REAGAN HATERS ANONYMOUS
Posted in political on May 26th, 2006
“Bitterness is a poison pill you swallow, hoping your enemy will die.”
Hello, my name’s H.C. (Hello H.C.) and I’m a recovering Reagan hater. It all started in the summer of 1980, I was a wet-behind-the-ears Liberal Hippie who honestly believed that Jimmy Carter was the best president we had ever had. Jimmy was honest, cared about the poor, and thought pot should be legal. Everything I thought was important in a president. It was those bastard Republicans and all their Fortune 500 buddies that had screwed up the economy in my eyes. They had all their buddies in the banking industry drive up the interest rates (I didn’t honestly know how that worked) and their friends in Big Oil were pushing the price of oil threw the roof to punish us for being so stupid as to elect an honest man like Jimmy Carter. You could not have convinced me otherwise.
Reagan, from what I could see, was just another tool in a pinstriped suit and burgundy tie. He was an actor for Christsakes, how could he possibly be qualified to be the leader of the free world? If elected, I believed, he would just do what he was told for the benefit of Rich Fat Cats, and we, the poor hard working Americans, would be left to fend for ourselves. Even worse, he quoted the Bible on occasion, a clear (I thought) violation of church and state! I was certain he wanted me and all my dirty hippie friends drafted into another Vietnam just for having long hair and opposing war.
Even worse, for his Vice-President he had George H. W. Bush, an ex-C.I.A. Director. Those were the guys who spied on decent everyday Americans for no good reason except to catch you smoking pot. This, to me was the same as having the K.G.B. next in line to the presidency. This was my birth into the world of politics. I started reading everything I could get my hands on about Reagan and Bush. All the media that would give me the TRUTH, you know, Mother Earth News, The Flint Voice (With Michael Moore) and of course, Rolling Stone and Playboy. Any other media was controlled by Reagan and Bush’s buddies and in my opinion, could not be trusted. My media however, was wholesome and had only one agenda, to give me the unvarnished truth. I preached to anyone that would listen for hours on end about the evils of the Reagan Empire. I did everything in my power to get everyone I could to vote for Jimmy Carter and save our Great Nation from certain Fascism.
When Jimmy lost I fell into a deep depression.
The next 8 years were horrific for me, every day I would curse the news. Any article in any form of media about Reagan had me foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. My friends, even the ones that hated Reagan themselves, would avoid bringing anything up about politics for fear of setting me off in a tirade. I carried articles I had clipped out of newspapers and magazines in my pocket just I case some misinformed idiot dared to challenge by points. I preached about Iran-Contra, the S&L Scandal, the behind the scene dealings and any issue I could find. I gleefully bought a copy of Playboy with the article on Patti Davis, Reagan’s daughter and pointed out as absolute truth her accusations of sexual assault and abuse by Nancy and Ron.
My lowest day came on March 30, 1981, even though it was early in my addiction to hating Reagan. That day, John Hinckley Jr. put a bullet in Ronald Reagan’s body. I could not have been happier. Even though my pacifistic beliefs were contrary to violence, I wallowed in his misery. Like most Liberals I made exceptions to my beliefs to suit myself. I spent the whole day calling my friends to tell them the “happy” news. When he refused to die, I cursed the surgeons who had saved him. It would be 7 more years of Christian right-wing ideological madness and I was certain it would be the death of everything I loved about this country. I seriously considered moving my family to Canada. Even when Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s I commented to my friends how “convenient” that was, how he could now claim to “not remember” facts about Iran-Contra and the S&L Scandal.
It took all the way up to the second term of Bill Clinton before I started to see what a mess I had become. Although all my Liberal friends loved having someone so well versed to defend their views, I had become miserable in my pessimism. With no one left to blame everything wrong in this country on, I slowly emerged into the light. With the help of patient Moderate Sponsors I began to see politics in a new way. Something that had not occurred to me before started to manifest itself in me. What if all my Liberal sources weren’t as clean as I supposed? Why had Michael Moore abandoned Flint like a used condom in almost the same manner that his nemesis General Motors had done? Why was he now hanging out with the Establishment and living in mansions? Why did I not notice before that all the people that I so admired as champions of the poor were lining their pockets with money and then excusing it the same way Republicans did? I needed help.
With the help of R.H.A. I have now turned the corner. I still don’t agree with everything that Reagan did, but I now see that he wasn’t all bad. He did bring pride and optimism back to the U.S. The Wall in Berlin did come down as he had predicted. Even Patti Davis refuted her earlier claims of abuse, claiming now that she was used by Liberals who took advantage of her drug problem to make her do their bidding. I found out that Reagan had grown up poor, that his father was the town drunk and a distant man. That he had started his political career as a Democrat and a union leader. And it turned out he really did have Alzheimer’s and suffered a long slow death. That didn’t bring me the joy I thought it would, to see a man, who once stood so tall, reduced to a mindless shadow of his past. When he died June 5, 2004 I was not as happy as I thought I would be, I fact I was sad to see my nemesis pass, we had a long history together. My own cruelty now exposed, I had to face myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I feel better now. It’s been years since I went into a fit over Reagan. Most of the people in my group have now recovered and moved on. I hear there’s a new group forming over a more “current” president, and I have some advice for them. Listen to your Moderate Sponsors; try to take it one day at a time. Start by saying you like his tie or something about his wife. Take deep breaths when listening to your religious conservative friends and try listening without gritting your teeth (it makes it hard to hear). It’s a hard long path, but in the end, you might even find he really wasn’t completely bad. And maybe you were the victim of some finely tuned propaganda yourself. It turns out both sides does it. H.C.
Posted in political on May 26th, 2006
“Bitterness is a poison pill you swallow, hoping your enemy will die.”
Hello, my name’s H.C. (Hello H.C.) and I’m a recovering Reagan hater. It all started in the summer of 1980, I was a wet-behind-the-ears Liberal Hippie who honestly believed that Jimmy Carter was the best president we had ever had. Jimmy was honest, cared about the poor, and thought pot should be legal. Everything I thought was important in a president. It was those bastard Republicans and all their Fortune 500 buddies that had screwed up the economy in my eyes. They had all their buddies in the banking industry drive up the interest rates (I didn’t honestly know how that worked) and their friends in Big Oil were pushing the price of oil threw the roof to punish us for being so stupid as to elect an honest man like Jimmy Carter. You could not have convinced me otherwise.
Reagan, from what I could see, was just another tool in a pinstriped suit and burgundy tie. He was an actor for Christsakes, how could he possibly be qualified to be the leader of the free world? If elected, I believed, he would just do what he was told for the benefit of Rich Fat Cats, and we, the poor hard working Americans, would be left to fend for ourselves. Even worse, he quoted the Bible on occasion, a clear (I thought) violation of church and state! I was certain he wanted me and all my dirty hippie friends drafted into another Vietnam just for having long hair and opposing war.
Even worse, for his Vice-President he had George H. W. Bush, an ex-C.I.A. Director. Those were the guys who spied on decent everyday Americans for no good reason except to catch you smoking pot. This, to me was the same as having the K.G.B. next in line to the presidency. This was my birth into the world of politics. I started reading everything I could get my hands on about Reagan and Bush. All the media that would give me the TRUTH, you know, Mother Earth News, The Flint Voice (With Michael Moore) and of course, Rolling Stone and Playboy. Any other media was controlled by Reagan and Bush’s buddies and in my opinion, could not be trusted. My media however, was wholesome and had only one agenda, to give me the unvarnished truth. I preached to anyone that would listen for hours on end about the evils of the Reagan Empire. I did everything in my power to get everyone I could to vote for Jimmy Carter and save our Great Nation from certain Fascism.
When Jimmy lost I fell into a deep depression.
The next 8 years were horrific for me, every day I would curse the news. Any article in any form of media about Reagan had me foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. My friends, even the ones that hated Reagan themselves, would avoid bringing anything up about politics for fear of setting me off in a tirade. I carried articles I had clipped out of newspapers and magazines in my pocket just I case some misinformed idiot dared to challenge by points. I preached about Iran-Contra, the S&L Scandal, the behind the scene dealings and any issue I could find. I gleefully bought a copy of Playboy with the article on Patti Davis, Reagan’s daughter and pointed out as absolute truth her accusations of sexual assault and abuse by Nancy and Ron.
My lowest day came on March 30, 1981, even though it was early in my addiction to hating Reagan. That day, John Hinckley Jr. put a bullet in Ronald Reagan’s body. I could not have been happier. Even though my pacifistic beliefs were contrary to violence, I wallowed in his misery. Like most Liberals I made exceptions to my beliefs to suit myself. I spent the whole day calling my friends to tell them the “happy” news. When he refused to die, I cursed the surgeons who had saved him. It would be 7 more years of Christian right-wing ideological madness and I was certain it would be the death of everything I loved about this country. I seriously considered moving my family to Canada. Even when Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s I commented to my friends how “convenient” that was, how he could now claim to “not remember” facts about Iran-Contra and the S&L Scandal.
It took all the way up to the second term of Bill Clinton before I started to see what a mess I had become. Although all my Liberal friends loved having someone so well versed to defend their views, I had become miserable in my pessimism. With no one left to blame everything wrong in this country on, I slowly emerged into the light. With the help of patient Moderate Sponsors I began to see politics in a new way. Something that had not occurred to me before started to manifest itself in me. What if all my Liberal sources weren’t as clean as I supposed? Why had Michael Moore abandoned Flint like a used condom in almost the same manner that his nemesis General Motors had done? Why was he now hanging out with the Establishment and living in mansions? Why did I not notice before that all the people that I so admired as champions of the poor were lining their pockets with money and then excusing it the same way Republicans did? I needed help.
With the help of R.H.A. I have now turned the corner. I still don’t agree with everything that Reagan did, but I now see that he wasn’t all bad. He did bring pride and optimism back to the U.S. The Wall in Berlin did come down as he had predicted. Even Patti Davis refuted her earlier claims of abuse, claiming now that she was used by Liberals who took advantage of her drug problem to make her do their bidding. I found out that Reagan had grown up poor, that his father was the town drunk and a distant man. That he had started his political career as a Democrat and a union leader. And it turned out he really did have Alzheimer’s and suffered a long slow death. That didn’t bring me the joy I thought it would, to see a man, who once stood so tall, reduced to a mindless shadow of his past. When he died June 5, 2004 I was not as happy as I thought I would be, I fact I was sad to see my nemesis pass, we had a long history together. My own cruelty now exposed, I had to face myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I feel better now. It’s been years since I went into a fit over Reagan. Most of the people in my group have now recovered and moved on. I hear there’s a new group forming over a more “current” president, and I have some advice for them. Listen to your Moderate Sponsors; try to take it one day at a time. Start by saying you like his tie or something about his wife. Take deep breaths when listening to your religious conservative friends and try listening without gritting your teeth (it makes it hard to hear). It’s a hard long path, but in the end, you might even find he really wasn’t completely bad. And maybe you were the victim of some finely tuned propaganda yourself. It turns out both sides does it. H.C.
No comments:
Post a Comment