Epic Failure - for all those lurkers who idolize Reagan

[Christa]

[spanone]

1. reagan, the man, the myth

[MilesColtrane]

32. ...the zombie.

BRRRAAINSSS, MOMMY...BRRRAAINNS!

[northofdenali]

36. DUzy!

+1 :rofl:

[rosesaylavee]

2. Nasty record... without mention of the mass deregulation, union busting and Iran/Contra

Yeah.. good times, good times.

[Romulox]

3. Things that seemed CRAZY before Reagan (e.g. "voodoo economics") are now mainstream Dem policy

No need to tell lurkers to stop worshiping Reagan when Team DLC has studied at his feet for 30 years now... :shrug:

[steve2470]

4. i cannot fucking WAIT to see how many freepers get tombstoned..

from this thread LOL LMAO

:popcorn:

[pleah]

5. K&R

[mmonk]

6. Great post. More need to know, especially since they still think

his path is the one to stay on.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Let's add the crushing silence with which Ronnie met the

global AIDS crisis. The years of not just doing nothing, but saying not a single word on the subject.

[tomm2thumbs]

8. bbbbut... bbbbut.... bbb...bbbbut - (silence)

I'm sure we'll be hearing lots of that

[steve2470]

9. One more thing for the right wing lurkers....

You think Reagan was one of you because of his "aw shucks" act ? He wasn't. He was a multi-millionaire product of HOLLYWOOD, who preferred to hang out with other multi-millionaires and billionaires. He was Hollywood personified... to the T. If it wasn't for Hollywood, he would have NEVER stood a chance at being POTUS.

I'm sure you RW lurkers think you would have been one of those rich fatcats hanging out with him. Nice dream. Time to wake up.

[unblock]

10. i would prefer to see the numbers updated to reflect his entire term of office

i see that this was from a source published in mar 1988, and numbers through 1986 might have been the best available at the time of writing. but we're way past that now.

not that i think that would change things much, of course he's still an epic fail, but using numbers through 1986 leaves an opening for reaganauts to claim we're cheating by not reflecting the entire 8 years.

[The Doctor.]

11. Yeah, but he single-handed won the cold war!

All by himself with his bear hands!

On his horse!

'Cause he's a cowboy!

[steve2470]

14. yeah Gorbachev was so scared by him that he broke up the USSR

On the serious side, the RW claims we bankrupted the USSR by spending so much on national defense. I think that's been totally debunked, correct ?

[The Doctor.]

35. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know just how debunked it is.

I don't doubt that it has been, but as far as I know, and having been raised by Republicans, it was ultimately an economic contest.

I know enough about the Reagan era to understand how badly it fucked the core of our economy, but I don't know, to a certainty, just why it was the USSR fell.

Never made a study of it.

Which is weird... thought I knew a whole bunch, but it appears I have a bigger hole in what I knew than I thought.

Care to fill me in?

[Mari333]

12. I have never forgotten when he lied

and gave corporations their HUGE tax cuts, assuring the american public that businesses would 'rebuild america'...and the corporations took their tax cut winnings and ran like hell to china, india, mexico, and outsourced our jobs , replacing them with slaves.

and we are seeing his fooking legacy come to fruition right now.

[lunatica]

13. He looks pretty good for a dead person

It must be the Hollywood make-up

[Echo In Light]

15. Greg Palast: KILLER, COWARD, CON-MAN, GOOD RIDDANCE, GIPPER ...

MORE PROOF ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG
Sunday, June 6, 2004 by Greg Palast

"You're not going to like this. You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But in this case, someone's got to.

Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was a killer."

http://www.gregpalast.com/killer-coward-con-man-rngood-riddance-gipper/

Noteworthy: Palast, of course, took big heaps o shit for this, to which Chomsky emailed him, backing him up by stating, "Never underestimate the servitude and obedience of intellectuals." - - referring to Palast's 'professional' peers who tsk-tsk'd him for being honest and courageous.

[Statistical]

16. Why 1981 to 1986 = 5 years? Wasn't he in office for 8?

I hate selective statistics regardless of who is pushing them.

Someone serves 8 years then use the stats for his full 8 years.
Even if the stats for 8 years aren't as "damning" as the ones for a subset of 5 they are least unbiased and thus will stand up to scrutiny.

If I showed that to any Reagan "lover" I know that would be the first thing they point out. "Liberal bias cherry picking the worst years". The reality is all 8 years as an average were bad just not as bad as that 5 year subset. Entire message lost because someone wanted to juice the stats by picking a subset of his years in office.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. Yep.

When all you really need to do is point out that he resided over the largest tax hike in post WWII American history.

Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982

[Statistical]

22. Exactly.

When people "game" the stats is provides cover for the larger bad job he did.

If you look only at first year of Obama presidency his job creation numbers (-1.2 million) is "far worse" than Bush who had +3 million (over 8 years). Note: 3 million is bad, Clinton was net job creation of 23 million.

Of course Obama will turn things around and hopefully we have net jobs numbers in the 10-20 million range however one could use a selective stat and say Obama is "worse at creating jobs than Bush".

Use the real stats or don't use anything. Selective stats of a partial period of time are too easily refuted.

[dem mba]

25. yea I unrecd my first thread because of that

it instantly deflates your argument when you cherrypick like that.

[steve2470]

17. Reagan's Economic Legacy ( from 2004 Business Week article )

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2004/nf20040610_9541_db038.htm

JUNE 10, 2004

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Michael J. Mande


Does someone have time to read this critically ?

[Jennicut]

18. Plus, he was practically asleep for his entire second term.

That is the joke I remember from the mid 80's as a kid.

[DainBramaged]

19. You forgot destruction of the American Union

[Solly Mack]

21. Reagan got off easy by dying.

[hunter]

38. And God cleared his brain before he got to the Pearly Gates.

He's up there in heaven now, raking leaves out of the pool with a post blow job radiant pool boy "God Bless America" kind of smile on his face.

[FSogol]

23. Proud to K&R. n/t

[JHB]

24. Feelgood Mythology: Priceless

...and that's what counts to his acolytes.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

26. only a rethug would assault air traffic control....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_%281968%29

[AspenRose]

39. And the sad irony is that he has an airport in Washington named after him.

[bvar22]

27. Ronald Reagan is "President Cut & Run".

When the Marine Barracks in Beirut was bombed in 1983 killing 241 American Servicemen, President Ronald Reagan Cut and Ran withdrawing ALL American troops.

"In the attack on the American Marines barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers, along with sixty Americans injured, representing the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing

I personally believe that was the smartest move Reagan ever made, but I always mention this when I am around "Conservatives" who call the Democrats "Cut & Run".

[Kitty Herder]

28. Great graphic!

Thanks for sharing it. I get so sick of the fucking Reagan worship. He didn't earn all that admiration that the wingnuts give him.

[bbinacan]

29. Need stats through 1988

to be accurate.

[texasleo]

33. +1

[RoccoR5955]

30. Reagan was a crappy actor, and a disaster as president

We only got him because John Wayne was dead.

[donheld]

31. k & R

[bullwinkle428]

34. That really should include "Doubling payroll taxes on working Americans",

essentially in order to pay for the tax cuts he gave to millionaires and billionaires!

[hfojvt]

37. that's nice, but the numbers need to goto 1989

Plus the numbers for the debt do not look right. $191.4 billion in debt?

Is that per year? Even there it seems low because I get $205.65 per year for 1981 (994.8) to 1985 (1817.4) and it goes to 3206.3 by 1990 which is 231.48 per year.

[amborin]

40. yes, but Obama lauded R's sweeping ideas and visions of entrepreneurialism n/t

[Christa]

41. Found another good one

[Enthusiast]

42. Thank you for pointing this out.

I had a stealth Reich Wing poster defend Reagan to me on DU just the other day. Democrats know full well the damage Reagan did to the country, something they don't teach in GOP circles.

[Enthusiast]

43. And there should be universal

agreement that he violated his oath of office with Iran-Contra.

This act was clearly treason. Congress being an equal branch of government to the President voted that the U.S. would not fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Reagan funded the Contras anyway and funded this by selling weapons to America's sworn enemy (at the time) Iran.

And they impeached Clinton after a 50 million dollar investigation into his personal consensual sexual conduct. Amazing.

No reasonable citizen should belong to the GOP if based only on the malfeasance of Reagan alone.