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 think every nation does. Look at Britain and the mythology it has spun for itself after Brexit. Brexit is sending Great Britain's economy into hell in a handbasket, but the Tories and Labour refuse to admit it. Britain has been living far longer with its own mythologies, as have many nations older than the United States.
Kathy your comment struck a chord for me (which is the value of these conversations between readers). I may be straying off course a little (?). Britain has never adequately faced it’s own cruel colonizations and racism and look where it stands now. It is no longer a world power and has almost completely shrunken back to its island in the North Sea. It is in crisis. The British people know it is never going to recover and they are just waking up to the fact. There have all along been British historians and individual citizens (subjects?) who have published the truth. But, if the truth is not also being discussed by the politicians does it mean it not being discussed at the level it needs to be--by the people in their schools and at the dinner table? Where does that leave the U.S. which is once again whitewashing (quite literally) our history again in FL, TX, TN etc?
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 think every nation does. Look at Britain and the mythology it has spun for itself after Brexit. Brexit is sending Great Britain's economy into hell in a handbasket, but the Tories and Labour refuse to admit it. Britain has been living far longer with its own mythologies, as have many nations older than the United States.
Kathy your comment struck a chord for me (which is the value of these conversations between readers). I may be straying off course a little (?). Britain has never adequately faced it’s own cruel colonizations and racism and look where it stands now. It is no longer a world power and has almost completely shrunken back to its island in the North Sea. It is in crisis. The British people know it is never going to recover and they are just waking up to the fact. There have all along been British historians and individual citizens (subjects?) who have published the truth. But, if the truth is not also being discussed by the politicians does it mean it not being discussed at the level it needs to be--by the people in their schools and at the dinner table? Where does that leave the U.S. which is once again whitewashing (quite literally) our history again in FL, TX, TN etc?
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.