Seabird said:
This is weird, because I was just thinking this morning before seeing this how Reagan seems to have been villanized after the fact by a lot of people who weren't even born or old enough to understand back then. They probably get their info from books, articles and documentaries written from the biased point of view of their anti-Reagan authors. I lived through it folks, I was a grown woman, old enough to vote for him both times. It wasn't an evil time, really! As a matter of fact, the 80's were a prosperous time, one in which the number of tall buildings in my city tripled, and when campers went from being only for the old to for young families or anybody. Of course not everyone was able to prosper, I am among those who didn't get a piece of the pie. But I don't hold Reagan or those who did responsible. It's my fault.
Where did you live? The South? Maybe. We don't get many seabirds in the industrial north.
That makes a difference. Ever hear of the "Sun Belt"? And ever hear of the "Rust Belt"? I lived in the latter, watching all the good paying union jobs get gutted out, with them going South to the "Sun Belt," where the cheap, non-union labor lived.
No, that would be Jimmy Carter.
How many of you are old enough to remember Jimmy Carter's term? Or have you only read biased reports? I LIVED it. I remember why so many people wanted Carter out. He had ruined the economy, gas had gone from 50 cents to a dollar and a half, factories that paid 15 bucks an hour were cutting that in half or threatening to send jobs overseas. INFLATION set in. This was the beginning of the end of the good paying manufacturing job in the US which lead to unemployment, struggling, 2-parents working (often for less than what one used to make) households and the end of the American dream. Also, my bleeding hearts, were you aware Carter wanted to reinstate the draft and include girls?! Of course not. The biased wall of history won't tell you that, but I remember it.
Oh you crack me up. I wish Republicans would get consistent stories. If an economy is good, it *must* be the result of Republicans, even if they were the presidents before. If an economy is bad, it *must* be the result of Democrats, even if they were the presidents before. So, by Republican (il)logic, Clinton is to blame for the bad economy of the present and Carter is the fault of 1976-1980....right? What about Carter's predecessors, Ford and Nixon? Here's a little history lesson: that "inflation" of yours is the result of Nixon's deregulation of consumer price controls and a precedent he set with OPEC that they could set their own prices ("pass on costs to the consumers") and the U.S. wouldn't interfere.
And do you think that inflation suddenly ended with Reagan? Please. The old man couldn't solve it anymore than Carter could, so what did he do? He redefined it. The "inflation" of Jimmy Carter is not the same "inflation" of Ronald Reagan up to today. The old definition of "inflation" put the burden on consumer prices. Hence, it kept big business from charging too much for goods, but gas prices certainly did it. However, that's not Carter's fault. OPEC, by it's nature, is a non-competitive oligopoly.
Reagan's redefinition of inflation put the largest burden on labor wages, helping set the stage for a dramatic slashing of wages in the North and a free range on hiking consumer prices. And it worked. The statistics claim that we haven't had much inflation, because wages have been stagnant for the working class, but the cost of living has gone up considerably. So where do you make up the disparity between wages and prices? Credit. College tuition has skyrocketed--a doctor I knew in the 1970s was able to work an average "summer job" to pay for an entire year of *private* university, and now it is impossible. Student loans are now in most students' pockets. Automobiles have more than doubled in price and even new car loans are out of reach for a lot of people. Welcome to leases. And how can we forget credit cards?
Of course, the corporate party had to end sooner or later. Credit does have its limits and now we're due for a deflationary period, perhaps in the same vein as Japan, whose economy we tried to emulate, and they have been an economic wreck for the past decade. I guess we'll have to see, but if it happens, I'm sure the GOP will blame it on Clinton and the religious right will cry "the end of the world." It'll be good for a chuckle, at least.
As for the draft, so it is okay to have it reinstated with men, but not with women? Now there's some sexism if I ever saw it. I can't help you with that, but if women are qualified to make the same pay as men in the workplace, they are equally qualified to be subject to the draft.
Then there is the evil BTBS accusations. Well, does anybody ever consider what would have become of the women and children in the mud huts if the communists had taken power?! We know now in hindsight that communism fell, and it seems pointless now, but back then it was a real danger that communism would take a stronghold in central and south America, preying on impoverished people as it did in the days of the Russian Revolution, and become a wolf at the back door of the US. Reagan had to try to control this. The US wasn't really there as much as it supported the rebel factions fighting off the communists. Even Iran Contra was a result of this. There were reasons for it at the time.
"Communist" was just as much a word abused as "terrorist" is today. Reagan ignored completely as to why leftist (which is a more accurate term) revolutions were occurring in Latin America, and that was because most of these anti-communist regimes were oppressive dictatorships with it's small core of wealth and lots of poverty. However, rather than deal with the poverty, he solved it by supporting questionable groups. Remember Afghanistan?
Despite my disgust with Dubya's domestic policy, it seems like he is ready to learn from Reagan's mistakes and export democracy to the nations he occupies. I guess we'll have to see whether that is true or not.
And, by the way, I congratulate you for being an old codger pontificating to us young-ins, but if there is anything I hate more, it is ageism.
Melon
Why is that always touted out whenever Republicans are engaged in morally questionable activity? If I do something wrong and someone calls me on it and I say, "well yeah, but that guy over there who is totally unrelated to the situation did bad stuff too"...does that exonerate me? I must admit, I don't get it.
No, I don't think I know everything, but the comment by 80'su2isbest called me to respond.
