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The president and the previous president were under investigation for treason. They had sold weapons to a nation that had declared war on us and was launching terrorist attacks on us. They were illegally funding other terrorists in Central and South America, and were causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people. And the media ignored the crimes, and the Congress (controlled by conservatives, though it was a coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats) seemed to not care at first.
There was one criminal scandal after another. Bush/Reagan had defrauded billions from the government. Departments like HUD were controlled by Reagan/Bush cronies with no management skills, and were funneling funds and jobs to buddies. Military spending had no oversight. Each time someone was caught they were replaced with more cronies.
There were more investigations, indictments and convictions of administration officials under Reagan than under any other president.
The deficit was the largest in human history. People believed we'd never recover. Wages were low, and falling. The poverty line was over 15%. We believed we would be the first generation to live worse off than our parents since the Depression.
The homeless problem we take for granted blossomed under Reagan. The educational system collapse began with Reagan's spending cuts. Reagan cut drug rehab spending and the drug problem exploded. Reagan cut federal crime prevention assistance and the crime rate exploded. The murder rate in New York City alone was higher than in most other nations.
Reagan won his first election by stealing Carter's campaign notes and making Carter look bad during the debates. There was also a possible deal with Iran to hold 50 American hostages until after the election, after Carter had negotiated their release. The so-called "October Surprise" seems even more suspicious considering Reagan's treatment of Iran throughout his administration. He sold weapons to them, secretely, even though they had declared war on us. He shielded them from accusations of terrorism against us when the rest of the world accused them. He blamed Libya for Iran's actions, and bombed Libya, leading to an increase in the number of terrorist attacks, including the Pan Am flight exploded over Scotland.
When Bush took over, he had to prove he was tough, to shake his "wimp" nickname that Nancy had given him. So he invaded Panama in the dead of the night. He bombed the poorest section of the city, setting fire to apartments and houses as people slept. Estimates are that 4000 people died in the invasion to arrest Noriega, but Bush claimed it was 200, and the media parroted that number until people had stopped caring. The attack succeeded so well in raising Bush's tough-guy image that he provoked a war in Iraq, and killed an estimated 250,000 people to take Kuwait from the Iraqi dictators and give it back to the Kuwaiti royal family, which was just as bad.
Bush Daddy lied all the time, and the media repeated his lies. They boosted his approval rating into the high 80s.
Halfway through HW's term, though, it was just too much. The economy was sinking and everyone knew it. Bush was spending and trying to cut taxes. Everyone knew the deficit was larger than he claimed. Bush had no idea what to do. He told everyone there was no recession, because he beleived that recessions were caused by people not spending. It was our fault, in other words. His last SOTU address was stunning. He claimed there was no recession, that the economy was growing and solid. He announced a series of spending plans that he had stolen directly from candidate Bill Clinton's speeches. After the speech he was praised by Charles Rangel, who asked when he had switched parties.
Bush never acted on one of his SOTU promises. A few months later he was asked about them, and point blank said he had never intended to carry through on any of them. He had just said all that to make people quit worrying, so they would start spending again and end the recession. He truly could not imagine how government could effect the economy at all.
The economy by then had turned around, but not because of Bush. Congress had simply refused to listen to him. They ignored what Bush wanted and passed bipartisan legislation to keep America afloat. Bush vetoed just about everything, and they over-rode his vetoes. Bush still holds the record for the most over-ridden vetoes of any president.
So yeah, things were bad. I think they were worse. The media, the corruption, the scandals, the slaughter of other peoples, the detachment from reality, the poverty--everything was worse under Bush. The only thing that was better was Congress. They worked together for the good of the nation as a separate branch of government, rather than rubberstamping Bush's attempts to drive the nation to Hell.
One reason I hate Nader so vehemently, maybe as much as I hate Bush, is because he stole Clinton's revolution. The nation was just as conservative under Bush Daddy. Clinton's triangulation strategy won the election from a president with 70% approval ratings when he started campaigning. Clinton tried to govern as a liberal, but was ambushed by the souther Dems, led by Sam Nunn (the original Zell). After that, he became a moderate, realizing he would have to work with the Repubs to accomplish anything. He moved the nation slowly, very slowly, away from the right, so that were just about in the center by the time he left office. Gore was to be the payoff. Gore was supposed to finish what Clinton had started (and what many of us had worked for), moving us over that center line and further to the left.
Then fucking Nader, using Republican money, ambushed us. He's as guilty as Bush for every drop of blood shed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and New Orleans, if you ask me.
Sorry so long. As a former historian, I like to keep things in perspective. And I believe the media has made Reagan and Bush Daddy appear more benign than they were, so that W seems worse. In ten years, W will be revamped to look like a saint, unless we attack not only W, but the mechanism the right has used to make their past atrocities less disgusting. Reagan and Bush should be exposed, so that they can't revamp W the same way. Or else we'll go through this all again in another decade, if there is still an America to go through it for.
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