I hope one day that history looks back on ronald reagan as one of the 20th century’s most vile and disgusting serial killers
may i ask why
Remember when like 6 Americans had ebola and it was an international emergency, and Obama flew out to meet survivors?
Here is a list of things the United States government did in response:
-Increasing the number of Ebola testing labs throughout the U.S. that can quickly and safely screen a potential Ebola specimen
-Educating more than 150,000 health care workers on how to identify, isolate, diagnose, and care for patients under investigation for Ebola
-Developing countermeasures — including the first Ebola vaccine to progress to Phase 2 testing — to prevent and treat Ebola
-Converting at least 10 of the Ebola Treatment Centers into long-term Regional Ebola and Pandemic Treatment Centers for long-term readiness for years to come
-Helping state and local public health systems accelerate and improve their operational readiness and preparedness for Ebola or other infectious diseases
Source: https://whitehouse.gov/ebola-responseWhen the Reagan administration was faced with tens of thousands of gay men dying, they did nothing. They made jokes. They laughed. They caused an epidemic that killed 40 million people, because they hated gay men and thought we deserved to die.
There is so much more to it. There is a myth perpetuated by Reaganites that he was an historically significant President, in some positive sense. If you are old enough to have voted in 1980, you probably know differently. If you were born after 1980 you have been raised on this myth. He sold Americans a fable about a Hollywood movie-like exceptional past and destiny, and led ordinary people around with portrayals of that mirage while his reactionary robber-baron friends set about dismantling 50 years of progressive advancements for working men and women, on their way to returning themselves to the position of unfettered economic domination they held between the Civil War and the Great Depression. He was a union buster. He gave us Scalia – need I say more? He tried to give us Robert Bork (does anyone under 30 even know who he is?). He lied about Iran/Contra. He avoided dealing with AIDS. He sealed the political sham-show between right wing capitalist kings and the evangelical thought-control snake-oil salesmen. Americans don’t want to hear that they are ordinary citizens of the world, and they don’t want to hear that the aren’t anointed by some deity to lead the world to salvation. They lapped it up, and they continue to do so.
I have to wonder how the response of a more competent presidency to the AIDS crisis might have changed even the global impact of the disease. Where might we be today? How many millions of people would be alive and not suffering? Yes, Reagan was historically significant—for fucking things up in a globally devastating way.
When you hear how he slashed Income taxes, he did on the Wealthy, but he increased the lowest tax rate from 10% to 15%.
His campaign was funded by Christian radicals, whose entire goal was to dismantle Roe vs. Wade and see American women relegated once more to back alleys and dirty knives. He opened the door to religion in politics in a way the postwar McCarthyists never dreamed possible. Now, 36 years after his election, maybe a third of American medical schools offer proper access to even first-trimester abortion training (in an era where that should mean a pill or vaginal suppository), and there are currently fewer doctors trained to perform late stage abortions for the entire US than there were pre-RvW (when such operations were only performed as a heroic measure).
And no one has even touched on his legacy of racial
hatred, deliberate destruction of black communities and establishing of COONTELPRO to destroy the lives of black panthers and black activists, his actual murder of black activists and more. He was actually a demon.If you want to know how many lives could have been saved if the Reagan government had just fucking BUDGETED for AIDS research instead of telling AIDS researchers that they had to beg, borrow or steal any money for AIDS from other programs–then read And The Band Played On:
Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition
by Randy Shilts. And be prepared to have your heart broken at the unadulterated and wildly irresponsible waste.of time and human lives.
Other shitty things Reagan did:
1) He almost tripled the National Debt. And you need to see the difference with zeroes:
When Reagan took office in 1980: $909,100,000 owed.(909.1 billion)
When Reagan left office in 1988: $2,601,300,000,000 owed. (2.6 trillion)
2) He raised taxes on the middle class and the poor ELEVEN TIMES while in office.
3) Unemployment soared after Reagan passed his tax cuts for the rich, and it took decades to get back down again.
4) He turned the U.S. into an illegal weapons dealer.
5) He funded terrorists, helping create the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. From NewsOne:
After Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981, U.S. funding of the mujahideen increased significantly and CIA Paramilitary Officers played a big role in training, arming and sometimes even leading mujahideen forces.
The CIA trained the mujahideen in many of the tactics Al Qaeda is known for today, such as car bombs, assassinations and other acts that would be considered terrorism today.
6) When his economic policies began wreaking havoc on the government, Reagan stole from Social Security–to the tune of 2.5 TRILLION–treating it for eight years as the private slush fund of himself and his rich friends.
They called him the Teflon president for a reason. All this shit–and none of it stuck to him. He got away clean every single time.
Reading up on Nelson Mandela I caught wind of that fact a few years back. The standing President of the US was more than a little ok with not condemning Apartheid even as a symbolic gesture.
That coupled with all of this and it speaks to an impossibly gross legacy. Of course the Neocons of the Republican set look at him as some sort of Conservative Jesus, so none of this would get actual traction with them.But email scandals are beyond the pale…
This is just PRESIDENT Reagan, don’t forget about the time when he was governor of California and closed the state hospitals which is why there are so many mentally ill homeless people here.
Ronald Reagan got off scot-free for just happening to be president at the same time our long standing greatest enemy at the time (USSR) fell apart due to internal reasons
Tag: economics
I am 22 and my cousins are Spanish, my friends dad is Jewish and one of my closest friends is Indian. I love them all dearly. Please don’t generalise because a handful of “outs” voters may have been racist, that would be like generalising all Muslim people to be terrorists. This is not about race. It is about shear numbers. We are a tiny country and the reason there is never a morning without traffic, always cues at our clinics and the lack of housing is due to the fact we aren’t coping.
Sure, maybe racist was the wrong label. Maybe should have opted for xenophobe.
The reason ‘we aren’t coping’ is because of funding and staff cuts to the NHS. That’s why there’s queues at clinics. Not because of a flood of immigrants. X
It’s because subsidies to bus routes have been reduced by £78m since 2010. That’s why there isn’t a morning without traffic. X
The housing shortage is actually shrinking. In the past year(based on an article dated Nov 2015), more than 155,000 homes have been built, up by 25% year-on-year. And it was also significantly higher than recent previous estimates of just over 124,000 new homes. On top of that, more than 20,000 new homes were created by converting commercial premises. That was up by 65% on last year. As for London, more than 24,000 homes have been built, compared to earlier estimates of just over 18,000. X
The UK’s problems are not caused by immigration. They’re not caused by the EU. They’re caused by self-serving UK governments and policies. And even if immigration were the issue, booting out everyone that isn’t a citizen isn’t going to solve problems.
Many companies are already making contingency plans to relocate back inside the EU if the UK leaves. There go the jobs people think are being stolen from them. There goes revenue that could have softened the blow to underfunded public transport and NHS services. X
But the other problem with suggesting ending free movement would reduce numbers and take the strain off the UK’s infrastructure is UK citizens living and working elsewhere in the EU. Many of them are retirees, who, assuming they wouldn’t be able to acquire a visa, would then have to return home. These people will need houses to live in, they will be driving cars on UK roads, and they will be queuing at clinics. X
She Came Prepared
The Daily Politics presenter was chatting to Charlotte and Henrietta about banning unhealthy food in schools.She came for him
“well maybe when you were my age you were a dumb piece of shit”
I CANNOT
OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE
politically aware children are terrifying and i adore them with every fibre of my being
video? link? source?
“Capitalism is oppressive because I only get 3-4 hours of free time a day”
Ok, here’s a thought, and bear with me here: increase your value on the market place so you earn more $/hr so you can choose to work less hours.
And don’t tell me you can’t do that because you can learn practically anything online for free or from library books.
A primer on poverty, free time, and choosing to earn more money.
1. The United States is second only to Nicaragua in blaming poor people for their poverty. So, congratulations you libertarian you! You’re expressing the call of the fucking herd, participating in a dumb chorus, and are not representing the light of social, practical, intellectual difference. Fully one quarter of your herd feel poor people are responsible for the own poverty in spite of the overwhelming facts pointing out the opposite. (x, y) One of the reasons for such an exaggerated fiction is that US and UK people work some of the longest and strangest hours in the world. That’s all of us, not just the poor. (x) Our fictions are bound to be more exaggerated.
2. Owners and bosses make so much more money than the average employee that the exaggeration of unearned ambition (see Adam Smith, Part I, Chapter II, here) that’s been a problem in capitalism since its inception is much more exaggerated and problematic today. It’s understandable why you want to imply poor people don’t want to work, although the opposite is the solid truth. Capitalist society values work more than equality, and so even the poorest and unhappiest people are willing to work long and strange hours. We have to address how the division of labor works to promote a sense of fairness about income inequality.
3. We use vague words like inequality to address fairness. Fact is, we can address value very specifically. Workers don’t earn anything approaching appropriate compensation for the hours they work, while owners and employers are earning much more than they’re actually worth, in spite of working similar hours. (x, y) The fact is that, for some reason, we permit some people to say they are worth more than others. Likely, this is a result of the form cooperation between employee and employer takes in capitalism, where employees sacrifice earnings for a number of promises, such as safety at work, access to forms of insurance, compensation for injury, and provided tools and resources. I know from experience that Americans believe bosses pay out of pocket for these “materials”, but the truth is labor produces them. Without labor, we’d have zero wealth creation. That’s a fact. It makes sense to complain. If we’re not going to be compensated more fairly, then we should get more time away from work.
4. I’ve addressed in another post how talking about “wealth” instead of “value” helps generate momentum for the fiction that the long hours rich employers work and the amount of wealth capitalists possess prove they’ve earned their status and wealth. It’s not true. It never has been true. Simple analysis will illustrate that. Just look at the data gathered about work. It’s easily accessible these days. On the other hand, one needs analysis plus social engineering to be able to argue wealthy people have earned their wealth while poor people haven’t earned it yet. Your hero von Mises had to compose a social theory of human action that insists it’s best to think of people as consumers and business owners rather then employee and employer for just this reason. It’s easy to talk about choices, freedom, and liberty when we’re addressing bosses and consumers and wildly wealthy elites. To be antisocialist in a capitalist society insists one must agree about a few conditions before making any arguments about social equality and identity. The theory comes not from metaphysics but from social engineering; in other words, it’s propaganda.
5. But facts are facts. In 2012, for example, the majority of able-bodied poor worked. (x) Year in and year out, the poor work. And they work hard–multiple jobs, night and day, with little sleep. Look we all know that money earned is worth more to the poor than the rich; another way to put it, poverty is expensive. Spending to sustain healthy life takes all of our money. Wealthy people can afford to spend money on investments and entertainment. They tend to lead happier lives for obvious reasons. (x) The link shows that the wealthiest people in the US receive much more of their income from wages than the poorest people do.
6. Something in the assumed rationale in your claim above tells me you think that people earn more money because they have some skills associated with their social status and pay that poorer people lack. That’s simply not the case. We know that a college degree, for example, is worth less if the student and future employee is born poor and worth more if born wealthy. (x)
We can say, without a doubt, that spending what little leisure time we have away from work “bettering” (part of the capitalist myth about social mobility is that we can choose to become better) ourselves is not necessarily going to do anything to increase our value in the workplace.
7. I’m going to give you a little wake up call for your notion that people can choose to become more wealthy. It’s certainly true in the past that much of the wealth in the US was earned rather than inherited. And this only makes sense because much of the wealth (money and value) has been only recently created via economic booms (and recoveries from busts). There wasn’t massive accumulations of wealth to bequeath in the recent past. (Caveat: for a very small, minority of Americans there always has been great wealth and that was inherited. We’re not addressing them.)
We know wealth is an accumulation of excess income over expenditures over time. Wealth inequality is on the rise, all over the world. Thus, we know that these days, and even more so in the days to come, as wealth inequality rises, more people will begin inheriting wealth rather than earning it.
Choosing to be better becomes even more of a fantastic myth.
8. Finally, it’s an intellectual cop out to claim people can educate themselves for free. I’ve been teaching for close to twenty years. Much of the education that future employees exchange for better wages involves learning achieved from within institutions that engage different learning communities and wherein people can make various valuable social connections that permit them referrals, aid, cooperation, and affiliation, all of which costs a lot of money.
These 7 Household Names Make a Killing Off of the Prison-Industrial Complex
Once slavery was abolished in 1865, manufacturers scrambled to find other sources of cheap labor—and because the 13th amendment banned slavery (except as punishment for crimes), they didn’t have to look too far. Prisons and big businesses have now been exploiting this loophole in the 13th amendment for over a century.
“Insourcing,” as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison.
On average, prisoners work 8 hours a day, but they have no union representation and make between .23 and $1.15 per hour, over 6 times less than federal minimum wage. These low wages combined with increasing communication and commissary costs mean that inmates are often released from correctional facilities with more debt than they had on their arrival. Meanwhile, big businesses receive tax credits for employing these inmates in excess of millions of dollars a year.
While almost every business in America uses some form of prison labor to produce their goods, here are just a few of the companies who are helping prisoners pay off their debt to society, so to speak.
- Whole Foods. The costly organic supermarket often nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” purchases artisan cheese and fish prepared by inmates who work for private companies. The inmates are paid .74 cents a day to raise tilapia that is subsequently sold for $11.99 a pound at the fashionable grocery store.
- McDonald’s. The world’s most successful fast food franchise purchases a plethora of goods manufactured in prisons, including plastic cutlery, containers, and uniforms. The inmates who sew McDonald’s uniforms make even less money by the hour than the people who wear them.
- Wal-Mart. Although their company policy clearly states that “forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart”, basically every item in their store has been supplied by third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its produce from prison farms where laborers are often subjected to long, arduous hours in the blazing heat without adequate sunscreen, water, or food.
- Victoria’s Secret. Female inmates in South Carolina sew undergarments and casual-wear for the pricey lingerie company. In the late 1990’s, 2 prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with “Made in U.S.A.” tags. Victoria’s Secret has declined to comment.
- Aramark. This company, which also provides food to colleges, public schools and hospitals, has a monopoly on foodservice in about 600 prisons in the U.S. Despite this, Aramark has a history of poor foodservice, including a massive food shortage thatcaused a prison riot in Kentucky in 2009.
- AT&T. In 1993, the massive phone company laid off thousands of telephone operators—all union members—in order to increase their profits. Even though AT&T’s company policy regarding prison labor reads eerily like Wal-Mart’s, they have consistently used inmates to work in their call centers since ’93, barely paying them $2 a day.
- BP. When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American inmates to clean up the toxic spill while community members, many of whom were out-of-work fisherman, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the situation.
From dentures to shower curtains to pill bottles, almost everything you can imagine is being made in American prisons. Also implicit in the past and present use of prison labor are Microsoft, Nike, Nintendo, Honda, Pfizer, Saks Fifth Avenue, JCPenney, Macy’s, Starbucks, and more. For an even more detailed list of businesses that use prison labor, visit buycott.com, but the real guilty party here is the United States government. UNICOR, the corporation created and owned by the federal government to oversee penal labor, sets the condition and wage standards for working inmates.
One of the highest-paying prison jobs in the country? Sewing American flags for the state police.
WOOOOOOOOOOW
These 7 Household Names Make a Killing Off of the Prison-Industrial Complex
Oh look, a form of reformed capitalism, that the US thinks is socialism, that works better for the average person than our current system. We could easily follow that so less people are fucked over.
Oh No, that would destroy Freedom.
A future to believe in.
Waiting for Winter 