Another presidential election is upon us and as usual there is more talk about fluff and style of candidates than their policies. We are conditioned to listen to sound bites and shallow analysis, rather than serious debate on real issues that affect this country and the whole world. Some presidential candidates and some liberal and conservative pundits assert that what we need in this country is a candidate and a president who is a unifier, an optimist, someone with charm, and a great communicator. They claim this country is in need of another Ronald Reagan. Since his death, Reagan has been idealized. Libraries, airports and aircraft carriers are named after him and he has become a benchmark for some presidential candidates of both major parties.
But, we have historical amnesia in this country. We forget what really happened during Reagan’s presidency. The election of Reagan in 1980 was a victory for all those forces that wanted to reverse the gains of American people, which were achieved by blood and sweat, through the 1930s, '60s, and '70s. These forces wanted to privatize almost everything, destroy the unions, destroy the gains of the peace, civil rights and women’s movements and any social safety nets that existed. Internationally, they wanted to destroy the Soviet Union, the eastern block, and any country or movement that did not tow the US line. They wanted to have complete global domination. Reagan’s policies clearly were the manifestation of these plans. Since my teenage years and early twenties were spent during his tenure, I remember some of the events very well. Let’s review some of them.
Domestically, Reagan’s first anti-union act was the destruction of the air traffic controller’s union or PATCO, by firing all striking workers. His economic policies, or trickle down economy, helped the big businesses and super rich get fatter and richer at the expense of the middle and working classes and the people of color. His drive to reduce the size of government only resulted in cutting social services, such as medical care. The emptying of psychiatric wards and dumping patients onto streets due to budget cuts started during his presidency. Reagan intensified the so-called war on drugs, but the target was mostly the poor and the people of color and this caused a tremendous increase in the number of incarcerations of black and brown youth. The real drug dealers were not targeted - just listen to lyrics of "White Lines," the famous song from the '80s. Reagan openly supported the Christian Fundamentalists in their war against women’s rights, specifically, women’s right to choose. He cut the budget for federally funded women and children’s clinics. Some or all of these policies were continued by succeeding administrations.
Internationally, during his presidential campaign, Reagan continuously repeated that the Soviet Union was militarily superior to the US and the US must rearm itself and catch-up with the Soviets. Later, it turned out to be that the situation was completely reversed and it was the Soviets who had to play catch-up with the American military machine. But this falsehood about the so-called Soviet threat gave the excuse for a huge and unnecessary military build up that resulted in a massive national debt and tremendous decrease in social spending. Not to mention the increased threat to world peace. In 1983 Reagan proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more commonly known as Star Wars. The excuse was that this defense system in space would be a shield against Soviet missile strikes. But many countries around the world viewed it as a first strike weapon (the US never renounced the first strike policy). In other words, in case of a conflict with the Soviet Union the US will strike first with its nuclear arsenal. The space system will then act as a shield to destroy the remaining Soviet missiles that would be lunched in retaliation, therefore guaranteeing a US victory. The Star Wars program only increased tensions in the world and made the military contractors billions of dollars richer. Later, Reagan installed short-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe against the wishes of the majority of that continent’s population and again provoking the Soviets to respond. In 1985 he rejected a Soviet proposal for complete elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000, missing a great opportunity for world peace.
In the Third World, Reagan’s record is no better. He supported and helped to finance Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran and his own population. The US gave important information to Iraqi military in locating Iranian troop locations and movements. Also, the US gave technical assistance to Saddam for his chemical weapons program, which was used against Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds. Reagan tremendously increased the military and financial assistance, and training of fundamentalist Muslim groups in Afghanistan, including assistance to a man named Osama Bin Ladin. We all know what happened to Afghanistan when these groups came to power. In 1983, under the pretext of combating Cuban and Soviet threats, Reagan invaded the tiny island nation of Granada, which had a leftist-nationalist government. But, the real reasons for this invasion was to show Nicaragua and other Latin American nations that they can not pursue an independent policy and be free of US domination and also to end the so-called Vietnam Syndrome and show the world that the US was a military power to be reckoned with. Reagan’s policy created and financed the vicious Contra War against Nicaragua, and he also ordered the mining of Nicaraguan harbors even against the ruling of the International Court of Justice. He steadfastly supported and armed the savage military regimes of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in their war against their own populations where tens of thousands of people died. No wonder he is known as the Butcher of Central America in that region. Finally, to top it all off, his government supported the Apartheid regime of South Africa in its colonial wars in Namibia, Angola, and against the anti-apartheid movement led by Nelson Mandela.
Of course, due to domestic and international pressure Reagan had to soften his stands and compromise on a few issues such as nuclear weapons. But his legacy is one of hostility toward hardworking Americans and war against international peace and whoever wanted to choose an independent path of development in the Third World. So when it comes to the up-coming presidential elections, lets focus on the real issues and policies of the candidates and let history be our guide.
