ReaganRachel Maddow- beware the ghost of reagan
Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan (2/6/2009) Features of the very Republican Reagan administration included: An appeal to every wedge issue possible: race, religion, sexuality, language, immigration, states rights, and a renewal of class struggle. The wealthy won. You can see it. An assault on labor that permitted further weakening of employee rights and tended to impoverish many workers. Massive military buildup for a ten foot tall Soviet Union that was based on twisted 'intelligence'. When the USSR collapsed we had to continue feeding the military-industrial complex in its quest for empire and world domination. The huge military buildup was put on the tab. Fiscal responsibility is only a Republican talking point when they have little to say about the actual budget. The worst Republican idea of all is that the President needs to be a 'strong man', the Congress has been weakened and the result is that people can only speak in flawed elections. To demonstrate that the President was above the law, he pursued a war in Central America that included a torture manual, training at the School of the Americas, drug running to the inner US cities, illegal arms sale to Iran, and ultimately led to the conviction of a number in his administration. Many of the felons returned to take jobs in the Bush administration. When the World Court ruled that the US was liable for damage mining the harbors in Nicaragua, Reagan simply ignored the World Court. Republicans have no respect for international law. We are number one. ..in incarcerations. The Bush believers in small government implemented the most vicious assault on civil liberties ever seen in the US. We barely escaped with habeas corpus. The 'nofly list', 'Patriot Act', the Military Commissions Act, real id, all illustrate just what R's mean when they talk about small government. We know now that the NSA listens to everyone's phone. Read them the Constitution next time you pick up the phone. So we see now the consequences of the Republican agenda: the US is broke, its military budget is larger than the rest of the world's combined, it has a shredded social safety net that includes the most expensive health care of the developed world, pensions are disappearing (except maybe for Social Security...but Republicans attempted to remove that too.) Say goodbye to your standard of living. Most likely the empire won't last long either because the industrial base and prosperity that enabled it have disappeared. We are accelerating our race for the bottom, and you can count on Republicans to oppose any change in course. |