reagan (was: Human Interactions)

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

jbor schrieb:

> >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.

  in joan didion's "after henry" [1992] there's an essay on reagan which 
  confirms this view. - kfl

> 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