The Mythologizing of Ronald Reagan

The 100th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth is nothing to celebrate.

I am so fed up with reading and hearing about Ronald Reagan's "100th Birthday" as if it were something to celebrate. First of all, you stop having birthdays when you're dead; second of all the 100th anniversary of his birth is nothing to celebrate. Republicans continue to go all gooey over this guy, lauding him as the Father of Modern Conservatism or some other ridiculous mantle he doesn't deserve. I submit that the Reagan presidency might be one of the worst things ever to happen to America.

Ronald Reagan was often called "The Great Communicator" and yes, his years in Hollywood taught him how to effectively deliver his lines. He did a fantastic job in his role as President of the United States. He always acted the part and was great at making people feel good. He looked presidential and acted out the part quite effectively, but let's talk about the substance of his presidency.

Reagan was skilled at playing the "role" of President but the substance of what he did is another matter altogether.

Ronald Reagan gets credit for ending Communism, when he is just the beneficiary of it having ended on his watch. Big difference. Of course he had has his unforgettable, "Ich bin ein Berliner" moment out in front of Brandenburg Gate with his "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. Conservatives like to say that his tough stance toward to Soviets ended the Soviet Union and perhaps that's partially true. But what really ended Soviet Communism was that they were bankrupted by war in Afghanistan. They poured billions and billions of dollars into a war they couldn't win. Hmmm, why does this sound familiar?

Reagan gave a great speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin but the Soviet Union collapsed because it went broke fighting a war in Afghanistan. They must be laughing at us now!

Another thing we can thank Ronald Reagan for is the current anti-union activity in both the public and private sectors. When he dissolved the Air Traffic Controllers' union and fired all its members it was a real turning point in labor management relations and a serious blow to the union movement. It set the precent for naked union-busting that is even more in vogue today.

Thanks for bringing back union busting, Mr. President!

Ronald Reagan also presided over an era of unprecedented corruption on Wall Street. His notions of "smaller government" and "free markets" were just code words for eviscerating regulation of banking and businesses to let these institutions do whatever they wanted. Their mindset was personnified by the character Gordon Gecko, who said, "Greed is good!" It was the beginning of a massive transfer of wealth from the Middle Class to the Monied Elite. Its downstream repercussions are seen today in the mortgage bubble, which some economists say stole ten years' worth of growth from the American economy. Let's not forget the monstrous ecological disasters that have occured in the past few years such as the BP oil spill and the coal ash spill in Tennessee.

Another part of the Reagan Mythology was how he popularized the idea of "Trickle-Down Economics." That is the notion that if the Ruling Class and Big Business are doing well, everyone else will do well downstream in the Economy. The past few years have disavowed all but the most hard-core Conservatives of that notion, hasn't it? The U.S. Government spent trillions of dollars on the Wall Street bailout and everybody's doing so well, aren't they? The idea that if the people at the top of the economic food chain do well everyone else will to is pure garbage.

Ronald Reagan opened the door for secretive abuses of government that occurred under later presidents (one of whom is shown here).

Finally, we can thank Ronald Reagan for the "shadow government" that runs this country today. After he was shot at the first term, even his close advisors say he was never again the man he had been before. Cabinet members like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were asked to keep the government running. This is when these men learned the value of having a figurehead in charge while they did what they pleased behind the scenes. This gave birth to the Iran-Contra scandal and the much more widespread secretive operations that began under G.W. Bush and continue today.

So, when people laud Ronald Reagan as a Great American and a hero, call "Bullshit!" on them like I just did. Reagan is praised as a giant of Conservatism but he was just good at playing the part.