Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Ray Gun; Lest We Forget FEATURED ARTICLES - Planet Reagan, By William Rivers Pitt - Only the Good Die Young, by Greg Palast - The Great Taxer, By PAUL KRUGMAN - Reagan Redux, By David Swanson - 66 Things to Think About When Flying Into Reagan National Airport, by David Corn QUOTE OF THE DAY "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads." - - Edward Abbey KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JUNE 9th 1966 -- US General Sternberg calls for 500,000 MORE troops for Vietnam. 1974 -- Guatemalan poet/novelist/diplomat & 1967 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Miguel Ángel Asturias dies. 1983 -- Guatemalan dictator General Rios Montt declares himself president & continues his killing of Mayan Indians by the tens of thousands.  US President Ron Reagan continues his support by training Guatemalan soldiers at the School Of The Americas in Georgia and arming them with US helicopter gun ships. RHINO HERE: The Rhino hasn't been able to turn on a TV in several days lest he run into another crooning suck up fest to the man who called ketchup a vegetable. The same man who, in the name of fighting the evil commies, oversaw the funding, training & arming of repressive dictators & their death squad thugs round the globe. It was also on his watch that arms were provided to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, Saddam in Iraq, & the Iranians. But he had a great smile.  Lest we forget his real legacies, Rhino amplifies the literary efforts of the writers who remember the real Ronnie Reagan.  But first... In Monday's history section,  Rhino wrote: June 7th, 2001 -- US President George H.W. Bush signs a $1.35-trillion tax cut, mostly for the rich; supposed to stimulate the economy, which quickly goes further into the tank; "Balanced Budget" & other "Free Market" rightwingers have federal & state deficits soaring to new heights. Son shrub does it again in 2003, with 85% of the cut going to the richest in America. Sorry for the mis-take.  It wasn't  "Daddy Herbert Walker Bush" in 2001, but the shrub who sighed the tax cut. Planet Reagan By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t, Monday 07 June 2004 Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him....Only those who have seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die... In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth.& The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye... MORE: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060704A.shtml Only the Good Die Young by Greg Palast, gregpalast.com, Sunday, June 6, 2004 You're not going to like this. You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But in this case, someone's got to. Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was a killer. In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis. People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics. But Ronald Reagan, big hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had elected. MORE: http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=336 The Great Taxer By PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, June 8, 2004 Over the course of this week we'll be hearing a lot about Ronald Reagan, much of it false. A number of news sources have already proclaimed Mr. Reagan the most popular president of modern times. In fact, though Mr. Reagan was very popular in 1984 and 1985, he spent the latter part of his presidency under the shadow of the Iran-Contra scandal. In fact, though Mr. Reagan was very popular in 1984 and 1985, he spent the latter part of his presidency under the shadow of the Iran-Contra scandal. Bill Clinton had a slightly higher average Gallup approval rating, and a much higher rating during his last two years in office. We're also sure to hear that Mr. Reagan presided over an unmatched economic boom. Again, not true: the economy grew slightly faster under President Clinton... MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/opinion/08KRUG.html Reagan Redux By David Swanson, AlterNet, June 6, 2004 ...Reagan is the source of a number of trends in American politics. Through the late 1970s, wages and working conditions were improving for ordinary Americans. From the day Reagan fired the air traffic controllers through eight years of his tax cutting and military spending, it became clear that a divide would be opened up between the rich and the rest of us, that public education and care for our young, old, and ill would be slashed in the name of militarism, and that - in short and anachronistically - Reagan would be the most radical approach toward a George W. Bush presidency prior to George W. Bush. Reagan is also the source of many of the relationships in Iran and Iraq that have troubled the United States since. Kevin Phillips' recent book "American Dynasty" does a good job of summarizing the strong evidence that Bill Casey and George H.W. Bush made a deal with the Iranians not to release the hostages until after the 1980 U.S. presidential election. This would mean that Reagan's election was illegal, that the trading during the Iran-Contra scandal had a precedent, that Reagan and G.H.W. Bush's buildup of Saddam Hussein's military was motivated in part by a desire to counter weaponry and money that the United States had given Iran in exchange for Reagan's election, that our media has completely fallen down on the job, and that we're all a bunch of suckers. That just can't be right. Please forget I mentioned it. IT'S ALL AT:http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18875 7:51:48 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - 66 Things to Think About When Flying Into Reagan National Airport 66 Things to Think About When Flying Into Reagan National Airport by David Corn, The Nation, June 7, 2004 The firing of the air traffic controllers, winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees that cause pollution, Elliott Abrams lying to Congress, ketchup as a vegetable, colluding with Guatemalan thugs, pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, public housing cutbacks, redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement, James Watt. Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals, tax credits for segregated schools, disinformation campaigns, "homeless by choice," Manuel Noriega, falling wages, the HUD scandal, air raids on Libya, "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa, United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers, attacks on OSHA and workplace safety, the invasion of Grenada, assassination manuals, Nancy's astrologer. Drug tests, lie detector tests, Fawn Hall, female appointees (8 percent), mining harbors, the S&L scandal, 239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut, Al Haig "in control," silence on AIDS, food-stamp reductions, Debategate, White House shredding, Jonas Savimbi, tax cuts for the rich, "mistakes were made." Michael Deaver's conviction for influence peddling, Lyn Nofziger's conviction for influence peddling, Caspar Weinberger's five-count indictment, Ed Meese ("You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime"), Donald Regan (women don't "understand throw-weights"), education cuts, massacres in El Salvador. "The bombing begins in five minutes," $640 Pentagon toilet seats, African- American judicial appointees (1.9 percent), Reader's Digest, C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed), 200 officials accused of wrongdoing, William Casey, Iran/contra.  "Facts are stupid things," three-by-five cards, the MX missile, Bitburg, S.D.I., Robert Bork, naps, Teflon. POSTED AT: 66 Things To Think About "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:57:52 AM    comment

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