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By Sandi Magathan Droubay

OpEdNews.Com

                   Have you had enough of the communal breast beating since Reagan’s death? What a guy!

            The most popular president ever, loved by all….yada, yada, yada. Noam Chomsky has stated that the Reagan administration was the first time in the United States that we did not really have a president. How so? According to Chomsky, Reagan was merely a figurehead, sort of like the Queen of England. He was affable, glib, great with the one-liners and a joke, had a pleasant personality, a woman who adored him, and he rode horses. What’s not to like?  He was perfect for the role of president. He played the part very well. That was all that was required of him.

                  This grade b movie actor charmed the pants right off the public, they loved the role he played; but he was not THE PRESIDENT. That was the problem. Just like our current president, Reagan was surrounded by dangerous power-hungry people, and they used him. Here is the scenario as set up by Chomsky:  “Imagine yourself working in some public relations office where your job is to help corporations make sure that the annoying public does not get in the way of policy-making....Here’s a brilliant thought…let’s make elections completely symbolic activities. The population can keep voting…they’ll have electoral campaigns, all the hoopla…but the people they’re voting for will then just be expected to read off a teleprompter and they won’t be expected to know anything except what somebody tells them, and maybe not even that.”

          Apparently Ronnie used several teleprompters so it would appear that he was moving his head around and looking at the audience as he spoke. Peggy Noonan was Reagan’s speechwriter at the time; she recently wrote a book about the Reagan administration called When Character was King. That’s right Peggy, he was just a figurehead, King Ronnie, and it was his job to keep the public entertained and to reassure them just like a father would or even a King. It was the people behind the throne that were dangerous. Does any of this sound remotely familiar?

                 According to Chomsky, if you can get people to vote for something like that then you have removed them from the decision-making process. Image over substance. Does he have nice hair, can he tell a good joke? Or like Chris Matthew says, our current Bush is the kind of guy that you could  sit down and have a beer with – hey, that qualifies him to be president in my book. In order to do this you need an “obedient” media that is willing to get sucked into the “personality thing.” The media is needed to create the myth, the image that the public can fall in love with and not question. The slogans are important. For Reagan it was: “It’s Morning in America”, the “Eternal Optimist” and “The Reagan Revolution.” The public ate it up, he made them feel good. The Republicans like to say that “Liberals” believe that if it feels good then you should do it. Ha! They know better than we how to create feel-good politics; policy may lack substance, may even be an outright lie, but if it makes the public feel good, go with it. Unfortunately, many of our citizens fall for this type of manipulation and as they say, we do get the government we deserve. We’ve been weaned on television and appearance means everything. Substance may be just too darn complex.

                 This is the kind of Presidency that our baby Bush is trying to emulate!! During his radio address on Saturday he stated that “Reagan showed us what a President should be, also what a man should be.” Bush and his boys (who are the real power behind the throne) are using the same techniques so well honed from the Reagan years. Bush is just a figurehead. He is playing the role of a lifetime, or rather as he has played roles all his lifetime. When he was in college he played the role of a student, not too sharp, but he was a cheerleader and a real party animal. Next he played the role, one of his favorites, of a pilot in the National Guard. He didn’t have many scenes and very few lines, but he believed every bit of it, he really got into the character and he loved wearing the costume, something he still likes to do. He also played the role of a business man, he wasn’t very good at it, but his daddy had lots of leverage in the business community so he still landed several roles playing the same character, the loser.  His next role was that of Governor of Texas, in this role he got to kill a lot of people on death row!!! He also followed the lead of the guru of deregulation (Reagan) which allowed his buddies in various industries to pollute all the water and air. God, he was good in that role!!  The people in Texas are still talking about it. Now he is playing the role of King George, not elected mind you; just like a King it was handed to him by virtue of his aristocratic background, the help of his baby brother Jeb who runs a vaudeville act in Florida, and a group called The Supremes. What a show.

                 During the Reagan era, there occurred a little problem called the “Iran/Contra” affair. In this little scenario our government engaged in a “covert” war against Nicaragua. It engaged in this war against the will of the people of the United States and their representatives in government who had repeatedly voted against playing a role in their civil war. The Regan administration felt they knew better than the “little people,” after all we had elected him for president, we must be dumb. The Iran/Contra affair was an illegal scheme cooked up by our government to fund the Nicaraguan “contra’ militias in their war against the left wing Nicaraguan government by covertly selling weapons to Iran. We were on the wrong side on this one, we were supporting the thugs of the dictator Somoza who had been overthrown in a coup by the people of that country. We liked him, however, he was our lackey; he may have been a dictator, but he  did our bidding. We like right wing dictators a lot.

                 During the Iran contra hearings Reagan claimed that he didn’t know if anyone told him about the illegal and covert actions his administration had been engaged in, or if they told him he “forgot.”  Perhaps the demon Altzheimers was already doing it’s deed in his brain. It has been said that during his last term, he wasn’t exactly “all there.”  Or we can also assume that he was lying about the whole thing. He believed in the cause, he was after all a rabid hater of “commies.”  And, well….sometimes a man has to do what he has to do, even lying to the American people, if necessary. Those who are attracted to the authoritarian kind of “daddy figure” like rulers who make all the decisions. We in the United States, however, are supposed to have a more “grown up” kind of relationship with our leaders. WE are supposed to know what our leaders are up to and to have a voice in the actions they take in our behalf.

                Once again we have a government that believes it is just fine to lie to the American people, it’s for our own good, they know best. And, once again we have a figurehead for a president, a guy you’d like to have a beer with, a folksy kind of guy that likes to play cowboy. Not too sharp, kind of funny when he talks, one never knows just what will come out of his mouth, sometimes it even surprises him….when he says something right. It doesn’t matter, he is just a figurehead, a buffoon. We know who the scary people are, some were involved in the Reagan administration and in Papa Bush’s administration and now we have them again in this administration. War-mongers, power hungry greedy capitalists, every one of them.

                I think it’s time for a change. We, the citizens of this country need to pull our collective heads out of the ground and take back our government. This requires effort on our part. To have a democracy requires an engaged and educated populace. Democracy is a participatory event, not a passive game to be watched from the sidelines. We cannot afford to have another administration that does not respect the citizens of this country. We should be mad as hell, and we shouldn’t take it anymore. We are NOT a banana republic.

             Sandi Magathan Droubay Droubay2@cox.net  is a recent graduate earning her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Humanities with an emphasis in Anthropology and Religious Studies. She is also looking for a job!!!  Like sooo many others.

a recent article by Ms. Droubay:

It’s Armageddon time; Bush and his loyal Christian fundamentalists want you to have a front row seat! (Whether you want one or not).