Blame Reagan, Not China
Happy Saturday!
There is a massive disinformation campaign going on right now in conservative media to blame China for the pandemic. In one sentence the narrative is China has abysmal, irresponsible public health policies where people eat all kinds of exotic animals like bats. No. China is not to blame. Reagan is to blame.
Before we get to blaming Reagan I would like to take a detour regarding Trump's approval rating:
Cry, my beloved country, cry. So much for Harry Truman's, "The buck stops here." America now approves take no responsibility. What is wrong with people. I don't care what Trump does after saying he takes no responsibility. His approval rating should be 0%. What is wrong with people. Two generations after Truman we go from "the buck stops here" to "I take no responsibility at all". Cry, my beloved country, cry.
I was listening to NPR this morning promoting propaganda. The propaganda was about how great it is that we are screening people by phone and teleconferencing. Uh no, that's a huge failure.
You know why? Because we have data today about coronavirus being asymptomatic. You know how we know this?
BECAUSE SOUTH KOREA NOT ONLY TESTED EVERYONE WITH SYMPTOMS, BUT THEY ALSO TESTED PEOPLE SHOWING NO SYMPTOMS.
By testing people with no symptoms the South Koreans figured out coronavirus is asymptomatic. The US is NOT testing people with no symptoms. In fact we have so few test kits that our country is humble bragging on NPR that our screening is the best and so the fewest people need to be tested. This is a huge failure and cause for disapproval, NPR. The entire US government deserves a 100% disapproval rating and that includes Trump. Yet here we are with Trump having a 53% approval rating. Something is seriously wrong with people.
And it is not just testing. Trump gutted CDC funding in 2018 and Congress let him. In some respects Congress deserves even more derision and disapproval than Trump. Congress could easily pass veto-proof bills overriding Trump if Congress cared at all about the American people. All bills originate in the House. The President has only veto power. Trump's privilege to gut CDC funding is a direct result of Congress abdicating responsibility and handing it to the executive branch. Congress deserves the worst of our contempt.
Back to the matter at hand, Reagan is to blame, not China.
Reagan would be the worst President in modern times if not for the fact the George W. Bush racked up an impressive death count in the Middle East and $4 trillion war spending at home.
During the 1980s regime change was happening in both China and Russia. Communism was fading, or so it seemed. Today we ring our hands about Russia buying Facebook ads to interfere with US elections. What Russia is doing today is nothing compared to the interference the US undertook in both Russia and China during the Reagan years.
Anyway, I was in college in the early 1990s. I attended a conference where the former Ambassador to Russia under Reagan gave a speech. In that speech he laid out that in the late 1980s the Reagan administration wanted to interfere in both Russia and China to defeat communism. New opportunity existed then due to perceived new weaknesses and change of leadership. The Ambassador indicated that the Reagan cabinet debated exclusively economic or political interference. He said the consensus was within Reagan's cabinet that trying to implement both economic and political reform at the same time was too big a bite to chew. So they limited themselves to one or the other: economic or political reform (interference). They deadlocked. They could not agree on just one as an overall approach to both countries. Therefore they compromised. They drew straws and decided to go the political route in Russia and the economic route in China.
Today we have economic sanctions against Iran for political reasons and today we are not lifting those sanctions during the pandemic. The US had a similar approach to China in the 1980s because of communism. The US could have easily maintained fifty years of economic sanctions against China the same way we have with Cuba on moral grounds. If we had fifty years of economic sanctions today against China then the coronavirus epidemic would be local to China. No trade, no virus spread.
Instead, Captain Raygun decided on an economic blitz into China. Starting in the 1980s businesses in America were given the green light to invest in China and not Russia. As a consequence China's human rights abuses that include irresponsible public health policies have now lead to a pandemic because we did not isolate China economically as we could have.
Did we win? Did our economic plan in China overthrow communism? Did our political plan in Russia overthrow communism?
No, on both counts. First off, neither China nor the USSR were communist in anything other than brand. In the 1980s they both had war economies that were created to prop up authoritarian dictatorships. Do they have democracy today in either Russia or China? Nope, They are still but very much authoritarian governments. We failed to defeat authoritarianism we call communism. Reagan failed.
We did gain something though, cheap labor for capitalism profits. Reagan started the process to create the economic powerhouse that is China today. America gutted its manufacturing and shipped it offshore wholesale chasing cheap labor. This trade now means whatever disease China gets, we get. China's terrible human rights track record and China's terrible public health policy was known to Captain Raygun and his administration when they lifted economic sanctions against China. They knew then they were gambling with our lives today. They gambled that economic reform in China would bring the down the communist government and this risk was worth it. They failed to bring down the government.
So Captain Raygun is to blame, not China. We could still have fifty years of economic sanctions on China.
Aother side note. I'd like to take this time to thoroughly eviscerate any notion that Captain Raygun was anything other than a terrible, terrible President.
1. AIDs. Christian bigotry against gays is a forever indictment of Christianity being evil and wicked. Reagan followed in that tradition and thousands of Americans died due to bigotry of Christians. Christian, noun: 1. Someone who praises Reagan and never mentions his AIDs response resulting in thousands of Americans dead and all the while vilifying Jimmy Carter for this Israeli bigotry where no Americans died. Christians are morally vapid.
2. Fairness Doctrine. Journalism died the day the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. The Fairness Doctrine meant one had to give equal time to both Democrats and Republicans in the news and opinions of public media. That was the fairness. Conservative took affront to this fairness claiming, and I'm not making this up, that conservatives had no voice.
3. Deficit spending. It probably never occurred to Jimmy Carter to borrow a $1 trillion to get a out of recession because that's insane. Republicans did it during the 1980s. What took eight years to do under Reagan will soon be realized with one year of debt being $1 trillion dollars. Thank Reagan for setting that borrowing precedent.
4. Bank Capital. They deregulated so much the 1980s. Bank capitalization is the cash reserve of 10% banks traditionally had to keep on hand in order to keep from going broke from a run on the bank. They changed that to 4% in the 1980s. This caused the savings and loan crisis immediately following.
5. Interstate banks. Prior to the 1980s banks had to operate within a single state. Banks could not operate across state lines. Captain Raygun and the Republicans repealed this law. Banks then consolidated to the big three banks we have today and became too big to fail. The exact reason the regulation against interstate banks existed in the first place was to limit exposure of bank failure like we had during the Depression.
5. Military spending. Oh yes! We defeated the mighty USSR by winning an arms race of spending billions of dollars. Somebody forgot to tell Congress we won that arms race as they are still spending like drunken soldiers. It is interesting to compare Captain Raygun as a Republican to Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower warned us against the military industrial complex. Reagan built it.
I could go on but I'm exhausted. Reagan's failed war on drugs meant our prison population exploded. The list goes on and on about how Captain Raygun is an abject failure. Look at it this way. Reagan opening the economic doors with China has lead to China being what it is today. Name one such thing that Jimmy Carter did that still resonates today. You can't because Carter is not the failure all the propaganda makes him out to be. Reagan's Central American wars destabilized all the governments in Central America. These very same governments are still unstable today. As a result the "invasion" of immigrants at the southern border are not from Mexico as Trump has said all along, but instead are from Central America. We helped create that Cental American mess and take no responsibility for the people fleeing it today. That's Captain Raygun's legacy. Jimmy Carter has no such legacy.
But it is not just Raygun. It is the entire Repbulican party that still promotes and lives Reagan's legacy. Raygun's evil bigotry regarding AIDs is not just ancient history. Pence started an AIDs epidemic in Indiana and Christians rewarded that behavior by successfully lobbying for Pence to be Trump's VP. Evil. These people are just evil.
Blame Reagan, not China.
Looking for solutions and not blame? If so...
Join an MGO Today!
You can learn more about Irreni World Scale by visiting:
Cheers!
Benefit of cooperation replaces rule of law!
Freethinkers unite!
Freedom!
Party On!
Let's get cracking!
Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!
Politics as Science!
Demand Irreni World Scale!
Anti-theism is feminism!
Think disruption!
Empathy for all!
Moral relativity: think it, breath it!
Prove it or lose it!
Conversations equal consensus!
Welcome to the 21st century!
Scale your empathy, scale the world!
Find your tribe!
Be sexy people!
The future is coming!
Innovate at a rapid pace!
Slow speed ahead!
Well come! and well met!
There is a massive disinformation campaign going on right now in conservative media to blame China for the pandemic. In one sentence the narrative is China has abysmal, irresponsible public health policies where people eat all kinds of exotic animals like bats. No. China is not to blame. Reagan is to blame.
Before we get to blaming Reagan I would like to take a detour regarding Trump's approval rating:
Republican, noun: 1. Trump says, "I take no responsibility at all" then Trump's approval rating for the coronavirus response jumps from 43% to 53%.
Cry, my beloved country, cry. So much for Harry Truman's, "The buck stops here." America now approves take no responsibility. What is wrong with people. I don't care what Trump does after saying he takes no responsibility. His approval rating should be 0%. What is wrong with people. Two generations after Truman we go from "the buck stops here" to "I take no responsibility at all". Cry, my beloved country, cry.
I was listening to NPR this morning promoting propaganda. The propaganda was about how great it is that we are screening people by phone and teleconferencing. Uh no, that's a huge failure.
You know why? Because we have data today about coronavirus being asymptomatic. You know how we know this?
BECAUSE SOUTH KOREA NOT ONLY TESTED EVERYONE WITH SYMPTOMS, BUT THEY ALSO TESTED PEOPLE SHOWING NO SYMPTOMS.
By testing people with no symptoms the South Koreans figured out coronavirus is asymptomatic. The US is NOT testing people with no symptoms. In fact we have so few test kits that our country is humble bragging on NPR that our screening is the best and so the fewest people need to be tested. This is a huge failure and cause for disapproval, NPR. The entire US government deserves a 100% disapproval rating and that includes Trump. Yet here we are with Trump having a 53% approval rating. Something is seriously wrong with people.
And it is not just testing. Trump gutted CDC funding in 2018 and Congress let him. In some respects Congress deserves even more derision and disapproval than Trump. Congress could easily pass veto-proof bills overriding Trump if Congress cared at all about the American people. All bills originate in the House. The President has only veto power. Trump's privilege to gut CDC funding is a direct result of Congress abdicating responsibility and handing it to the executive branch. Congress deserves the worst of our contempt.
Back to the matter at hand, Reagan is to blame, not China.
Reagan would be the worst President in modern times if not for the fact the George W. Bush racked up an impressive death count in the Middle East and $4 trillion war spending at home.
During the 1980s regime change was happening in both China and Russia. Communism was fading, or so it seemed. Today we ring our hands about Russia buying Facebook ads to interfere with US elections. What Russia is doing today is nothing compared to the interference the US undertook in both Russia and China during the Reagan years.
Anyway, I was in college in the early 1990s. I attended a conference where the former Ambassador to Russia under Reagan gave a speech. In that speech he laid out that in the late 1980s the Reagan administration wanted to interfere in both Russia and China to defeat communism. New opportunity existed then due to perceived new weaknesses and change of leadership. The Ambassador indicated that the Reagan cabinet debated exclusively economic or political interference. He said the consensus was within Reagan's cabinet that trying to implement both economic and political reform at the same time was too big a bite to chew. So they limited themselves to one or the other: economic or political reform (interference). They deadlocked. They could not agree on just one as an overall approach to both countries. Therefore they compromised. They drew straws and decided to go the political route in Russia and the economic route in China.
Today we have economic sanctions against Iran for political reasons and today we are not lifting those sanctions during the pandemic. The US had a similar approach to China in the 1980s because of communism. The US could have easily maintained fifty years of economic sanctions against China the same way we have with Cuba on moral grounds. If we had fifty years of economic sanctions today against China then the coronavirus epidemic would be local to China. No trade, no virus spread.
Instead, Captain Raygun decided on an economic blitz into China. Starting in the 1980s businesses in America were given the green light to invest in China and not Russia. As a consequence China's human rights abuses that include irresponsible public health policies have now lead to a pandemic because we did not isolate China economically as we could have.
Did we win? Did our economic plan in China overthrow communism? Did our political plan in Russia overthrow communism?
No, on both counts. First off, neither China nor the USSR were communist in anything other than brand. In the 1980s they both had war economies that were created to prop up authoritarian dictatorships. Do they have democracy today in either Russia or China? Nope, They are still but very much authoritarian governments. We failed to defeat authoritarianism we call communism. Reagan failed.
We did gain something though, cheap labor for capitalism profits. Reagan started the process to create the economic powerhouse that is China today. America gutted its manufacturing and shipped it offshore wholesale chasing cheap labor. This trade now means whatever disease China gets, we get. China's terrible human rights track record and China's terrible public health policy was known to Captain Raygun and his administration when they lifted economic sanctions against China. They knew then they were gambling with our lives today. They gambled that economic reform in China would bring the down the communist government and this risk was worth it. They failed to bring down the government.
So Captain Raygun is to blame, not China. We could still have fifty years of economic sanctions on China.
Aother side note. I'd like to take this time to thoroughly eviscerate any notion that Captain Raygun was anything other than a terrible, terrible President.
1. AIDs. Christian bigotry against gays is a forever indictment of Christianity being evil and wicked. Reagan followed in that tradition and thousands of Americans died due to bigotry of Christians. Christian, noun: 1. Someone who praises Reagan and never mentions his AIDs response resulting in thousands of Americans dead and all the while vilifying Jimmy Carter for this Israeli bigotry where no Americans died. Christians are morally vapid.
2. Fairness Doctrine. Journalism died the day the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. The Fairness Doctrine meant one had to give equal time to both Democrats and Republicans in the news and opinions of public media. That was the fairness. Conservative took affront to this fairness claiming, and I'm not making this up, that conservatives had no voice.
3. Deficit spending. It probably never occurred to Jimmy Carter to borrow a $1 trillion to get a out of recession because that's insane. Republicans did it during the 1980s. What took eight years to do under Reagan will soon be realized with one year of debt being $1 trillion dollars. Thank Reagan for setting that borrowing precedent.
4. Bank Capital. They deregulated so much the 1980s. Bank capitalization is the cash reserve of 10% banks traditionally had to keep on hand in order to keep from going broke from a run on the bank. They changed that to 4% in the 1980s. This caused the savings and loan crisis immediately following.
5. Interstate banks. Prior to the 1980s banks had to operate within a single state. Banks could not operate across state lines. Captain Raygun and the Republicans repealed this law. Banks then consolidated to the big three banks we have today and became too big to fail. The exact reason the regulation against interstate banks existed in the first place was to limit exposure of bank failure like we had during the Depression.
5. Military spending. Oh yes! We defeated the mighty USSR by winning an arms race of spending billions of dollars. Somebody forgot to tell Congress we won that arms race as they are still spending like drunken soldiers. It is interesting to compare Captain Raygun as a Republican to Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower warned us against the military industrial complex. Reagan built it.
I could go on but I'm exhausted. Reagan's failed war on drugs meant our prison population exploded. The list goes on and on about how Captain Raygun is an abject failure. Look at it this way. Reagan opening the economic doors with China has lead to China being what it is today. Name one such thing that Jimmy Carter did that still resonates today. You can't because Carter is not the failure all the propaganda makes him out to be. Reagan's Central American wars destabilized all the governments in Central America. These very same governments are still unstable today. As a result the "invasion" of immigrants at the southern border are not from Mexico as Trump has said all along, but instead are from Central America. We helped create that Cental American mess and take no responsibility for the people fleeing it today. That's Captain Raygun's legacy. Jimmy Carter has no such legacy.
But it is not just Raygun. It is the entire Repbulican party that still promotes and lives Reagan's legacy. Raygun's evil bigotry regarding AIDs is not just ancient history. Pence started an AIDs epidemic in Indiana and Christians rewarded that behavior by successfully lobbying for Pence to be Trump's VP. Evil. These people are just evil.
Blame Reagan, not China.
Looking for solutions and not blame? If so...
Join an MGO Today!
You can learn more about Irreni World Scale by visiting:
https://irreni.blogspot.com/p/join.html
Cheers!
Benefit of cooperation replaces rule of law!
Freethinkers unite!
Freedom!
Party On!
Let's get cracking!
Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!
Politics as Science!
Demand Irreni World Scale!
Anti-theism is feminism!
Think disruption!
Empathy for all!
Moral relativity: think it, breath it!
Prove it or lose it!
Conversations equal consensus!
Welcome to the 21st century!
Scale your empathy, scale the world!
Find your tribe!
Be sexy people!
The future is coming!
Innovate at a rapid pace!
Slow speed ahead!
Well come! and well met!
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