Memories of Reagan

Now that it's mourning in America and everyone has weighed, or is weighing, in on the passing of our former president, I suppose it is time to reflect on what he accomplished.

Not to diminish his incredible ability to enthuse, it would be unrealistic to see his efforts to tear down the Soviet Union as anything more than a pat on the back to someone already on his knees: The USSR was imploding, unable to keep pace with our civilian, not our military, industrial might. They couldn't make a watch or a microchip. With the exception of nuclear arms, which are actually industrial age and not electronic/information age technologies, the USSR couldn't grow enough food, manage its economy, provide decent healthcare, or make a car that worked.

As for the peril communism posed? Much for its own people. But none for us, except for the nuclear capability to wipe us out. This ability, I might add, remains a screw turn away today. So it is again a bit unrealistic to credit Reagan with having saved us from that. If we stop paying off the folks who run the old USSR now, we can look forward to those screws being turned our way once again.

Ironically, the dissolution of the USSR actually made us more vulnerable to nuclear attack, though not on an Apocalyptic scale. Today, for instance, there is feverish activity all through the "stans" as the Soviet mob reaches out to do nuclear business with the radical Muslims.

And did I mention that Reagan was the one who backed Bin Laden and the other radical fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Soviets? Yes they were fighting a war to keep radical Islam from threatening them, and Reagan stopped them.

So credit where credit is due, he trained, financed and launched the new threat these folks now aim at us. Pretty clever that. Bin Laden took one naive President, got him to spend treasure to help defeat the only other force able to defeat him. Then this erstwhile ally turned on us, as well as the spiritual heir of that President, arguably even more naive, and surrounded by the same folks as advisors. Sucker us, the last remaining superpower, into doing battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world by slaughtering innocent civilians right along with the guilty...

Oh yeah, and just like the Ruskies, exhausting their military in a futile chase for guerrillas, which any casual observer of military strategy knows is a fool's errand and a losing proposition.

Next, let's turn to the legacy of Reagan in this hemisphere. On my drive down Massachusetts Avenue in Washington today, I could not help but notice that no flags flew half masted before south or Central American embassies.

Small wonder, US special ops troops roamed the Nicaraguan countryside picking off peasants with their Sig-Sauers. (And before you protest, I know someone who did just that). Again, a real hearts and minds approach. Slaughtering nuns, overthrowing governments we didn't like.

We stopped those commies all right. And now they all are sitting back letting us pick up the geopolitical pieces. Because it is important to recognize that the roots of our war with fundamentalist Islam (and agrarian reform movements in general) are really the same battle. Who will profit from the labor and resources of the third world…our multinational corporations or the day laborers of the Third World?

Yes, I do know that a rising tide lifts all boats and that a dollar a day to work in a factory is a blessing to people earning nothing before. It’s a popular argument, but like most popular arguments (and political slogans), it is too simple to be true. Their boats rise just high enough for them to see and finally understand, thanks to satellite TV, exactly how badly the corporations of the industrialized powers (the First World) are ripping them off.

How else to explain the outpouring of gratitude from these people, all those who live in countries we have helped to better, like Indonesia, Nicaragua, el Salvador, Peru, China, India, Pakistan? How else to explain the tens of thousands of volunteers coming forward to help us combat the scourge of anti-American anti-Western anti-capitalist fundamentalists from these nations we helped so much during Reagan’s time?

Why it's nothing short of a reaffirmation of all the right and good Reagan did with his budget busting military spending then-record deficits...and all this for weapons we don't need now or ever used, like Star Wars (a scientific fantasy too technically ludicrous to explain here), aluminum missile launchers like the USS Cole too unarmored to actually put into port anywhere that might be risky, and too feebly made to withstand a puny rowboat full of C4. Had they set that bomb off against the Missouri or any other WW II ship of the line it would have barely scratched the paint.

In other words, Reagan spent 600 billion bucks back then on a bunch of junk to fight an enemy, the USSR, in a global thermonuclear war that you couldn't win anyway and was never going to be fought. And by the way, the only ships worth building, then or now are submarines. (Submariners say there are two kinds of ships at sea, submarines and targets.)

There are probably other things I left out, like his strong stand against abortion, which is to say, taking the right to choose away from half the population. Why not discourage abortion by limiting every family to one child just like they do in China? And his complete silence about AIDS.

But he did inspire a generation of hopeful youth, Gen-X they were called, and for that I am grateful. They got suckered into the dot-bomb bubble and lost all their money and now will be working and paying for my Social Security and will never get any themselves, thanks to policies he supported then and his spiritual and intellectual heir, George Bush, supports now.

And why should I care? After all “Morning in America” was also the era of “Greed is Good.” I got mine, who cares about all those freshly scrubbed right wingers toiling away so I can pay a 15 % cap gains tax, suck up all the Social Security and Medicare money before they get to wallow at the trough…and then leave them with a huge deficit bill to pay.

That's the Reagan I remember. A cheerful B actor with great luck, He was at the right place at the right time to claim the credit for things others did, like bringing down the USSR, and never had to pay the piper for supporting the worst scourge since them (radical Islam), thugs and murderers throughout both Africa and Central and South America, and using the "strategic deficit" to break the back of social programs that make life more bearable for our underclass here at home.

The Reagan revolution frankly is a revolution. But not the one he intended. The Reagan revolution is taking place today in Afghanistan, Iran (remember Iran-gate?), Iraq (he sold them the poison gas), throughout southern Africa...only South America remains strangely quiet.

But of course those who paid any attention at all to the details of the Iran-contra affair soon discovered that it was really about the CIA running drugs out of South America and into Florida (and some say Arkansas) using Southern Air Transport, a shell company that was a reincarnation of Air America, run by CIA “contract workers” to smuggle cocaine. Doubtless the remarkable lack of action in our South American “War on Drugs” has kept the narcoterrorists too rich and happy and in control to cause any trouble.

But thanks to his leadership we did vanquish the Cubans at Grenada. A true and mighty victory. Might I be the first to suggest that he deserves some sort of memorial on the great lawn for that one...maybe something where he rides a horse and is wearing a cavalry outfit, the kind with those snappy cowboy hats.

He’d like that. He always looked his best in a good hat. ¶ 4:52 PM