To Be Continued (Shortly)...
Tuesday, July 20th (NZ time)
Though I personally do not and have never subscribed to neoliberal economics aka deregulation c/o Reaganomics/Thatcherism (in the USA/UK) or c/o Ruthanasia/Rogernomics (here in New Zealand) - and so find myself far more aligned politically/economically to that ever economically consistent long-time politician Winston Peters than to his Labour/Green Party detractors who for all their criticisms have long since tended to walk a somewhat different walk from the high-minded talk they seem especially adept in...
Yet I recognize many Americans saw otherwise - however wrong they were! And so, I do not rate Reagan well on the economic equity score, though I realize the stock market rallied strongly under his watch...
But on those global matters of moment Reagan was the man of and for the moment...
presiding over the gradual and ultimately speedy demise of the *Evil Empire (i.e. the Soviet Union/USSR: or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - since split into smithereens and its basic 15 constituent parts). But he was most assuredly not alone, either in temporal or, for that matter, supernatural helpers, in this success - and those who suggest otherwise ascribe to the man far more impact than anyone is warranted and likewise infinitely more credit than he is due...
That all being placed firmly upon the record and all being said, I intend to now summarize why **I consider Reagan overall right up there among America's most 'successful' and significant presidents. But I certainly do not intend to skirt over those elements of the Reagan Administration which earned my ire, and, more importantly, the anger and disgust of multitudes (especially worldwide), and will succinctly come to a close by mentioning two long-term issues which Reagan (and co) either courageously tackled or ultimately - and, arguably, cowardly - failed to deal with; leaving a legacy for his (presidential) successors and succeeding generations (of Americans) - in the former instance, of good or weal; in the latter of evil or woe...
President Ronald Reagan's outstanding achievements and/or personal assets/attributes were, however seemingly 'simple' and uncomplicated, nevertheless, as the wag might express it, eminently profound, forming the basic constituents contributing to my overall positive assessment and favourable evaluation of his presidential (and thus *******political) legacy...
In (necessarily) bullet-point inventory, I consider these (the particular order in which I list them - apart from #1 & #2, which also should have been reversed - not necessarily signifying their relative importance) to have been/consisted of:
#1: his - already acknowledged - pivotal historic role - with lotsa divine assistance I hasten to add! - in the incredible, and incredibly rapid, demise and self-destruction of the USSR and Eastern Bloc...
#2: Not - as so many (including, admittedly, yours truly, at times) expected - ***********pressing the button and ending it all for one and all...
#3: Understanding the American people - incidentally, as a dual American kiwi since birth with parents who moved to God's Own/Godzone 60-some years ago now and growing up with that background as well as numerous grandparental visits and moves here over my childhood years, plus having spent almost three years in the USA myself in the early to mid 1990s (like John Key and David Cunliffe, evidently), and eagerly devouring Times and Newsweeks galore throughout my lifetime, I can claim to know somewhat of which I speak - in a way in which few other Americans presidents before or since have: I'd say, with the notable exceptions of (interestingly, Reagan's own (birth family's) childhood hero) FDR - who had the common touch down to a fine art, and tuned it to perfection as radio finally came into its own; JFK - who symbolized and embodied a new generation's (and my mum's own) hopes and dreams for a new day and age for America and the world; and Abraham Lincoln - who had an intuitive grasp upon both the nation's pulse and yet 'the better angels of [their] nature(s)'; of course, like JFK 100 years on, cruelly gunned down by the assassin's bullet...
...JFK being of course in the view of many the victim of a deep state conspiracy, whereas it has actually been well established that - irrespective of the situation for JFK - Abraham Lincoln most definitely was such indeed. (For more info upon the same, please refer to a 42-pager I did on the run-up to American presidential election 2016, in which I myself expose what I believe to very possibly have been a conspiracy behind that election - but not remotely the one the media has long been suggesting...).
It's entitled 'If It Looks Like a Setup, and It Sounds Like a Setup (etcetera etcetera etcetera),Then...' (Forgive me for temporarily forgetting the precise name of it, it is located upon 'NuffSaid' and was posted upon August 22nd, 2016). Interestingly, in a subsequent discussion of conspiracy theories - when, following Donald Trump's totally unexpected presidential victory the very airwaves and blogosphere were seemingly literally swarming with conspiracy theories - an American couple interviewed by RNZ National's Nine to Noon host, Kathryn Ryan, in January or February 2017, declared that the one conspiracy theory they felt comfortable stating possessed some credibility was that pertaining to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination - the very such theory my own conspiracy theory associated with presidential election 2016 related to - (or had serious 'links' to, in the modern vernacular)...
#4: (Likewise) implicitly understanding the proper role of pretty well any government to be necessarily self-restrained and restricted for the good of all in society - remarkably similar to Margaret Thatcher's own world view - Reagan once famously quipping as to the best thing a government could do consisted of essentially leaving people alone...
#-1: Yet upon the domestic front poverty and inequality burgeoned and rampaged away, the rich got steadily and inordinately far richer, the poor oftentimes had the shirts ripped off their very backs...whilst the military consumed exorbitantly larger shares of the nation's wealth, money which if given in foreign aid throughout the darker recesses of the world would have not only relieved abject poverty all over the globe but, more importantly for a nation whose guiding light has so often sadly been enlightened self-interest, could have, like the unfaithful steward of Jesus' telling parable who was told he'd been found out and was about to be summarily dismissed from his stewardship, whereupon he got his act together and used any remaining largesse in his possession to ensure his long-term survival 'into everlasting habitations', would've given America some real leverage throughout the world and thus protected it from the sort of well-deserved acrimony and hostility that it has long since incurred across the globe...
Yes, though foreign affairs was far and away Reagan's unexpected 'strong suit', this (misguided aforementioned, however unforeseen) global consequence of his policies domestically was not at all the only fundamental weakness or poor judgment call that he and his administration made on the world scene.
#-2/-3/-4: (The) Iran Contra very nearly precipitated Reagan's latter stage impeachment, but more concerning to biblical students such as myself were his - perfectly understandable - rapprochement with the papal state, i.e. the papacy/the Vatican, as he and his administration allied itself with the selfsame - in the person of Pope John Paul the 2nd - in order to rid our world of the scourge of the aforementioned 'Evil Empire'...yet that selfsame rapprochement carrying within it the seeds of the final endtime crisis, the long foretold 'Great Tribulation' so soon to afflict all dwellers upon the Earth...
...when the papal power, representing Roman Catholicism, unites in another 'unholy alliance' with Apostate Protestantism (and third world spiritualism) to bring about the crisis of the ages, in which religious intolerance is once again elevated to global dominance and persecution run riot...
Curiously enough on the other hand the Reagan Administration's Central American policy approach helped fuel another wing of said 'Church of Rome', the (in)famous 'Liberation Theology', a 'theology' especially championed by the Jesuit order of Catholics throughout the length and breadth of the Americas, at least 'south of the border'...
The Administration's actions in Central America were especially critiqued for their perceived sanctioning of human rights abuses in Nicaragua and El Salvador in particular - the so-called 'death squads' chief in notoriety amongst these; an 'episode' indeed which at my Dad's funeral service in 2005 I discovered he'd decided to formally and permanently renounce his American citizenship (back in the mid-1980s) and even the one-time conservative firebrand Barry Goldwater, still serving in the US Senate, accused Reagan and co of violating international law whilst engaging in helicopter gunning of folk in those selfsame Central American conflicts...
And yet oddly enough an equally significant 'third strain' of in/actions - constituting 'the road (not) taken' and/or the opportunity (not) seized - might equally be seen as having a major bearing in the ultimate verdict of history upon Reagan and his administration, the two issues being ones which are ever so domestic and ever so American, indeed the twin lenses through which the watching world generally now pretty well sizes up the States: guns and healthcare (from the time Barack Obama arrived in office through the years of his literal presidential successor Donald Trump right on down now to Obama's ideological (and personal) successor, his former Veep-turned-President Joe Biden).
Though - if only through the unfortunate circumstances of his near assassination in 1981 - Reagan's right-hand-man James Brady helped engineer the congressional enactment of the famous 'Brady Bill' gun law, and thus secured the only real at all restrictive gun law in America in arguably its entire history, and thus ensured Reagan's place in U S history as a (if ever so reluctant, carried kicking and screaming so to speak) champion of gun reform, showing unwonted courage in choosing the road less travelled as my well-beloved 'idol' Scott M Peck might have expressed things, or 'seizing the day' as another folk hero of mine, the equally 'late, great' Robin Williams, might have put matters...
if Ronald Wilson Reagan had metaphorically 'bitten the bullet' on another matter he would have secured for himself the long-term endearment of Americans rich and poor, liberal and conservative - individuals admittedly, not well-heeled corporates and interest groups! - for time to come...and made his childhood hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt exceedingly pleased with and even inordinately proud of him for time and immemorial...
Doing something that no Democrat could (easily) get away with - though admittedly Obama ultimately did; by the barest skin of his teeth; and losing almost the entirety of any remaining political capital he still had in the process: achieving health reform and universal healthcare for all Americans as a birthright...
But sadly he was borne down upon - psychologically intimidated (at least, the prospect of the same as his top aides warned him of what might befall him if he pressed ahead with the selfsame) by the American Medical Association, and that, as they say, was all she wrote...
*I'm not arguing here as to whether Ronald Reagan's negative evaluation of the Communist Bloc was a perfect assessment in every respect - though apparently multitudes/the great mass of Eastern Europe anyhow voted with their feet (both en masse on the streets and more importantly in literally physically overturning such regimes) in hearty approval as nation after nation within that one-time impenetrable and impervious Iron Curtain fell like dominoes throughout especially the later 1980s to secede from such oppressive ironclad domination and subjection...
As to whether the United States of America is itself not increasingly becoming the very embodiment of the evil it once so vigorously and thunderously denounced is another matter, and for some biblical commentary thereupon I can only refer you to other blogposts of mine upon both this and my original blogsite, 'Nuff Said: My friendly neighbourhood take upon this, that and especially the other', upon http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
But also - and more recently (in the overall scheme of things) - upon three of my newer blogsites, i.e.:
'Can Ye Not Discern the Signs of the Time?' on http://666Babylon666.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
'I Realize you Might not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See it Anyway' on http://irymn.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
'Sorry to See Ya Go...It's Nice to Remember' on http://sotoseygitnitore.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
That'll give ya plenty to occupy the wee small hours...
**Yes, I well recognize I have no especial credentials for engaging in such an (essentially) academic exercise - and those I ***do possess would be passed over as so much piffle and self-serving oneupmanship by most casual observers...
***Such as a minor in Political Studies/Science, major in ****English (in my *****midlife years)...though - to my mind and way of thinking, anyhow - far more significant and personally meaningful was managing to obtain 82 in School Cert(ificate) History - eat yer heart out, ******Ian Dalziel! -
****That course (English) effectively being arguably even more 'political' (as in partisanly so) than PS.
*****'Midlife' meaning halfway plus to my allotted 'threescore and ten' years (as that great man of God, Moses, expressed things in the 90th psalm; or, rather, that 80 years of life included a 10-year bonus upon the standard 70-year human lifetime of most people; that is, if one considers the added 'labour and sorrow' of such a fourscore year lifespan to be anything of a bonus!)...
******An old schoolmate and longtime friend who always claimed to have been unfairly 'pipped at the post' by me back then, managing second in the class at 81 (percent). However, seeing as I didn't feel I'd managed to get enough swatting in prior to that examination, and so staying up way into the wee hours if not the entire night beforehand to not lose my natural advantage (I kid!), but at least to do myself proper credit on a subject where admittedly I seemed to be the teacher's favourite, I swatted a possible question on the precursors and conditions which led to the enacting of FDR's New Deal' programme... and guess what special question was in the day's test...?
*******Reagan was also of course - prior to his second (this time successful) presidential gambit - two-term Governor of California, interestingly succeeded by maverick (and perceived radical) Democrat Jerry Brown, who, incredibly enough, returned to governorship there at the ripe 'ole age of ********77, and proceeded to 'clock up' a succession of subsequent terms establishing him as apparently the undisputed longest-serving governor of any U S state, fullstop.
In my own modest estimation, however, I feel - ultimately - more 'on the page' with Reagan, who - though most definitely no (wild-eyed) social liberal as was Brown; or dope-smoking (and police-busted) throwback to the radical, promiscuous sixties - apparently was much more sensitive to the likes of solo mother welfare recipients (though partisan political opponents would fail to confess any such things); perhaps one reason why that old reactionary political dinosaur, *********/************Eugene McCarthy no less, threw in his own support behind Reagan in the 1980 presidential election...
********Proving once for all, as that all-time great 20th-century statesman (Sir) Winston Churchill himself most assuredly did, that the mid-seventies is just the right time of life to re-launch one's political career...and then some!
*********Of course the 'peace candidate' back in 1968 and - initially anyhow - in 1972; caught in that timeless snow-bedecked photo op when I believe he announced his decision to quit the **********race...
**********The race, that was, to secure the Democratic nomination for president that year (to go on to face Richard Milhaus Nixon). Nixon eventually secured a massive landslide victory over his ever so honourable Democratic Party opponent, George McGovern, who, as many still recall, decided to ditch his one-time Veep (Vice-presidential) candidate Thomas Eagleton (due to mental health issues), and - less well known - at one time did seriously consider Republican Mark Hatfield as his running mate; the sort of gracious and welcome bipartisan gesture that has long since vacated the American political scene..
***********I refer of course to thus authorizing the start of what would have instantly escalated to WW111, and blown us all away...
But I well realize of course that there but for the grace of God went other (both previous and subsequent) U S presidents, such as - in particular: JFK (the closest some suggest we've ever yet come to global Armageddon; at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and/or the Bay of Pigs 'incident'); Jimmy Carter: when a 'simple' computer error evidently nearly saw Carter activate the nuclear codes; and how could we ever forget Donald J Trump, whose avoidance of an all-out military confrontation with Iran at least - but how many like ************Hillary Clinton warned of the possibility of nuclear war (i.e. with America's long-term superpower adversaries Russia and China; let alone 'lil 'ole North Korea) under his watch? - was *************itself a spectacular miracle of sorts...
************Not that other long-term reactionary, John Pilger, I note; no, he considered Trump a far safer pair of hands at least vis-a-vis seeing off any potential nuclear conflagration that might occur during his (yet future) administration than those of the likes of long-term foreign hawk Hillary Clinton.
Yes, I essentially 'jest' in attributing reactionary 'status' to John Pilger or for that matter Eugene McCarthy, but I do so as a devil's advocate as it were, simply showing the absurdity of such a claim.
*************For a brief (and hopefully witty) reference to such see one of my newest (and most unknown) blogsites, an obituary/tribute to the Goodies' Tim Brooke-Taylor and Aotearoa-New Zealand's one and only John Clarke (Fred Dagg): 'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life...We Don't Know How Lucky We Are'; located on http://goodygoodydaggdrops.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)...
Acknowledgment:
This 'article' was inspired by (and probably otherwise wouldn't have come about) due to a chance interview watched upon (Radio Rhema's) Shine TV (the night of Sunday July 18th?), in which Gary Hoogvliet engaged in an extensive, leisurely chat with Reagan's presidential executive assistant Peggy Grande...
...and, moreover, wouldn't have occurred without the helpful assistance of the much and ever-underrated footnote...(as folk upon RNZ National such as weekday Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan were also discussing the other day).
