> Bill Kahn > Prospect Park wrote > Here in Minneapolis, and the rest of the state once upon a time, we know > what is important. To thrive, children and families need security, both > physical and economic; unfortunately for some reason, those holding the purse > strings are seeing what they want to see in the statistics rather than what they are > actually measuring, and the rest of us are letting them get away with it for > one reason or another. If you ask me, this is Ronald Reagan's living legacy; > the smiling cowboy made it alright to ignore the things that must not be > ignored.
Amen, Bill! They call Reagan the Great Communicator because he was so adept at telling Americans what they WANTED to hear instead of what they NEEDED to hear. The homeless man on the heating grate in the sidewalk was there because he chose to be there. He was excersizing his right to be an individual. How dare these mamby pamby social do-gooders try to interfere! Not only was it dangerous it lured poor folks into scamming the system like that welfare queen who was making $42,000 a year in fraudulent claims. Never mind that this welfare queen could never be documented, if you say it long enough and loud enough it MUST be true. Not enough vegetables in the school lunch programs? What were people talking about? After all, Ketchup with all those tomatoes was a vegetable. Air pollution? The worst offenders were those damned TREES! Better to let our logging industry rid us of this danger. And never underestimate the power of a WAR to pull your bacon from the fire. On a Saturday in October a barracks in Beirut was blown up along with 250 or so Marines by a terrorist. The Reagan administration was under heavy fire because this had been long predicted and he had been told not to put our Marines there. That was Saturday. The following Tuesday we invaded Grenada to save its president from a military takeover. The press was kept away until the "war" was over. Big headlines announced our Great Victory--something that had eluded us since 1945. People could feel good about ourselves again, we had rescued our medical school students and saved the island from Cuban led insurgents. After all, Cuba was building the island an airport and sending them teachers. How subversive could you get! And the proof of Cuban involvment? One bunker full of weapons that was displayed to the media AFTER it had been opened. After all, the media had to be kept off the island out of harm's way. Three weeks later came the news that we had bombed a hospital by mistake. By then Reagan was a hero once more. Bush II's Abu Ghraib response is straight out of Reagan's Iran-Contra playbook. The president is commander-in-chief and takes full responsibility for all successes. However, when it comes to failure the buck stops at some subordinate. Wouldn't we be in a wonderful state if this gets down to the rest of the military ranks? So much for the officer in charge being accountable for the actions of his men. Not to mention that he elevated board rooms to some sort of holy status and the bottom line as the only Holy Grail worth evaluating. Long term planning went out the window and we have adopted our current short term, investor driven style of economics that continues to shift most of this nation's wealth into the hands of the few and the greedy and sent most of our middle class back down the economic ladder. Taxes bad, user fees good--after all the rich don't play the lottery or use the same facilities as the rest of us who have been forced to pick up the tab abandoned by the wealthy and corporate world. Let's hear it for the REAL Reagan Golden Rule--Do unto others before they do unto you and, if caught, always have a scapegoat! Steven M Nelson Willard Hay REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
