I always enjoy your articles.

by UncleSim (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 512 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:48:00 PM

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Ronald Regan was the problem.

Ronald Regan started this country down the road of what George Bush Sr. called Voodoo economics and mindless deregulation.  His administration started this country on the course of decline and we are now playing out the end-game of that decline.

by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:35:54 PM

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Hmm.  Let's see...

Even before being President, negotiates with terrorists to prevent the release of hostages to benefit his political aspirations -- treason.

First action as President was to remove the solar panels from the roof of the White House.  Nice statement THAT makes.

Promotes the useless, vile, and totally disgraced theory of "trickle down economics" (that the author helped implement).  Great work Ronnie.

States that "The war on poverty is over. The poor lost."  Nice thought.

Cuts social programs, government oversight, regulations, and while supposedly a "small government" believer, managed to promote a boondoggle high-tech Star Wars program that funneled hundreds of billions to the Military/Industrial complex without producing a single success in 20 years.  Nice use of taxpayer funds.

Overall, a miserable failure and evil tyrant with GREAT P.R., even after his death.

Sorry PCR, but I'm not willing to let his "sainthood" stand.  Reagan was a piece of crap, pathetic, actor who began the destruction of this great country.  After he became senile in office, I transfer all guilt to those who allowed him to stay in the POTUS position in violation of their oaths of office and the Constitution.  At that point he just became a pathetic figurehead.

by Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 747 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:37:38 PM

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PrMaine and Charlie L have no idea what they are talking about and are too brainwashed to learn from someone who does.   

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:03:50 PM

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Paul Roberts:

You know, I'm reading your bio, are you Dr. Paul Craig Roberts? I don't believe you are.

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Hon. Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, public service, and journalism. He served in the Congressional staff and as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.

by Munich (1 articles, 86 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1125 comments [86 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:52:55 PM

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Perhaps if Charlie L had been part of the Regan administration as I understand you were, and if we had spent years on the editorial board of a conservative newspaper we would not be so prejudiced. 

We have differences of opinion, as most people do.  I would not refer to such differences as prejudice, but this too is a difference between us.  I believe that in our comments on OpEdNews we should try to avoid personal attacks, but that appears to be a difference as well.

Let me add that I read your article and found much that I agreed with, along with some information and links that I will probably find useful.

by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:19:20 AM

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I don't know if Mr Roberts will see this, or who else

will, but it is necessary to remark that although Clinton

signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999,

he had no choice.  The bill repealing it passed a Republican-

controlled Congress overwhelmingly, and with Democratic

support.  

Ralph "Not a dime's worth" Nader looks like a pretty good

prognosticator now, no?

by alan17b0 (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 51 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:29:50 PM

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"This legislation is truly historic,” President Clinton told a packed audience of lawmakers and top financial regulators. “We have done right by the American people.”

by pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 601 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:34:19 AM

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  Paul does great work on the Kennedy assassination (by the far Right fascists and the Establishment Paul!) but seems buffaloed by the Corporate/Establishment (Conservative) medias Right wing spin on Reagan with their revisionist history.  Reagan did not end the Cold War so much as the Russian mob bled their economy dry first creating the opportunity for reform  through citizen impoverishment and revolt, plus enlightened new leadership first and courageous second.  Reagan 'was' the Cold war, most notably in Latin America, then Europe/Russia.  He began the privatized bankruptcy of the U.S., (rescued by Clinton, a functional Liberal Republican and Robert Rubin etc.), and with his Dir. of OMB, Supply side trickle down guru David Stockman, now facing criminal charges (Wikip.?),  ran up the largest debt ever to defund and break the entitlement social programs among others.  While the sycophantic DLC Demos may often support such Republican exploitive predatory initiatives for their monied Establishment friends, real Demos (the majority) and all progressives always oppose them.

by Richard Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 178 comments [40 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 5:53:36 PM

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I've been following Dr. Roberts for some time now, and have heard him being interviewed by Alex Jones. I'm inclined to go along with Alex Jones who believes the destruction of America was designed by the power-elite (The Illummanitti, CFR, Bilderbergers et al.) They plan to usher in a "New World Order", wherein they control the whole planet. (Which is pretty close to becoming a reality. We the citizens of the world will be their slaves, brainwashed, with RFID chips controlling our every thought and move. Hope will can defeat this "Brave New World". No chip for me thank you!

by ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 256 comments [45 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 6:42:15 PM

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That the Paulson Bailout is pure corruption  - taking taxpayer money to save his Wall Street mafia buddies - has been clear to a great many people. Even the most uneducated can see through the BS.

But then why did both Houses approved it? Can we say hundreds of elected politicians also love to spend taxpayer's money on the crooks? Perhaps not. What can be said is that Congress primary interest is itself. And for that, it will spend any amount of taxpayer money and do the most stupid things without limit.

When GW Bush came into office, he expoused the so-called Bush Doctrine. In a nutshell - he sees US hegemony as a gift from God and it is his destiny to take it to the world. The world is expected to knell, bow and pay tribute to the 'indespensable nation' for guidance, wisdom, security and financial well-being. Carrying out his devine destiny, with the knowlege of certainty and righteousness, he knows his legacy in history is assured. And so for almost 8 long years he does as he pleased because, surely, anybody who opposes must be wrong.

It is fitting that GW Bush historical legacy is indeed assured. As the destroyer of United States of America hegemony and global reputation. Quite an achievement to undo a few years what took decades to build. Much of the world, including all of America's friends and allies, welcome the end of US hegemony, and smile with the knowlege that it is GW "The Great Idiot" Bush who oversees its destruction.

by TomK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 330 comments [22 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:21:23 PM

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As a conservative, I agree.  I oppose the Republican Party - and the Democratic Party led by Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi for supporting them - for the state of the economy.

I believe in capitalism - for everybody.  The Republican Party preaches wealth - for the already wealthy.

 What we need is pure capitalism.  Make every citizen of the world a greedy bastard.  Make everyone their own corporation.

You proclaim that corporations produce wealth for the owners.  If everyone owned a corporation, everyone would be wealthy.

by Barker (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 120 comments) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:25:18 PM

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With the total collapse of leadership in Congress and the widespread recognition that we are getting screwed, this is the most propitious moment for citizens to reassert control of their democracy.  Since a huge segment of the population will stick their head in the sand and another vast swath will stand by establishment power no matter what, the only hope for this to happen is for principled people on both the left and the right to coalition against the corrupt center.

In this spirit we need to be tolerant of each other's mythologies and expectations.  And above all we need to subordinate our sense of aggrieved ideology.  Its much more important to have a pragmatic sense of working our way out of this mess for the common good of everyone.

There are some good things about Reagan and there are also alot of things that people legitimately have reservations about.  On the New Deal however, I have written several essays that try to highlight the ideological divide that developed within the adminstration.  It wasn't between liberals and conservatives as Adam Cohen oversimplified on Democracy Now the other day.  Rather it was between the Brain Trusters who thought that big business was okay as long as there was big government to match it, and the proteges of Brandeis and Frankfurter who wanted to break up large and malignant concentrations of power.

The Brain trusters gave us the NRA which was highly ineffective, led to more monopoly power and a huge government burueacracy.  On the other side, men like Ben Cohen and Tom Corcaran gave us the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act.  These were programs that had enormous positive impact and stayed in place for seventy some years and this is exactly the template that we need to be following today.

If businesses are "too big to fail", then the logical step for the preservation of the public interest, is to breakup these big concentrations of power.  Its in no way anti-capitalist.  It just means capitalism will have a more level, human-scaled playing field.  Maybe that is a kind of reform that we could get some consensus on.

by Doug Rogers (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 152 comments) on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:22:06 PM

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wanting to not be responsible for what they wrought.

The wife and political party swapping Reagan was the Champion of deregulation, or have you forgotten the S & L scandle that cost trillions of dollars to clear up. 

As for a Peace dividend, it sure wasn't reflected on the Pentagon spending over the past 25 years. Buying into a pipe-dream "Star Wars" defense system that can't hit anything without pre-trajectory information. While negotiating with "Freedom Fighter's" Saddam Hussein and Osma Bin Laden who the GOP "Greed & Oppression Party" now re-label them Terrorist's.

Then there is the Treason fomenting Iran-Contra scandle, negotiating with Terrorist's and trading weapons for cocaine causing the drug epidemic in the inner city's of the USA.

Reagan had nothing to do with the Fall of the former USSR. It was well on its way to history before he assumed office. All Reagan did was bloat the federal government and its runaway deficit spending that your grandchildren will still only be paying a fraction of the interest of.

Russia is now a leaner and meaner threat to the US than it was under Reagan and with the $ sinking and the US economy in the current state its in, Russia be far more difficult to deal with.

283 Marines die and a "Wag the Dog" invasion of Grenada to "Liberate" it from a bunch of Cuban Cooks make Americans feel good about themselves.

There were so many instances of government impropriety during the Reagan administration that I don't have the space to spell it all out. Ann Buford, James Watt, Clarence Thomas are just a few to name.

If the Us had kept the Carter Energy Policy, then it wouldn't be so beholden to the ME oil today, which is partly Reagan's fault, and his policy's of "Bigger is better" with the SUV and McMansion building craze.

There is nothing to be proud of the Ronald Reagan senile sap who was just a B rated actor and a lout as president.

by Stanimal (2 articles, 226 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1254 comments [234 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:05:01 AM

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Mr. Roberts,

Your diagnosis of the problem – aggressive American hegemony – is precise, yet the fealty pass given to Reagan is too sycophantic for my tastes. In fairness, you have been highly critical of the Bush administration and I appreciate the candor – putting country first over political stripes.

However, President Reagan’s image is one that has been polished to perfection through historical revision (see below). It is not the analysis that you provide here – an accurate and comprehensive review and rebuke of what ails this nation – but the overt obsequiousness to your former boss is where I find umbrage. I respect you and this is not to impugn you or Reagan on a personal basis. (Given the choice, I am certain a near unanimous consensus would eagerly choose Reagan –were he still alive – over Bush II and lament ever voting for George W. Bush.)

But, in respect to placing blame, however nascent, Reagan policies ushered in the era and arena in which the wheels began to turn on undoing Roosevelt’s New Deal. My view is simple, you cannot have contempt for the very entity you loath – government – and then be able to set about being a good steward of it (government); the two are simply mutually exclusive, incompatible and antithetical, in my opinion.

Again, many people within the erstwhile Reagan administration have been outspoken critics of the Bush debacle, including Bruce Fein and yourself, but much of what we are reaping today was sown during the Reagan years. It may have taken a generation for this embryonic problem to cultivate – trickle down economics and the mantra that government is the problem – but they were, if we are to be intellectually honest, an ideology espoused and sought by Reagan as the answer, which, turned out to be the problem – less government.

I applaud you and your fellow true conservatives for taking a firm stand against the nefarious Straussian, neo-conservatism malignancy that is rotting our nation, but some of Reagan’s transgressions, which are routinely glossed over, promoted and encouraged much of the havoc we are experiencing today.

Hence, here is a partial list of indiscretions carried out under the Reagan era:

• Prior to 1980, Reagan strongly opposed the Voting Rights and the Equal Rights Acts.

• More members of his administration were investigated, indicted, tried and convicted on felonies than in the administrations of any other president, before or since; 138 total.

• His deregulation mantra was a direct contributor to the Michael Milken/Ivan Boesky junk bond fiasco and the Michael Keeting/Neil Bush/Jeb Bush S&L meltdown that U.S. taxpayers bailed out to the tune of tens of billions during the Reagan administration!

• The two deepest and longest and most destructive recessions since The Great Depression (until now) occurred on his watch; 1983 and 1987; 10.2% unemployment rate in 1983, 11.3% in 1987.

• In 1987, President Reagan presided over the most severe stock market crash since 1929 (until now).

• Prior to Bush II, the largest government deficits in US history — including during WWII — occurred through almost the entirety of the Reagan years, and saw the national debt double.

• Although he signed the bill, Mr. Reagan bitterly opposed designating any day as a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and had Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela designated a terrorist, and Mandela’s African National Congress as a “terrorist organization.” Prior to and through the crumbling of the apartheid system in South Africa, Reagan supported that odious regime by vetoing sanctions against it.

• Reagan supported the brutal dictatorships of Pinochet in Chile and Suharto in Indonesia.

• Through the entire 8 years of his administration, Reagan supplied Osama bin Laden with military equipment and intelligence.

• Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad three times, to shake the hand of Saddam Hussein and to supply the dictator with the seed chemicals for the WMD the Iraqi president would use on his own Kurdish population in 1987.

• During the Reagan administration, the United States became the world’s largest and most prolific trafficker in illegal arms and drugs (Iran Contra).

What began as “movement conservatism” turned ugly and sinister, quasi-fascist in fact, by the time Bush II took office. And, if not for Clinton’s eight-year rampart that stemmed this march toward the morass we are now entangled in, this inexorable collapse of the failure of conservative governance gone wild may have occurred years earlier.

Reagan,  though an honorable man when compared to Bush II, still shoulders, bare minimum, the impetus that drove us to the precipice we now occupy – and one, as you staidly point out, may in the end inevitably lead to our precipitous fall from “the United States as a city on a hill, a light unto the world.”

Mr. Roberts, this much is certain, it is no longer morning in America.

Respectfully,

Frank R.

by Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 383 comments) on Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:29:26 AM

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Ronald Reagan was a jerk. Plain and simple. Low IQ, but he could sure read a teleprompter. I grew up in cowlifornia (sic) and put up with a lot of his nonsense from his early days at GE. He was a bad actor, a horrible governor, and had no place in the white house except being a stooge for the republicans. He instigated a lot of deregulation - in the auto industry, the savings & loan, mental health, etc. And let's not forget all the horrible wars he instigated and thousands of people murdered under his watch in central america. This writer is either drinking the kool-aid of historical revisionism or is suffering from ostrich syndrome. Credentials mean nothing to me - if you can't remember your history correctly - make room on the soap box for another fool.

by Cinderfella (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 248 comments [95 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:30:08 AM

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Paul,

There is an old saying about the blind following the blind.  While it may be self-comforting for you to think that Reagan 'fixed' things, and somebody else broke it, the reality is that Reagan was part of the anti-communist paranoid wave that has long fueled the conservative hegemony that you oppose. 

 It is an unfortunate fact of democratic politics that all you have to do is whip the people into a state of fear to be successful.  Nixon came to power the same way.  Reagan was the follower, not the leader.  Reagan was just as much a master of fear and pride at this as the current President, but obviously with the actors gift for manipulating people's emotions.

 While the Left and the Right fear different things, their primary world view is still predicated on fear (of each other and other things.)  Most consensuses tend to be based on fear, too.  And the 'bailout' is likewise a fear-created and driven solution.  It has been the government that has created the panic.  Afterall, the numbers have been unbalanced for 230 years.

 I remember watching Reagan in the primary give an extended interview will Bill Moyers (all the candidates did in those days.)  I was a freshman in college at the time.  I was sure he would lose the primary, because he was such a simpleton.  Little did I know.  The American people are simple-minded, too.

 Be sure to apply your criticism of others to yourself and your administration.   It is the existence of double-standards that is the root of all our problems.  Buy Low-Sell High is a double-standard, too.  We are now dealing with the mathematical fallout of that double-standard.

by Steve Consilvio (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 184 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:33:37 PM

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To argue over who started it..is mute..

look into the creation of the secretive, never audited, private bankers (only) run FEDERAL RESERVE in 1913 .How it came about that we pay income tax because of the federal reserve .

Look up, google, something: Kennedy who was killed just 3 month after he wrote the Executive Order  to abolish the FED.

Watch Money Masters or Money as Debt  for eye openers.

This current disaster is intentional,  prove me wrong!

by Dedda (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Wednesday, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:04:48 PM

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