Everything in America To Be Named After Ronald Reagan
By James Boyne
I myself, as a former staunch, life long, conservative, right wing Republican (recently switched to Progressive/Independent leanings) really appreciate the warmth, friendliness, fatherliness, good heartedness, and sincerity of former President Reagan.
However, the Christian conservative Coalition, as rabid Reagan followers, want to name everything in American after Reagan now that he has passed peacefully away.
He was a great man. He was a great leader. He was a great human being. Was he a great President? No. There is still 45 million people with no health insurance; there is a $500 billion dollar budget deficit; there are 18 million unemployed; 1.6 million bankruptcies a year; a Medicare system that is in disarray; multi-national corporations that have taken over the control of the Federal Government; and a military budget that has ballooned out of all proportion to what is able to accomplish to protect our nation.
He isn't responsible for all this, but President' leave a legacy years after they leave office. This is his legacy.
Did Reagan end the Cold War or did "time" end it. The people of Eastern Europe ended the Cold War. Reagan was a bystander----an onlooker, a PR professional personified.
Yes, he was a warm, kind hearted, articulate, communicator who related to the nation through the force of his personality, humor, wit, and principal.
Conservative Republicans now want to name the Holland Tunnel, Reagan Tunnel. They want to name, the George Washington Bridge , the Ronald Reagan Bridge . They want to change every currency to have the picture of Ronald Reagan on them. They want to name Washington , DC , Ronald Reagan DC, and they want to have him enshrined into Mt. Rushmore .
JFK Airport will become RR Airport. The Henry Hudson Parkway will become Reagan Parkway . The Golden Gate Bridge will become Ronald Reagan Bridge . Maybe even the Grand Canyon will become the Ronald Reagan Canyon .
I am a former lifelong, conservative Republican that has switched to being an Independent with a Progressive leaning, due to the deterioration of our country's values and performance under President Bush.
I admired President Reagan. But let's just let him rest in peace.
My mother died of Alzheimer's, after ten years, just like Reagan, but the health care system sucked more than $2 million from her estate leaving her children without a penny of the fortune she saved by working like a dog over 91 years. No one named anything after her. She barely had a penny to have her name inscribed on her tombstone. To this day her gravestone reads: Evelyn Boyne, Born 1911. It has no date of death on it although she died in 2001 because we couldn't afford to have the date of death inscribed on the stone. It almost seems appropriate since in her children's minds she has never died.
If President Reagan were alive today he would be doing the bidding of the Christian Republican right wing and would fight stem cell research at all costs. Nancy, God bless her soul, would be marching lock-step in line with her husband to prevent stem cell research at all costs. This end of life hipocricy is understandable, but so so sad.
In retrospect Reagans flaw was that he saw (or so he said) that the Federal Government was the problem, not the solution. He then proceeded to use the Federal military might of the U.S. to solve problems in Lebanon , Grenada , Libya , Nicaragua , and throughout the world.
He proceeded to use the power, influence and politics of the Republican Federal Government to role back the rights of women to have an abortion and control of their own reproductive rights.
He spent hundreds of billions on wasted Federal military programs that proved to be ludicrous. He fired ten thousand air traffic controllers----some of the brightest, the best, the hardest working, most dedicated workers America had. The very people that protect our sky's and our air traffic flow---one of the most stressful jobs there is. Many air traffic controllers have never recuperated from having their lives and their careers destroyed so Ronald Reagan could make a point.
Ronald Reagan wasn't responsible for ending the Cold War.
President Gorbachev and Boris Yelstin of the USSR were responsible, as was Lech Walesa of Poland, along with the people of East Germany , Romania , Czechoslovakia , Poland and the Baltic States . They themselves were responsible for the demise of Communism and the end of the USSR . Reagan just happened to be the President who witnessed those astonishing events. He shouldn't receive credit for "ending the Cold War". President Reagan, as beloved as he was, didn't do a damn thing to end the Cold War other than to spend us into oblivion with the greatest Federal deficits in history.
If the Federal Government was the problem why did he spend taxpayers money like a drunken sailor while in office. He oversaw one of the most comprehensive tax code changes in history. The same tax code that now allows large corporations to pay little or no taxes as they ship millions of jobs overseas to India , Mexico , and China . That's the Reagan legacy----the selling of the Federal Government to The American Corporation.
President Bush now continues on with the tradition. He will spend us into a place that is far past "oblivion". President Bush will likewise never win the War on Terror. The War on Terror will cost so many trillions of dollars spent on Homeland Security and on the military budget, with little or no results, that it has the potential of destroying our country financially and economically by draining resources from every other Federal and State program that exists, and by perpetuating a constant state of psychological fear---just what the terrorists want.
Reagan promoted the false assertion that it was the Federal Government that was the problem. He failed to realize it was the large, greedy corporations that were the real problem. President Eisenhower was the last great President to grasp the danger of the looming "military industrial complex". Now it's here. And it's sucking every dollar it can out of the American taxpayer.
Today, President Bush, wanting to be as admired as Ronald Reagan, is still bashing the Federal Government as "the problem", and HE is in charge of the Federal Government. Figure that logic out.
The Federal Government is the solution to all our problems. It is just that no one knows how to run it except for their own narrow minded, special interest constituencies.
Reagan wasn't a great President. He was just a great communicator and speaker. Honest and sincere in his beliefs. Principled but flawed in his thinking and policies. He was not God. We shouldn't idolize him.
Let him be human now that he as passed.
Let him rest in peace.
James Boyne
James Boyne is a satirical, political freelance writer and has five other articles published on www.opednews.com. He has previously been a diehard, staunch, conservative Republican who has voted for Goldwater, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, and now has made a 180 degree turnabout and supports the candidacy of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who appears to have the most integrity, honesty, common sense, straightforwardness, enthusiasm, optimism, and "fire in the belly" to be possibly the best President in recent memory. He is a progressive, populist, liberal, Democrat and is a man of principal, intelligence and experience. Mr. Kucinich comes from a humble background and clearly spells out his positions on issues on his web site www.kucinich.us so there is no question where he stands on issues. One senses that Ronald Reagan and Dennis Kucinich could have become the perfect political "ticket" to make American what it is destined to be----Progressive Compassion.
**It is the responsibility of all Americans to vote. You should know where all the candidates stand on different issues; why they believe what they do; how they plan on carrying out their plans (rather than just empty promises); and get a sense for their character, honesty, commitment, integrity and their vision for America and for the world. You should know what their background is. How did they get to where they are now. Know their life, and you will know them.
Other Articles By James Boyne on www.opednews.com:
President Booosh: We Are In A Pickle
Whoops! Billion Dollar Cancer Drug Found to Cause Cancer To Hasten Death
Bush: The Greatest Liberal of the Century
"So Rush Just Wanted A Rush"---the Media Gives Rush Limbaugh a Break
Was I Globalized or Circumcized? (What It's Really Like To Get Laid Off)
