PDA

View Full Version : We Hated Reagan A memoir of ignorance.



red states rule
06-18-2011, 06:10 AM
This reminds me of the hate the left has for Ms Palin and it makes as much sense





snip

We hated Reagan because he hailed from another country, or another version of this country, a strangely idyllic ranch outside Santa Barbara, California. That place had no place in our parents’ iconic 1970s New Yorker poster — of a commanding but caricatured worldview, looking west from 9th Avenue. Hence it had no place for us. From our cultured, concrete canyons, the Reagan Ranch was and would remain terra incognita.

We hated Reagan because the grown-ups around us snickered at his old-time movie roles in Bedtime for Bonzo and Knute Rockne, All American. That we, at tender ages, were perfectly enamored of The Muppet Movie and E.T. and Rocky and Chariots of Fire bothered no one. We hated Reagan because MAD magazine mocked his interior secretary with the caption “Watt…We Worry!” Because New York Times editorials tended to sublimate MAD’s bias, at age twelve we gladly took out our first Gray Lady subscriptions — to the nodding approval of the grown-ups around us.

We hated Reagan because he was shot just four months after John Lennon had been shot and murdered. Instant karma got Reagan, we quipped mercilessly, and Hinckley was just a patsy. Before, Reagan was aggravating because he reminded us that Red, White, and Blue stood for more than just Beatles albums. Now we hated Reagan because more than ever he competed with “John” for our imagination.

We hated Reagan because our parents went Greyhound to show solidarity with striking air traffic controllers. During our first foray ever into the Deep South, we watched a white driver disembark a black passenger for consuming beer on board. The incident elicited a loud whisper from us about “racist” drivers — a self-righteous gesture on a self-righteous journey that comforted no one (except us). Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in the end, but along the way we hated him because we couldn’t admit that the return leg of every Freedom Ride is a Responsibility Ride.

We hated Reagan because M*A*S*H was cancelled after eleven seasons and over 250 episodes. We wanted war to be over, but not the sitcoms that made light of (our side of) it. Fortunately, we could still watch the show in syndication up to fifteen times per week. Thirty years after a Korean stalemate and eight years after a Vietnamese defeat, we knew more about M*A*S*H than we did about Korea or Vietnam — or about Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/we-hated-reagan/?singlepage=true

Missileman
06-18-2011, 06:23 AM
This reminds me of the hate the left has for Ms Palin and it makes as much sense

You should read more and post less...this was a tribute to Reagan, not a slam, in spite of the title.

red states rule
06-18-2011, 06:25 AM
You should read more and post less...this was a tribute to Reagan, not a slam, in spite of the title.

and libs might see the error of their ways in years to come with Ms Palin as this one did with Reagan

You should think more and jump less

Thunderknuckles
06-18-2011, 10:51 AM
Great post! I think the last line in that memoir says it all:

"Let’s face it, we hated President Ronald Reagan for one reason and one reason only, that which confident liberals insist is the removable basis of all hatred: Ignorance."

red states rule
06-18-2011, 10:54 AM
Great post! I think the last line in that memoir says it all:

"Let’s face it, we hated President Ronald Reagan for one reason and one reason only, that which confident liberals insist is the removable basis of all hatred: Ignorance."

and they hate Sarah Palin for the same reason