Incredible billboard in Arkansas (pic) !

Hmmmm, how old are you? Have you ever heard the term Reagan Democrats?

 

There is a quote from someone, somewhere:
"Have you at last no decency, sir?"

I have a very close relationship with a few people from Arkansas. It is one of those Southern states that are poor, largely uneducated, ignorant, racist, and republican.

So why are they allowed without resistance to put up such grievously wrong and divisive billboard? -Freedom of speech.... when it suits them. We also have this: https://bit.ly/2x6hpAO

Yup. Freedom of speech.

 

I'm 20. I'm aware that Reagan defrauded the whole country, regardless of party.

I happen to loathe Reagan.

 

I don't think that continuing to devour texts from the intersection of occultism and communism at the rate I am is going to turn me into a 50 year old republican with an in-ground pool and a housekeeper I make inappropriate comments towards like you seem to believe it will, but oh well.

 

I guess you didn't know that the northwest corner of Arkansas (the long historically Republican 3rd district) has a higher concentration of wealth than virtually anywhere else in the United States.

 

Then you don't have a clue as to how bad a shape every facet of the U.S. and U.S. political life was before Reagan became president in 1981. He followed no less than four failed presidents over the course of 17 years.

 

That's a neat reason to elect a fifth failed president

 

Hey whatever does it for you but I guarantee that in thirty years from now communism and socialism will be dead and buried and you will feel like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich in his final moments. I will tell you that life is very short and should not be wasted on political pipe dreams. What fascinates you can never be because human beings are not machines and if a particular form of government has to be violently enforced, what is the value of that? It only succeeds in enslaving it does not achieve any lofty altruistic goal. It's far better to focus on becoming the very best you can be and by some measure commensurate with your success help others. We cannot fix the world but there's so much we can do locally. There's no shame in enjoying creature comforts if you've earned them but one also mustn't hoard beyond what they need either.

 

you understand that liberal capitalist democracy also has to be violently enforced, yes?

 

Are you against socialism?

Do you like America? (Your golden God wanted to “fundamentally transform America”)

What’s not true on that billboard?

 

What do you have against President Reagan? Let me guess you are one of those idiots who blame Reagan for the spread of AIDS?

 

Iran-Contra, CIA coke trading, war on drugs, racist dogwhistling, secret war in grenada and honduras, reaganomics, the birth of neoliberalism, and also he was the antichrist

 

6 letters in each name has nothing to do with being the antichrist

What "secret war" in Grenada? It was a straight up invasion covered by every news organization. Dad and I watched it on TV.

What do you mean by "racist dogwhistling" by President Reagan?

Reaganomics gave the U.S. nearly a decade of steady, continuous growth.

No offense but you're black (African American) aren't you? I ask because it has been my experience that a couple of the things you listed are not things a white person cares about no bothers mentioning.

 

Capitalism is certainly flawed but has never been involved in murderous pogroms. Capitalism offers equal opportunity to create a comfortable, autonomous, self determined life. Communism/Socialism offers none of that and has historically been a brutal front for plutocracy. I understand your youthful yearning for a more just and communal world, unfortunately such a place does not exist and all sincere movements to that end always become corrupt and deteriorate. Opposing capitalism on an individual basis is mostly tilting at windmills, it is the engine that drives the world and exists even in communist countries. I will not say that capitalism is a necessary evil as I believe it's always existed in some form or another independent of good or evil. It is not capitalism nor communism that is evil but both are certainly subject to corruption, perversion and profligacy, unfortunate human nature. This is as bitter to me as you but I've come to believe that altruism and benevolence are more prevalent where capitalism is embraced and that liberty influences social conscience.

 

I'm actually white, it just so happens that the majority of white americans are completely blind to injustice. I knew that grenada wasn't exactly secret, but I was lumping it in with Honduras, which was at least nominally covert, so it was just a smoother turn of phrase that way.

Reagan engaged in racist dogwhistling at his stop in a nazi cemetary in bitburg, where he euologized deceased members of the SS, when he went to Neshoba County, a klan stronghold where 3 activists had been infamously murdered, to speak about "states' rights". He very clearly wanted to tell the racists of the country that he was one of them without ruffling too many feathers.

Reaganomics was a ****ing mistake. The 80s were going to be a decade of economic growth no matter what, because economic growth is a meaningless metric that only measures the wealth of the most well-off, but his policies have been terrible for working families.

Finally, I was joking about him being the antichrist.

In conclusion: Far from being a well-spoken communicator who ended the cold war, reagan was a puppet of the military-industrial complex who solidified a new form of repression, birthed nearly all of the political problems that plague us to this day, and whose grave ought to be desecrated by any person with a heart that beats.

 

pinochet had suspected socialists imprisoned and raped by trained dogs as a form of torture. in indonesia, suharto killed somewhere between half a million to a few million suspected communists. america gave support to both regimes. america also propped up pol pot purely to piss off the vietnamese communists, backed forces responsible for mass disappearances in grenada in the 60s, supported the murderous park regime in south korea, overthrew the popular and progressive PM mossadegh of iran (resulting in the shah taking greater control and the ensuing islamist backlash), and many others.

just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. a lot of this history is deliberately kept in the shadows.

capitalism is a form of totalitarian collectivism, birthed in the industrial revolution. before capitalism, there was feudalism and slave societies, so it was an improvement over them, but still. under capitalism, one's labor is not the fulfilling product of self-actualization, but an alien power that acts upon the worker.

 

You really don't think working class and the poor benefit from economic growth?

I'll give you a clue based on personal experience. It is one hell of a lot better to be poor in a wealthy area with 3% unemployment than in a poor area with 20% unemployment.

 

The working class and the poor objectively don't benefit from economic growth. Wages have stagnated while GDP has skyrocketed. And nobody poor is buying a home in a wealthy area when housing prices are like this.