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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (46735)	1/25/2008 10:11:59 AM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541958

Not that I want to belabor this point but just out of curiosity what were these Reagan policies that changed the course of history? Bill Clinton circa '91 disagreed with your view that Reagan brought nothing to the table and that an ex-President of the opposite party should never be complimented. Clinton in '91 sounds a hell of a lot like Obama now <g>. Message 24249092 Echo Chamber Bill Clinton used to sound a lot like Barack Obama, which makes his recent outbursts all the more disheartening. By E.J. Dionne Jr., The New Republic Published: Thursday, January 24, 2008 WASHINGTON--It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn't allow to pass their lips. Ronald Reagan, Clinton said, deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan's "rhetoric in defense of freedom" and his role in "advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back." "The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing," Clinton declared. Clinton was careful to add that the Reagan military program included "a lot of wasted money and unnecessary expenditure," but the signal had been sent: Clinton was willing to move beyond "the brain-dead politics in both parties," as he so often put it. snip...............

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (46735)	1/25/2008 11:02:39 AM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 541958

what were these Reagan policies that changed the course of history? Guns and tax cuts, thereby "starving the beast" [of social spending]. For example, Clinton's reform of the welfare system, removing its lifetime component, was an echo of the Reagan revolution. The guns component may have contributed to a quicker fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, though that is debatable.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (46735)	1/25/2008 1:04:03 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541958

Mary, re: "Not that I want to belabor this point but just out of curiosity what were these Reagan policies that changed the course of history? First, I never said the Reagan policies changed the course of history, I said they changed the course of the country. Using the bully pulpit of the presidency to champion feel-good and sometimes counterintuitive flawed arguments he rechanneled the country's thinking on economics, the role of America in the world, ignited the pilot light that would flame into ultra nationalism in this country, and retaught the unscrupulous how to win elections. In so doing he set the stage for our more muscular and militant American foreign policy but what was even more amazing was his effectiveness in convincing working Americans that trickle down economics and tax breaks for the wealthy were good...for them. The upshot was that many working Americans still support the proposition that they must support tax and government spending policies that keep the "boss" rich so the boss can afford to give them jobs. He also made some really mean propositions acceptable to the vast majority of Americans saying things like "Anyone who wants to work in America can get a job" and pretending that those on welfare were there by choice. That left those who advocated less wasteful defense spending being derided as "weak on defense," those who favored more progressive tax and spending policies charged with being "out of touch with the needs of the economy and job creation" and those who favored programs to increase the minimum wage, extend unemployment benefits or help the most needy among us as "bleeding heart liberals who favored socialism over capitalism." So Mary, I think he really did make a wrong turn in the direction of this country and he did it by creating a new majority of American voters who had adopted his wrong headed economic theories, his mean spirited and unrealistic view of the ability of those without employment to become employed and their motivation to work, and by igniting "we're number 1" nationalism and arrogance that constituted an extreme overreaction to the humility and caution that the decade long debacle in Vietnam had created. "Regardless, I didn't see anything in Obama's statement that even hinted at reversing Reagan policies." Well, maybe that's because you haven't made any effort to understand Obama's positions? Or maybe you think Obama believes in trickle down economics, a muscular, arrogant, militant foreign policy and that poor people are poor because they're lazy? Ed

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (46735)	1/25/2008 1:35:08 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 541958

Mary, re: "But the bigger question is whether great speeches and vision translate into real change. Isn't this, as Bill Clinton said with regards to Obama, a roll of the dice? Wasn't that George W. Bush's argument about not having to manage things and that he could appoint people to handle the details? Haven't we been down this path before?" It's difficult for me to believe that anyone could have listened to George Bush fumble around alternating between scripted phrases that were not quite on point and unscripted phrases that were simplistic, petty and inane and then refer to an articulate, brilliant, compassionate Obama and say "Haven't we been down this path before?". But if you take out your reference to George Bush the answer is maybe we have been down this path before. In my lifetime we traveled a little way down that path with JFK, we almost took that path with Bobby Kennedy and we took a few turns with Bill Clinton. So is Iraq Vietnam, is Obama Bobby Kennedy, is Clinton Hubert Humphrey and is McCain Richard Nixon? We all know how that worked out; Bobby got killed, the "experienced candidate" Hubert won the nomination, he was beaten by the Republican candidate Nixon and we lost tens of thousands more Americans in Vietnam before Nixon was forced to get us out. In any case it's always a roll of the dice. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but your ship never comes in if you don't send one out. Ed