Human Interactions

[jbor]

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>From: Mike Weaver <mikeweaver at gn.apc.org>
> 
>>  Reagan is a
>>flawed and frail human just like the rest of us, he has sold
>>out, just like the rest of us (We R They)
>
> Pathetic pomopolitics...

The fact that Reagan is human is pretty straightforward, the fact that he
was and is flawed and frail was evidenced by the fact that while he was in
office he couldn't even remember his own name or history at times, quoting
from one of his movies as though it had really happened (about wartime
exploits, I think). He'll die, like Nixon, like Ike, like you and I. Of
course his policies and attitudes were reprehensible, even back when he was
Governor of California, or even before that when he headed up the purges in
the Screen Actor's Guild for the HCUAA. But he started off as a "Democrat
and supporter of liberal causes", according to the biographical dictionary I
have, so the "sold out" epithet is defensible too. I have no idea if he was
aware of or understood that the initiatives and systems he endorsed while in
office were discriminatory, persecutory, oppressive: I tend to think he
thought he was doing the "right thing". He probably believed that those he
helped put "up against the wall" were "evil" too.

Pynchon doesn't characterise Reagan, of course, though he does characterise
Nixon as Richard M. Zhlubb in *GR*. But the point I was trying to make is
that demonising individuals and institutions as "evil" doesn't serve any
purpose except to set up an Other, as Paul pointed out, against whom/which
we can either shrug our shoulders in despair or rant and rave about the
injustice of it all, without really having to take any responsibility
ourselves and do something affirmative to change the way things are. It
merely justifies complacency.

Reagan was democratically elected (twice?), was never found to have
transgressed the law or the US Constitution in any way. So you tell me where
the blame should lie.

best