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Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 07 June 2004
The original can be seen at TruthOut.org
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
- e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's Defunct"
Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone
is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is appropriate. He was a husband
and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be missed by those he
was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the Alzheimer's
Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died
ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took
ten years to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.
The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to
the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that
has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he
lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the
world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like
loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer's
Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.
In this mourning space, however, there must be room
made for the truth. Writer Edward Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form
of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The
critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow
writers will shake their heads."
The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant
problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies
and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of
ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse
in the eye.
How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was
one of the most beloved Presidents of the 20th century. He won two national
elections, the second by a margin so overwhelming that all future landslides
will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved against Walter Mondale. How
can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the evils which corrupt
our days?
The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society
Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is the absolute triumph of image over reality,
of flash over substance, of the pervasive need within most Americans to believe
in a happy-face version of the nation they call home, and to spurn the reality
of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will always be, the undisputed
heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.
Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in
this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He
made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold
the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac.
It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest
myth-maker we are ever likely to see.
Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke
because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine
ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of
the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources
and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening
the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today,
Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels.
This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell
the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.
The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just
deliver journalism to these massive corporations, but handed virtually every
facet of our lives into the hands of this privileged few. The air we breathe,
the water we drink, the food we eat are all tainted because Reagan battered
down every environmental regulation he came across so corporations could improve
their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporations
that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The Savings and
Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of billions
of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be
fine guards in the henhouse.
Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite
the fact that he grew government massively during his time. Social programs
which protected the weakest of our citizens were gutted by Reagan's policies,
delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do this by caricaturing
the "welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who drove
the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she
didn't have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the
decimation of a generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot
because Ronald Reagan believed in 'self-sufficiency.'
Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund
research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable
home in America. The aftershocks from this callous disregard for people whose
homosexuality was deemed evil by religious conservatives cannot be overstated.
Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease which was allowed to burn
unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with the subconscious
idea that sex equals death.
The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy
of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered
today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra
scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast.
By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had
been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities.
Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver
North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert
C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair
George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen,
Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell,
John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo,
J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick. Many of these
names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us today,
'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.
Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the
worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and
Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration
with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones
of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget
his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way
to run a civilized society?
One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape.
Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported
the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration
gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their
chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great effect. The deadly
bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry
list of horrors.
The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald
Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite
public American condemnation of the use of those chemical weapons, the Reagan
administration still considered him a welcome friend and ally. This happened
while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a nation notorious
for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation of scores
of laws.
Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of
Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize
an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.
bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety
of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by
the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by
today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes
this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald
Reagan.
In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted
into rubble by Osama bin Laden, who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the
Reagan administration to do the job. In 2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger
into the heart of the United States, using men who became skilled at the art
of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are 827 American soldiers
and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq,
a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam Hussein
and Osama bin Laden.
How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet
of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him
as the man in charge, the man who defeated Soviet communism, the man whose vision
and charisma made Americans feel good about themselves after Vietnam and the
malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him as nothing more than
a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to become a virtue,
the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the government
for him.
In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald
Reagan - whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along
for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous question, "Are you better
off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We are not better
off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We
are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most
corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned
to the truth.
William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer
for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author
of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The
Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
