DISPATCHES FROM A COLLAPSING STATE is an independent media venture that relies on your support. Subscribe today to gain access to exclusive content, including Subscriber-only Mailbag Q&A’s, podcasts, videos, and additional articles. Peter Baker’s blockbuster was published in
I have started to read your most recent book and am impressed with it. I should note that even though I was 17 at the time Reagan was elected, I never trusted him and thought he would do what he wound up doing, and that was to impoverish everyone else to benefit the wealthy. At the time, I didn't have the life experience I was to obtain, but I knew trouble was ahead. I never understood the Reagan worship then or now. He was a superb pitchman, but not so good for the best interests of all citizens.
Do you think *every* country lives with its own set of “necessary illusions”? Even before Fox News America had its “paper of record”, “The Gray Lady” to spin out America’s mythologies. How does a nation even begin to dig its way out from under 250 years of fabrications? Is that even possible?
I worked for a small NGO in Jordan for several months in 2011, of which our purpose was to help Iraqi refugees get emergency aid when they crossed the border. No one talks about it, but the US never kept statistics on how many people it displaced during that war. It's estimated to be as high as 2 or 3 million. The Sabeans, a tiny sect of pre-Christians who follow St. John the Baptist, were almost completely wiped out. The US had no valid reason to invade the country, but they knew it was a hoax ginned up by the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and did it anyway.
Reagan is the joke the GOP continues to play on the world. The "Gipper" was a useful idiot to the Republicans and even when they realized Ronnie's dementia was starting to show, they denied it. The old crook and closet racist homophobe is still referred to by cynics as St. Ronald of Reagan.
I have started to read your most recent book and am impressed with it. I should note that even though I was 17 at the time Reagan was elected, I never trusted him and thought he would do what he wound up doing, and that was to impoverish everyone else to benefit the wealthy. At the time, I didn't have the life experience I was to obtain, but I knew trouble was ahead. I never understood the Reagan worship then or now. He was a superb pitchman, but not so good for the best interests of all citizens.
Do you think *every* country lives with its own set of “necessary illusions”? Even before Fox News America had its “paper of record”, “The Gray Lady” to spin out America’s mythologies. How does a nation even begin to dig its way out from under 250 years of fabrications? Is that even possible?
I worked for a small NGO in Jordan for several months in 2011, of which our purpose was to help Iraqi refugees get emergency aid when they crossed the border. No one talks about it, but the US never kept statistics on how many people it displaced during that war. It's estimated to be as high as 2 or 3 million. The Sabeans, a tiny sect of pre-Christians who follow St. John the Baptist, were almost completely wiped out. The US had no valid reason to invade the country, but they knew it was a hoax ginned up by the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and did it anyway.
Reagan is the joke the GOP continues to play on the world. The "Gipper" was a useful idiot to the Republicans and even when they realized Ronnie's dementia was starting to show, they denied it. The old crook and closet racist homophobe is still referred to by cynics as St. Ronald of Reagan.