That explains a lot - especially your unwillingness to see the dangers of an all-powerful state, the cannonizing of individual personalities like Reagan, etc. Next, it'll be George I, then George II...
Thank you, tho', it is generous of you to post works like this, on this thread especially, where it will receive un-Bush-like scrutiny ...
My impression of the article: very Noonan-like, full of emotional words rather than content, and careful sophistry. I'm sure there's a market for this and similar works about George Senior and Junior, and wish you the best, but, having endured Reagan's California governorship, I'm familiar with the workings of Reagan and the machinery around him.
The fall of the Soviet Union would have occured even faster had we stayed the real "course", stayed out of Bush/CIA adventurism, and had SU taken over, say, Afghanistan, for example. It's the only big lie that defenders can hang onto for the $4 trillion the US needlessly spent, but it's false, as clearly evidenced by studies of their rapid internal crumbling, and statements of long-standing that communism won't work. They were right about that. The only thing keeping us spending for the military were the false Bush-led CIA reports of Soviet strength, when the truth was suppressed for the benefit of weapons contracts and foreign entrepreneurial CIA adventures. We now know that the CIA knew, and weren't stupid, just lying at the top levels.
consortiumnews.com
It wasn't all bad - a little paranoia helps be prepared, as I learned in Boy Scouts and in life. Just a few trillion better left in taxpayers' pockets to create a defensive economy, like Clinton did, by accident or design. Had Bush I won, I'm sure we would have seen the fear-factor escalated like we have today, and economic consequences like we have today, even without an intervening bubble.
Disclosure: I'm in favor of technology spending, by the military and private sector, as insurance for suvival of our species. Unlike Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, who thinks the DOD needs to put a lid on it, my opinion is that information is irreversible, we must perservere in creating a safer world through both cultural and technical means. Back to the critique:
Reagan, Bush I, and especially Bush II demonstrate the triumph of the fear factor at work.
Here's the governing principle on that subject:
"When the people fear the government you have tyranny, when the government fears the people you have liberty" - - Thomas Jefferson
The foreign adventures undertaken by the US since WWII have been damaging to the US economically and politically, designd to keep people afraid and driven by the military-industrial-political complex. Commies were bad, terrorists are deadly, but our proper defense is full disclosure of what we know, not billions spent on secrecy and coercion of Americans.
Domestically, the double-speak "lower taxes, balance the budget, increase spending, oops! two out of three ain't bad!" approach is a fraud.
Simply lowering taxes and decreasing the size of government is what is needed -- the convenient lies of the Bush crew subverted that then, and its the same crew today. Highly-competed, intelligent, enjoyable, etc., but look at results, not rhetoric.
This nonsense about blaming Carter/Clinton/Etc. is a shameful diversion of responsibility, attempting to blame others for these failures. Altho' it does have the beneficial effect of maintaining adversarial politics, which is necessary to keep the heat on both parties.
The only good that came out of it was an attempt at tax-reduction, which was destroyed with further fraud by George Herbert Walker Bush's famous "read my lips while I'm lying to you" speech.
It's interesting to note Bush's role in all of this, from the week before Reagan's assassination attempt when George Senior had himself declared in charge of the Crisis Center, to the Iran-Contra scandal. There is a continuum here, to today. |
