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Originally posted by Locobot
Mondak-this thread is named only ...Reagan dead... as such it is a place where people can respond to that fact positively or negatively without being accused of "trolling."
I find it hard to believe that Reagan is so revered here given that he worked so hard to make much of what is available on the TFP illegal. Read up on Reagan's Meese Commision some time. Check out his work as head of the Screen Actor's Guild when he ratted out members as being communists (always falsely) and had them blacklisted. The man was almost never seen speaking without a script, certainly not ever without his handlers' setting up every aspect of his appearance. It's too bad that he probably spent the last 16 years of his life confused, demented, and unaware who his children and wife were. The man was an actor his whole life, he played the part of a politician but never was one. R.I.P. to the Great Thespian.
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While a lot of what you said is apocryphal (scripts, handlers, etc.), I feel a stong connection to Reagan and would like to take the time to respond even if the flame-bait is not deserving.
As SAG President, Reagan opposed blacklists. He felt that the threat offered by communism was not the idea but the tactics. From an article that Reagan wrote in
1951 called
"How do you fight communism?":
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The real fight with this new totalitarianism belongs properly to the forces of liberal democracy, just as did the battle with Hitler's totalitarianism. There really is not difference except the cast of charachters. On the one hand is our belief that the people can and will decide what is best for themselves, and on the other side is the belief that a 'few' can best decide what is good for the rest. The secret to fighting them and winning is to take the offensive and expose them for who they are. But it is critical to fight the battle within the parameters of democratic principles.
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In 1947 he was brought before congress to testfy in front of the Un-American Activities Committee of the US Congress ( funny how years have passed and the same reactionary jerks are still our congressmen . . . ) Reagan:
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"We have spent 170 years in this country on the basis that democracy is stong enough to stand up and fight against the inroads of any ideolegy. I believe that Thomas Jefferson put it, if all the American people know all of the facts, they will never make a mistake."
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In 1951 he also commented on McCarthy's tactics:
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"Communists were taking advantage of our constitutional freedom to plot the death of that constitution. They are trying to operate on a 'can't lose' basis. For example, of we get so frightened that we suspend our traditional democratic freedoms in order to fight them - they still have won. We play right into their hands when we go around calling everybody a communist."
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interesting that some of this can apply to things like the "Patriot Act" today. Another example of how transcendent a man he really was.
Check out the dates from those quotes. This is not something he came up with right before he ran for President. Your jab at his sickness and proposing that he was nothing more than an actor his whole life could not be further from the truth. He had deep seeded convictions that he stuck to until his task was complete.
Perhaps you don't like him because he was a polarizing figure. Take some time today as a memorial to a leader of our nation to examine which of your beliefs come from fact and which ones come from what your peers or the media told you about him. Maybe you can see beyond what you have been told to believe is black or white and see some value in a man that certainly believed in America and all of us who make up this country.
As a side note, maybe this is the very reason I identify with him so much. People tend to love me or hate me - that simple. Reagan was the same way. While I operate on a far smaller scale than trying to defeat communism, his ability to see his vision through is something that I can only hope to emmulate.