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Bedtime For Bonzo-A Child Laborer's Story |
Current rating: 4 |
by Scott Mylxine
Email: mylxine (nospam) hotmail.com |
07 Jun 2004
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Some thoughts on the Reagan years, from the perspective of one of a former "Reagan Youth". |
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When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me and my friend a dollar to walk around the neighborhood and put flyers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 election campaign in her neighbor's mailboxes. I think she got in a little trouble for that because later she gave us another dollar to pass the same flyers out to people in the neighborhood, but this time we had to put it in their hands. We couldn't open their mailboxes anymore. "Some people get mad about that," she said. I'm sure they did. My friend rifled through everyone's mail, taking all the Columbia House tapes he came across. I didn't know what he was doing until later, though. I was just thinking about what I was going to spend my dollar on.
Later that year, I helped my grandma out at the polls in Richmond, Virginia. Cute little curly haired boy with his granny, passing out flyers with Ronald Reagan and George Bush smiling away at the reader. "Vote Reagan/Bush in 1980."
If in anyway I helped push even one voter closer to those monsters, I offer my sincere appologies. If karma is true, I'll have some to work off in the next life.
I really am sorry, though.
It was hard to deny that Reagan was a captivating person. Talked the populist talk, even if he walked the fascist walk. I could see that if one was somewhat uninformed, like I was, how they could be charmed by the old man. I heard a commentator on NPR the other day saying that Reagan was the kind of person who you couldn't help but like, even when he was cutting your grandmother's social security.
Persuasive people can be scary people.
My disillusionment came slowly. I remember watching the news one night after a nuclear arms talk in Iceland when it was announced that the USSR said that they would scrap all of their weapons if the United States did the same. I watched with excitement, thinking that I might be able to finally go to sleep without having a nightmare about Hiroshima. But what did Reagan do? He refused. Said we couldn't trust them to keep their word. I couldn't believe it. I know that there are a lot of different reasons why he didn't take Gorbachev's offer, but it seemed so simple to me. Wasn't he afraid of nuclear war like I was? Didn't he think we had plenty already, why not compromise? If I knew about nuclear winters, I'm sure he did. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't agree to that proposal, and why he continued to make more and more nukes.
In the mid-eighties, all these people were dying of AIDS. I saw a protest on TV where people were criticizing the president for not even mentioning the word "AIDS." I couldn't see why he was avoiding what was to so many people a really big deal. The disease was in the news all the time, everyone was terrified of it (as they should be today as well) but it still took Reagan 4 years to even mention the word "AIDS." As if he thought that if he ignored it, it would simply away.
Then the issue of South Africa and Apartheid would come up in the news. Reagan must have known about the Civil Rights movement, which is why I was so surprised that he would oppose any condemnations against the South African government. Why Reagan would oppose what seemed like the sanest, most human, and most logical side to take in that struggle left me speechless. How could he coddle up to the same people that called Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress terrorists? This seemed very simple to me, as well. Which is why I couldn't understand why he again seemed to fall on the wrong side of humanity. It was as if someone was telling him that if everyone else in the world thinks that something is a good idea, he should do otherwise.
Now I see that it wasn't so cut and dry. Or maybe it was. What Reagan wasn't saying in his speeches to the nation was that we were still building nukes, far more than even the most insane dictators would think that we would need, because a lot of people were making a lot of money off of them. We still supported Apartheid South Africa because a lot of people were making a lot of money off of the backs of the Africans. And he ignored AIDS simply because he didn't care, and started paying attention only when it became too big for him to ignore.
Then when the Iran-Contra scandal leaked out, I remember not believing it. But by this time, my notion of the "goodness" of the government was beginning to show cracks. I didn't want to know that the people that we were told in school to trust could be such liars. I remember wanting to believe that all of it was untrue. That they couldn't have lied about selling weapons to Iran. That they couldn't have lied to the congress and the people about trading guns for hostages, like they said they would never do. I remember wanting to believe all that they said. But as my summer TV watching was pre-empted with countless hours of Ollie North's barrage of lies to congress, it became harder and harder to believe that Reagan didn't know that his people were selling weapons to the same people that he said were "our" enemies.
I think there was a part of me that still admired him, like the person who still liked Reagan after he cut their grandmother's social security. I remember watching a documentary of Stalin where Soviet citizens talked about crying when they heard the news that Stalin had died, even when they were in his prison camps.
The fact that Reagan could get so many things named after him BEFORE he died speaks volumes about not only his personality cult, but also the propaganda machine surrounding him. Especially after knowing full and well that his was the most corrupt administration in over half a century. That he himself barely missed indictment for the Iran-Contra scandel, unlike much of his cabinet. That he was the only president to violate international law and get condemned in the world court for it with the mining of Nicaragua's harbors. That somehow, all of this is forgotten, and the saintly Ronald Wilson Reagan can still get a highway, an airport, or a park named after him in nearly every state is a testament to the insane legacy Reagan leaves behind. Whatever bad things you do, if you are powerful, they will be forgotten. This is sure to compound ad naseum in the coming years.
There will be several revisionist looks back at his life, pushing the same lies like he did. He'll be remembered as the man who "single handedly won the cold war", but somehow it will be forgotten that he also enabled the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan which became al-Qaeda and the Taliban, ending one war to start another. That is if you even believe that he ended the cold war.
I don't want to waste too much energy in eulogizing or demonizing Reagan. There certainly will be plenty of people who will do both in the next few days. Mostly, I wanted to appologize to anyone I possibly helped influence as the little red-haired all American boy when I was working for Reagan and my Grandma in '80.
Reaganomics and the trickle-down theory didn't really work for me either. I only made two dollars out of the deal. |
This work is in the public domain. |
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Re: Bedtime For Bonzo-A Child Laborer's Story |
by Michelle
natachaz1 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
16 Jun 2004
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Hey great article, valid points, made me laugh at the end! I'm reading House of Bush House of Saud by Craig Unger and I suggest you read it when I'm finished with it. Khoda hafez! |
