calimary
calimary's JournalI was older than that - but he didn't fool me either.
I think I realized the first time I heard one of his radio commentaries what a dangerous man he was. Dangerous in that he sugar-coated all kinds of horrible, stingey, cheapskate, selfish, un-Christian, myopic, shortsighted, penny-wise/pound-foolish ideas that NEVER should have seen the light of day, much less find any favor with anybody anywhere. HORRIBLE stuff. And the "kindly" affable old uncle shtick he presented, soooooooooooo slick and silky and folksy and aw-shucks.
I worked at the FM rock-format sister station of this AM talk station that ran reagan's commentary. It was a strategy he adopted after he lost the presidential nomination to Gerald Ford in 1976. He went back to California and a number of very wealthy republi-CON tycoons and industry chieftains gathered around him and funded him and helped him build an increasingly appealing and high-profile platform that would keep his name and voice and statements in the news and in the public eye and ear. Ensured that he didn't fade away and wasn't forgotten - so he could rise again to fight another day, and preferably win next time. They propped him up and gave him his cue cards and watched him sell the "gospel" of that freedomy-freedomy thing, of trickle-down and the bullshit about the free market being a magic cure-all for everything that ailed America. And as the actor he was, he did splendidly! He sold that shit just like he sold that GE all-electric home and anything else he pitched.
And I'd catch some of those commentaries, and I remember being very troubled. This guy was trouble. He was GONNA be trouble. We had to do something! And nobody did. Nobody cared. Everybody just really liked his pleasant old affable persona a lot. They'd listen to anything and forgive him anything. They felt he really understood, connected, and was somehow one of them, even though he was a Hollywood celebrity and governor of California and slicky-boy smooth-talking spokesman and aw-shucks harmless ol' fella.
Harmless MY ASS. I knew people were gonna bite. I knew people were gonna go for that shtick. I knew they were gonna fall all over themselves to see in him what they wanted to see. And they'd love it when he'd lull them back to sleep with his pleasant folksy talk and demeanor, that aw-shucks stuff that was worth more than the Crown Jewels. People loved that stuff and they ate it up. It sounded SOOOOOOO good and so comforting and so soothing and so harmless.
And look what he did. Look at the "reagan revolution" he started. The blight he caused to sicken our land. I blame him for just about everything that's gone wrong with our country. Whatever is happening now started with ronald reagan. He made it okay to be selfish. He made it okay to be a cheapskate. He made it okay to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. He made it okay to turn the poor and mentally ill out onto the street. He made it okay to balloon the war machine while too many people starved. He made it okay to put down the poor as moochers and welfare queens and all kinds of other lies and fabrications and fairy stories. As phony as any of the fiction he starred in.
I will go to my grave hating and despising ronald reagan more than any other individual in history. If I could, I would systematically go around the country removing his name from every award, every bridge, every ship, every school, every highway, every airport, every government building, every foundation, every scholarship, every monument, every ANYTHING. Starting with what should still be the Simi Valley Freeway and moving straight across the country all the way to what should still be known as the Washington National Airport. He was the most dangerous man in America, if not the world - because of the shit he sold and made to seem respectable and desirable. That bastard singlehandedly caused more hardship, did more damage, and wrought more wreckage, despair, and desolation than any other figure in history. And we are STILL paying for it, through the nose, today.
Agreed! We need this all over the world.
Getting a handle on our mushrooming population is really just about the only thing that's going to save us, seems to me.
Hey, I like that one even better! A just-used bedpan, preferably.
grover norquist should be dipped in shit and freeze-dried. And then put on trial for treason as a domestic terrorist and the new Public Enemy #1. What he has done, overseen, and advocated, has been horribly damaging to this country and all of the people in it. Yes, even the rich.
No doubt. They've been looking at our public lands and salivating - FOR YEARS.
I still get pissed off thinking back to that fuckwad james watt - ronald reagan's idea of a great Secretary of the Interior.
JESUS, MARY, and JOSEPH!!!!!!!!! 
james watt was the industrialists' best friend. He was THEIR idea of the DREAM Secretary of State.
He used to make speeches, with lofty language and somber church-appropriate tones of reverence, talking about how that precious, irreplaceable heritage of our national parks and forests and other public lands - should be open to ALL the people! ALL THE PEOPLE!!!
And the crowd went wild.
"ALL THE PEOPLE!!!!"
All the naive gullible simpletons thought that was just SO All-American! OH MAN! Freedom-freedom! That fabulous freedomy-freedomy thing, dontchaknow!
What nobody stopped to think about, and to realize, was that this bastard actually MEANT that his "ALL THE PEOPLE" schtick meant the people who were SUPPOSED TO BE locked out of our public lands and forests and national parks: the lumber industry, the mining/strip mining interests, the oil companies and drill-baby-drill contingent, people who weren't supposed to have that kind of free access to our precious natural lands!!! THAT was what he really meant by "ALL THE PEOPLE!" But the voters out there had no clue about this. They swallowed his words whole and figured that was totally on the level. And it just sounded SO great and freedomy and inclusive and wonderful, and MAN were they sold a bill o' goods.
Yet another MAGNIFICENT piece, Plaid Adder!
Here's the KEY:
"If you cannot send your kid to school without an armed guard, you are living in a failed state. And our state may indeed be failing; but giving the NRA more power and more access to our children is only going to accelerate the decline."
"If you cannot send your kid to school without an armed guard, you are living in a failed state."
"If you cannot send your kid to school without an armed guard, you are living in a failed state."
"If you cannot send your kid to school without an armed guard, you are living in a failed state."
"If you cannot send your kid to school without an armed guard, you are living in a failed state."
I can't think of one thing to add. This NAILS it - beyond all nailings.
As they say on TV, "we're gonna have to leave it there."
Shit - just imagine how it'd feel if we were looking ahead to a president wrongney.
Sweet God in Heaven!
Dayum - look how President Obama has aged. You really can see some of the weight on his shoulders - reflected in his face. Dear Mr. President - WE HAVE YOUR BACK. DO NOT FEEL AS THOUGH YOU'RE CARRYING THIS LOAD ALONE!!!!
We had a friend who grew up on a ranch out in the country, where there was hunting and fishing
and lots of wilderness. Guns, rifles, and other firearms were commonplace in that community and perceived as "needed" - for food, for varmint hunting, homestead protection, etc. Widely accepted. Everybody in the county had 'em and used 'em routinely. She and her nephew both grew up handling and using guns, they'd had training, they had years of experience, they were responsible citizens. They worked together and traveled together and were very close. She mentored him. They were in many ways best friends. We loved them both, and my son was particularly attached to both of them. They were both good, ethical, moral, spiritual, intelligent, emotionally and mentally stable, trustworthy, kind, generous, inclusive, all those good things.
And one day, they had a really intense argument. I got a phone call from a mutual friend who'd been like a sister to the woman. They'd grown up together. She'd just learned that our friend had shot her nephew to death, and then turned the gun on herself. I felt as though I'd been kicked in the stomach. It was a HUGE blow to my son. He was stunned by this, shocked, horrified, bewildered, shattered, utterly sucker-punched by this. Took him about a year to get over it. Those of us who knew her NEVER saw anything like this coming, never even a hint that something like this was even feasible in her mind. She counseled people in emotional turmoil, forcryingoutloud!
My other brush with gun tragedy involved a girl with whom I went to high school. She had three brothers. They lived near us. One day all three boys went out to a well-appointed, well-supervised professional gun range on the outskirts of town together. Two of them returned. The other one had been shot to death. It was one of their own bullets - that ricocheted in the absolutely horribly wrong direction. COULD YOU IMAGINE??????? I just couldn't even imagine going through that! Can you just even wrap your brain around how devastating that would feel? I don't know that I could ever get over it. When I heard about it many years later, I suddenly came to understand why my schoolmate was SO withdrawn, SO quiet. Kept to herself. Never invited anyone over. Never socialized. Her mom was kindly enough but also withdrawn. That family was SERIOUSLY AND PERMANENTLY DAMAGED. Hell, they almost literally closed down. They were never the same.
So, CTyankee, it's personal for me, too.
Welcome to DU, JazzQuipster!
Glad you're here!
Of course it makes one wonder!
I have this list of questions that I hope to ask St. Peter or whichever Heavenly Authority Figure I encounter whenever I get near there. One of 'em is about this, of course. Another is about the Holy Grail mystery, Jesus and Mary Magdalene and all that. Another is about the makeup of the apostles - I'm wondering if any of them was gay (if one out of every ten of us is, on average, well - there were 12 of 'em...). Another is what happened to Amelia Earhart (was that really pieces of her plane that were found earlier this year?). And who or what killed John Paul the 1st - no autopsy and it did seem kinda fishy, He was only on the job for about a month. And what happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Who wrote the Old Testament books? And for that matter - who really wrote the New Testament books? Where's the Holy Cross now? Where's the Arc of the Covenant - did it get melted down by some heathens? Where's Noah's Ark? Who looted the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad (THANK YOU, george w fuckhead. 
) and WHERE IS THAT STUFF? It belongs to ALL OF HUMANITY!!!! And lots of questions about ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Sumeria. When was the universe created. When was the Earth created? What killed the dinosaurs, and when? And is there anybody else out there (extraterrestrially, that is)? Etc...
I have this fantasy about getting all my unanswerable questions answered after I die.
Welcome to DU, ybbor!
Glad you're here. I will always remember that press briefing he gave after the war had just ended. He kept talking about the plan. The plan. The plan. And he stated that "if you fail to plan, you can plan to fail."
That's quite a memory, Hissyspit! A jelly jar?
Was he trying to hit her or give her something to hit your dad with? It must have been pretty wild for you to watch Operation Desert Storm and see him on TV, having known him close-up as a kid.
I still remember that briefing when the war had just ended, and some of my friends were over there covering it, having been stationed in Riyadh. The guy who ran the CalWest Regionals out of the L.A. bureau (a regional audio feed comprised of affiliate and stringer pieces) got sent to Riyadh for six weeks, and I had to cut my Hollywood reporter duties in half, and sub for him, putting that feed together every day. EVERYBODY had to double up on their work. And those of us also served who only stayed at home holding down the fort in the various domestic bureaus. LOL! I remember when this guy Steve Futterman whom we all knew and worked with here in L.A. was sent over for NBC Radio, I think it was. And it was HE who asked that great question - "how would you sum up Saddam Hussein as a warrior?" And Schwarzkopf gave this very famous and memorable answer about how Saddam was not this or that and "not schooled in the operational art," but otherwise he was an okay warrior. And all the networks and locals carried that soundbite and ran it again and again and again! I was so proud of my L.A. brothers over there!!!
That made me think of the weekly reimbursement forms I had to turn in to get paid back for parking and mileage and other kinda mundane expenses. Sometimes it added up fairly nicely. I paid my credit card with those every month. And then I couldn't - while all that was going on. I remember how I had to call the store and apologize for being late with my payment that month. I remember telling the woman on the other end of the phone that I had an excuse, probably one she'd never heard before. I wasn't going to be able to pay on time because the guy who signed off on my expense forms had been sent to Riyadh (and nobody was assigned to step in to cover that part of his job)! What a time that was. Btw - the woman on the other end of the phone thought that was hilarious, and gave me a pass that month. That was actually kind of a fun conversation.
You just made me think back on that, Hissyspit! Crazy days!
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 81,220
