I'm too young to remember Reagan, help me combat these "Legacies" of his

[taxidriver]

I've been hearing all week about how reagan was the best president ever, defeating communism and giving america its most prosperous era ever. how would any of you more seasoned DUers argue against the following to claims to his fame:

1) "Winning the Cold War"

2) "Creating the most prosperous Era in US history (-thanks to tax cuts, of course-)

[RBHam]

1. REAGAN FACT AND FANTASY

The Observer (London), Sunday edition of The Guardian
by Greg Palast
http://gregpalast.com/

You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But in this case, I have to. Ronald Reagan was a conman. A coward. A killer.
In 1987 I found myself stuck in a little town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis. People don't die of TB if they get antibiotics. But Reagan had put a embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government the people had elected.

As Ronnie was cracking those famous jokes, the lungs of that mother of three were filling up and drowning her.

And when Hizbollah terrorists murdered hundreds of United States marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior with the B-movie grin ran from the scene like a whipped dog ... then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so that Ronnie could hold parades for gunning down Cubans building an airport.

I remember Nancy, in designer dresses, some of the 'gifts' that flowed to the Reagans - from hats to million-dollar homes - from cronies well compensated with government loot. It used to be called bribery.

The New York Times wrote that Reagan projected 'faith in small town America' and 'old-time values'. Values, my ass. It was union busting and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness, bringing starvation back to America so that every millionaire could get another million.

And then, in the White House basement he condoned a coup d'état against an elected Congress. Reagan's Defence Secretary, Casper Weinberger, with the crazed colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster of the Mideast, Ayatollah Khomeini.

more...

[taxidriver]

2. thanks

nasty stuff. didnt hear much of that this week, eh?

[wryter2000]

3. Bee-Ess

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNU04000000&years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

I hope this link works. If not, go to www.bls.gov and click on unemployment rate and then go to the bottom of the sidebar and click on yearly averages. You'll see that the Great Raygun had the worst unemployment rate going back to 1948, as far as the stats go on this site. Two years were 9.6 and 9.7, which make *'s numbers look rosy by comparison.

As to winning the cold war, most people agree that the US weapons build-up put such tremendous pressure on the Soviets to keep up that their economy collapsed and they went out of business. What's Bee-Ess is to assert that Reagan planned it that way. Who's to say he didn't just want his guns/toys and the break up of the USSR was the work of Gorbachev?

I put it this way...you have a guy in the White House who couldn't tell the difference between President Grover Cleveland and baseball player Grover Cleveland Alexander (true story). Is it more likely that...

a) he thought up a clever way to end the cold war without firing a shot that hadn't occured to any President going back to Eisenhower, or...

b) he was dumb enough to think Star Wars (SDI) would work and decided to buy it no matter how much harm it did to our economy?

You choose.

[damnraddem]

4. First of all, I hope everyone enjoyed the National Day of Mourning.

I think it's nice that a day of mourning was held for Ray Charles.

Now, as to Reagan:
1) He put pressure on an already-tottering USSR. Gorbachev was already pushing reform; and the war in Afghanistan had already started bleeding the USSR dry. Arguably, Reagan's policies may have helped push the USSR over the edge. In the process, those policies:
a) did horrible damange to Angola and Nicaragua;
b) fostered the growth of what was to become Al Qaida and the Taliban.
In the USSR, the US had an enemy it knew how to fight. Reagan helped usher in a world regime where the US doesn't know what to do.
2) He increased the national debt severalfold. He built up the US military at the expense of social programs and of the national debt.
3) He ignored the emerging AIDS crisis. The only good thing was his appointment of a Surgeon General, Koop, who to everyone's surprise took on the AIDS crisis. But otherwise, the administration ignored the major public health crisis of Reagan's tenure.
4) He was horrible for the environment. In contrast to prior Republicans, including particularly Nixon, who were not that bad on the environment, Reagan's policies were a disaster. His appointee to the EPA, Watt, was the worst misleader the EPA has had -- at least until Dubya's appointees.
5) He tried to smash unions. He did successfully destroy the union of the aircraft controllers.