[Marxism] Greg Palast on Ronald Reagan

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Good to see that someone else isn't being hoodwinked
by all those crocodile tears being shed over Reagan!)
======================================================

KILLER, COWARD, CONMAN -
GOOD RIDDANCE, RONNIE REAGAN
MORE PROOF ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG
Sunday, June 6, 2004
by Greg Palast

You're not going to like this. You shouldn't speak ill of
the dead. But in this case, someone's got to.

Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was
a killer.

In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little town in
Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough,
though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had
just died of tuberculosis.

People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics. But
Ronald Reagan, big hearted guy that he was, had put a
lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he
didn't like the government that the people there had
elected.

Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young woman's
lungs filled up and she stopped breathing. Reagan flashed
that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three.

And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds
of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV
warrior ran away like a whipped dog ... then turned around
and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a
murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold parades for gunning
down Cubans building an airport.

I remember Nancy, a skull and crossbones prancing around in
designer dresses, some of the "gifts" that flowed to the
Reagans -- from hats to million-dollar homes -- from
cronies well compensated with government loot. It used to
be called bribery.

And all the while, Grandpa grinned, the grandfather who
bleated on about "family values" but didn't bother to see
his own grandchildren.

The New York Times today, in its canned obit, wrote that
Reagan projected, "faith in small town America" and
"old-time values." "Values" my ass. It was union busting
and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who
couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness,
bringing starvation back to America so that every
millionaire could get another million.

"Small town" values? From the movie star of the Pacific
Palisades, the Malibu mogul? I want to throw up.

And all the while, in the White House basement, as his
brain boiled away, his last conscious act was to condone a
coup d'etat against our elected Congress. Reagan's Defense
Secretary Casper the Ghost Weinberger with the crazed
Colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster
of the Mideast, Ayatolla Khomeini.

Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss
although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla.
Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of
cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini
pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages.

Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the
maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The
key to Ronnie's heart.

Then the Reagan roaches mixed their cowardice with crime:
taking cash from the hostage-takers to buy guns for the
"contras" - the drug-runners of Nicaragua posing as freedom
fighters.

I remember as a student in Berkeley the words screeching
out of the bullhorn, "The Governor of the State of
California, Ronald Reagan, hereby orders this demonstration
to disburse" ... and then came the teargas and the
truncheons. And all the while, that fang-hiding grin from
the Gipper.

In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers stayed awake to
guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra
terrorists. The farmers weren't even Sandinistas, those
'Commies' that our cracked-brained President told us were
'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' What the hell would they
want with Texas, anyway?

Nevertheless, the farmers, and their families, were
Ronnie's targets.

In the deserted darkness of Chaguitillo, a TV blared.
Weirdly, it was that third-rate gangster movie, "Brother
Rat." Starring Ronald Reagan.

Well, my friends, you can rest easier tonight: the Rat is
dead.

Killer, coward, conman. Ronald Reagan, good-bye and good
riddance.

Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller,
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. www.GregPalast.com

From: palast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx palast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004 3:03 PM
To: walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Killer, Coward, Conman - Bye-Bye Ronnie Reagan




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