I disagree DAK.
Reagan was picked by a group of very powerful men in our country (his kitchen cabinet-I once knew the story) based partly on his acting abilities and success as governor of California. And he was then packaged and sold to the country.
Reagan readily admitted his acting abilities helped him as president.
He was far more brutal and stupid than people think. I was in California when he was govenor and we were horrified at the thought he might win. And we were right.
And these powerful people had a plan. Get rid of government and replace it with the private sector (neo cons). The plan was simply a ruse to transfer money to their rich friends and their corporations.
Look at how Cheney had all the big oil executives in to write tax breaks for their oil companies and Cheney would not release the names of the oil people he brought in.
That is the truth and as simple as that. And they did it by fooling people as they always did, including Lee Atwater's "southern strategy" which they used by fooling many in the south using the three G's: gun, gays and god and fear-always fear mongering.
Then he made his very stupid, but strategic comment: "that the government was the problem and not the answer." That set up his transfer of wealth to the very rich. By saying that, he could start disassembling government and give those jobs and money to the private sector, his friends e.g. private prisons which is nuts and which Cheney was recently under investigation for his financial interest in one private prison in Texas that had done some bad things. A right wing judge let him go.
And so starting in 1980 the neo cons started disassembling government and redirecting trillions to his rich friends. They raised the debt from less than one trillion in 1980 to 10 trillion by the time lil bush left, and turned a creditor nation into a huge debtor nation.
And so that went on for the next 30 year. Reagan raised the deficit by 200 billio a year (five times Jimmy Carter's budget deficit of 50 billion) and all of the money went to his rich friends, 100 billion in defense (who could quesiton that) and 100 billion in tax cuts to the rich. His rich freinds were the CEO's of many of the large defense corporations.
Military Industrial complex!
That was followed by Bush sr., and lil bush until they had pretty much destroyed the country and world.
The last 30 years had been a huge fleecing of America and they even cynically used the southern strategy and people who (innnocently I believe) do not understand, like Ann corrigan's friends, to gain the votes to get enough people elected to congress and the presidency to transfer power and money to the very rich in the country.
That is what happened DAK and their plan was as cynical and false as Bush, Cheney, Rove, Lee Atwater, Grover Norquist and the rest of the neo con mafia.
The last 30 years was planned and ugly and set our coutnry back decades and put us behind almost every civilized democracy in the world.
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Well, to be fair I DO THINK the upswing of conservatism ala Reagan era was due to a natural pendulum swing away from the "Great Society". The perception was things had gone too far towards a welfare state. Remember this game:
welfaregame.com
Now, of course it's gone the other way, with Hate being accepted by the Republican party and practically considered the base.
DAK<< |
