Ronald Reagan

An obituary from REVOLUTION

//by Huey the American //German original in REVO #6

An American legend is dead! Ronald Reagan – B-movie actor, armchair cowboy, and 40th President of the United States – died at 93. Thousands of politicians from all over the world travelled to Washington to pay their respects.

And they could gaze with eyes full of wonder down into the red, white and blue coffin. Because Reagan accomplished a lot in his 8 years in office…

He spent trillions on weapons, including the "Star Wars" missile defense system, which never worked and was really just a giant gift to the arms industry. In this way Reagan, the advocate of cheap government, tripled the public debt.

He attacked the small Caribbean island Grenada where the leftist New Jewel Movement had been in power for four years and established good relations with Cuba. Thus 20.000 marines were sent to Grenada to "liberate" the island from a Cuban construction battalion with 600 men and a few pistols.

He organized, despite an embargo from the American congress, the sale of weapons to Iran. At the same time weapons were being sold to Iraq (publicly) so that the two oil powers could slaughter each other. He used the money from the illegal weapons trade for his next project…

He financed right-wing paramilitary groups in Nicaragua (the "Contras"), who used terrorist methods to fight against the democratically elected leftist government of Ortega.

He smuggled drugs from Central America into the ghettos of the American inner cities, to wipe out the radical Black Liberation movement with drug addiction and acquire further money for the Contras.

He testified before Congress that he couldn't remember any of these events, despite the fact that his closest aides had already been convicted of unconstitutional crimes. Perhaps a result of his developing Alzheimer's disease?

Of course he also cut funding for Alzheimer's research, the disease that would later kill him.

He cut all kinds of social services: welfare, college tuition grants, homeless shelters, school breakfast for poor children, etc.

At the same time as his "we have to tighten our belts"-cuts, he lowered taxes for the rich by one half.

He was a paid strike breaker – he smashed important strikes and important trade unions like the air traffic controllers' union.

He was responsible for the fact that the number of families living under the poverty line increased by one third during his tenure in office.

And the most important work in his life?

He was a supporting actor in numerous films alongside Bonzo the Chimpanzee.

Now the man of all these accomplishments is being deified. His face is to be carved sixty feet high on Mount Rushmore. His empty smile is to decorate the 10 dollar bill. Already during his lifetime the airport in Washington was named after him.

In Germany the CDU (conservative party) and FDP (liberal party) are proposing a Ronald-Reagan-Platz in Berlin.

The disgusting hysteria being whipped up about this "hero of all Americans, of all freedom-loving people in the world" of course has a political explanation.

Reagan was a pioneer of what is now called neoliberalism: massive spending on weapons, low taxes for corporations, privatization, slashing every kind of aid for the poor, hostility towards trade unions, etc.

The deification of Reagon is meant to create the impression that people love it when their social services are scrapped. But in reality Reagan wasn't so popular: at the end of his second term his approval ratings were lower that Clinton's. Fact is, Reagan was far more popular with people who own the mass media and create "public opinion", than with people who have to live off a social security check that's almost been cut to zero.

Now he's dead, the old piece of shit. The only reason to mourn is that this didn't happen 60 years ago.

Therefore we make a proposal: Instead of Ronald-Reagan-Platz – Ronald-Reagan-is-fucking-dead-Platz!

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