More Reagan history here.
UPDATE: There has long been a concerted public relations campaign to boost Reagan’s image, hide the racism he allied himself with, hide what he took away from the working stiffs to give to the country club set. It is called the Reagan Legacy Project. Check ’em out and admire how they catapult the propaganda.
Please share widely!
the father of raygunonmics now writes for the CT “tin foil hat” community and does a great job of it.
Charolette Iserbyte saved my sanity with
http://www.deliberatedumbingdo…
And another Bush government escapee provided me with this!
http://solari.com/blog/?p=3532
<
p>So the entire arm of rethugs is not entirely useless and what good is diversity if they want to depopulate seven billion down to half a billion, for their profit margins and maintennace of their elite power control status on a global basis.
per Think Progress
The Democrat was Reagan, after all, attending at the behest of the southern Democrats of that era. If you wish to post about a Democrat speaking to fellow Democrats about their beliefs of that era, I would only say that I think your party has recovered from much of its bigotry.
to bring you out of your Conservative Fairy Tale of history.
… non-monolith, somebody has to correct the propaganda, and since the non-monolith conservatives aren’t, you can’t be surprised that others are. Some of us have a vested interest in correcting the propaganda since they lead to a conservative culture with some really bad policy ideas like tax-cuts solve all problems.
Democrat years?
<
p>That speech was in 1980 at at the site of one of the worst civil rights massacres. A racist talkin’ racist to racists at a racist site.
<
p>And laying flowers at the SS cemetery was what? Multiculturalism?
<
p>
<
p>We got rid of our bigots. You welcomed them with open arms, and served them punch and cookies.
Ex-Klansman Byrd attended the speech by current-racist enabler Ronald Reagan.
<
p>As always, the Republicans like to only complain about Klan members who have renounced the organization.
visit to the Nazi SS cemetery.
<
p>
and Reagan’s wreath laying drove him into a rage.
than an individual quirk or character flaw, (despite PP’s suggestion that two wrongs (Reagan’s & Byrd’s racism) make a right). Reagan’s racism, which predated his Presidency, and his speech at Philadelphia, was part of the Southern Strategy, the use of racial politics to capitalize on the resentment of middle- and lower-class whites.
The Southern Strategy is still playing out, though not as successfully, in right-wing attacks on ACORN and GOP attempts to suppress minority voters.
The wreath laying was a symbolic gesture that enabled the US to help unite Europe in favor of a reunified Germany, I would argue in diplomacy events like this are occasionally necessary for the greater good. Also Helmut Kohl and Willy Brand were the two German leaders most responsible for removing all vestiges of anti-semitism from German society and solidifying that states relationship with Israel. Reagan and Kohl alike did not realize SS soldiers were buried there, it is like our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and many Germans who were not war criminals were buried there while some less savory characters were as well. While symbolically it may be uncomfortable it was a vital diplomatic step and the greater good prevailed.
<
p>Secondly on Reagan promoting racism I would argue that this is a mixed bag, and broad accusations like this detract from the real legacy of economic destruction his presidency wrought. Where Reagan can be most faulted symbolically is that Philadelphia speech and his initial promotion of paleocon and neo-confederate Sam Bradford to head the NEH. When he could have choose to symbolically reject racism he choose to symbolically embrace it for political purposes. That said his practical civil rights policies maintained the status quo of gradual progression and advancement, although his economic policies fucked over the working class of every race, and that disproportionately affected blacks. His slow response to the AIDS crisis and the draconian response to the crack epidemic, also hurt black communities considerably. His worst practical public policy was supporting the apartheid government for far too long, though it had been a Cold War policy under several presidencies, including liberal ones, because the ANC had received Soviet funds and training, probably out of pragmatic necessity, but that was more than enough for the hawks of that era. The South African secret police also had infiltrated and likely bribed high levels of the US government, in part due to the success of their lobbyist Jack Abramoff. So its a mixed bag like most presidencies. LBJ and JFK were best buddies with Senate racists like Eastland and Smathers, Al Gore’s dad signed the Southern Manifesto, and RFK was the first to authorize Hoover’s unconstitutional investigation and infiltration of civil rights organizations, including a broad mandate to embroil Dr. King in a sex scandal. JFKs father and another key JFK ally Richard J. Daley were also unrepentant racists and bigots. I think focusing on the symbolic racism of Reagan distracts us from the real damage his economic policies did to the entire country, as his own OMB director David Stockman admitted, and particularly its effect on the African American community.
I think that we can all agree the 80’s where some crazy times, man.
{wipes white powder from nose}