Volume II. No. 51
 06-10-04
 Too Much Reagan
 author: Vance Cureton
 © Copyright 2004
 

 The moment of someone's death is not the time to launch into broad asides
 about that person's particular human failings. This goes as much to the lately 
 deceased Ronald Reagan, as to any human being. But in the case of our 40th
 president, it is the insufferable mouthpieces on the Far Right who are doing
 damage to Reagan's legacy.For, would they have us all pay homage to their 
 Right-Wing pagan God?

 But first a few thoughts about Reagan's presidency.

 Ronald Reagan was not a great president. Certainly not to those on the left, or 
 to those in the political center. Ronald Reagan made no secret of his contempt
 for everything that was even remotely attached to liberalism. Minorities of all
 kind were dismissed. African-Americans in Reagan's eyes were a "special interest" 
 group. This despite almost 400 years of second-class citizenship, and the hard
 sacrifice of life and limb on the battlefields of Europe, Korea, and Vietnam. Thus, 
 only when the political tide turned so overwhelmingly against him did Reagan 
 grudgingly yield to the idea of a holiday that was a long overdue appreciation 
 for the lifetime accomplishments of the assasinated Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 On the subject of King's well-deserved national holiday, Reagan was just plain 
 wrong.

 { ...we'll politely decline to mention Reagan's long-held belief that King was 
 secretly sympathetic to Marxist political ideology - that's a whole 'nother story. }

 Reagan's eight years in office were a time when smooth-talking bigots like the
 Reverend Jerry Falwell were invited onto the national political scene. Thus began 
 the "long march" to the bitterly divided nation we have today. A nation where 
 a strong religious faith by definition accompanies a conservative world-view. 
 Left-leaning christian liberals need not apply. Despite the fact, that it was christian 
 liberals who were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle in this nation. Not 
 the haters on the conservative side of the aisle, who still shout "state's right's" 
 whenever it suits them.

 Another blemish upon Reagan's record was the little inconvenience known as
 Iran-Contra. Clinton was unjustly impeached by a Right-Wing congress because
 of a moral failing. A bit of sexual hanky-panky in the Oval Office. { like that's never
 happened before } Yet, Reagan's cronies on Capitol Hill protected him and his 
 cadre of willing law-breakers who were determined to supply military arms to the 
 freedom fighers in Nicaragua despite the fact that such actions were blatantly 
 illegal. -- The slippery Reagan was never even remotely threatened with impeachment.

 Enough about Reagan's long-ago presidency. He had his good points to be 
 sure. Both as a man and as a president. But, Abraham Lincoln he was not.

 So then, what is it about Ronald Reagan that has the right so besides themselves 
 in adoration? Was it because he was a man of a certain personal warmth? And 
 was quick-witted in front of the cameras? -- Especially after the dour Richard 
 Milhous Nixon, and the perpetually befuddled Gerald Ford had reigned for so 
 long as the face of American republicanism.

 Years before Reagan's death, the humongous Ronald Reagan International Trade
 Center was constructed just off the mall in Washington, D.C. An aircraft carrier 
 carrying the name of Reagan is already afloat. Already, aptly named "National 
 Airport" has been renamed "Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport." And 
 the metropolitan metro transit system in Washington was threatened with monetary 
 sanctions by an overzealous congressman, if the airport subway station was not 
 re-named in honor of Ronald Reagan.

 Guess what? The name was changed.

 Why stop there? Let congress pass a mandate and rename the Nation's Capital,
 Reagan, D.C. { George Washington must be resting quite uncomfortably right
 now } Sadly, there is even a nascent movement afoot to put Reagan's mug on 
 the ten dollar bill and boot off poor Alexander Hamilton's.

 At this rate, if some future well-respected president passes away, and he is by 
 chance a democrat. There will be nothing left in the entire nation to name for
 him. The Reagan fantatics will have taken care of that. At some point these kind 
 of political mechinations do not honor the intended beneficiary, but have the 
 opposite effect. Let the cool eyes of history judge our late 40th President. 
 If our decendants want to build more monuments to honor Ronald Reagan, by all 
 means let them.

 This current mad rush to "Reaganize" the land is rank politics. And defames
 the man. -- Enough, already.
 

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