Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Terry Maloney who wrote (419523)	12/17/2011 5:37:34 PM
From: Knighty Tin	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

That was an excellent article. I have been sitting around most of this week thinking, "am I the only one who thinks that Htchens was an extremely talented A-Hole?" In fact, my feelings about Ronnie Babe and Hichens are mostly opposite. I nearly fell for Ronnie's Q Factor, as a human being, but never fell for his supposed greatness as a President or a Governor. With Hichens, I often liked articles he wrote, but often felt like I would slap his face if we talked in person. Reagan was a strange guy. I thought he was terrific as the dopey but loyal and brave George Custer in "Santa Fe Trail." He was a great second banana to Errol Flynn. I liked "Death Valley Days," which he hosted and occasionally acted in. "G.E. Theater" was of mixed quality, but Reagan (then pronounced Ree Gun, not Ray Gun) was an amiable host. In Hemingway's "The Killers," he showed his true colors. When he was running for Governor, I caught him in a lie and he couldn't recover his speech after my question. I had heard him talk at lunchtime in a conservative town where I was working construction and one of his keynotes was that he was going to make the ungrateful college creeps pay tuition at The University of California and California State University systems. The next day, at my college, Cal State, Hayward, Reagan swore he had never proposed tuition for college students at the state institutions. I called him on it and he refused to answer. Several of his backers came after me, but, even though the college was conservative in those days, I had as many friends with me as he did, so it never turned violent. And it was not Reagan's fault that his backers could abide no questions. As gov, he, of course, started charging tuition at the state schools. He also fully backed a proposition that slaughtered property taxes in the state, which took the El-High system of education from 1st in the nation, by a very wide margin, to number 47. There are many causes of California's budget problems, but I feel that Ronnie Babe planted the seed that grew into the big Venus Flytrap. The writer nailed him pretty good on his Neanderthal domestic policies as President. Internationally, he is now viewed as being totally successful. I see him as taking us to the brink of WWIII and got lucky when Brezhnev, Andropov and the premier whose name started with a C all died is a short period of time. Reagan got super lucky and drew Gorbachev as his opponent, and Gorby did not want war. I shudder at what would have happened if Brezhnev had been told to tear down The Berlin Wall. Reagan not only built up the Muslim Terrorists, his policies built the Mexican Drug Cartels we love on the border. And I always wonder how much the right wing nutjobs would have crucified Carter if he had surrendered in Lebanon the way Ronnie did? Reagan was not totally responsible for the 99%/1% makeup of the economy, but he was sure pushing hard in that direction. Hichens was just a creep, though he could be funny. I am not an atheist, but I see where atheists have ideas, too. But he was as much of a fundamental evangelist for atheism as Oral Roberts was for asking God to heal people who sent him a dollar. I have a buddy who is an atheist and in one of his folk songs, he has a line where he says, "when you're dead, you're just dead, that's all." I always ask him how he knows. Well, I believe Hichens now knows.

To: Terry Maloney who wrote (419523)	12/18/2011 8:00:29 AM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Christopher Hitchens was certainly a strange bird. When I first started reading him in the 1980s, he was undoubtably a person of the left. His main media outlet was the leftist rag The Nation. Then in the past decade his opionions turned from leftist/socialist to more nationalist and conservative. His enthusatic support for the wars against the Islamic world were just bizzare given some of his past political stances of human needs over war spending (during the Reagan era). Then he split further with the left by taking an anti-abortion stance. All in all, Christopher Hitchens was never afraid to stake out his opinion whether it was popular amongst his fellow travelers or not. I did like to read his work though. The The Trial of Henry Kissinger was a great read. But oddly, he seemed to support Kissenger-like imperial policies over the last decade as he turned his attention to supporting the war against the Islamic world.