Presto, Change-o!

The more things change...

Ever since Reagan, we've been handed an Establishment consensus that opposition to supply side economics is class warfare, and that government doesn't work—though it just might, if only Democrats were more accommodating.

As government haters have hastened over the last thirty years to grab control of said government, racism has been the name of the game in reaching their voters.

The tactic was elevated to the national stage by Nixon and refined by Reagan.

Driftglass has written powerfully about this for years; sadly, the trick never changes.

Here he is a couple of days ago, on the psychology of the party's rank and file.

And about the GOP since Reagan, Driftglass observes here "how a party-line change happens in a totalizing cult like North Korea or the GOP."

Hitting The Road

Dorothea Lange, Library of Congress

"Just remember, for every person who is out of work, there are nine of us with jobs."
—President Reagan on the unemployment rate

Capturing the FYIGM essence of his party; quoted by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor.

Another quote from Slansky: Roger Wilkins on the man who would depart the White House in January 1989—

"A high-powered cheerleader for our worst instincts, a nasty man whose major talent is to make us feel good about being creepy and who lets us pretend that tomorrow will never come."

Tools

If not the sharpest in the drawer, they served their purpose fully.

As the guy on the left will continue to, what with the PR machine endowed in perpetuity.

The 61st Anniversary Of His 39th Birthday

If there had to have a Reagan centenary, one thing about it was good: Paul Slansky's book became available again.


The book covers politics—and what passed for culture—in the 1980s. And contains a page of listings under "Reagan, Ronald Wilson," including such subheads as "ignorance defense employed by"; "inability to answer questions of"; "respects paid to dead Nazis by"; "disbelief by public of."

Ronald Reagan may not have been able to pronounce it—

7/28 [1987] A careless speech writer includes the word "paradigm" in President Reagan's speech on superconductivity. Yes, he pronounces it "paradijum."

—but he certainly left us one.

After the federal deficit had reached its first trillion in October 1981—

11/23 President Reagan vetoes a stopgap spending bill, thus forcing the federal government—for the first time in history—to temporarily shut down. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

And there was the constant abetting by certain witnesses—

6/14 [1984] At his 25th press conference, President Reagan claims that his tax policies—which have produced a windfall for the wealthy—"have been more beneficial" to the poor "than to anyone else." Though this would seem to be a difficult claim to get away with, no one challenges him."

Speaking of which, I didn't notice much media play for the anniversary. Another good thing, although it may only reflect how settled a place Reagan has in mainstream narrative.

This year it's mainly been left to the presidential hopefuls of Reagan's party to invoke his name—over, and over, and over...

Pygmies those candidates might be, but they are not so different from their idol—just less slick and (so far) less well stage-managed. A Herman Cain on foreign policy; a Rick Perry on governance; they and the rest have sounded little more moronic than the original, considering how low the bar was for The Great Communicator.

In his typical press conferences, Reagan deflected questions or referred them to any convenient official present. More than once, he was seen turning to Nancy for a whispered cue.

Of Reagan's diligence in office, just a few of Slansky's assorted examples—

8/19 [1981] Ed Meese sees no need to wake President Reagan just to tell him the Navy has shot down two Libyan jets. Defending Meese's decision, Reagan explains, "If our planes are shot down, yes, they'd wake me up right away. If the other fellows were shot down, why wake me up?"

8/31 [1981] "He acted like there was nothing else in the world he had to do, nothing else on his mind."
—Former movie actor Rex Allen, who spent 45 minutes with President Reagan after presenting him with four pairs of free boots

"There are times when you really need him to do some work, and all he wants to do is tell stories about his movie days."
—Unnamed White House aide on President Reagan's detachment from his job

9/1 A Soviet fighter mistakenly shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it strays into Soviet airspace, killing 269, including right-wing congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA). George Shultz calls Tip O'Neill to tell him about the incident.

"What does the President think about this?" asks O'Neill.

"We'll tell him when he wakes up," says Shultz.

Dan Rather returns instantly from his vacation upon hearing the news and—after CBS shows him on horseback at the ranch as the crisis unfolds—so does President Reagan.

6/7 "It was really funny. I was sitting there so worried about throw weight, and Reagan suddenly asks us if we've seen War Games."
—Unnamed congressman describing a White House meeting about arms control at which the President revealed that averting a movie nuclear catastrophe was far more interesting to him than the nuts and bolts of preventing a real-life one

10/2 [1984] At a White House briefing with Caspar Weinberger, President Reagan is asked how his MX missiles will be deployed. "I don't know but what maybe you haven't gotten into the area that I'm gonna turn over to the, heh heh, to the Secretary of Defense," he says sheepishly.

"The silos will be hardened," Weinberger says, then nods approvingly as Reagan volunteers, "Yes, I could say this. The plan also includes the hardening of silos."

10/5 [1985] Larry Speakes is asked if President Reagan has read the House report on the latest Beirut truck bombing. "I don't think he's read the report in detail," he says. "It's five-and-a-half pages, double-spaced."

2/4 [1985] Addressing a convention of religious broadcasters, President Reagan defends his arms build-up, citing Luke 14:31 to verify that "the scriptures are on our side in this." Then, for the benefit of the Jews in the audience, he describes how much he liked looking out over Lafayette Park at "the huge menorah, celebrating the Passover season."

9/1 [1986] "Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere."
—President Ragan, as quoted in a Fortune interview for its cover story "What Managers Can Learn from Manager Reagan"

Pitchman For The Ages

Before hawking the GOP Southern Strategy and trickle-down economics, he pushed other product—


And what should never be forgotten—

From Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

THE [1984] REAGAN CAMPAIGN TALKS ABOUT ITS ADS

"I heard you were selling soap so I thought you might like to meet the bar."
—President Reagan to his advertising team.

"It's warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy—but a good kind of fuzzy."
—Ron Travisano on his Reagan foreign policy spot, which features kids getting haircuts

We'll have this nice couple in an ordinary house. Something good will happen to them, and the guy will say, 'Hey honey, now that we've got so much money, let's go out for a steak.' But in the Hispanic version, we'll have the guy say, 'Let's go out for a taco.'"
—Media adviser Doug Watts explaining Reagan ethnic ad strategy

1987: What's News?

March 4: Reagan delivers his "my heart tells me I didn't do it" Iran-Contra speech.

On March 5, Congressman Henry Gonzalez introduces an impeachment resolution.

The resolution, writes Mark Hertsgaard in On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, was—

...ignored by major news organizations, apparently because few other members of Congress endorsed it. "We were aware of it, and we watched to see how much support it got and whether it was going someplace, but it didn't," explained CBS' [Evening News executive producer Tom] Bettag. (1988, page 334)

Hertsgaard precedes this by noting had been the media attitude toward impeachment: that, in the words of NYT reporter Joel Brinkley, "public sentiment wasn't there to impeach Ronald Reagan."

That was not clear, says Hertsgaard, and he notes how various polls showed one-third to one-half of respondents believing Reagan should resign if found to have known about arms sales; in one poll, 57% thought Reagan was lying.

Of the media's insistence that there was no story, Hertsgaard notes the most question is—

How could the public be expected to develop an opinion on a given issue unless that issue was posed for their consideration. In the American system, that was the responsibility of the press. Yet the modern ethic of objectivity precluded such journalism. Only if members of the political elite, in this case the Congress actually did something about impeachment would it become "news"... (In fact, the fullest and virtually the only expositions of the impeachment question to appear in The New York Times and The Washington Post during the scandal were opinion articles, one in each newspaper, explaining why Congress was unlikely to pursue impeachment.) As New York Times Washington bureau Chief Craig Whitney explained, "The press is a captive of things as they happen."

Henry Gonzalez actually "did something"—as he throughout his life stood up for justice being done.

And it was something that could only be met by silence, being just the wrong something for those awed by Reagan's "popularity."

1983: Hollywood Holiday

At this moment in 2011, the wingnuts froth about an Obama Christmas card clearly meant to signal cosiness, neutrality, and (no doubt) bipartisanship...

On the other hand, the image from a Republican in the White House could only feature "family, faith and freedom" (not pets); therefore, there was no 2005 White House card.

1988: Let Them Eat...

Be sure to reach for the Reagan fundie pal brand...

Quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/13 With five weeks left in office, President Reagan delivers his farewell address on domestic policy, in which he continues to deny that his defense spending increases and tax cuts were in any way responsible for the $155 billion deficit, blaming instead an "iron triangle" of congressmen, lobbyists and journalists.

12/22 President Reagan—whose tenure has coincided with a huge increase in the homeless population—uses his last interview with David Brinkley to again claim that many of these unfortunates are homeless "by their own choice," as must be many of the jobless, since he again points out that the Sunday papers are full of want ads.

Holiday Spirit, 1980s-2011

Mr. Dickens......meet Mr. Meese.

Some 1983 quotes, from Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/8 Continuing his tradition of holiday season insensitivity, a well-fed Ed Meese scoffs at the notion that the administration's policies are unnecessarily cruel to the poor. "I don't know of any authoritative figures that there are hungry children," he declares. "I've heard a lot of anecdotal stuff, but I haven't heard any authoritative figures.... I think some people are going to soup kitchens voluntarily. I know we've had considerable information that people go to soup kitchens because the food is free and that that's easier than paying for it. ... I think that they have money."

12/15 Ed Meese tells the National Press Club that literature's classic miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, to whom he has recently been compared, suffered from "bad press in his time. If you really look at the facts, he didn't exploit Bob Cratchit." Explains Meese, "Bob Cratchit was paid 10 shillings a week, which was a very good wage at the time.... Bob, in fact, had good cause to be happy with his situation. He lived in a house, not a tenement. His wife didn't have to work.... He was able to afford the traditional Christmas dinner of roast goose and plum pudding.... So let's be fair to Scrooge. He had his faults, but he wasn't unfair to anyone."

12/16 "Did he really say that? I can't believe he said that. ... Dickens is saying that the poor deserve to live not on the margins, but with comfort and love and with freedom and medical attention. I mean, isn't that the very point about Tiny Tim? ...He desperately needs a doctor and can't get to one because his family is so poor....He's dying because he can't get medical care....Boy, I'm really getting angry now. I can't believe these people."
—University of Pennsylvania Victorian literature scholar Nina Auerbach on the Meese interpretation of A Christmas Carol

You almost have to feel for Ed Meese, what with his having to work so hard to spread the word. After all, this was decades before the bipartisan consensus would be that the poor are bankrupting us. Just one recent sign of the latter: scams involving food stamps—instead of chicanery by, say, Wall Street —would seem to be the only fraud worthy of prosecution by the Feds.

Reagan demonized the poor for political gain. On landing in White House, he and his administration found it more advisable to pretend U.S. levels of poverty and hunger were exaggerated.

The percentage of the population in poverty continues a staggering (if not surprising) rise, in the decades since Reaganite policies won.

But not to worry: the noise machine is there to make sure the public knows the poor have phones and TVs; ergo, there's no poverty. This (and its corollary: poor people are fat, so they are not poor), are trotted out around this time of year, just as the public might be most susceptible to feeling charitable.

With the ranks of the permanently unemployed rising—and middle-class security an illusion—making the unemployed into Welfare Queens in need of drug testing is just one of the newest fronts in the war on the 99 Percent.

Holiday season 2011: the head of Republican Party—like Meese, a vastly overstuffed sort—calls hungry children in need of school meals year-round "wanton little waifs and serfs dependent on the state."

Even if not widely reported, reality—which can include the emotional disturbance brought on by despair—sometimes intrudes.

The Dear Leader of the post-Reagan Revolution has been back in the headlines, and proposing child labor for the poor.

Mere recycled shtick, consistent with Gingrich's 1994 proposal to put the children of the poor in orphanages.

Looking back brings up the way the whole dynamic operates. Although those of us who lived through the period remember the ridicule heaped on Gingrich, once the Big Idea was put On The Table it became an issue in need of consensus from Serious People.

Reagan Era: On The Trail Of A Tale

The 1980s did not completely lack detectives willing to take a close look at Reagan's unsourced anecdotes.

Political scientist Michael Paul Rogin, for one. His book Ronald Reagan: The Movie examines political mythologies and their use in demonizing the "other" throughout US history. His analysis of how Reagan transformed movie scripts into personal myth, and their use in his political career forms one chapter.

Rogin's 1985 appearance on 60 Minutes—to popular non-acclaim—was at least an effort at truth-telling.

And at least one real journalist, Lars-Erik Nelson, went after the source of a treasured Reagan tale; recounted by Paul Slansky in The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/12 [1983] "A B-17 coming back across the channel from a raid over Europe, badly shot up by aircraft...The young ball-turret gunner was wounded, and they couldn't get him out of the turret there while flying.

"But over the channel, the plane began to lose altitude, and the commander had to order his men to bail out. As the men started to leave the plane, the last one to leave—the boy, understandably, knowing he was being left behind to go down with the plane, cried out in terror—the last man to leave the plane saw the commander sit down on the floor. He took the boy's hand and said, 'Never mind, son, we'll ride it down together.' Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously awarded."
—President Reagan addressing the Congressional Medal of Honor Society

By 12/16, says Slansky,

Columnist Lars-Erik Nelson, after examining the citations of all 434 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during World War II—reveals that not one of them matches the story President Reagan told the other day. "It's not true," writes Nelson. "It didn't happen. It's a Reagan story....The President of the United States went before an audience of 300 real Congressional Medal of Honor winners and told them about a make-believe Congressional Medal of Honor winner."

Responds Larry Speakes, "If you tell the same story five times, it's true."

And Nelson stayed with the story—

12/28 Lars-Erik Nelson reports that a reader saw a scene very similar to President Reagan's Medal of Honor story in the 1944 movie Wing and a Prayer. "Adding to the confusion," writes Nelson, "Dana Andrews at one point reprimands a glory-seeking young pilot with the words, 'This isn't Hollywood.' ...You could understand that some in the audience might confuse reality with fiction.

And on to 1984—

1/11 ...Nelson suggests another source for the Medal of Honor story: an apochrypal item in the April 1944 issue of Reader's Digest, a magazine known to be a life-long Reagan favorite. "The bomber had been almost ripped apart by German cannon," it read. "The ball turret gunner was badly wounded and stuck in the blister on the underside of the fuselage. Crewmen worked frantically to extricate the youngster, but there was nothing they could do. They began to jump. The terror-stricken lad screamed in fear as he saw what was happening. The last man to jump heard the remaining crewman, a gunner, say, 'Take it easy, kid. We'll take this ride together.'"

But Nelson was an honest-to-god journalist; from the New York Observer's November 2000 Nelson obit—

A friend of his noted that a rare foray into television - an appearance on Meet the Press in 1998 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, along with Steven Brill, Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post - left Mr. Nelson so infuriated by the grandstanding of Tim Russert that he took to calling the show "Me the Press."

"He did not have any appetite for those yelling shows, or what he called the 'theater criticism' mode of analyzing politics," Mr. Dwyer said. "I don't know why people called him old-school, because the old school is the only school-everything else is fake."

Simply put, Mr. Dwyer said, "he was a no-bullshit guy."

Nelson died of a stoke on November 20— after weeks of monitoring the Florida recount shenanigans, post-presidential election. I can't remember who said it—and can't find a citation—but sometime after 2000 some writer or other called Lars-Erik Nelson "the first casualty of the Bush Administration."

The Reagan Era: Gifts That Keep Giving (II)

The sponsors—and their Spokesman—reached new frontiers for pushing product.

The index of Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor includes, among other sub-heads to the "Reagan, Ronald Wilson"—the category, "improbable letters of support cited by"—

11/30 [1981]
President Reagan tells a $2,500-per-ticket GOP fundraiser in Cincinnati about a letter from a blind supporter. "He wrote in Braille… to tell me that if cutting his pension would help get this country back on its feet, he'd like to have me cut his pension." The altruistic soul's identity is never revealed.

1/14 [1982] President Reagan tells a business luncheon in New York about a Massachusetts resident in his 80s who supposedly sent in his Social Security check "to be used for reducing the national debt." As usual, no proof is offered.

6/27 [1984] "Your policies are not in the least anti-black or anti-poor. As a matter of fact, it's my opinion that your fight against inflation, your war on the drug traffic, your tough stand against street crime, you effort in revitalizing the nation's economy, are all of great importance to us poor people and us black people in America."
—Letter allegedly received by President Reagan from a 39-year old black man whose identity, as is so often the case with these epistles of unsolicited support, goes unrevealed

One of the innovations of Reagan's PR forces was to introduce to a mass audience the spurious rumor and unattributed anecdote so beloved by the ultra-Right. "Welfare queen" registered with those for whom it was intended, even as it was absurd to anyone the least connected to real American life.

Despite a largely compliant media, there still was a certain amount of skepticism toward Reagan and his stories. But this was years before Faux News would make it so easy to create and promote myths in service of the agenda—from "frivolous lawsuits" to "union thugs protest in Madison"—and on to whatever fake anecdotes will be used to determine future "public discourse."

The Reagan Era: Gifts That Keep Giving (I)

In The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, William Kleinknecht covers, in a chapter entitled "The Looting of America," the Reagan blitz to deregulate everything.

Following the gory details of how oversight was removed or subverted for financial institutions, workplace safety, airlines and pretty much all consumer goods and services, Kleinknecht adds special mention of Mark Fowler, Reagan's head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Of course the appointment was consistent with the administration's MO: just install a sworn opponent of an agency to subvert its function from the top. [See, for example, James Watt.]

Fowler's take on broadcasting and the public interest: "Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures."

More from Kleinknecht—

Mark Fowler, Reagan's first chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, was the spiritual father of broadcast deregulation. He came into office with a profound disdain for the notion that television and radio airwaves were owned by the public, a concept that had been the cornerstone of communications law since 1934. He felt the airwaves should be the province of corporations, whose competition in the free market would be enough to serve the public interest. "It's time to move away from thinking of broadcasters as trustees and time to treat them the way that everyone else in this society does, that is, as a business," he said. "Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures." Fowler said he took it as an "article of faith that any successful businessman is meeting a public need." He was fond of cloaking himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan, once boasting that he was "not the captive of any industry or industry in general. I am a captive of a philosophy of government we call Reaganism."

These were not just idle words. In Fowler's six-year tenure as chairman, the FCC reviewed or abolished 89 percent of the regulations governing broadcasting. By 1987, the commission had done away with the fairness doctrine, which required broadcast outlets to cover both sides of public issues; the provision that required broadcasters to allow public figures equal time to respond to attacks; the requirement that politicians be given airtime around elections; and the rule that stations keep a file of all their complaints from the public. Fowler also dropped the FCC's enforcement of misconduct on the part of broadcasting license holders.

Fowler's "most important contribution to the homogenization of news and entertainment," notes Kleinknecht, was in loosening limits to company ownership of multiple media outlets.

When Fowler took over, a single entity was restricted to owning no more than seven each for TV, AM and FM radio stations. That number was increased to twelve, and the rule that a station be held for three years before sale was abolished. Those changes alone were—

enough to set off a round of mergers in the broadcasting industry, including Capital Cities' acquisition of the American Broadcasting Corporation, the first sale of a major television network. Radio and television stations were soon being traded like any other commodity, making a mockery of their status as trustees of the nation's airwaves.

Subsequent money poured into lobbying of (and "donations" to) Congress members would set the stage for passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996—

The result was that a bill profoundly skewed toward powerful interests was passd with hardly any public debate...

Sponsors of the law estimated that deregulation of the cable and telephone industries would save consumers $550 billion over a decade-$333 billion in lower long-distance rates, $32 billion in lower local phone rates, and $78 billion in lower cable bills. Instead, cable rates went up by about 50 percent and local phone rates by more than 20 percent, according to a 2005 study by Common Cause.

Even more devastating for our culture and national discourse was the further evisceration of limits on multiple ownership of broadcast stations. Companies had been limited to owning forty radio stations; the law removed any limits, enabling a company like Clear Channel Communications to own twelve hundred stations around the country. The Common Cause study found that $700 million worth of buying and selling of radio stations occurred the first week after the act became law.

Need the author add? "Higher telephone and cable TV rates, vastly increased concentration of the media, the death of local radio, the homogenization and dumbing down of programming, less broadcast coverage of news—all these emerged from the movement begun by Ronald Reagan, the man they called the Great Communicator."

Just as taking corporate oversight from government would prove "government doesn't work"—and would make sure the government haters stay in charge.

"You Are America"

1985 item from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

12/1 President Reagan is honored by friends in the entertainment industry at a black tie event at an NBC studio. Among those paying tribute are Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Emmanuel Lewis and Charlton Heston, who tells the President, "To the world, you are America." Reagan reveals his "dream Cabinet," which would have included Secretary of State John Wayne, Defense Secretary Clint Eastwood and Treasury Secretary Jack Benny.

What, no nutrition post for a Hollywood fundie pal?

Later that month—

12/15 60 Minutes interviews Berkeley professor Michael Rogin, who posits the theory that the President honestly can't tell the difference between movies and reality. The evolution of a Reagan anecdote* is traced from the point where he credits it as a movie scene to the point where he tells it as if it really happened. Viewer response proves this to be one of the least popular segments in the program's 17-year history.

*Some quotes from the show in this 12/85 LA Times review.

Sandwiched between those two bits of media news—

12/9 [Former Reagan employer] General Electric buys RCA (and with it, NBC) for $6.3 billion.

Thanksgiving á Lá Ronnie

From Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor: for the season, two facets of Reagan's shtick.

One was to play what seemed his preferred role: America's avuncular (if forgetful) Master of Ceremonies—

11/18 [1981] President Reagan receives the annual White House turkey, which upstages him by squawking and flapping its wings madly. Not to be outdone, the President recalls a Thanksgiving
long ago: he was carving a turkey, noticed what seemed to be blood oozing from it, assumed the bird was undercooked, then realized he had sliced open this thumb. Everyone laughs

11/23 [1982] The annual White House turkey is presented to President Reagan. As it did last year, this reminds him of the time he gashed his thumb while carving a similar bird, and he does not hesitate to tell the story again.

The other pole of his "charm"—jibing at one of the Right's favorite scapegoat—

11/21 [1983] President Reagan receives the annual White House turkey. "You're looking at the press a lot like I do sometimes," he says to the bird,"with your mouth wide open and a total misunderstanding of everything they're asking."

11/25 [1985] "Go ahead! Atta boy, Wilfred. You tell 'em Wilfred. Yes, sir, Wilfred, you let 'em have it!"
—President Reagan, saved from having to answer reporters' questions by the screams of the annual White House turkey, this year named Wilfred

In the 1980s even St. Ronnie's "charm" failed at convincing the majority of people that his administration didn't hurt the poor.

Since then, the propaganda machine has made sure to include among its campaigns a war on empathy.

Holidays are the usual time to bring out those themes; a couple of Thanksgivings ago but typical is this column—published in a once upon a time respectable Washington Post—

If there is anything viler than a plump, well-fed, rosy-cheeked white guy getting all huffy about a USDA study on food insecurity because he sees poor people who are fat...

Charles Lane, who took refuge at Freddie Hiatt's House of Horrors after his unsuccessful stint at the New Republic as the editor for Stephen Glass, has decided that his effort to make the world a better place as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday is to argue that poor people need less food, not more.

The photo of Lane* accompanying Tintin's post is of a smug (and yes, very well-fed) face.

*Not to be confused with the great (and skinny) Charles Lane.

And thirty years after Reagan, there are so many poor people to be blamed for their condition.

The policies that got us here have been bi-partisan, to be sure. Ending Welfare As We Know It played its part; it was during the Clinton administration that Barbara Ehrenreich researched this.

Add eight years of Junior in the White House—by this year's tenth anniversary of Nickel and Dimed's original publication, Ehrenreich says—

In 2000, I had been able to walk into a number of jobs pretty much off the street. Less than a decade later, many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained.
...

The most shocking thing I learned from my [2008-9] research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalized in America.

Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
...

So what is the solution to the poverty of so many of America's working people? Ten years ago, when Nickel and Dimed first came out, I often responded with the standard liberal wish list -- a higher minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation, and all the other things we, uniquely among the developed nations, have neglected to do.

Today, the answer seems both more modest and more challenging: if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.

Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets. Maybe, as so many Americans seem to believe today, we can’t afford the kinds of public programs that would genuinely alleviate poverty -- though I would argue otherwise. But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they’re down.

Ronald Reagan: The Buck Stops... Anywhere Else

In the index to Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor,
sub-entries below the heading "Reagan, Ronald Wilson" include—

blames Carter
blames Congress
blames the media
blames miscellaneous others

Republican acceptance of "personal responsibility" being what it is, Slansky has the quotes to fit those sub-heads.

After the Tower Report is issued by the administration's hand-picked Iran-Contra investigative committee, Reagan's March 4, 1987 public response includes this rhetorical construction—

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

Slansky summarizes 12-minute speech and its use of the passive voice, whereby Reagan—

• Acknowledges that the Iran-Contra affair "happened on my watch"
• Says nobler aims of long-term peace "deteriorated…into trading arms for hostages"
• Calls the deal "a mistake" (though one that resulted from his excessive concern for the hostages).

As for his "management style," the problem was that "no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions," which led to his inability to recall approving the arms shipment. "I did approve it," says the President. "I just can't say specifically when." Lest anyone remain unnerved, he dads, "Rest assured, there's plenty of record-keeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

The White House mode of damage control was to distance Reagan from events—which only made him sound as disengaged as he was.

And the Iran-Contra speech seems like an odd foreshadowing of Reagan's "I've been told I have Alzheimer's" letter, of November 1994.

[Don't] Watch My Lips

Men With No Lips (Ronald Reagan, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan, James Baker)
Robbie Conal

November 1986: the first reports reach US news media—and the White House makes its first public statements. From Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

11/3 In Lebanon, the pro-Syrian magazine Al Shiraa reports that the US has secretly been pplying arms to Iran.

11/4 Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, says that former NSC adviser Robert McFarlane and four other Americans, carrying Irish passports and posing as members of a flight crew, recently tyraveled to Iran on a secret diplomatic mission to trade military equipment for Iran's help in curbing terrorism. Rafsanjani says the men brought a Bible signed by President Reagan and a cake in the shape a key, which was said to be "a key to open US-Iran relations."

11/13 "For 18 months now, we have had under way a secret diplomatic initiative to Iran. That initiative was undertaken for the simplest and best of reasons: to renew a relationship with tlle nation of Iran; to bring an honorable end to the bloody six-year war between Iran and Iraq; to eliminate state-sponsored terrorism and subversion, and to effect the safe return of all hostages."
—President Reagan addressing the nation on the Iran arms deal, hoping that if he mentions he hostages last, people won't think their release was the prime motivation for the deal

"Now, my fellow Americans, there is an old saying that nothing spreads so quickly as a rumor. So I thought it was time to speak with you directly-to tell you first-hand about our dealings with Iran. As Will Rogers once said, 'Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.' So let's get to the facts."
—President Reagan preparing to embellish the truth

"During the course of our secret discussions, I authorized the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran.... These modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a single cargo plane.... We did not—repeat—did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we."
—President Reagan claiming that the arms for hostages swap wasn't really a swap because we didn't give them too much stuff, and besides, the stuff we did give them hardly counts as weapons

11/21 The shredding machine in White House aide Oliver North's office jams.

11/25 A grim President Reagan appears in the White House briefing room to say he "was not fully informed on the nature of one of the activities" undertaken as an off-shoot of the Iran arms deal. He announces that National Security Adviser John Poindexter has resigned and NSC staffer Oliver North has been fired, then introduces Ed Meese to explain why.

"Certain monies which were received in the transaction between representatives of Israel and representatives of Iran were taken and made available to the forces in Central America which are opposing the Sandinista government there," says Meese. "We don't know the exact amount yet. Our estimate is that it is somewhere between $10 and $30 million.... The President knew nothing about it."

As Meese talks, his head is positioned in front of the White House logo (THE WHITE HOUSE/ WASHINGTON) in such a way that the only letters that can be seen on TV spell out WHITE WASHING.

Later, Reagan calls North and tells him, "This is going to make a great movie one day."

11/26 "Does the bank president know whether a teller in the bank is fiddling around with the books? No."
—Donald Regan explaining why his total ignorance of the diversion of funds to the contras is completely justified

Then in 1987:

1/26 The Tower Commission interviews President Reagan... Though he is said by a source to lack a "highly detailed recollection," he acknowledges having authorized the sale of arms to Iran in August 1985. This corroborates Robert McFarlane's testimony and directly contradicts Donald Regan's.

2/11 President Reagan tells the Tower Commission that after discussing it with Donald Regan, he now remembers that he did not authorize the arms sale in advance. Commission members are disheartened when, while reciting his recollection from a staff-supplied memo, he mistakenly reads his stage directions aloud.

2/24 "I'd like to ask one question of everybody. Everybody that can remember what they were doing on August 8 of 1985, raise your hand. I think it's possible to forget. Nobody's raised any hands."
—President Reagan, who would have gotten a different response from reporters had he asked, more pertinently, "Everybody that would remember approving the sale of arms to an enemy nation, raise your hand"

3/10 Asked about the Iran-contra scandal at a photo opportunity, President Reagan feigns laryngitis. "I lost my voice," he says, grinning. "I can't talk."

3/11 Asked again about Iran-contra, President Reagan again feigns laryngitis. "I've lost my voice," he says. Explains [press secretary] Marlin Fitzwater, "This is a new tactic of his."

The Post-Abdominal Surgery Comedy Rating Scale

"Ow! Don't make me laugh!"New York Federal Art Project, 1939
Library of Congress WPA poster archive

Yes, I do relate to the mask on the right, at the moment...

Post-op laughing is to be avoided: it causes awful stomach pain, as I knew from Clever Sister's previous multiple surgeries. Those started when she was in her teens; the technology then made hers more ghastly experiences than what I'm having, since laparoscopic procedures a few days ago.

I spent the first couple nights at CS' place, where she went all out to nurse me. Her effort to keep me distracted included some comedy DVDs—fortunately, not all that hilarious.

As I realized I do need to avoid laughing, I remembered one of CS' previous gruesome surgeries. She was on her way home from some days in a California hospital on November 5, 1994. A big part of the history was that CS had been forced to live through many years of severe pain, with no medical acknowledgement of the problem—until the first dire emergency had landed her in an operating room.

It was 6 PM that November day. I waited to speak to my brother-in-law and, unable to focus on anything, I switched on the tube; it happened, just as evening news began. Lead story: the public announcement that Reagan had Alzheimer's.

Despite CS' having to suffer the ride over potholed roads of already decaying infrastructure—just as I did, almost twenty years of public disinvestment later—they got home safely, and the call came.

I had to tell brother-in-law, "I don't want to make CS laugh, but: I just had the news on, the big story was Reagan has Alzheimer's—and CS thinks it took her a long time to be diagnosed!"

He laughed and repeated it to CS. I could hear her in the background: "Ha, ha! Ouch! Don't make me laugh! Ha,ha! Ouch!..."

Brother-in-law added: having lived in CA when Reagan was governor, he saw plenty of signs then.

For me, in November 2011: post-surgery smiling, unlike laughing, does no harm. When I could manage to check, there was at least some news to smile about—election results from Ohio and elsewhere; from Mississippi, somewhat.

Trying to keep the patient distracted, CS picked up a copy of The Onion, which had been very funny the last couple of weeks. The pre-Halloween issue's Record Year For Abortion Restrictions, and terrifying tales of the economy, told by dead-itorial writer, Paul "Bearer" Krugman, had me laughing out loud. As did the following week's Remains Of Ancient Race Of Job Creators Found In Rust Belt.

Mercifully, under my circumstances, this week's material wasn't that good.

Though, just as I was about to put the thing down, I spotted this, to bring on the post-op pain.

And this.

The Reagan Movie: Leading Lady

That Reagan Girl; quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

3/19 [1983] "Let me tell you a true story about a boy we'll call Charlie. He was only 14 and he was burned out on marijuana.... One day, when his little sister wouldn't steal some money for him to go and buy some more drugs, he brutally beat her. The real truth is there's no such thing as soft drugs or hard drugs. All drugs are dumb.... Don't end up another Charlie."
—Nancy Reagan—image fully transformed from vapid society dame to caring anti-drug crusader—appearing as herself on NBC's Diff'rent Strokes

9/9 [1985] Nancy Reagan tapes her first rock video, singing a chorus of an anti-drug song called "Stop the Madness."

8/9 [1986] President Reagan sets a statesman-like example by submitting a sample of his urine for drug testing. George Bush, oddly enough, does the same.

8/13 The parents of 13-year-old Deanna Young of Orange County, California, are arrested after the girl shows up at the police station with a bag of marijuana, pills and cocaine from their home. Says Nancy Reagan, must have loved her parents a great deal. I hope they realize just how much she loves them."
The story becomes the subject of a bidding war in Hollywood.
•
Nancy Reagan's friend Mary Martin suggests that perhaps the First Lady should avoid seeing her current play, Legends, since it contains a hash brownie scene. Sure enough, it is announced the next day that a "scheduling conflict" will prevent the Reagans from attending the show.

9/4 "When the chapter on how America won the war on drugs is written, the Reagans' speech is sure to be viewed as a turning point."
—White House announcement of an upcoming anti-drug speech amusingly billed as the Reagans' first "joint address"

9/14 Sitting on a couch in the White House living quarters, the Reagans urge a "national crusade" against the "cancer of drugs." Afterward, the President—who will cut funding for drug programs as soon as the election is over—squeezes his wife's hand reassuringly.

1/13 [1987] "It wasn't a sustaining issue. It was the epitome of the fad issue, a classic really. It came and went in three weeks, max."
—GOP consultant Lee Atwater on the Reagans' anti-drug campaign

November 1981: Cats Out Of Bags

A few bits of business during one month in the first Reagan administration, from Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

11/10 President Reagan elicits hoots of laughter at his fifth press conference when he says of his constantly feuding aides, "There is no bickering or backstabbing going on. We're a very happy group."

As he leaves, Lesley Stahl holds up a copy of the just-out Atlantic Monthly featuring William Greider's article "The Education of David Stockman," in which the chatty Budget Director:

• Admits, "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers"
• Acknowledges that supply-side economics "was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate"
• Says of the Reagan tax bill, "Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront? The hogs were really feeding."

Is the President aware of this article? He is not.

11/12 "My visit to the Oval Office for lunch with the President was more in the nature of a visit to the woodshed after supper.... He was not happy about the way this has developed—and properly so."
—David Stockman describing his crow-eating lunch with President Reagan, who blames the whole flap on the media

11/13 "This house belongs to all Americans, and I want it to be something of which they can be proud."
—Nancy Reagan showing off her $1 million White House redecoration—funded by tax-deductible donations—to Architectural Digest, which is then forbidden to release any of its photos to the general news media

11/18 President Reagan receives the annual White House turkey, which upstages him by squawking and flapping its wings madly. Not to be outdone , the President recalls a Thanksgiving long ago: he was carving a turkey, noticed what seemed to be blood oozing from it, assumed the bird was undercooked then realized he had sliced open his thumb. Everyone laughs.

11/23 President Reagan vetoes a stopgap spending bill, thus forcing the federal government—for the first time in history—to temporarily shut down. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

1983—October; Surprise?

Quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

10/19 [press conference question] ... what about the safety of the US Marines in Beirut?

"We're looking at everything that can be done to try and make their position safer," [Reagan] says. "We're not sitting idly by."

10/23 A truck bomb at the US barracks in Beirut kills 241 Marines.

10/25 Claiming that US medical students there are in grave danger, President Reagan diverts attention from the Beirut fiasco by launching an invasion of Grenada. Lest there be any doubt about presidential involvement in this decision, photographs are released showing a pajama-clad Reagan—up at 5:15 A.M.!—being briefed on the situation.

Curiously, reporters are prevented from covering the event.

10/26 American medical students from Grenada kiss the tarmac upon landing in South Carolina. Scoffs school bursar Gary Solin, "Our safety was never in danger. We were used by this government as an excuse to invade Grenada." President Reagan says US troops "got there just in time" to prevent a Cuban takeover.