Obama hails President Ronald Reagan

[smelter]

Hey Smelter...that doesnt make your statement any less reprehensible.

What the hell is reprehensible about what I said?

 

[LaloGS]

To my mind Reagan didn't bust enough unions. When I look around, I still see union people earning ten times the minimum wage. Along with the government-endorsed guilds, they're the ones with boats, and extra 4WD vehicle just for fun, kids who gets cars as presents, and other toys parked outside their houses. Nonunion means you live on the unpaved streets with crumbling sidewalks, houses built at the turn of the last century that are only standing because of the firewood piled against them.

When I had to bounce from job to job because of unions, what that 15% meant was, "We'll give you moderate on-the-job insurance coverage, but you won't be able to afford TV or electrical."

I have a friend who works construction from an independent builder. Recently they had to have union workers come to do some work that state law says has to be done by licensed outfits with union employees. After six hours of work, those union guys had earned what my friend gets in three weeks.

I look at unions, and their cozy relationship with the Democrats, and it tells me that the Democrats are the party of a nice wealthy, greedy special-interest group who care more about their fat asses than anyone else.

While I personally have never been a union member, I did have a run in with them when I was making my living driving a cab in New York. I moved from cab company to cab company to avoid having to join, because I had no intention of driving a cab for the rest of my life. One day two goons from the union met me as I was returning my cab at the end of a shift, and beat the crap out of me. I hate some unions because of their actions.

Later I was supervising at Purolator Courier company in New Jersey when a union tried to organize the drivers. It was summer, and the drivers were earning minimum wage at the time, and most were just scrapping by and I sympathized with the drivers because of policy I knew the company held that penalized the men. Example: Dent a van, lose your job. No recourse.

I finally got fired, because I bought a hose, and ran it across the parking lot so the guys on strike would have access to water because it was hot. My boss didn't like it at all.

The union won finally, and Purolator shut down operations of their courier service rather than pay union scale to men that had helped make them rich. At the time union scale was $7.42 in the New York/New Jersey area, and still not enough to get beyond survival. levels.

So unions can be bad, and good, it depends on their leadership.

BTW, I don't believe it is unions that have wrecked the US auto industry. It's because US auto designers build in planned obsolescence to force people to buy new cars every few thousand miles. Foreign car makers never bought into that thinking, and therefore produce more reliable vehicles which smart people recognize. Also , US manufacturers continue even with the writing on the wall about oil prices to produce monster guzzlers because a few wealthy insensitive people can drive a bigger dick vehicle. Very short sighted thinking in my opinion.

The real reason the US auto industry is failing is just plain bad management.

 

[LaloGS]

As for you Reagan praisers, the US is in the deep shit today because the Repuglican party and Reagan Neocons have controlled America for so long. The Clinton Respite illustrates how well the country can do when it is allowed to be run by the people and not by a few elitist fucks with a private agenda.

The Monica business aside, if Clinton had said it's none of your business instead of lying about it, the Neocon Repugs would have been stymied, and the Treasury would be at least 600 million richer.

The man was a shill, and ultimately a vegetable, but because he was a shill, it didn't matter if he didn't remember how to wipe his own ass. He was no president, and the things you all attribute to him were done by his controllers just as Bush is a shill, and his actions are done by his controllers.

 

[LaloGS]

I think the Reagan argument here is age related. Those who were living through Reagan's tenure in the WH know what a dullard fuck up he was. Those too young to have really experienced his tenure, are parrots of their Neocon heroes and know not of what they praise.

 

[NickCole]

SO AIDS is a gay disease. Jesus you sound like the ilk you complain about.

Originally AIDS was called Gay Cancer, then GRID, which stood for Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

AIDS was widely associated with gay men when Reagan refused to even acknowledge AIDS, much less fund research and help.

Gay men should be informed about AIDS and Reagan. There is no question that Reagan's nonresponse was about gays. There also is no question that if Reagan had acted sooner the whole AIDS story would have played out differently.

And Reagan's response didn't impact only the results of the AIDS crisis. Gays had made huge strides in the decade after Stonewall. Reagan's response to AIDS gave the religious right an opportunity to push us back to second class citizen status. In some ways gays in America have still not recovered to where we were in 1980.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”​

George Santayana​

 

[smelter]

^ Thanks Nick and LaloGS for framing this Reagan/AIDS issue the way I should have from the beginning. Sometimes I forget that those much younger than my age group have only written history as a reference.

I found this letter that might help to explain why many of our age group remember it so differently:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0608-07.htm

A Letter to My Best Friend, Steven Powsner On the Death of Former President Ronald Reagan
by Matt Foreman

Dear Steven,

I so much wish you were here today to tell me what to do. You would know if it's right to comment on the death of former President Reagan, or if I should just let pass the endless paeans to his greatness. But you're not here. The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.

Yes, Steven, I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Mr. Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Mrs. Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer's.

Sorry, Steven, but even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over Reagan's non-response to the AIDS epidemic or for the continuing anti-gay legacy of his administration. Is it personal? Of course. AIDS was first reported in 1981, but President Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987, at which time there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS and 30,000 deaths. I remember that day, Steven - you were staying round-the-clock in Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital caring for your dying partner of over 15 years, Bruce Cooper. It was another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died. During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?

Is it personal? Yes, Steven. I know for a fact that you would be alive today if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic. If protease inhibitors been available in July of 1995 instead of December, you'd still be here.

I wouldn't feel so angry if the Reagan administration's failing was due to ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. No, Steven, we knew then it was deliberate. The government's response was dictated by the grip of evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God's well-deserved punishment. Remember? The White House Director of Communications, Patrick Buchanan, once argued in print that AIDS is nature's revenge on gay men. Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and basic tenets of Christianity, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they saw as "God's" work.

Even so, I think I could let go of this anger if this was just another overwhelmingly sad chapter in our nation's past. It is not. Steven, can you believe that the unholy pact President Reagan and the Republican Party entered with the forces of religious intolerance have not weakened, but grown exponentially stronger? Can you believe that the U.S. government is still bowing to right wing extremists and fighting condom distribution and explicit HIV education, even while AIDS is killing millions across the world? Or that "devout" Christians have forced the scrapping of AIDS prevention programs targeted at HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in favor of bullshit "abstinence only until marriage" initiatives? Or the shameless duplicity of these same forces seeking to forever outlaw even the hope of marriage for gay people? Or that Reagan stalwarts like Buchanan, Bennett and Bauer are still grinding their homophobic axes?

No, Steven, I do not presume to judge Ronald Reagan's soul or heart. He may very well have been a nice guy. In fact, I don't think that Reagan hated gay people -- I'm sure some of his and Nancy's best friends were gay. But I do know that the Reagan administration's policies on AIDS and anything gay-related resulted - and continue to result - in despair and death.

Oh, Steven, how much I wish so much you were here.

Matt

(On November 20, 1995, Steven Powsner, died of complications from AIDS at age 40. He had been President of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center from 1992-1994.)

Matt Foreman is the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

 

[chance1]

^ and this quote from Spensed's link cited above:

How any gay man can sing the praises of Ronald Reagan is frankly beyond my comprehension. He needed the religious right to maintain power and demonstrated a callousness toward gays that continues in the mainstream of the Republican party to this day. ​

yeesh

so sad

how can any gay man like anything reagan?

how can any gay man vote for a repub?

how can any gay man ..............

i would say something right now but i won't

instead i'll just say

balderdash .............

love that word

not ur finest moment smelter

not ur finest point

as for obama/reagan - i kinda like that obama said what he said - i get it

and he's more of "his own guy" here and i like that

 

[smelter]

^ Chance, did you even bother to read my post (no. 70)? If you did and still don't understand my remarks in the post you quoted, then I give up!

 

[JayHawk]

SO you feel as if AIDS is your persoanl disease because Reagan framed the argument against it that way? I am gay = Reagan framed it as gay = its my disease. I really never have felt that way. I wonder if africans call AIDS their own self identified disease.

 

[smelter]

SO you feel as if AIDS is your persoanl disease because Reagan framed the argument against it that way? I am gay = Reagan framed it as gay = its my disease. I really never have felt that way. I wonder if africans call AIDS their own self identified disease.

I never said that AIDS is my personal disease Mazda, you inferred that and your inference is wrong. AIDS was identified as a Gay disease (see Nick's post) and because of that it went unfunded and people died, both Gay and Straight. Geez ..... what other way can I say it so you and Chance understand!

 

[LaloGS]

Amen Brother!!

I remember the Reagan administration.He was a scumbag..It was not a great time for the U.S.unless you consider corruption,indictments recession,union busting,and a president who couldn't seem to recall a fucking thing "good times"..

AIDS was killing thousands of people every year and Reagan did nothing to address the problem..It was years before he would even acknowledge it's existance..

I get real sick of these republicans talking about his administration like they were some noble,honorable people.They were your typical lying, criminal republicans.Shit, most of his cabinet was indicted on some charge or another..

Those "changes" were rejected by Americans when they elected Clinton twice.

Since then ,we've had to hear all about Clintons "character"..All they could ever get on Clinton was a blowjob, the most expensive blowjob in world history..Only cost the taxpayers milions,and millions to learn that Bill could nut..Give me a cookie.

Now we have to listen to this asshole Obama bumping his gums about the "change" Reagan brought to this country...

He refers to the xcesses of the 60's-70's..What excesses? People FINALLY standing up against unjust war? People FINALLY demanding accountabilty from their government?

What about another "excess",the one where thousands marched in the streets to demand civil rights,so that one day an asshole like him could run for president..

Drug use perhaps? Oh, people realizing that they've been LIED to their whole lives and didn't really turn into heroin addicts after smoking a joint..Maybe he means the sexual excesses..I'm not buying that one either, if it wasn't for people casting off the chains of sexual repression, gay people would STILL be in the closet,and women would still be barefoot and pregnant,or stuck in jobs that paid a fraction of what men earned..

What they really mean, is that they want a return to times when they could easily control a docile and uninformed population..A time when everbody ''knew their place"..

It's not enough we have to watch republicans get all misty eyed when they talk about Reagan like the country suffers from some collective amnesia,but it's disgusting to hear a democrat mention Reagans name without spitting.

Kudos Kennyworth, the nail was hit on the head by your post. My memories of his Slimy administration exactly as I lived through it.

 

[LaloGS]

I never said that AIDS is my personal disease Mazda, you inferred that and your inference is wrong. AIDS was identified as a Gay disease (see Nick's post) and because of that it went unfunded and people died, both Gay and Straight. Geez ..... what other way can I say it so you and Chance understand!

That's not possible Smelter, they're too busy pumping the bellows to keep Reagan's political image inflated.

 

[smelter]

You know Ken , if corporations pay workers just enough to put food on the table, pay the rent and not have anything left to save for a rainy day .... they keep huge balances on their credit cards.

The CEOs then accumulate enough stock in banks and CC companies so they get elected to the board of directors and declare the size of dividends they receive on their stock. That way they get to screw the same working men a second time and third time.

Its a nice little game of 3 card Monte they have going there .... pays the Country Club bill, the vacation home in the Bahamas and some expensive baubles for wifey and mistress to boot!

"ITS GOOD TO BE THE KING", Mel Brooks in History of the World Part 1.

 

[smelter]

That's not possible Smelter, they're too busy pumping the bellows to keep Reagan's political image inflated.

Exactly ..... just like the man himself, mostly hot air!

 

[JayHawk]

Ok I stand corrected. Reagan casued AIDS.

 

[LaloGS]

Ok I stand corrected. Reagan casued AIDS.

I might get banned, but this is just stupid Mazda. The facts are there. No one is saying Reagan caused AIDS, but by dragging his feet, and refusing to admit it was anything more than a gay problem, he let thousands of gays die because he refused to grant research money that eventually was to produce the first cocktail treatments. He was such a saint.

His blue nosed anti human attitude and pandering to the Religious right, was directly responsible for thousands of gay people dying horrible and painful deaths that might have been prevented with just a tiny smidgin of his so called Compassionate Conservatism. The man was devoid of compassion, conservative or otherwise.

It was not until someone he knew personally developed AIDS (supposedly from a blood transfusion, yeah right) that he even said the word AIDS.

His avoidance behavior suggests he had skeletons in his closet, he was afraid would come out if he addressed the AIDs epidemic.

But keep working on the bellows Mazda, his balloon is beginning to sag.

 

[JayHawk]

Compassionate conservative was after Reagan.

The phrase was popularized when George W. Bush adopted it as one of his key slogans during his 2000 presidential campaign against Al Gore. Bush also wrote the foreword to Olasky's Compassionate Conservatism.

I have no idea what you have just said that might even be on the border of being worthy of a ban. I would suggest if that is your goal that you try harder.

From the history I have just been reading Reagan is blamed for not blaring the message from the mountain top but he did have the NIH handling the issue. Was that mistake because of the nature of the pandemic? Of course but hindsight is always 20/20. Read the history of AZT to find out how much the govt was involved in the research. In 1985 they were clinically testing AZT. But your right he could have done more.

 

[smelter]

Compassionate conservative was after Reagan.



I have no idea what you have just said that might even be on the border of being worthy of a ban. I would suggest if that is your goal that you try harder.

From the history I have just been reading Reagan is blamed for not blaring the message from the mountain top but he did have the NIH handling the issue. Was that mistake because of the nature of the pandemic? Of course but hindsight is always 20/20. Read the history of AZT to find out how much the govt was involved in the research. In 1985 they were clinically testing AZT. But your right he could have done more.

I can't speak for LaloGS but there is no hindsight involved with me. Reagan had the bully pulpit and refused to use it. He allowed this disease to become a focal point for renewed hatred against Gays. I was there and saw friends die because health care workers refused to help them! I read the public forum in my own newspaper calling for them to literally be stoned.

No thank you, I don't need to read another word about it.

 

[JayHawk]

So Reagan lead all these groups? He must have had alot more energy than folks let on

It couldnt have anything to do with the cutlure of America that defined all of those peoples hatred? COuld it?

 

[Spensed]

Reagan didn't mention AIDS in any speech or in public for seven years. A true hero.

Sure there were government agencies and people looking at the problem in case, God forbid, it spread to heterosexuals. But Reagan's failure even to speak about what was happening symbolized his administation's neglect of the epidemic. As a result, it never go the attention or funding it required, or that it would have got, if it had not been perceived as a gay disease.

Thousands of gay men died as a result. Not to mention the children and other people infected.

You can spin like a top to make Reagan look more than he ever was (as people do with George Bush). But you can't spin away the callousness of his response the the AIDS crisis.

Oh, and yes I know, he dropped the ball there, but he was great on other things. Give me a break.