It's Ronald Reagan's birthday. How shall we celebrate?

[Lefty48197]

Today marks the 96th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America.

How shall we, as a nation, celebrate?

This time of year, we celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King by watching films of his speeches, and of the Civil Rights marches he led. School children gather in assemblies as King's words and deeds are recreated by the children, and the words, "I have a dream..." echo in public school auditoriums across the land.

Likewise, with the celebration of "President's Day", we recall the war and political heroics of General Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and young voices again echo throughout America's schools. The words, "Conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...", come to mind.

How should we remember Ronald Reagan, and how should we celebrate his birthday?

What is his legacy?

Shall we listen to speeches where Reagan blames "urban welfare mothers who can't keep their legs crossed" for America's economic woes? Shall we recall the words where he directs America's impoverished to "pull themselves up by their boot straps"?

Shall we recall his promises from both of his Presidential campaigns, when he claimed he was going to balance the federal budget, while cutting taxes for the wealthy, and dramatically increasing defense spending? Shall we "celebrate" the interest that we still pay on the debt he ran up?

Shall we celebrate Reagan's "win at any cost" attitude that taught a generation of Americans that it's OK to cheat, as long as you hit 70 home runs in one season?

Shall we listen to Reagan's, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall..." speech, and then give him credit for ending the "Cold War", even though Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev had already spend years reforming that system from within, always at great personal risk to themselves?

Shall we celebrate Reagan's empty, hawkish military rhetoric, while ignoring his cut & run retreat that turned Lebanon into a 20 year haven for Syrian backed terrorists?

Shall we celebrate Ronald Reagan's "family values" that led his first wife to divorce him, and his only natural daughter to drop his last name, and change it to her mother's maiden name?

Shall we celebrate the private armies of Ollie North and Robert McFarlane that were the forerunners of the private armies now busy fighting in Iraq?

Did I miss anything?

How do you think we should celebrate Ronald Reagan's birthday?

[Xenotime]

1. Bring an end to this "Regan Conservatism"

The Pugs hold him up like a saint.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. Why celebrate ?

[smoogatz]

3. Piss on his grave?

For starters, anyway.

[Hand]

18. Dang! Ya beat me to it! nt

[yellowdogmi]

49. beat me too.

I was going to call for a DU meet up to do it in mass.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

52. some of us hate to stand in long lines, though......

[Warpy]

4. I'd suggest we either bounce checks or fail to pay our

mortgage, credit card, or car loan payments, but that would be an expensive proposition, along with charging something we can't afford. We could donate to some organization like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is already awash in cash. We could find a homeless person to lecture on taking responsibility for his/her plight. Or we could drink ourselves into the type of stupor that marked his last 6 years.

High debt, funneling money to the rich, stiffing working people, creating homelessness, and sleepwalking through a presidency are his real legacies. If we want to honor them, we have to duplicate them.

Overturning every awful thing that was done in his name is a more laudable aim than honoring it, IMO.

[Sal Minella]

5. I'm celebrating with Ronald Reagan Veggie Tacos for supper.....

little sploops of ketchup rolled up in circles of old newspaper.

[Cabcere]

40. I was going to say something about ketchup, too

You beat me to it. :hi:

[Sal Minella]

43. My other favorite line of his was that homelessness wasn't actually a problem,

there were just a lot of people "who essentially CHOOSE to be homeless."

Talk about clueless.

[Cabcere]

66. What I can't believe is that

people actually chose Reagan as "The Greatest American" - over people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln (hey, he was a Republican too, why couldn't they have picked him?), and George Washington. :mad: The idiocy of some people continues to amaze me. :puke:

[mtnester]

6. You can celebrate by wishing ME a happy birthday instead...unfortunately, I share

a birthday with Ronnie.

A good present would be if someone could come and shovel my sidewalks in a few hours when MAYBE the snow is done.

[KansDem]

8. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I know how you feel. I share a birthday with Dick Cheney. :(

[mtnester]

11. You win! arrggg...and THANKS for the B-Day wishes

I am not shy about stating my age...I am 47 today!

[Clark2008]

54. And I share one with Rush Limbaugh.

Fortunately for me, it's also Howard Stern, Oliver Platt, Rob Zombie, Kirstie Alley's and Skinner's baby's birthdays, as well.

[Cabcere]

41. Happy Birthday!

:party: Sorry about having to share it with RR, that does kind of suck. If it makes you feel any better, though, I was born during his presidency...on the day the Challenger exploded...and I turned out OK (so far!). ;) Seriously, hope your birthday is wonderful and that someone shovels your sidewalks for you! :hi:

[ktlyon]

65. that sucks... I know the feeling I share mine with Nixon

Happy Birthday and best wishes

PARTY

[pdrichards114]

7. Celebrate nothing. Fuck RR!!

[China_cat]

9. By forgetting it?

[adigal]

10. Starve a baby, and make Wall Street crash

both things Reagan and his "great" economic principles did.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. How appropriate that today is the day I am plagued with a case of gas .....

:::::urp::::::

[keta11]

13. Excuse me while I go do a big Reagan in the bathroom n/t

[Phredicles]

14. Very fitting, considering the rightie fetish to name EVERYthing after

the old moron.

I predict that the period from 1980 to 2010 will be known to historians as the Reagan-Bush Era. Whether it is known as a time when we temporarily lost our way, as the beginning of the end, or simply as the end is not something I can answer.

[keta11]

21. I don't get the RW's fascination with the warmongering turd

I cannot erase these from my mind - cutting housing assistance for the poor, refusing to negotiate with and laying off air traffic controllers, sponsoring murderous right wing dictatorships in Latin America, spending money on the unnecessary Star Wars program, deriding the indigent and homeless of being homeless by choice, emptying patients out of mental hospitals, invading Grenada etc, etc.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

15. Vomiting

came to mind........ :shrug:

[tularetom]

16. Celebrate instead the birth of Robert Nesta Marley, mon.

[smoogatz]

22. Really?

Jah love, mon.

[POAS]

17. How appropriate that Savage

picked today to start his run for President.

What a wonderful birthday gift to the Democrats!

[Xipe Totec]

19. Ronald who?

that's my suggestion.

[damntexdem]

20. Not today, please:

I don't feel like vomiting today.

[Greeby]

23. If you're gonna "celebrate" Reagan's birthday

Look no further than the recently released full-length version of the Bill Moyers' The Secret Government
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3799314405910661612&q=The+Secret+Government+duration%3Along

:popcorn: :beer:

[indepat]

24. By accepting that beatification and sainthood are behind us and

deification is before us.

[redqueen]

25. K&R

[corkhead]

26. Stick a lit candle into a 5 lb block of Victory Cheese

[shain from kane]

27. If you celebrate the birth of 666, you celebrate the Devil.

[mentalsolstice]

28. Donate or volunteer for an AIDS organization

not in his name, but in spite of him.

[Pied Piper]

29. I celebrated

Yes, I did. I sat down for a short spell in the smallest room in my apartment. And then I flushed.

[BayCityProgressive]

30. I had a beer

AND CHEERED TO THE GRIM REAPER FOR FINALLY TAKING THE NAZI FUCK.

[Lugnut]

36. What a coincidence!

That sounds exactly like my celebration.

[dflprincess]

31. Today is my mom's 83rd birthday

I'll celebrate that. Mom prefers that no one mention to her that Feb 6 was also Reagan's birthday.

[jakem]

32. trade pistachios for arms to 'freedom fighters'?

fall asleep face down in a bowl of jelly beans?

[enough already]

33. Piss on his grave n/t

[ClassWarrior]

69. Is that the trickle-down tribute?

B-)

NGU.

[BuelahWitch]

34. I spent the day in a drugged up fog and mostly sleeping

Since Ronnie was in a befuddled fog I'm sure I celebrated it well.

PS. Only cold meds, Agent Mike, only cold meds! :hi:

[PresidentObama]

35. He's dead. I didn't celebrate it before, not going to now n/t

[TankLV]

37. Kick a homeless person.

Beat-up a gay person.

Laugh at dying persons.

I could think of more, but I feel so goddamned dirty now...

Just my take on what the repuke values thing to do would be...

[Jack Rabbit]

38. Buying something lethal you don't need with money you don't have

!!

[cobaindrain]

39. By indulging in my favorite vegetable...ketchup!

[ProudDad]

42. BURN the MotherF*cker in effigy!

There have been two major turning points in my adult life. The first was when Bobby was murdered and we got Nixon. The 2nd was the year John Lennon was killed and the bullet bounced off ronny raygun's cold hard heart.

GOD DAMN I wish the two events had been reversed!!! It would be a MUCH better world...

[Unvanguard]

44. We should remember the thousands of people murdered in Central America

in the terrorist war he ran.

And we should re-commit ourselves to never, ever, letting it or anything like it happen again.

[zulchzulu]

45. Watch this "tribute" to his legacy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x15457

[against all enemies]

46. I didn't recognize my wife, I win. What was I trying to do?

[Bryan]

47. By watching "The Killers" (1964) in which Reagan plays a shallow, unctuous criminal

...The better to remember him as he was.

[Justpat]

48. Have a ketchup sandwich on stale white bread.

THEN, piss on his grave. The bastard.

[Vidar]

50. The White House hasn't been burned down recently.

[AtheistInBabylon]

51. The all-time classic

"My fellow Americans, I have signed into legislation a bill that authorizes nuclear war with the Soviet Union. We commence bombing in five minutes" - or something along those lines, caught on air before a radio address. Jokes reveal a lot, and it pretty much sums up the "laissez faire" attitude with which he approached most of his responsibilites in a nutshell. Yeah, it´s all just a breezy, tasteless joke.

[LeftishBrit]

53. Listen to some Bob Marley, or watch a Francois Truffaut film

It's their birthday too. Much more worth celebrating.

[SAXMAR]

55. Fire Airport Flight Controllers

[Vinca]

56. Maybe I'll whip up a batch of ketchup soup . . . AAARRGGGG! nt

[Eurobabe]

57. By...

:puke: ing?

[liberaliraqvet26]

58. Renaming more shit after him...

cause the repukes havent named enough stuff in DC after the old bag

I Got an idea..

The Ronald W Reagan Waste Transfer Station

[eppur_se_muova]

70. The Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt

http://www.debtclock.com/

[saltpoint]

59. Maybe give a listen to Jackson Browne's "Lives in the Balance."

It's one of the most passionate and eloquent responses to Reagan's death squads in Central America.

And sadly quite applicable for the current administration as well.

[Nimrod2005]

60. Work to unionize your workplace.

[raccoon]

61. By going to the bathroom and making yourself throw up. nt

[Auntie Bush]

62. Flush a dead mouse down the toilet. n/t

We've got a few of them this time of year.

Sorry, but that was the first thought that came into my head.

[ktlyon]

63. We could give all the union air traffic controllers the day off.

Oh that is right he already did.

[HughBeaumont]

64. I took a Reagan this morning.

It was almost as bad as yesterday's Cheney.

See, their names rotate each day. Bewsh isn't fuckworthy enough to name them after.

[eppur_se_muova]

68. Kaopectate will help. nt

[seemunkee]

67. Punch out a neocon.