The Ugly Un-American: Reagan in Perspective
Posted by Ray Church on 02.20.2007
Ray Church returns with a column on why Reagan should never be held up as an "Above Average President". Plus, the STHU award and a reflection on Crow stealing the gimmick.
My long lay off has not been voluntary. After finishing the show that originally put me on ice for January, the last three weeks have been taken up by a combination of a boss who seems to forget that I only work 3 hours for him and I'm supposed to be on holiday, and a daughter who is so cute that getting near a computer is damn near impossible.
The layoff has allowed me a change to reflect on why I care about this.
It sometimes gets hard to justify my interest in American politics. I have been accused of Americocentricism. If I'm not American and so critical of the country, why should I care what they do.
My answer is a little philosophical. It has a lot to do with structures of power and knowledge. I may not live in America but all my students wear Levi jeans, Nike shoes and Esprit shirts. They carry Playboy backpacks and sip coffee at Starbucks. They have study sessions at McDonalds and while they may not listen to American pop-music, they listen to Canto-pop which is just as bland and homogenous, often stealing melodies from American pop stars. They go to sleep dreaming of being America's Next Top Model.
As for myself, not owning a cable service I am forced to get my news from a few select sources. Both Hong Kong TV stations have deals with American news networks (ABC and CBS respectively) so that beyond Hong Kong and Asia, most of my news is already filtered through US news sources.
My only other choice of news is CCTV World Wide, an official news service put out by the Chinese government. Needless to say that it doesn't carry too many reports critical of Chinese involvement in Taiwan, Tibet or Tiananmen Square.
This column is one of the few places where I get to talk back to the vast mythology that gets projected onto me. Yes, I could talk back to my computer screen, and believe me I do, but this is one of the few places I get to talk back to a culture that is increasingly forced upon me.
I am, for want of a better explanation, a victim of American Mythology.
American Mythology
I've always wanted to believe in certain parts of the American mythology
"But Ray, America doesn't have mythology, it has history. And the bible. It's all truth here"
No, America is filled with mythology, it's just not filled with centaurs or jinn or demons… Well, maybe a couple of demons.
But America is filled with mythology, the stories that are told by the community to explain how the world works. Centuries ago, it was stories of bird women chasing grown men to explain why a particular stone had tremendous scratch marks, or the sky separated from its lover, the earth, to explain rain, or a Storm God throwing spears through the sky to explain lightning.
These days it's Will Smith starring as a homeless man to explain how everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or Keifer Sullivan torturing his brother to explain why Abu Ghraib was not so bad. They can all be reduced to aphorisms: "A Beacon for Freedom in the World", "A Land of Opportunity", "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave". They are seductive phrases because they sell America as what it should be, not what it is.
The piece of mythology that sucked me in the most was the idea that the strong are there to protect the weak; that America will protect weak countries from strong dictators.
Pushers get pushed.
The difficulty is always comparing the myth to the reality. While "the Pursuit of Happiness" may have been based on a true story, there are plenty of true stories it was not based on. While torture may work on "24", it has been repeatedly debunked as a source of evidence by those who have studied it.
And while the USA repeatedly claims to protect the weak, it repeatedly undermines this through its own foreign policy. So let me debunk one more American myth.
"Ronald Reagan was a great president"
American Hegemony
The man who set me off on this tirade was Ronald Reagan.
"No, Mr. Church, don't attack the sacred cow. How will anyone believe you're non-partisan if you attack Ronald Reagan; The Great Communicator; The Teflon President."
Warning: My next analogy will offend you.
Hearing this news about Reagan makes me wonder what it is like for the abused child watching a pedophile priest praising God from the pulpit.
"Shock, horror, Mr. Church. You just compared Reagan to a pedophile priest. How could you?"
If I could think of a way to reverse the analogy I would. As horrible as pedophilia is, it still ranks below the crimes you can connect to Reagan.
Perhaps the better analogy is comparing the Reagan to the clergy that covered up the atrocities. As Noam Chomsky has repeatedly pointed out, "the best thing you can say about Reagan is that he probably had no idea what his Administration was truly doing".
Imagine if you were a family member of one of the hundreds of thousands killed by Reagan funded fascists. Imagine if you were one of the leaders in Central America who were targeted for assassination by CIA trained contras, or Nicaraguan peasants who, after finally managing to oust the US backed dynasty of tyranny known as the Somoza Family, soon found that their little revolution was now part of a communist plot and therefore eligible for millions of dollars through the Reagan Administration's helping hand program for right wing dictators and terrorists.
Have I gone too far? Nope, I just got a little bit ahead of myself.
Reagan: Patron of Fascists
"Iraq. Incredible weapons. Incredible weapons"
"How do you know that?"
"We checked the receipt"
Bill Hicks commenting on George Bush Sr.
The first thing you should know is that the regimes the US has been struggling to defeat in its last two wars were both, at one stage, funded by Reagan Administration. If Bush declares war on Iran (which still looks like it is within the realms of possibility) that would make a third regime that at one time received arms or funding from the Reagan Administration.
The biggest duplicity in the Middle East came while the Reagan Administration was supplying "dual-use technology" like helicopters, chemicals and the Anthrax virus to Iraq to use against Iran (and the Kurds), while selling conventional arms to Iran to use against Iraq. (At the same time he took the proceeds and used it to fund terrorist organizations in Central America, but again I'm getting ahead of myself).
Reagan's central role when it came to foreign policy was to confuse "dictators we support" with freedom fighters and "dictators we don't support" with communists. Just take this quote, for example, and see if you can work out who it is referring to.
Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability
If you answered "the Taliban", you're correct. He was referring to the US backed Afghani mujahideen, those lovable freedom fighters who would slowly morph into Bush Jr's "enemies of freedom" that we know today as the Taliban.
If your answer was "Al-Qaeda", you get partial marks as, although they were not funded by the US government, the MAK (led by Osama Bin Laden) were certainly present in the conflict and fighting alongside the US backed mujahideen (they had their own funding, as the MAK was primarily a money laundering scheme to get money from the west into the hands of jihadists). In turn, their support for the "freedom fighters" would be returned when the Taliban offered Al-Qaeda sanctuary in the 90's.
Or try this one:
the moral equal of our founding fathers
Can't guess? That would be the Nicaraguan Contra Rebels, formerly known as the Somoza regime soldiers, who took on the task of freeing Nicaragua from the communist dictatorship known as the Sandinista government (compared to the Somoza government that was trying to get back into power, the Sandinistas were a hippy commune at the time). How did they go about "freeing" Nicaragua? Attacking "soft targets", like farms and health clinics. More on these guys later.
Reagan: Partner to Genocide
Reagan's system was simple. If there is a left wing dictator in Central America, replace him with a right wing dictator. It didn't matter whether the new dictator was worse than the old one, Right wing trumped left wing because America was fighting communists.
Talk about a partisan hack.
The list is fairly comprehensive.
First up, you have Camp Libertad in Florida, where ex-Cuban and ex-Nicaraguan guerillas were trained in what amounted to terrorism. You also had the School of the America's in Georgia. Training manuals from these training camps, released in 1996, showed that this training included instruction on the use of torture.
Then you have the estimated body count from American supported death squads.
El Salvador – estimated at 70 000
Nicaragua – estimated at 20 000
Guatemala – estimated at 100 000
Angola – possibly hundreds of thousands.
Iraq, Iran – numbers unknown.
Yes, I know the Heritage Foundation's line on this. These countries were all a threat to America. They were spreading Communism. It was the Domino theory. We were setting them free.
Bullshit.
Every genocide in the history of human history is conducted on the grounds that "it's for your own good". Read the Khmer Rouge tracts before they came to power in Cambodia and its filled with talk of creating a harmonious society. The propaganda always reads the same.
Contrast this with his policies towards South Africa, where suddenly phrase became "constructive engagement" despite the fact that South Africa still considered the ANC (you know, the organization run by Nelson Mandela) a terrorist organization and was run by the fundamentally racist principle of Apartheid. (Reagan stopped short of calling the ANC a terrorist organization, a mistake made by his counterpart in the UK at the time, Margaret Thatcher). Contrast it with the few right wing dictatorships he did bring down, such as Marcos in the Philippines, and you will see a defined difference between the use of soft and hard power. Soft power for the right, hard power for the left.
How bad was this? So bad that Nicaragua actually filed a suit in the International Court and… gasp… won. The US was ordered to "cease and desist" and pay reparations. Did they do it? Nope. Reagan ignored it and used the US veto power to make sure that the US didn't pay reparations and then, when funding was cut off by Congress, sold weapons to Iran as an alternative way to pay for it.
For their own part, the contras made a bit of money on the side trafficking cocaine to the US, effectively undermining Reagan's "just say no" policy.
All of this is before I get to things like the economic violence perpetrated by the Reagan Administration. Yes, Reagan was good for the American economy, but he was terrible for the economy of poorer nations. Be it the Philippines or Saipan, American employment practices during the Reagan Administration (and, it should be noted, since then, including during the Clinton Administration) in many countries amounted to legalized slavery.
And before you fire off an email citing the old bullshit "America was providing wages to impoverished countries", ask those countries if they are happy for American jobs. Ask the families who lost their farms during the Marcos era (Marcos was, until late in Reagan's Administration, supported by the USA). Read the stories of Filipino workers forced to sleep under their sewing machines trying to fill a big order from some big American company or other.
You'll be able to find Filipino workers fairly easily. Just look for any country not named the Philippines. They form one of the largest immigrant workforces in the world, largely due to the miserable state of the Filipino economy. Yes, this wasn't entirely the fault of the USA, but it gives lie to the idea that American Investment in the region has improved the standard of living for anyone (other than the factory workers) in that region.
And then there is the case Saipan, which is officially part of the USA but excused from most of the labour and immigration laws due to the agreements made in 1986 (during the Reagan Administration) when Saipan became part of the USA. You can find a summary of many of the problems with Saipan here
Economic Violence is a lot easier to distance from Reagan, of course. Reagan can not be held responsible for the actions of a few (few?) errant US Companies, but he was responsible for easing a lot of the regulations that caused this violence.
Reagan: Propagandist
Like the quote I gave from Noam Chomsky earlier in this piece, I think the nicest thing you can say about Reagan is he didn't know what his administration was doing. You think he would have gotten a clue by the extensive number of staff who were indicted for crimes during his administration , but this was the Teflon President after all.
It was easy to believe he was duped, or perhaps senile. Today, of course, he is held up as a beacon of conservative values, but when the recent series of Republican Presidents (in reverse order, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon) you have to go back to Eisenhower to find a President that people was a) re elected and b) not repulsive to the country.
The rhetoric does not match the record.
Shut the Hell Up Award recap
Well, a big thank you to Crow who borrowed (stole?) the STHU award for the past few weeks. Let me just chime in on the people he gave the awards to and give the official Ugly Un-American seal on some.
John Howard: "I think [Obama's] wrong. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory…[i]f I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."
Absolutely. Good to see an Australian finally win this award.
Rudy Giuliani: "We are very fortunate to have President Bush…the Civil War went really, really badly for the first two or three years. Lincoln may have been real unpopular in 1863, but he was our greatest president, because of his ability to look into the future."
Yup, another deserving winner. If Bush really could look into the future he would have seen the need to put more troops in Iraq to stop the looting when Saddam fell.
Is it just me, or is Giuliani shooting himself in the foot with this Bush love in. Republicans need to run away from the President if they want a shot at winning the next election.
George Bush: "In comments first reported in the New York Observer, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) said Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Biden's insensitive remarks were roundly criticized, and he has since apologized.
President Bush may need similar sensitivity training. In an interview today with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Bush echoed Biden's remarks when asked about Obama. "He's an attractive guy. He's articulate. I've been impressed with him when I've seen him in person," Bush said."
Sorry Crow, this one doesn't cut it. Rightly or wrongly, the criticism leveled at Joe Biden was that he linked the praise of Obama with his race. As Bush did not link the praise to comments to his race, he effectively dodged the similarities.
Alberto Gonzalez: "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,'' Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17.
Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares "habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless ... in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' But he insisted that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.''"
Another good call. Gonzalez effectively tied himself in a pretzel with this one.
So, three out of four for his run at stealing my catchphrase, but that's ok because I stole it from Chris Jericho.
A big one I missed during this time was Hillary Clinton unveiling her new slogan, "Let the Conversation Begin", which just reeked of being the sort of think dreamed up in the marketing department in Starbucks. I also wish I could have fired a shot at both Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough for their attacks on American Idol being too mean which they continually intercut with shots of the worst contestants on American Idol. It's a bit hard to claim righteous indignation when you spend the first two minutes laughing at the fat kid and the geek with big eyes.
Now the OFFICIAL Shut the Hell Up Award for this week.
Ben Bridges.
Who?
Well, he's a member of the Georgia House of Representatives who decided to send out a memo claiming that:
"Tax-supported "evolution science" now illegal unlawful under U.S. constitution
How? Well, apparently new evidence provided this website proves conclusively that evolution science was originally conceived by Kabbalists, and is therefore a religion.
OK, so you've opened that website, right? First, read the http on that baby.
That's right, fixedearth.com
His proof is a website that, amongst other things, tries to prove that the sun goes around the earth. It also links evolution to Kabbalists, because saying Jewish Kabbalist would be a redundancy.
Now we all know these crackpot websites exist, we just don't present them to the local government as proof of the fallacies in the education system.
A bonus award goes to Warren Chisum, which you would think is one of the great porn names of our generation, but no, he's a member of the Texas House of Representatives who decided to share this memo with members of his House as well.
The Section Formerly Known as Pimping
OK, just mentioning this from the past week, because if I went through the last couple of months I've missed I would be here all day.
Joe Rivett does me a favour and watches the Fox News Half Hour News Hour. Thanks for the heads up, Joe. It's like having someone warn you about dog shit before you step in it.
Ray Robinson defines the Kerry Doctrine and I got to say Ray, you're so 2004 with this one. The talking point was meant to be it's the "Murtha Plan" for undermining America, but that's what you get for not reading the talking points.
Mark Radulich votes with fear once again, and praising Giuliani may be all for naught if he can't distance himself from George Bush, Mark.
I gotta say that Josh White sincerely impressed me with this piece.
And Crow reminds us that the Democrats are Spineless , and being that this column was nearly just going to be one big attack ad on Hillary Clinton (maybe next week), I couldn't agree more.
STAY CURRENT