Fox News thread of fine journalism

Well most of the bad things Reagan did only manifested years down the line. And that was really only because of a policy of doubling down. While I can’t claim some deep insight into the economic realities of 1980, as I understand it there were legitimate issues. It is only in the nearly 30 years since he left office that the policies he espoused were shown incorrect. Supply side ‘trickle down’ theory is bunk, but did we know that at the time? So I’m willing to cut Reagan some slack here.

It is the worshipers of the cult of trickle down economics I reserve my vitriol for. We have gone so far the opposite direction that only a sycophant could call for more of those policies.

As far as the cultural policies? Well it did give us a great Frank Zappa album dedicated to Nancy Reagan, so it can’t be all that bad ;)

EDIT: I’ll leave those who were cognizant of the world at the time to hash out the HIV angle, I have a decent idea of his economic policies, but a rather vague idea of the other parts.

Fuck Reagan.

He likened Central American death squads to our founding fathers and called the Taliban “freedom fighters.” His legacy includes the dismantling of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the final dirty win of Management over Labor, the outsourcing of America’s manufacturing base, the embezzlement of almost all the country’s wealth by 1% of its citizens, the scapegoating of the poor and black, the War on Drugs, the eviction of schizophrenics into the streets, AIDS, acid rain, Iran-Contra, and, let’s not forget, the corpses of two hundred forty United States Marines. He moved the center of political discourse in this country to somewhere in between Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet. He believed in astrology and Armageddon and didn’t know the difference between history and movies; his stories were lies and his jokes were scripted. He was the triumph of image over truth, paving the way for even more vapid spokesmodels like George W. Bush. He was, as everyone agrees, exactly what he appeared to be—nothing. He made me ashamed to be an American. If there was any justice in this world his Presidential Library would contain nothing but boys’ adventure books and bad cowboy movies, and the only things named after him would be shopping malls and Potter’s Fields. Let the earth where he is buried be seeded with salt.

Sums up my feelings pretty well.

So your point is forget about the war crimes stuff. The president I don’t like is boring.? He turned the economy around. He got health care for the people that couldn’t afford it. Unemployment is at a new low. And all you can say is that he’s boring?

One thing to keep in mind regarding unemployment that folks often miss is that if you look at the most recent U6 numbers, we see that they are still a good deal higher than numbers prior to the recession.

Technically only if those too poor to afford it are lucky enough to live in a state liberal enough (read: not-evil enough) to actually finance their healthcare. From a guy staring down the barrel of three more new specialist appointments ordered this week for his unemployed, uninsured gf–even with a charitable org footing a lot of it–it’s hard to see the ACA as a significant step forward for about half the nation.

Obama’s presidency, for better or worse, will forevermore be marked by the roadblocks that stood in the way of the modest progress he sought, not the few battles he managed to win.

Still a net improvement over the last guy, though!

I don’t know. Should we include Jackson on the list of worst presidents?

They looked 2% higher last time I checked. Sign it’s not a full recovery but close. Gotta remember Clinton-Gramm-Bush policies did historical Great Depression-like damage to the economy. (and those are the three I blame for that)

8% in 2006, 10% today. 17.5% in 2009 before Congress and Obama got to start work on changing things.
I have plenty of objections to Obama, but overall, he fixed the economy and prevented a second great depression- for that history should judge him on the better half of presidents.

That said, the ACA has been a success for some, and a failure for others. It’s a mixed record.

Very few?
I mean, let’s get real here for a moment… Reagan didn’t cause AIDS. It was a pretty new disease at the time. Trying to blame him for somehow not curing it in his eight years in office is absurd in the extreme.

Jackson pushed the Civil War back about thirty years, among his other accomplishments.

He also ignored the Surpreme court, and made a mockery of our system of democracy and allowed Georgia to ignore treaties with the Native Americans.

Also, the civil war was not pushed back by him at all. If anything the Dred Scott case did.

Whether that was good or bad, though, is highly arguable. There’s a school of thought that holds that the various compromises in the antebellum period did more harm than good, and a reckoning in the 1820s would have been far less costly than the one we had in the 1860s. Impossible to tell, of course.

But it does sort of highlight the difficulty in comparing presidents, particularly across eras. The antebellum presidency was vastly different than the office after Lincoln and the war, and again, after FDR the office underwent substantial changes too. Comparing a pre-Civil War dud like Zachary Taylor or John Tyler with twits like Harding or snoozers like Arthur, or post-WWII presidents with the founders is really an exercise in futility.

Try to read what I said again. I didn’t blame him for the creation or or the lack of curing HIV. His political supporters and the man himself sat on one of the worst epidemics in modern history so they could get political points. The lack of funding and the lack of general caring put the world years behind where we could have been. Our president did nothing mostly because they thought the people who had the disease deserved it. As far as extreme goes, you accusing me of trying to blame Reagan for not curing AIDs is pretty damn extreme and not what I said.

I agree on that Regan summery. In many ways the things he allowed on his watch led specifically to all the crap that took place, and is still taking under the Bush terms. Those neo-cons have been around a long time, for example. Gitmo and the abuses at Abu-gharib came directly from American cia/intelligence dudes that had perfected their trade in the 80’s helping South American dictators disappear their citizens. An evil man, even when not fully aware of what he was allowing.

Yeah… As a half-Guatemalan, it’s hard to have a lot of love for Reagan given his/the CIA’s Central American escapades…

I have no doubt that when they arrived and saw the banner they decided to use it. I just pointed out they didn’t have it hung. It was a photo op, and I am sure they regret it.

Those guys regret nothing though. They, and their arms industry/oil industry/Haliburton (etc. etc) buddies made a shit tonne of money. It was all about that.

Obama has been a wishy washy president at best. He wasn’t to blame for the recession, but he also hasn’t led us out of it in a dynamic way. ACA is still in the wait and see mode. It has done nothing, absolutely nothing to control the runaway costs that were the basic problem in the first place. And I think unless you couldn’t get HC before ACA and can now it has not been a benefit to anyone. He has also done nothing in the middle east. Nothing there has been resolved after 7 years and we are now facing terror attacks at home.

Obama has not been the worst president, but it is hard to say he has really accomplished anything.

Most of that sentence describes every politician in America.

exactly, which is rather depressing really isn’t it? Money can ruin anything?

exactly, which is rather depressing really isn’t it? Money can ruin anything? Trump certainly is not the solution to that either!