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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (57098)	10/4/1999 10:42:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

You misunderstand, if you think I believe he consciously lied. I thought I'd made that clear over and over. I think he had the capacity, which was a useful and valuable one, to make himself believe things were true if they represented a notion he liked. I mention lying because I wish that those who approved the ideas he represented and liked what happened in the country when he was "president," as well as those who didn't, would all acknowledge a simple thing: Ronald Reagan was either a liar, or delusional, and those are the only choices. We had a delusional President, imo. (Not one I "hated," at all. I just watched him, what he was personally, and was getting away with being, in wonderment.) Delusional because I, personally, don't think he was "lying" in the usual sense. Another way of saying this is that I think he would have passed a lie detector test if asked -- whether he had personally participated in the liberating of a Nazi concentration camp, or if segregation in the armed forces ended during WWII and not three years later, or if the brown smog over ocean highways is healthful brown ozone produced by the sea, or whether the automobile has exactly the same fuel-efficiency as the bus, or if Alaska "alone" has more fuel reserves than Saudi Arabia, or if coal burners are more dangerously radioactive than nuclear plants, or if acid rain is caused by an excess of trees, or if almost all world leaders except Thatcher were older than himself, or if it was the case that North and South Vietnam should never have been permitted to join, having been "separate nations for centuries."... As I was saying, I believe he would have passed a lie detector test when asked whether the above statements, all his, were true, if he replied, "Yes, they are." He was delusional, and he was a puppet, although often a headstrong, fact-repellent one. What is wrong with simply admitting that you like what the puppeteers did? Often by overcoming the stubborn and stupid opposition of their confused puppet. I have taken no position on his policies; only on whether he was a REAL PRESIDENT, or a stage managed, Stepford one. Why is it necessary to pretend the man was in any normal use of the word a "leader"? Cobe, the man was unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. He was unable to distinguish between scenes in movies and events he had experienced. And he was monumentally ignorant. As I wrote earlier, what he was, was something like a sincere, charismatic and goal-oriented goofball. I think the defenders are in trouble they don't need to be in. Logically, they are in trouble because they don't distinguish between making assertions and arguing a position that deals with the facts, for the most part. But the reason their position is so untenable is that they have confused the man with the policies that were implemented when he was acting, literally, the role of President. That is unnecessary to do, and dangerous. I think you guys should admit you liked having a goofball fronting for some policies you approved. It's too scary to have you guys pretending all that stuff doesn't matter. It is MUCH more dangerous, Cobe, to have an ignorant, delusional goofball be president, however skillfully handled, than to have one as a member of your family or as a neighbor. We must pay attention when that happens. It is not a good thing.

To: Ilaine who wrote (57098)	10/4/1999 10:47:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

The following is not about Reagan's economic policies. I am going to quote a couple of paragraphs from Garry Wills' Reagan's America. And I am not quoting them to initiate an argument about his policies over the eight years of his presidency, but ONLY to illustrate something about the most peculiar relationship between the man and the beliefs that he had embraced and his staff. Recall that Reagan came into office upholding the notion that tax cuts would generate a huge economic revival. He got what he wanted from Congress. Here's the quote. You can skim the first para: "... By the end of Reagan's first year, December 1981, 59% of those asked by pollsters said no when asked if they were better off than last year; only 36% said yes. And the worst was still ahead. In 1982, unemployment rose to 10.7%, higher than it had been since the Great Depression, along with the greatest number of bank failures since 1940. Record bankruptcies and farm closures were occurring. It was a world gone crazy. The president who came in to cut spending, increased it throughout his first term. He added as much to the national debt in those four years as had been accumulated in our national history to that point... No sooner had the Reagan program passed, than its creators turned on it-- all but one: Reagan still believed it was working. When David Stockman's doubts were published in the December 1981 issue of Atlantic, Reagan responded the way he usually did when faced with an unpleasant reality. He said it was not there: Journalist William Grieder had misquoted Stockman (a claim Stockman himself never made.)... it took a major conspiracy of his own White House team to make Reagan believe that "revenue enhancement" measures, to make up for the tax cuts, were not themselves taxes. Businessmen had to be brought in to tell him that the stories he was spreading about their happiness were false. Even that did not register. Laurence Barrett, given extraordinary access to Reagan at this time, marvelled at his "absolute refusal to acknowledge the connection between his policies and the major recession of 1981-82." (bolding is mine)