Dee:
I don’t know anyone named Phil, at least not personally. But you do. And as you do, to insert a more identifiable human touch to what I’m going to propose, the brief analogy will hinge on a Ronald Reagan acolyte I will call Phil. The analogy attempts to demonstrate that, however we may be connected to him, and however we may feel emotionally predisposed to Phil, he is in effect our enemy, and must be defeated.
Let’s suppose you have a young nephew who is desperately ill, that the child’s very survival is in the balance. Phil is the child’s father, and Phil so devoutly feels that whether his son survives is to the Lord alone to decide that prayer alone must be the only acceptable therapy. Indeed, he is so infused in his beliefs that no facts, or even thoughts to the contrary are permitted within his presence. Furthermore, he has advertised that any physicians, or anyone else, attempting to intercede will be sued.
Continuing the analogy one more step, let’s suppose that, despite Phil’s threats, you have thoroughly researched the symptoms and have consulted some of the best medical minds available. All recommend a specific array of possible therapies, but also caution that at this juncture, none can be guaranteed, all retain the chance of failure, and that none are without some element of risk. They also acknowledge that, regardless the odds are so small they are not within the realm of ethical medical practice, the child might survive if nothing is done. “Miracles happen,” they say.
As your nephew’s condition, day by day, moment by moment, further deteriorates, Phil becomes more and more adamant.
What say you now, concerning your relationship with Phil, and your willingness to keep peace in the family?
Well, it’s not your nephew. It’s your country. And the threat to it derives not only from the current worldwide fiscal crisis, but as much as from each and all who not only do not agree with current administration efforts but who have acted deliberately to thwart them; i.e., calling US representatives and senators, insisting they adamantly oppose any and all efforts because, in the words of Rush Limbaugh, they “want Obama to fail.” The administration’s programs I think may be much, much too timid, too small, but may also be the most aggressive available, given the toxic political framework within which they can be brought into existence.
As to those who cling to the myth of Ronald Reagan, I offer the following. The Republican Party’s reincarnation of the 40th president as a towering hero is not the least different from the way Hollywood producers reincarnated Jesse James as a folk hero worthy of admiration.
Today’s New York Times ran a story telling how Afghani émigrés to the US are being threatened from afar. The Taliban has kidnapped, tortured and murdered — often via beheading — the émigré’s family members, all to coerce those in the US to cease any and all support, most particularly financial and verbal, of the US and this country’s democratizing efforts in the region. I sincerely ask all how the Taliban’s efforts are the least distinct from those of white Southerners who tried via violence to thwart the endeavors to register to black voters?
While not the only example, the most dramatic example of voter intimidation occurred in 1964, in Nashtoba County, Mississippi. Three young civil rights workers from the North were murdered. Those murders were followed by lynchings, the bodies of those hung were set afire, and their ramshackle houses, barns, livestock and churches torched. The federal government’s reaction, as directed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, was to saturate the region with an army of FBI agents, to investigate, then to bring to trial those whites, members of the Klan, who were responsible.
In 1980, before a whites only assembly, Governor Ronald Reagan opened his presidential campaign in Nashtoba County, beginning his speech with the statement, “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”
I’ve no doubt there are many who will see no connection between what the federal government did in response to the murders and atrocities committed by whites and Reagan’s excoriation of federal government interference in the life and the way Southern whites handled things down there. But the way I see it is that there are only two possibilities. One is that the California governor was so utterly clueless concerning the South as to disqualify him utterly from any fair consideration as a president. The other is that he knew exactly what he was doing and saying, and that goes to such an incredibly dark soul that he should never have been considered for any governmental office.
Concerning Reagan, whether incredulously myopic or incredulously bereft of moral decency, it only gets worse. Facts are facts no matter how the GOP and its supporters repaint them. Two hundred and forty-one marines perished in their barracks in Lebanon while on Reagan’s watch. He walked away from any response, other than to pull all US forces from the country. Government was such a problem that he eliminated federal oversight of the finance industry, and Charles Keating and Michael Milken thereafter brought the country to its knees with their fraud and scheming. Two hundred billion dollars in taxpayer bailout was the cost. For depth and length, the most devastating US recession — to that point only — since the Great Depression, lasted through 1982 into 1983. Reagan was president, and more Americans were out of work than at any time since the mid-30s. Black Monday, October 19, 1987, was the day that shook the word. The one-day stock market loss of 22.6% of its value was the greatest one-day loss since Black Thursday, 1929. Combined with the 3.81% drop on October 14 and the 4.6% drop on Friday, October 16, the combined losses were a stunning 30%. The ensuing recession that began under Reagan lasted until 1992; dwarfing that of 1982 through 1983.
Lastly, as to Reagan, no matter the GOP, with media support, has recast the fellow as having widespread popular support, the truth is that he had an average approval rating of only 52%, sixth behind JFK’s 70%, Eisenhower’s 66%, Bush 41’s 61%, Clinton’s 55%, and LBJ’s 55%. Reagan’s 63% approval rating, when he left office, was behind that of Clinton’s 66%. And Reagan’s highest rating, 68%, was below that of Bill Clinton’s 71%. Click here.
RONALD REAGAN: a great president?
Near the outset I suggested it is important, indeed critical, that we defeat the Phils in our lives. Silence, irrespective how we’d like to adjudge otherwise, is agreement. As it permits all manner of mal- and misfeasance, distortions and falsehoods elements of validity to which they are not entitled, it concomitantly diminishes the truth, as well as the pursuit of truth as worthy ends in themselves. Nor does it matter whether the aggressor is seeking to send Jewish neighbors to camps in Poland, or Japanese neighbors to camps in Eastern California, or arguing vehemently to deny Black Americans the right to vote, or arguing in support of those who promulgate such policies. Remaining quiet in the face of such infamy, for the reasons noted, is to effectively endorse the infamy. The scope of the infamy is irrelevant, for in the words of Joseph Stalin, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
To bring it all home, one more time, how quiet would you remain, if the issue pressing was the life and death of your nephew?
