of today’s problems – from the mortgage meltdown to the nation’s wasteful energy policies – can be traced to Reagan’s contempt for that type of accountability.

"Reagan’s clandestine dealings with Iran and Iraq remain shrouded in secrecy and deception to this day. Also suppressed has been the full story of how Reagan tolerated drug traffickers who operated under the cover of his favorite covert operations (Nicaragua and Afghanistan).
"Even more troubling, Reagan aided and abetted mass slaughters in Central America, including acts of genocide in Guatemala, but neither he nor any of his senior advisers faced any meaningful accountability for their actions."
So when these Republican presidential candidates extol Reagan and want to be seen as Reagan the Second, watch out......danger ahead for the United States and the world should any of these warmongering, anti-Constitution, imperialists, contemptuous of regular working Americans, Reagan wannabe's get elected 

--Reagan Wannabe's Are Dangerous

The 'Cowboy' on FacebookMedia Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009



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US Census Bureau Data: Bush Policies Victimize Children and Working Families

Low and middle income families have lost ground in what the Census Bureau called an uneven economic recovery. Only persons of retirement age or those in the very highest income brackets made gains. Everyone else lost ground during Bush's so-called "recovery". The Census Bureau called "unprecedented" the increase in poverty for working American households.

The new Census figures are disappointing for the fifth year of an economic recovery -- showing a significant decline in poverty for people over 65 but no significant decline in poverty for children or adults aged 18 to 64, and only a modest improvement in median income. In 2006, the poverty rate remained higher, and median income for non-elderly households remained $1,300 lower, than in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom. It is virtually unprecedented for poverty to be higher and the income of working-age households lower in the fifth year of a recovery than in the last year of the previous recession.

--New Census Bureau Data on Income and Health Insurance, Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In the same report: "...the number of Americans without health insurance increased 2.2 million in 2006". The number of uninsured children now exceeds 600,000. Recent progress in this area stalled in 2005, reversed in 2006 --the year Bush cut funding for State Children’s Health Insurance Program. This is an ongoing story and the worst is yet to come.

This is particularly noteworthy because the President has vowed to veto legislation that the House and Senate passed (in different versions) that would resume progress in this area and shrink the number of uninsured children by 3 to 4 million. In addition, on August 17, the Administration unveiled a controversial new policy that would force many states to cut back their SCHIP programs, forcing up to several hundred thousand more children into the ranks of the uninsured. Today’s sobering data on the rising number of uninsured children should prompt the President to rethink his positions on children’s health insurance.

--New Census Bureau Data on Income and Health Insurance, Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In a related development, it must be noted that some two years on, tens of thousands are still homeless in Katrina's wake. You remember Katrina! Katrina dramatized the fact that George W. Bush cares nothing for the people of the US. His primary concern is how best to make $billions$ for his crooked cronies by exporting what the US exports best: death, human misery, destruction.

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and still there are tens of thousands of families without homes. 30,000 families are scattered across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt. To share some of these people's stories, we have put together a short film, "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Katrina: Two Years On, Robert Greenwald

During the making of this video, we heard the heartbreaking stories of good people unable to return home. We have heard the story of the Aguilar family who lost their home to the storm and only received $4,000 in payments from their insurance company. We have met Mr. Washington, an 87-year-old man and former carpenter, who owned three homes prior to the storm. He is still living in a FEMA trailer today. And we?ve met Julie, who could have returned to her job and normal life, if the government had opened up the public housing units that she had lived in prior to the storm.

--Brave New Foundation

The numbers had been predicted. They are just what we might have expected from a man like Bush, so utterly lacking empathy, humanity, compassion. Bush is no cowboy. He's a carpet bagger, a spoiled frat boy who never grew up, never had to, never did an honest day's work for an honest dime.

Allen Spinney sings a Merle Haggard Classic

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