Here’s to Reagan: his kind light up our political world

@MrHarryCole http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/07/ronald-reagan-4th-july-grosvenor-square-statue-commemoration/ – @AnthonyPainter #Reagan

Here's to Reagan: his kind light up our political world: http://bit.ly/j7owJZ – @AnthonyPainter on #Reagan

@MrHarryCole Here you go. The left responds to #Reagan statue….. http://bit.ly/j7owJZ

Here's to Reagan: his kind light up our political world: http://bit.ly/j7owJZ – @AnthonyPainter on #Reagan

I agree with @anthonypainter : Reagan was a good if not great prez http://t.co/3Yg0zz5 > But we so don't need a statue of him – or of anyone

@MrHarryCole Here you go. The left responds to #Reagan statue….. http://bit.ly/j7owJZ

@MrHarryCole Here you go. The left responds to #Reagan statue….. http://bit.ly/j7owJZ

Great piece, READ! RT @anthonypainter: RT @leftfootfwd: Here's to Reagan: his kind light up our political world: http://t.co/9bSTg8n #Reagan

Here’s to Reagan: his kind light up our political world http://t.co/aR6woTW via Left Foot Forward (surprisingly)

What other #Reagan retrospective will quote Back to the Future today? http://t.co/JDCdgWR

Pathetic piece about #Reagan, forgetting his crimes against humanity policy RT @leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/j7owJZ @AnthonyPainter on #Reagan

The Left responds to the #Reagan statue. Pretty fair analysis http://bit.ly/j7owJZ

The Left responds to the #Reagan statue. Pretty fair analysis http://bit.ly/j7owJZ

Reagan’s statue ostensibly commends his role in the peaceful cessation of the Cold War (why would we dedicate a statue in London to his domestic economic successes?).

Whatever, one judges the extent of this to be – and I am with Leon Aron, the Soviet Bloc was stagnating, with the frustrations of the people bubbling below the surface regardless of external pressures – it was surely limited in comparison with the courage shown by Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Lech Walesa et al in confronting the Soviet military/establishment on their own territory on behalf of the people of Eastern Europe.

Reagan made impassioned speeches to the Soviets from behind a television screen. Yeltsin literally climbed onto their tanks. He would be by far the more worthy recipient of a statue in London.

But what a lot of people honouring this unveiling really want to celebrate is right-wing ideology, not the liberation of the Soviet Empire or the lifting of the threat of nuclear war. Just take a look at some of the comments from the rabid right on twitter today…”What has the left got to say about the Reagan statue”…”only one Labour MP at Reagan memorial” etc… Absolutely itching to turn a memorial into triumphalism or confrontation.

So I think it is a) a divisive monument and, more importantly, b) one that does not accurately reflect individual contributions to one of the most important historical developments of the 20th century.

Here's to Reagan: his kind light up our political world http://bit.ly/ik5pDs

You are forgetting to add to his list of achievements, his overseeing (through massive funding, training, and CIA agents on the ground) the genocide of tens of thousands of Guatemalan indigenous Mayan people, trade unionists, activists and anyone else who got in the way. Also another of his proudest moments the founding, arming and funding of a terrorist organisation, the Contras in Nicaragua, to attempt to destroy the legitimate government of the Sandinistas. A shining example he set which has been copied and expanded by his successors.

I think you misunderestimate the man. Ronnie had much to offer the third world war.

This article is a joke. The reverence displayed for personality politics in the context of Reagans grave war crimes is indefensible. Killing thousands of civilians through support of dictators and arms supply in south america (not to mention direct bombing and ground campaigns by the U.S.), supporting I.M.F. programmes which destroyed an entire continent , de-regulation of the economy (mirrored in the U.K.) not only a major factor in the current financial crisis but stagnating wages of working people for the last 25 years (in real terms) whilst increasing inequality. Also destroying an incredibly progressive tax system (although not spent all that wisely) and destroying any future political chance of serious taxation debate in the U.S.. Not to mention disasterous middle east policies. All of these points are mentioned in the article but ignored encouraging praise of Reagan for the more lofty achievement of “light(ing) up our political world.”

“it is possible to disagree with someone politically and yet admire them as a leader.” true. “And on his own terms, Reagan was a successful leader.” Not really true. He left the country saddled with debt which as far as i’m aware is not a goal of laissez faire politics and if anything points only to the disparity betweens his rhetoric and actions. He also wholly failed on the unwinable “war on drugs” which he declared.
The assertion that “He had two focuses for his presidency: peace and prosperity.” is completely undermined by his record. Many Americans were better off for a short time but to confuse this with prosperity in the short or long term is a mistake.
“He had a moral clarity of voice, a wit, a warmth, a charm, a comforting story-telling manner, and a glint in his eye.” Perhaps but I don’t understand why any of these admirable political leadership qualities unless one is more interested in personality than substance.

I’m a regular reader of this blog and am hugely disappointed in the discounting of serious political and economic blunders which caused death, misery and injustice, in the U.S.and abroad, because the author believes Reagan was a likeable guy.

In short: no he did not deserve a statue.

I don’t know about the world but he certainly lit up large swathes of Latin America. Goes to show how far charm will get you though. By rights he should have been impeached.

Here's to Reagan: his kind light up our political world http://bit.ly/jY3TlU

@Noel “the Soviet Bloc was stagnating, with the frustrations of the people bubbling below the surface regardless of external pressures”

It’s all very well to abstract away ‘external pressures pressure’ in a phrase, but it’s much harder to do it in a real analysis because these pressures were enormous both physiologically (the threat of nuclear annihilation) and economically.

Throughout the Cold War the Warsaw Pact (mainly the Soviet Union) was able to match the military power of NATO (mainly the US), not quantitatively (NATO had more troops) but qualitatively.

This was something of an economic achievement. Right from the end of the Second World War the Soviet Union was much smaller and poorer than the United States and its allies. Any arms race between the two blocs was bound to impose a much higher burden on the Soviets than on the West.

Exactly how big the arms burden was is difficult to calculate and ‘experts’ disagree wildly. Minimum estimate start at around 12 percent of Soviet GDP. Maximum estimate range from 30 percent and upward. For the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of Soviet-style central planning the exact figures don’t matter: they are all way above the level that any market economy could sustain without going into crisis.

Despite the burden, the Soviet economy functioned better in terms of its education, health service, housing, law and order than those of its successor states. Further the Soviet economy grew. The exact rate is the subject of furious discussion but the ‘expert’ agree that it did grow right up till the point when Gorbachev dismantled the planning system.

As for popular discontent, well, as you say yourself people’s frustrations bubbled “below the surface”.

Labour Party remains committed to turning itself into a lapdog for right-wing ideologues … as if embracing Thatcher in Nu Labour wasn’t enough, now we have to endure this spectacle …

Noel – And I suppose the 2.5 millions killed in the gulags were better?

What evidence do you have to state “the genocide of tens of thousands of Guatemalan indigenous Mayan people, trade unionists, activists and anyone else who got in the way”? Which trade unionists?

And (working on the assumption you’re not an American) what business is it of yours what another country chooses to spend it’s own money on?

The fact is Reagan almost single handedly finished off the horrible “governance” (behind high walls patrolled by men with guns) called Socialism and for that we can all be grateful.

It’s why we’re free to participate in this open blog; he provided the umbrella of democracy Europe now lives under. No other president had the balls to challenge the vile regime to the East of the European land mass but he did.

Certainly those forced to live under the oppressive regime were grateful to him and not part of the sneering European “elites”. To not understand how important Reagan was historically, is to not understand politics or how the real world works.

No one’s saying you have to like the character – it’s a free country – but you’re just annoyed he finished off the hated Soviet Union and so your blind stupidity clouds your opinion.

No offence…

PMK – Too late. It’s past tense regarding the lapdog…

@Anon E mouse

The genocide in Guatemala is well documented http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/report/english/toc.html . So is the Reagan administration backing of the military dictatorship of the time with funding, arms and training. What is open to debate still is whether the CIA were actively involved on the ground as part of the death squads. Reagan’s contribution to the fall of the communists dictators in Europe was negligible, these regimes were finished by ordinary people organising together and standing up against their oppressors.
If you need to throw your weight behind a hero who defeated communism then you really should be talking about Lech Wałęsa not Ronald Reagan.
Of course Reagan was not always the staunch anti communist from 1980-86 he funnelled $86 million dollars to the Khmer Rouge in their base in Thailand to help with their war against the Cambodian regime.

@George Hallam I think your comment should have been directed @Karl Hungus not me

Reagan: a true great. Fitting that we should honour him with a statue.

@RedNaylor want to read a liberal rehabilitation of him? yeah you do http://t.co/XljR7FC

@RedNaylor want to read a liberal rehabilitation of him? yeah you do http://t.co/XljR7FC

@Noel .Reagan didn’t single handedly tear down the Berlin wall. He saw a political opportunity and he took it. The process of the break up of the soviet union was already well under way when he said “tear down this wall”. His role was truly miniscule next to internal factors.
Saying that another parties crimes were worse doesn’t exclude crimes committed by Reagan. That is playground morality. Especially when Reagan’s part in helping shut down the Gulags was minimal. “To not understand how important Reagan was historically, is to not understand politics or how the real world works.” I actually agree with this statement. However i don’t see how one can gain a true understanding of his importance while over hyping what he barely did and not accounting for the thousands of deaths, ruined economies (both at home and abroad) and deregulation which is contributing to problems to this day.

Judge the man by his record and not what he said or how he’s remembered. Surely that’s the only “real world” way to understand this awful, awful president.

Jamie – You’re tripping if you don’t believe the reason the Soviet Union collapsed was due to Reagan arming West Germany and having massive popularity at home. It’s what Gorbachev said at the time as I remember but I may be wrong.

Your problem is you haven’t grown up Jamie and still actually believe Socialism has something to offer people and that’s why you dislike Reagan. No offence but you probably voted for Gordon Brown which hardly shows political awareness does it?

Reagan was a star – and I’d have voted Democrat if I was an American…

@Anon E Mouse – You’re tripping if you think that the Soviet Union resembles a Socialist state. Also I notice you only responded to one of my points which concerned the one thing Reagan had supposedly done right concerning foreign policy. Not any of his blunders. Is this due to hypocrisy, ignorance or willful neglect of his record? Or alternatively you may think his actions were justified.
I don’t like to use Wikipedia as a source but I can’t really link to books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
This article doesn’t even mention Ronald Reagan once so small was his contribution to the break up of the soviet union. I am in no way a supporter of the Soviet Union.

I don’t understand what my personal voting has to do with Reagans record. I voted for the Labour party with a heavy heart at the last general election (and labour/green at Scottish level) not Gordon Brown, that is how the U.K. electoral system works. I voted labour due to a lack of more leftist/liberal candidates.
I do find quite offensive the presumption that I “haven’t grown up”. Not really because of your apparent arrogance that young adults (I’m 25) have nothing to contribute to politics but mainly because it’s from a person who believes someone’s personal voting habits impact on their ability to understand politics and the historical record to which you seem unaware .

On your last points Ronald Reagan was a star but then he was President. Personality doesn’t make a good President. On your “and I’d have voted Democrat if I was an American…”. Firstly the difference between Republican and Democrat policies are paper thin, even worse than the political hemogeny in this country. Secondly as covered above you seem to be re-emphasising that voting patterns somehow back up an argument (a point i simply can’t understand).

If you’d like to respond to Reagans record rather than a dismissal based on a flawed understanding of Socialism and history or respond without resorting to quite pathetic personal attacks I’d be interested. But maybe that’s too much to expect from someone who (form their posts) appears to find personality more important than substance much like Reagan and most of his supporters.

Oh for Heaven’s sake, the Soviet Union collapsed because oil prices fell through the floor in the 80s and they ran out of money. Why the right insists on crediting the Berlin Wall coming down with a president who’d been out of office for a a year and probably out of his mind for many months before is beyond me.

To quote Christopher Hitchens,

“Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had “stood beside us in every war we’ve ever fought,” when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war. Reagan allowed Alexander Haig… to greenlight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then unbelievably accused Tip O’Neill and the Democrats of “scuttling.” Reagan sold heavy weapons to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn’t sold them (and hadn’t traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck. Reagan then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied unceasingly about that, too. Reagan then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret Thatcher’s intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan’s request, we might still not know about this.)”

I don’t see why someone who put 2 trillion dollars worth of debt on US taxpayers, get a statue.

The pressure on the USSR was economic. No matter how powerfull they were, militarily, at home they lived in slums. Reagan forced them to the table by betting they would “Jaw Jaw” before war. Team Freedom won.

You ‘marxist maggots’ failed in Eastern Europe for the same reason you failed in Cambodia.

“You have Nothing to offer Humanity”.

Starvation, supression, humiliation, slavery (in camps), poverty and Death.

Marxism is a Death Cult. It has nothing to offer. History Shows That !

@billi Reagan did not force anyone to do anything. The Russians wanted to negotiate after they accepted the U.S.S.R. was falling apart. As for Marxism the Soviet Union was not Marxist neither is China, Cuba, Venezuela or anywhere else. History tells us little about Marxism. For the closest things to Marxism in action (although really anarcho-syndicalism which is very similar) see anything about the Paris Commune,Kibbutz or Anarchist Catalonia. Interestingly in anarchist Catalonia during the civil war they were attacked by “communists” backed by the Soviets (who were broadly speaking closer to Stalinism not Marxists) None of these examples are perfect or a society I would neccisarily want to live in. But rather than being a “death cult” in Anarchist Catalonia productivity and general well being is believed by most scholars to have increased quite substantially compared to pre-civil war Catalonia.

@Billi “The pressure on the USSR was economic. No matter how powerfull they were, militarily, at home they lived in slums.”

A slum: a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. UN-HABITAT ( United Nations agency) definition.

Soviet tenants has security of tenure.

matthew fox – For once I agree with you. I believe you REALLY don’t understand why he got a statue…

Jamie – All you’re doing is making excuses. No sensible person wants Socialism irrespective of how you try to sugar the pill. The idea of Socialism sucks…

@anon e mouse – So again no mention of Reagans record. I don’t know if you’re not aware of it (although there’s been much discussion of it above) or you think it’s such a good record it’s not worthy of mention.

I also like your finessed argument “The idea of socialism sucks…”. It would be easier to take your argument seriously if you hadn’t confused socialism with what the Soviet Union practised earlier. I’m not excusing in anyway the Soviet Unions crimes. They were horrendous. But they weren’t Socialists. I only ask you at least recognise what Reagan did (whether you think it’s right or wrong). Arguing from apparent ignorance both of history and even what is or is not socialism then referring to others as being unreasonable,inexperienced and making excuses while not responding seriously to any points yourself is confirmation of either inability to debate, accept facts that contradict your point of view,a lack of understanding of basic political theory (high school level) or all three.

So that was fun. First time i’ve ever commented on any blog post. it certainly lived up to my expectations of informed and reasonable debate. won’t be doing this again………..

Jamie – Your socialist bias it clearly evident in every response you make. That aside, what Reagan did was change the “tone” of thinking in America in the same way Thatcher did over here.

Pre Reagan, America had hardline left wingers and he moved them towards the right – seemingly permanently. Thatcher moved Labour the same way here from a childish party with silly left wing aspirations, to an electable popular movement of winners under Tony Blair.

At some point the Labour Party in this country will wake up, ditch Miliband and shift rightwards again like the whole of the planet seems to have gone.

In my opinion the world’s “right shift” started under Reagan and despite a few hiccups it’s back on track again.

As for reasonable debate if you read some of the previous articles on this fine blog you’ll realise it may a forlorn hope…

Reagan was just a figure head. He acted his part well while behind the scenes the representatives of corporate America quietly looted the country.

The arms spending, which supposedly brought the USSR down, was a major part of the looting process. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse anyway and it would have fallen apart anyway.

Regan’s legacy is:

- the fact that unregulated corporations and rich individuals rule the world and if they get it wrong the ordinary citizen bails them out, loses their jobs etc

- that these rulers don’t pay their fair whack of tax and their globalised companies destroy small business and bring down the standard of living of the majority.

- that both in America and Russia there is a military imperative – where there is too much power in the military lobby which leads to wars like Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya and draconian power for state organisations in the ‘War on Terror’.

- and let’s not forget his role in under-mining democracy and people’s rights all over the world.

“And (working on the assumption you’re not an American) what business is it of yours what another country chooses to spend it’s own money on?”

Ancd what business is it of yours, Mickey Mouse, what Jamie decides to make his business. Keep your nose out and stick to your scrounging.

“On the economic front, he reduced tax rates across the board, he stemmed the increase in federal spending”

I can’t believe you’re perpetrating that myth, Anthony, and didn’t do some fact-checking beforehand. As the historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s diaries, said: “There’s a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn’t happen that way. It’s false.”

After Reagan’s first year in office, the annual deficit was 2.6% of gross domestic product. But it hit a high of 6% in 1983, stayed in the 5% range for the next three years, and fell to 3.1% by 1988. Throughout his presidency, federal spending grew by an average of 2.5% a year. Annual spending averaged 22.4% of GDP on his watch, which is above today’s 40-year average of 20.7%,

And he raised all manner of taxes (Reagan in fact raised taxes in seven of his eight years), most famously the 1983 Social Security reform legislation that, among other things, accelerated an increase in the payroll taxes. All told, the tax increases Reagan approved ended up canceling out much of the reduction in tax revenue that resulted from his 1981 legislation. By the end of his presidency, annual federal tax receipts averaged 18.2% of GDP, very slightly above the 40-year average today. Furthermore, blue and white collar workers were paying a larger proportion of their income in taxes than when he entered office.

Then there is the matter of the national debt. When he took office, it stood at $700bn; when he left, $3 trillion.

By the standards of today’s Republicans, the Gipper would be crucified as a RINO.

@Richard. I most definitely did fact check. Look at what I wrote and look at the statistics you’ve quoted. There is no contradiction at all. I talked about spending- you are talking about deficit/debt. Different things. And I didn’t say he reduced spending. I said he’d stemmed the increase. I quoted very specific tax rates- though things like excise duty increased and social security taxes increased (as a result of a law passed in 1977 before he was president). On the debt I say:

“but inequality increased and a federal deficit remained despite economic boom times.”

Yes, there was more data I could have put in. I chose not to in the interests of avoiding a 5000 word essay. What I did include gives a fair overview.

Richard – Scrounging? (With the exception of child benefit) not in the last 48 years….

I see your control freak tendencies haven’t diminished since your last posts.

Typical brainless Gordon Brown supporter….

Paul Odtaa – Your comments cannot be blamed on Reagan alone and they certainly have increased since his demise.

1. The bankers were let off the leash by the Labour government in this country and after deregulation, Britain’s worst ever chancellor, Gordon Brown rewarded them with knighthoods and our money – hardly attributable to a past US president.

2. Since when did America control the tax affairs of individual nations regarding avoidance schemes and the like?

3. With the exception of Grenada (hardly a huge affair considering) please name the wars America under Reagan were involved in. Or the wars directly attributable to his military spending.

I won’t even comment on your “undermining democracy” nonsense.

All your remarks are just an excuse to indulge in your left wing, Reagan bashing agenda. Certainly in terms of economics tax avoidance may have increased worldwide – the Guardian Newspaper group in this country is hardly Reagan’s fault though is it?

Your post describes the way the world is (magnified under a Labour government in this country) and not a world or system started by Ronald Reagan. The man finished off the horrible Soviet Union so big up to him…

Paul Odtaa – I do agree with you on the poor bailing out bankers, city slickers and spivs but it has always been like that.

Which is why Greece should be thrown out of the Euro and the taxpayers of Europe shouldn’t be picking up that tab…

25 said “Reagan was just a figure head. He acted his part well while behind the scenes the representatives of corporate America quietly looted the country.”
“looted ” is a bit emotional, but otherwise this seems fair enough.

“The arms spending, which supposedly brought the USSR down, was a major part of the looting process.”
Yes, there were other motives for US arms spending apart from national security.

“The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse anyway and it would have fallen apart anyway.”

No, this is just silly for two reasons.

Firstly, it involves abstracting away the enormous external pressure the Soviets were under. If there had been no Cold war then the whole situation would have changes economically (reduced military spending) and politically (relaxed security). The Left was, and remains, highly critical of the repressive measures taken in the Soviet Union. It’s worth taking a moment to compare them with the security measures taken in the West to combat the threat of terrorism over the last few years. Yet we don’t face an existential threat: the Soviets did. Take away the Cold war and the whole climate changes (if you’ll excuse the analogy).

Secondly, it has no empirical basis. It’s easy to be wise after the event but remember: the collapse of the Soviet Union took everybody by surprise. Everybody in the West was hostile to the Soviets but they did not expect things to fall apart. Why? Because there were none of the usual preconditions for a collapse. There was little serious discontent. Yes, some people grumbled, but they were not disaffected. Most importantly, there was no mass movement for change.

Of course Western commentators were consistently negative and picked up on anything that would show the system in a bad light but this was just propaganda. In 1980, Alec Nove, an implacable critic of the Soviet Union, responded with irritation to the barrage of ill-informed comments

” To repeat .., there is no catastrophe imminent, the system is not in chaos, the quality of its planning and of its production are not in decline. Indeed, quality is actually improving. So, to take another example, is agricultural output, allowing for year-by year weather variations, though at a very high cost. Exclusive emphasis upon chaos and waste, the image of production of unsaleable rubbish, is misleading, especially if contrasted with the past, when the Soviet system was more wasteful, more inefficient, less productive. People have not become worse off.”

The economy was functioning. In fact it was delivering far better results for most of the population than the post-soviet economies are delivering today.

My positive (yet heavily qualified) @leftfootfwd piece on #Reagan is still provoking a great deal of debate….http://t.co/JDCdgWR

Reagan has a legacy so distorted by the Conservative idolization of him that we may never have a clear picture of the real man behind the television. Did he rid the world of commie scum? Check out my portrait of The Gipper in commemoration of his 100th birthday at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-100th-gipper.html