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This is a topic from the The 1980's forum on inthe00s.
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Subject: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Doc Brown on 06/05/04 at 7:31 pm
I fear most have heard by now that President Reagan, the greatest icon of the 1980's, passed away in California this afternoon. I can think of no one else who personified the 80's as well, even if he did try to adopt "Born In The U.S.A." as a campaign song, before anyone played the anti-war lyrics for him. OOPS! What probably makes all children of the 80's like me feel old is that kids & teens today can't grasp the impact he & those of our time had on our life today. From living free of the fear of nuclear war to standing tall in difficult times, proud to be an American. As a kid who personally received a letter from him I know I'll miss him like very few people I've known who are no longer with us. I certainly hope someone else has thoughts or memories they'd like to share.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Dagwood on 06/05/04 at 8:15 pm
R.I.P. Ronnie.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Hairspray on 06/06/04 at 3:30 pm
R.I.P.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: CeramicsFanatic on 06/06/04 at 4:08 pm
Yes, R.I.P Mr. Reagan. :(
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: SmithsGirl on 06/06/04 at 5:54 pm
A sad day. It's especially sad knowing he lost his fight with alzheimers, a disease my father also suffers from.
SmithsGirl
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Class of 84 on 06/06/04 at 6:05 pm
I agree, love him or hate him, Ronnie definitely helped define the 80's, at least for those of us who were old enough to be aware of the politics going on around us.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: rubixgirl on 06/08/04 at 9:38 am
RIP Ronald Reagan :\'(
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Doc Brown on 06/05/14 at 7:19 pm
I came onto this message board 10 years ago today for the first time. I needed someone to listen as I poured my heart out, and now here I am again, revisiting the thread. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the saddest day in American History since 9/11. Today in 2004, we lost the greatest president of the 20th Century, Ronald Wilson Reagan, known during his two terms as "The Great Communicator", and labeled by the brilliant novelist Tom Clancy afterward as "The Man Who Won The War".
So much has changed in the past decade, some he would be proud to see, others that would make him want to rise from the grave and strangle those responsible. What I have to wonder the most is, will America ever see as good a president again? We certainly need one! I don't care about him being 103, if he were still with us and running for the White House, I'd vote for him. Putin, Al-Qaeda, Kim-Jong Un and the other troublemakers of the world would tremble and run at the sound of his voice. He would, like the Bushes after him, be unafraid and unapologetic in pointing the finger at the worst of humanity and declare them 'The focus of evil in the modern world'. Let us never forget who we have to thank for our being able to stand tall in America without the threat of nuclear bombing, and we must heed his warning about remaining One Nation Under God and always be ready to cut down the size of the government wherever it is needed. In his farewell address, he summed up his eight years in office as "Not bad, not bad at all", but his influence and patriotism is still felt 25 years later, sometimes as the only thing inspiring our country(and its people) to carry on. GOD BLESS RONALD REAGAN.
Your Pal,
Doc
:(
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Philip Eno on 06/06/14 at 12:48 am
I came onto this message board 10 years ago today for the first time. I needed someone to listen as I poured my heart out, and now here I am again, revisiting the thread. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the saddest day in American History since 9/11. Today in 2004, we lost the greatest president of the 20th Century, Ronald Wilson Reagan, known during his two terms as "The Great Communicator", and labeled by the brilliant novelist Tom Clancy afterward as "The Man Who Won The War".
So much has changed in the past decade, some he would be proud to see, others that would make him want to rise from the grave and strangle those responsible. What I have to wonder the most is, will America ever see as good a president again? We certainly need one! I don't care about him being 103, if he were still with us and running for the White House, I'd vote for him. Putin, Al-Qaeda, Kim-Jong Un and the other troublemakers of the world would tremble and run at the sound of his voice. He would, like the Bushes after him, be unafraid and unapologetic in pointing the finger at the worst of humanity and declare them 'The focus of evil in the modern world'. Let us never forget who we have to thank for our being able to stand tall in America without the threat of nuclear bombing, and we must heed his warning about remaining One Nation Under God and always be ready to cut down the size of the government wherever it is needed. In his farewell address, he summed up his eight years in office as "Not bad, not bad at all", but his influence and patriotism is still felt 25 years later, sometimes as the only thing inspiring our country(and its people) to carry on. GOD BLESS RONALD REAGAN.
Your Pal,
Doc
:(
A poignant moment in US history, and I felt the sadness when I visited his grave at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library last year.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Doc Brown on 06/06/14 at 12:19 pm
Thank you, Phil. I have not had the pleasure of visiting California yet, but I have friends who did in 2011 during the Reagan Centennial, and I still wear the cap they got me with pride.
I only mentioned this once here before, but I don't mind reliving the memory. On the night of June 9, 2004, I waited in line for five hot muggy hours on the lawn of the Capitol Building, starting at about 9 PM and did not get in until after 2 AM, to file by Reagan's casket, pay my last respects, and sign the guestbook, promising I would meet this National hero in "The Shining City On The Hill", and writing my condolences to Nancy & family.
I still feel he would take some pride in living to 93, the longest-lived American President ever elected. I will never forget(or regret!) that night.
Your Pal,
Doc
8)
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: warped on 06/06/14 at 12:29 pm
That's very nicely written, Doc.
Glad for you that you endured the heat and waited in line, it was worth it, I am sure.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: pell on 06/06/14 at 2:33 pm
I've come to realize that, being a child of the 80s, I remember President Reagan through rosier glasses than do people who were adults at the time.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Howard on 06/06/14 at 3:55 pm
Thank you, Phil. I have not had the pleasure of visiting California yet, but I have friends who did in 2011 during the Reagan Centennial, and I still wear the cap they got me with pride.
I only mentioned this once here before, but I don't mind reliving the memory. On the night of June 9, 2004, I waited in line for five hot muggy hours on the lawn of the Capitol Building, starting at about 9 PM and did not get in until after 2 AM, to file by Reagan's casket, pay my last respects, and sign the guestbook, promising I would meet this National hero in "The Shining City On The Hill", and writing my condolences to Nancy & family.
I still feel he would take some pride in living to 93, the longest-lived American President ever elected. I will never forget(or regret!) that night.
Your Pal,
Doc
8)
I bet Doc, it was something to cherish forever.
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Howard on 06/06/14 at 3:56 pm
I can't believe it's been 10 years. :o
:\'(
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: CatwomanofV on 06/06/14 at 4:20 pm
If Ronald Reagan were alive and ran for pres, he wouldn't win. I find it very interesting how the right idolize him but yet, if you look at his record, they denounce everything that he did as pres.
10 things that wouldn't get him elected today:
1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.
5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.
6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.
7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.
8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country. Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague that country.”
10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendancy.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/
Cat
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: warped on 06/08/14 at 6:27 pm
http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Ronald_Reagan_Funeral_Nancy_25.jpg
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Howard on 06/09/14 at 3:39 pm
http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Ronald_Reagan_Funeral_Nancy_25.jpg
so beautiful. :\'(
Subject: Re: The Great Communicator falls silent forever...
Written By: Stinkyy on 06/26/14 at 2:07 pm
If you're wanting to see him at his best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY The references made to government may carry more water now than ever before.
It gave me pause to see this thread revived. The national greatness we enjoyed in the '80s is in part, thanks to him. I am not here to debate politics, just to post my appreciation and admiration.