OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Ronald Reagan is Still Dead!

Before Reagan, America had a steel industry. After Reagan, it didn't. Before Reagan, America has a viable automotive industry. After Reagan, the US was buying its cars from Japan. Before Reagan, small retailers still existed. After Reagan, small stores had all but disappeared, giving way to huge corporate chains, and, in time, WalMart --an economic Kudzu vine that chokes out every flower in the garden.

Typically, Reagan would take credit for reforms begun under Carter. It was Carter who gave the rich a capital gains tax cut, even as he deregulated key industries like trucking and airlines. Carter also increased defense spending. I happen to think Carter ought not have done that! But, to his credit, he didn't muck it up nearly as much as did Reagan who sold his soul for the elite GOP base of robber barons and other vote buyers! The moral of the story is this: don't sell your soul to the GOP robber barons. They don't appreciate it and will support a card-carrying "seed pod" like Reagan or Bush anyway.

The era was largely characterized by the undo influence of corporate PACs which forced Congress to pass pro-business/anti-individual, anti-family legislation. Supply siders believed it would trickle down. Like Bush's war on Iraq, it didn't work out as planned. The nation was plunged into the worst depression since WWII.

The GOP would love to fight another cold war. The "commies" were shooting back like the misnamed "insurgents", "terrorists" or whatever they are called this week. Much is made of the demoralized military. What had they to be demoralized about? They were no longer slogging through the swamps in Viet Nam and they had to yet been sent to Lebanon by Ronald Reagan. All in all, the enlisted person, under Carter, had it a helluva lot better than do soldiers under either Ronald Reagan who dispatched them to Lebanon to be blown up in a Marine Barracks or under Bush who has them mired and dehumanized in Iraq. Has anyone bothered to check out the suicide rates of returning servicemen.

(CBS) Some of America's 25 million veterans face their biggest fight when they return home from the battlefield -- when they take on mental illness.
And, a CBS News analysis reveals they lose that battle, and take their own lives, at a clip described by various experts as "stunning" and "alarming," according to Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian. One called it a "hidden epidemic."
He says no one had ever counted just how many suicides there are nationwide among those who had served in the military -- until now.
The five-month CBS News probe, based upon a detailed analysis of data obtained from death records from 2004 and 2005, found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets.
A recent Veteran Affairs Department estimate says some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year, largely as a result of mental health issues, and Keteyian says, "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."
--CBS News: Vets' Suicide Rate "Stunning"

Goppers have been known to opine: ...cleaning up after Carter's utter incompetence was messy. In fact, there was nothing to clean up. There was, in fact, nothing for Reagan to do but screw up and screw up he did! See my article: Reagan was no hero but he played one in a movie

Let's set the record straight about another pernicious myth. Ronald reagan had nothing to do with the fall of communism. A great statesman-- Mikhail Gorbachev deserves the credit for withdrawing nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe which he did entirely upon his own initiative. Gorbachev was the architect of Perestroika and, later, Glasnost. Reagan merely followed the leader. And, as I have pointed out: Ronald Reagan Blew the World's Last Chance for Peace! Rank and file goppers will find reasons not to believe anything unflattering about Reagan but that's not the same thing as refuting anything that I have ever written in my admittedly Quixotic quest to set the record straight. That's because, under Reagan, the GOP became not merely a crime syndicate, it became a kooky cult.

The methods that cults use can be used by anyone in any group setting and can be thought of as a "Management system" or a technique of motivation. Thus there is a benefit to applying this knowledge in other areas.
ISOLATION
An obvious way a cult does this is through isolation from other social networks. The extreme of a cult does not have to be applied. If this is applied to a work setting then the stated rule is "This is work. Leave the other parts of life at the door." Likewise the person can go home and leave work at work. The result is a "work personality" and a "home personality".
ENLIST THEM IN A CAUSE
Nothing is quite so motivating than to be involved in a glorious cause. To do this make the success of the group linked to the individuals success. Make the cause lofty and ideal and progressive always on the wave of the future.
DESCRIBE FOR THEM THE QUALITIES OF A "GOOD SOLDIER"
Once you've enlisted them in a cause you can now tell them how best to serve the cause. By describing the qualities of "good soldier" you create an ideal of behavior. On the one hand it's important to point out qualities that they already have to affirm their part in the cause. But it's also important to describe qualities that they will have to work to develop. These qualities can be actual behaviors or they can values that you wish to impose on them. Either way you are holding them to an ideal and letting them know that they play a vital role in the cause.

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