This week marks Ronald Reagan’s 93rd birthday. Yes, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born Feb. 6, 1911, in Tampico, Ill., to Nelle and John Reagan, changing America forever and ushering a new era for this nation of ours.
An era of al-Qaeda, massive federal debt, shattered unions, government workers who won’t be retiring with their social security and George W. Bush. I’d like to thank you for that, Ronnie.
I would like to thank you for that bright idea in arming fundamentalist Muslim psychopaths in Afghanistan because they didn’t like the Soviets either.
I especially liked the way you and Alexander Haig downplayed criticism of that by patiently explaining us peons that “the enemy of our enemy is our friend.” That fellow Osama bin Laden, one of the “moral equivalents of the founding fathers,” as you put it, later blew up a few buildings in New York and Washington.
Embracing a foreign policy of unlimited shortsightedness has led us to a world of heavily-armed military groups without states, Soviet nukes floating around the black market and Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz masturbating feverishly at night over the thought of an American empire. Thank you Ronnie.
That trick you did with supply-side economics worked wonders too. I recently took a drive through the Lehigh Valley and passed through Bethlehem, Allentown and Easton. Denying the steel industry import protection because it smacked of socialism did amazing things for our economy.
Then you compared welfare to the “ant heap of totalitarianism.” We loved that one, cutting welfare benefits right when your economic policies were putting tens of thousands out of jobs. Smart move there.
There was that time you fired the air-traffic controllers also. I was a bit too young to understand the consequences, being an infant and everything, but I understand now. Firing 11,000 strikers complaining of 16-hour-plus work days and abusive bosses?
Replacing them with military air-traffic controllers and doing everything you could to encourage corporate strike-breaking and union-busting? Might just be the reason we’re the second generation in a row expected to earn less than our parents did. From the bottom of my Chef Boyardee-eating heart, thank you.
Last but not least, thanks for pulling the wool over the eyes of America. Thanks for “morning in America,” thanks for hiding behind the flag any time we asked tough questions, thanks for encouraging a horde of fact-impaired upper-middle class tools all too eager to name airports and federal buildings after you once news of your illness broke, thanks for paving the way for Dubya, thanks for everything. We salute you.
Neil Ungerleider can be reached at n_terminal@yahoo.com.
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