GIP-per

[heidi]

Thanks to copperbadge for the icon; it is gackable with credit to him. It's definitely how I feel today. At some point, I need to write something long and rambly about growing up in the 80s, about having to watch all of the 84 campaign of speech and debate class, and why that's probably what pushed me about 90% into the Democratic camp.

But today is not that day, as Jon's birthday party starts in about 2 hours.

---

ETA - okay, so it is that day. Party over, everyone's gone, and after a long conversation with a friend who's working on the Kerry campaign, I put a few of my thoughts in the comments section for this post.

Comments

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

I doff my hat to Ray Charles and thank the stars that this weeklong Reagan travesty is over. I remember the '80s too well, and the memories are almost as horrific as... well, the current situation under Bush Jr.

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's my age, or my conservative leanings, but I believe the late President Regan to be one of the more influential and noble leaders our country has had in the last century. He wasn't a political genius, and his idea that ketchup was a vegetable is totally incorrect, but he was kind, friendly, and helped end a Cold War that frightened me at night when I was a little kid.

It's unfortunate that more Presidents after him didn't try and live up to his ideals a bit more. Clinton, anyone?

God Bless him.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Influential? Certainly. I agree with you 100%.

Noble? Well, if by that you mean "get his subordinates to fall on their swords until they're pardoned by him and/or his successor", then I guess he meets that definition.

I have to say, when the country was Upset About Stuff, he was very good at Soothing Us, and that *is* a very important thing. But he armed Saddam Hussein with weapons he used to kill his own people; I can't say that's a good thing.

He expanded the government, which I think was actually good & necessary for the time, but all the while he said he was for smaller government; the only president who's shrunken the government in the last 25 years is Bill Clinton.

His staffers - senior staffers - laughed at AIDS, while thousands were dying. He called Martin Luther King a communist. And I spent six or seven years of my life convinced, every night when I went to sleep, that I would not wake up because there would be a nuclear war.

When I went to Russia for the first time in 1989, I bought a button that said, "What have you done for Perestroika?" Reagan could not have made steps towards ending the cold war were Gorbachev not willing to sacrifice his career, and his life if necessary, to change the Soviet Union. It was a wonderful synchronicity, and I do believe that, like Nixon going to China, no other president could have done what Reagan did in terms of making a connection with Gorbachev - but Reagan and his team only merit half the glory for this - Gorbachev saved the world, and doesn't get the credit within the US that he deserves for it.

I am, of course, sorry for his family that Reagan has died. I used to find Nancy insufferable; one of my mother's closest friends has worked with her in LA on Alzheimers projects and it's impossible to find anything in my heart but admiration for her love for him, and her perseverence with everything she's been through in the past 10 or 11 years. But I think this week has been overkill - I mean, if he were a sitting president, I can understand stopping the mail, but people who work on an hourly basis did not get paychecks today because of his National Day of Mourning, and I find that silly. And we flew flags at half staff for thirty days after 9.11 - was Reagan's death really as important as the loss of those thousands that we need to fly it at half staff for thirty days, too?

I do wish him peace; I don't believe in hell, being Jewish, but I do not wish him to burn in perpetuity - then again, after years with Alzheimers, could hell really even be that bad if one had one's mind back?

He did some things that were very beneficial, and he did some things that led to thousands of deaths. I don't exactly know where that marks him on the balance sheet, and, to be honest, I don't think that Clinton would deserve this full week of coverage and a full day of work and government shutdown - nor Ford, Carter or Bush I. We are not a monarchy, and a death of a former head of state should not be treated with the same pomp and wailing that accompanies such a death.

[indy-go.livejournal.com]

Heidi, thank you for your words. Though I think that President Reagan was, inherently, a good man, I have been very upset this week at the revisionist history I see going on. Suddenly his economic policies are being hailed as wonderful, and his role in bringing the hostages home is (as you have so aptly pointed out) being given a finer sheen than it deserves. Do I respect Regean's personal devotion to home and family more than, say, Bill Clinton's? Yes. But, Clinton surrounded himself with intelligent people and (in my opinion) sought to do what was best, not only for the country, but also for the world. And in the end, that's what I want my president to do.

Frankly, I felt relieved when I heard of Reagan's passing, because I cannot imagine what he and his family have gone through over the last ten years. He's been gone a lot longer than a week. If anything, we should be celebrating this week that he is no longer in such pain.

[cat-mom.livejournal.com]

Wonderful icon. I actually mourn his passing, as opposed to the ex-president whose actions, or lack thereof, hurt so many people.

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

...ex-president whose actions, or lack thereof, hurt so many people

Could you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean our invasision of Grenada or what he did about Libya? Or freeing the hostages in Iran?

I'm just curious, because when up against Carter in '79 he got all by five states I think and in '84 he steamrolled Walter Mondale. Given that he's "hurt" so many, I'm curious as to your thoughts as to A. how he hurt people and B. Despite the hurt, how he managed to get an astounding number of electoral votes in both elections...

Re: Freeing the hostages in Iran?

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Although the Carter team had pursued the release of the hostages tirelessly, an agreement for their release was not signed until January 19, 1981, after the election of Ronald Reagan. In what many observers have seen as a slight against Carter, the Iranians waited to release the captives until minutes after Reagan was sworn-in as president the next day. The hostages had been held captive for 444 days.

Since that time members of the Reagan-Bush campaign and administration (most notably Barbara Honegger, in her book October Surprise) and the president of Iran in 1980 (Abu Al-Hasan Bani-Sadr, My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals With the U.S.) have alleged that a secret agreement between the Reagan campaign (orchestrated by George H. W. Bush) was responsible for destroying a deal between the Carter administration and the Iranian government that would have had the hostages released in October 1980 (worriedly known as "The October Surprise" by the Reagan team). Some unnamed sources also are alleged to have claimed that it was blackmail over the deal that led to the U.S. involvement in the later Iran-Contra scandal as Iran demanded to be sold weapons to use in its war against Iraq if the Reagan administration wanted it to keep quiet.

from http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/j/ji/jimmy_carter.html

You might also want to read http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/hamiltonoctsurprise.htm and http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/051499a.html for more on this.

Re: Freeing the hostages in Iran?

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

Woah--interesting.

When I was in grade school, we were all taught about how the President had helped to free those hostages. Being that I was about eight at the time, I don't remember ever being told about the the proverbial slap to the face for President Carter, by letting those people go after 400-some odd days.

Now what worries me slightly is that how many other schoolkids were taught what I was. It makes me wonder what else we as schoolkids weren't told--I live in a VERY conservative part of the U.S--where kids carry their hunting rifles to school, you're in church on Saturday or Sunday, as one's religious preference dictates, a flag flies in every yard and everyone knows someone whose been in a war. I can also whip up a mean apple pie, just like every woman around here.

It's not considered "American" to disagree with what the Presdient is doing, whether it be Bush or Reagan, or Carter, or what have you. You can imagine what happens to those people who try and think liberally around these parts. The easy answer is that they keep it to themselves.

And I know that my area of the nation isn't the only place.

I'm going to give those links a read. Thanks muchly.

[lore]

*clings* I'm with you, Heidi. It's amazing what people are willing to gloss over in the name of history.

love, lore

[lanamariah.livejournal.com]

I think the same thing applies to when ANYONE dies...who gets up at a funeral and talks about how awful a person was? I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar enough to make a comparison, I believe.

Carter got screwed and I wouldn't have been surprised if they had fixed the voting for him not to win because of those hostages. I wasn't alive then...was born during Reagen's second term...and I only know as much as I've been told during political discussions with my father and various others. But wasn't he seriously considering not running because of the hostages?