"Reagan, for those who forget, was the President who gave "aid and
comfort" to many repressive regimes throughout the world -- especially Saddam
Hussein. During the early and mid 1980s, Hussein was gassing the Iranians
and his Kurdish citizens, while Donald Rumsfeld (remember him?) was
Reagan's special envoy to Iraq. Did he tell Saddam to "cease and desist"? Or did he
travel there to offer more military and economic aid? You connect the
dots. And where did Saddam get most of his biological weaponry? Through "Uncle
Ronnie's" free market US companies, that's where. Many Iraqi democratic
activists were either jailed or executed by the Hussein regime, and Reagan
did absolutely nothing! We all know about the Iran-Contra debacle, where
our President failed to "remember" what Oliver North and company were up to.
As far as El Salvador, who can forget (Reagan supporters can) the nuns and
priests who were murdered, along with any others who spoke out, by the
death squads -- many of them trained at Ft. Benning's infamous "School of the
Americas" aka the "School of the Assassins." On the home front, it was
under President Reagan that the Savings and Loan industry was deregulated,
allowing for all the corruption and scamming that followed -- debts that
generations of Americans will have to pay off! Reagan opened the door to
the 'Me 80s', which stories like 'Wall Street' are based upon -- 'Greed is
Good' and all that. Military spending increased under Reagan, and social
programs died, leaving millions of poor Americans with little hope. Yet, Ronald
Reagan is trumpeted as the great cheerleader for America."- P. Anthony
Farruggio Dissident Voices

As the fascists use the fiftieth anniversary of D Day and the death of
actor turned politician Ronald Reagan to stem the tide of negative public
opinion for the Iraq occupation and the continuing economic woes at home, it would
behoove us not to get caught up in the Reagan hype and phony adulation.
Rather we should discern the lessons of the Reagan presidency, the
mind-set and values that era produced. When George Herbert Walker Bush ran against
Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential primaries he called Reagan's
"trickle down" tax cuts for the rich "Voodoo Economics". Bush's
disparaging reference to the African tradition of Vodoun aside, Reagan's ideas about
tax cuts for the wealthy, a massive rise in defense spending and contracts for
boondoggles like the Star Wars Missile Defense System, increased corporate
welfare at the expense of gutting social programs and Reagan's war on
organized labor were, to put it mildly, wack! Bush lost to Reagan in the
primaries but was still able to finagle the position of Vice President on
the Republican ticket that eventually defeated Jimmy Carter after
undermining Carter's efforts to free the US hostages held by Iran. As
president, Reagan was the front man, but Bush operated behind the scenes
setting the stage for the policies, scandals and corruption that led to
Iran Contra, the Savings and Loan Rip Offs, industry deregulation, influence
peddling and the introduction and proliferation of both powdered cocaine
and its lethal derivative crack. Under Reagan the rich got richer at the
expense of the rest of AmeriKKKa. The Reagan administration openly promoted race
baiting, Ronald Reagan scapegoated the poor, especially Africans in
AmeriKKKa as the cause of the nation's ills while championing US global
imperialism, covert actions and military "interventions" under the guise
of fighting communism. Under Reagan the US propped up and supported some of
the most ruthless dictators and butchers around the world while waging a not
so subtle war against organized labor and working class folks during the
entire eight years he was in office! Reagan was the figurehead behind the
"Conservative Revolution" a mixed bag of fundamentalist Christians, anti
communists, elitist think tanks and right wing ideologues who formed an
ideological cover for what George H.W. Bush did behind the scenes to
fatten his personal fortune and set the stage for much of what we see happening
today.

Now that he is dead the AmeriKKKan mass media will depict Ronald Reagan as
a hero, a conservative icon, a visionary and the man who unabashedly peddled
AmeriKKKa imperialism around the world under the rubric of anti-communism.
Keep in mind, Ronald Reagan signed off on an illegal invasion of Grenada
that Vice President Bush pushed for under the pretext of protecting US
citizens and students against Marxist extremists. (Notice the media always
depicts the targets of the ruling elites as "extremists" no matter how
psychotic and depraved the AmeriKKKans have to get to deal with them) The
invasion of Grenada set the precedent for President George H.W.Bush to
subsequently invade Panama and kidnap Manuel Noriega a CIA "asset" which
set the stage for George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan rout the Taleban rulers
who just happened to be CIA assets and later invade and occupy Iraq to
oust Saddam Hussein another CIA asset! See a pattern here? So in a very real
sense the quagmire in Iraq is being brought to us by the same people:
Cheyney, Rumsfeld, Bush I, Poindexter and agencies like the NSA and CIA
that brought us Saddam Hussein and the Iran-Iraq war, Iran-Contra, cocaine
smuggling and the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan. When all is said and
done, perhaps that is the real legacy of Ronald Reagan.