The Man Who Sold The World: Reagan's Betrayal of Main St.

 

Well, here's a perfect antidote (or perhaps emetic, though the medical profession's no longer high on Ipecac for inducing vomiting after swallowing poisons) for a treacly read of Little Miss "Just Walk On By" Peggy Noonan's Political Civility thing that I read a couple of volumes before this one.     As  author William Kleinknecht puts it up front in the first line of the introduction,  This book is borne of annoyance: a great bewilderment over the myth that continues to surround the presidency of Ronald Reagan. It gives voice to a vast swath of psychically disenfranchised Americans, millions of them, lumped most thickly in the urban areas on eaither coast, who never understood Reagan's appeal. For more than two decades they have stood by, puzzled, as this Hollywood actor and shill for General Electric, this obvious enemy of the common people he claimed to represent, this empty suit who believed in flying saucers and allowed an astrologer to guide his presidential scheduling, held sway over the American imagination.  ...  The bitter legacy of Reaganism -- the sub-prime mortgage scandal, the near collapse (maybe complete collapse, I'd say) financial system, widening income inequality, the emergence of Lockdown America, the obscene inflation of CEO compensation, the end of locally owned media, market crashes, blackouts, drug company scandals, rampant greed and materialism -- is all around us. As D.H. Lawrence once wrote in another context, "The cataclysm has happened; we are among the ruins."       Actually, Bill, I think it's just another proof of the adage that evil triumphs only when men and women of good will say, and do, nothing. We're at that "take back America time". Hope you'll join with me in the Preamble Project-- before every school day, students recite the Preamble to the US Constitution, and before every governmental body begins its regular course of business, all present also recite the Preamble. First off, it's the embodiment of the concept that We the People, supposedly, have all the power, some of which we delegated to a federal government, and some to the states, and to the counties, towns and villages and school districts. Second--perhaps the most telling of the six "priorities" in the 52-word sentence is this one: "promote the general Welfare."      I can't think of a single administration that has ever done that, over the course of our entire history. Johnson perhaps came closest, and but for his profound failing with Vietnam, he'd have done pretty well. And of course there was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Perhaps he came closest of all to promoting the general Welfare. But in his case, the nation was almost "saved" by World War II.      My only quibble is that Kleinknecht doesn't mention (or not prominently enough that I picked it up) what I learned from Kevin Phillips' "Politics of Heads I win, Tails You Lose" (politics of rich & poor).       Namely, that the United States slid into a net debtor nation status in 1984-85 timeframe under Reagan, and we have not managed to climb out of that hole ever since. In other words, Reagan propelled the nation into poverty, at least as a net-net kind of thing. He was a liar his every waking moment. Perhaps we're fortunate that he didn't stay awake for more of the days than he did. (But I still think Nancy actually ran the country, and Ronnie was her stooge.)    And, what with the 2009 global Depression, I doubt we ever will again, in my lifetime.     This is a good reminder that ol' Ronnie was a union-busting (oh, Bill forgot to mention the air controller strike! How could I forget!!), red-baiting, mean-spirited fraud.     One page covers the ground nicely: Page 193: ¶2  "By the end of Reagan's two terms, 138 [one hundred thirty eight--my emphasis] members of his administration had been convicted, indicted or investigated for criminal activity, a record of graft that far surpassed even the Nixon, Harding, and Grant administrations, Reagan's closest competitors in the sweepstakes for the most corrupt presidency."  His boys were smuggling guns into Nicaragua and smuggling cocaine back out, dumping it where? In Billy Clinton's back yard. US weapons to Israel, Israeli-sourced weapons to Iran, a US/CIA rake-off or skimming of the profits to buy more guns that went into Nicaragua. And Casey was at bat-- in the CIA. See Steve Coll's "Secret Wars" for some insights on how Cowboy Billy ran the CIA and the "proxy war" using Osama Bin Laden's database (al Qaeda) of fighters to bring down pain on the Russians.  (My current thinking is that Osama is ensconced in relative comfort, however ascetic he likes to live, somewhere he can get hemodialysis treatments for his ailing kidney(s). And it's probably not in Tora Bora. Or Bora Bora, for that matter.)  --30--

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