FDR wasn't a good enough man to wipe Reagan's ass. Reagan got us out of the
recession that Carter put us in, in 4 years. FDR couldn't even help the
economy a little bit in a decade and a half. You liberals don't get it when
it comes to honesty, integrity and decency. Anyone who voted for Clinton in
'96 or Gore in 2000 is proof of what I'm saying. Reagan was a man of
principle, but of course you have no idea what that means. I'd take 1 Ronald
Reagan over 100 FDRs and Bill Clintons if I needed a man to help me or the
country.

Gene

"Greg Pavlov" wrote in message
...
"Collective Amnesia or Collective Alzheimer's: America 'Remembers'
Ronald Reagan"
by Paul Douglas Newman

To remember Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest Presidents of the
twentieth century, to replace FDR on the dime with Reagan's profile as
Republicans wish to do, we are being asked to forget too much.

We are asked to forget Lebanon, where Reagan decided to "cut and run"
after hundreds of Marines perished when a suicide bomber invaded their
compound.

We are asked to forget the arms for hostages deal.

We are asked to forget El Salvador, where the right wing ARENA, armed
with Reagan money, Reagan weapons, and Reagan military training from
the School of the America's at Fort Benning, Georgia slaughtered more
than 80,000 civilians in the "War on Communism."

We are asked to forget the Iran-Contra Scandal, an event that he
evidently "could not recall" in response to more than one hundred
questions during the Congressional hearings.

We are asked to forget the groundwork laid for nuclear disarmament by
Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon.

We are asked to forget the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties I and
II.

We are asked to forget the re-freezing of the Cold War following the
Nixon thaw, when Reagan bellicosely denounced the Soviets as the "Evil
Empire," and then joked on his weekly radio address that our missiles
were ready to launch.

We are asked to forget the silly invasion of Grenada following the
Lebanon disaster, and the reversal of goodwill gestures made to the
Caribbean made by previous administrations, including the return of
the Panama Canal.

We are asked to forget the Soviet Union's internal move to
Perestroika, a groundswell that occurred over decades resulting in a
generation of new Communists by 1985 who were not manufactured by
Reagan's bravado, but were products of the "Evil Empire."

We are asked to forget that Reagan presided over the worst recession
since the Great Depression.

We are asked to forget the enormous cuts to social welfare programs
and the Veterans Administration, moves that led to such an enormous
rise in the homeless population, especially evident on the streets of
Washington, D.C., that even comedians felt that they had to do
something to stop the bleeding with "Comic Relief."

We are asked to forget the policies that enriched agri-business at the
expense of small farmers, continuing the decline of the family farm to
the point that recording artists were the only ones left to uphold
the Populists' mantle with "Farm-Aid."

We are asked to forget that he slashed taxes for the wealthiest,
raised taxes on the poor, and then bailed out the corrupt Savings and
Loan industry at taxpayer expense.

We are asked to forget that his SEC presided over such a corrupt and
over-inflated stock market that the Dow saw the largest one-day crash
in its history, greater than in 1929.

We are asked to forget that Reagan's economic policies effected a
reversal in the trend toward greater distribution of wealth begun by
Progressive Republican, Democratic, and Socialist politicians in the
early twentieth centuries, and have led us to the greatest
concentration of wealth today since the days of Andrew Carnegie and
James Pierpont Morgan.

We are asked to forget the enormous and outrageous military contracts,
for which American taxpayers
paid hundreds of dollars for nuts, bolts, and toilet seats, and the
nation saw defense-spending rise to astronomical heights.

We are asked to forget the Reagan Administration's opposition to the
Civil Rights movement, their blocking of busing programs and cuts to
Head Start meant to bring equality of opportunity to American
education.

We are asked to forget that Reagan considered ketchup to be a
vegetable in federal school lunch programs.

We are asked to forget "government cheese."

We are asked to forget jelly beans, splitting wood, bad b-movies,
McCarthy-ite participation in Hollywood blacklisting.

We are asked to forget our history.

We are asked to forget, and forget, and forget.

And by the looks of the New York Times and Washington Post's memorials
to the "Great Communicator," it appears that what historian Studs
Terkel has referred to as "America's collective amnesia" is still
acute.

Perhaps it is more serious than that.

Perhaps we have a national case of Alzheimer's Disease.

Perhaps our ability to remember relatively recent events has eroded,
and our capacity for rational thought has diminished as well.

Perhaps we are becoming a danger to ourselves and others.

Perhaps we need admittance into a managed care facility for nations.

Perhaps we are "riding off into the sunset." How else do we explain
our descent into Bushism?: our quick repetition of past economic and
foreign policy blunders, our re-visitation of failed policies to solve
current problems, our persistent dementia that results in trying the
same things and expecting
different results? As of now, there is no cure for Alzheimer's
Disease, only management of the symptoms and provision of comfort
until death.

Hopefully Studs Terkel is right, and we've just suffered another blow
to the head from which the American people will recover, and
remember, and remember, and remember.