The Cult of St. Ronnie.......

[marmar]

..... I was talking to a guy today, a Republican (tho now he claims to be an Independent), but a nice guy nonetheless who can be rational on issues from time to time.
He didn't vote for Obama, but he didn't vote for McCain either. He just sat the election out.
But today we were discussing the current economic situation, and agreed about how Bush has left Obama a toxic mess to clean up.
But then he uttered this statement: "We need another Ronald Reagan. He would never have allowed this to spiral like this."
I of course snapped back immediately that Ronnie Ray-gun laid the groundwork for this mess, and he never met a deficit spending bill for missiles and outer-space lasers that he didn't like.
The guy then gave me this puzzled "How could you say that about the Great Ronnie Reagan?" look.
I just don't get it. A modicum of reading, or even a Google search, will quickly debunk the Great Reagan myths. He's lionized, when he should be demonized.

[av8rdave]

1. It's unbelievable, isn't it? I think the reason his funeral lasted so long...

was the Republicans thought if they waited long enough, he would actually rise from the dead!

[musette_sf]

2. i just ordered "Tear Down This Myth"

full title: "Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future"

[Skittles]

3. shows how well propaganda works on Americans

[EFerrari]

4. I found this little tribute today looking something up about Central America:

Reagan & the Salvadoran Baby Skulls

By Robert Parry
January 30, 2007

Ronald Reagan’s many admirers may find this idea offensive, but – given a new report by the Washington Post – it might be fitting to have a display at Reagan National Airport to show how Salvadoran baby skulls were used as candle holders and good luck charms. Perhaps the presentation could contain skeletal remains of Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, too.

It might be modeled after skeletons on display in Cambodia from the slaughters by the Khmer Rouge. After all, it was President Reagan – more than any other person – who justified and facilitated the barbarity that raged through Central America in the 1980s, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of peasants, clergy and students, men, women and children.

Reagan portrayed the bloody conflicts as a necessary front in the Cold War, but the Central American violence was always more about entrenched ruling elites determined to retain their privileges against impoverished peasants, including descendants of the region’s Maya Indians, seeking social, political and economic reforms.

One of the most notorious acts of brutality occurred in December 1981 in and around the Salvadoran town of El Mozote. The government’s Atlacatl Battalion – freshly trained and newly armed thanks to Reagan’s hard-line policies – systematically slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children.

When the atrocity was revealed by reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Reagan administration showed off its new strategy of “perception management,” denying the facts and challenging the integrity of the journalists.



http://consortiumnews.com/2007/012907.html

[xchrom]

5. the republick party future is built on the lie

that ronald reagan was good for america.

[baldguy]

6. From the wisdom of H.I. McDunnough on the occation of his parole:

"I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisers are confused."

[omega minimo]

7. does your friend like pitchers?

[Double T]

8. Ronnie was a crook and a criminal but the rethug owned media has immortalized him......

as the great communicator and the icon for conservative principles and values (cough-cough). Like everything rethug, Ronnie the great is a figment of mindless rethug's imaginations.

[geckosfeet]

9. It's the hair,,,

[UTUSN]

10. I'll give Nancy THIS: that when the wingnuts demanded St Ron be on the DIME instead of FDR

She JUST SAID NO.

[gratuitous]

11. I hope you didn't bump your head

From falling on the ground, helpless with laughter, when he said "the Great Ronnie Reagan".

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. The recession that folllowed raygun was a real bastard.

He accomplished nothing but waste money on a usless military build-up.

[corruptmewithpower]

13. I liked him a lot better than daddy and W Bush.

Disagreed with him plenty but I think he was sincere.