[+] Reagan's Legacy
by Jim Lowder
I'm pretty cynical about the U.S. media, so I don't know why I am so bothered by the non-stop coverage of the "Reagan legacy," with commentators trying to outdo one another in making us all feel warm and gooey. They are depicting him as all of the super-heroes all bound into one.
Maybe it disturbs me because my personal experience was so different. I moved to California in June, 1981, about six months after Reagan was first elected president. He had previously served a stint as governor of that state, where he had an enormous impact. I would soon learn about it first-hand.
By 1982 California cities were inundated with homeless people, with more than 30 percent of them having mental disabilities. Turns out that Reagan, as governor, had pretty much dismantled the mental health system (among other things) in California.
As Reagan's social policies were implemented in the early 80s, the rich got richer and the poor got - well, precious little, if anything. One columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle summarized Reagan's policies as "unleashing greed."
Our church was besieged with families needing shelter, food, clothing, actually, just about everything. Homelessness had previously been consigned to a few "rescue missions." But now a new genre of services known as homeless shelters and transitional housing were coming into being. What had been a couple hundred homeless persons in San Francisco now mushroomed into thousands. But job training, mental health services, and affordable housing programs were being reduced at both the federal and local level. At the same time, under the leadership of Reagan, the U.S. was creating the greatest "peacetime" financial deficit in its history.
About 40 miles east of San Francisco were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. These labs were the "brain center" of U.S. nuclear weapons development. And they were an example of how a nation could be spending so much money while more and more of its citizens were being pushed into poverty. Many people of faith and conscience recognized that, tried to close the labs, and received an education about the U.S. prison system from the inside.
And then there were the refugees. Despite everything Reagan could do to stop them, refugees poured into the U.S. By 1986, it was estimated that 50,000 men, women, and children from El Salvador alone were living in San Francisco. There were brutal dictatorships all over Latin America supported by the U.S. And where there wasn't one, Reagan and his men were determined to create one. Most notably in Nicaragua. Reagan's support of the "contra war" in Nicaragua cost more than 30,000 lives.
Through the media, the Reagan administration tried to market this effort as working for democracy. But too many of us had personal connections for that lie to be completely pervasive. Our church, like many others, had a "sister congregation" in Nicaragua and we traveled there and met with folks who gave us a picture of a completely different reality.
Not that Reagan limited his strange and perverse international policies to Latin America. A certain Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon was good buddies with a "friendly" leader named Saddam Hussein. It seems that no one in the media coverage of Reagan's legacy is talking about the years of U.S. support of Iraq under Hussein.
And, of course, there was that little matter of the Reagan administration covertly selling weapons to, of all places, Iran. And, if that wasn't illegal and immoral enough, then using the money to fund rebel contras seeking to overthrow a legitimate government in Nicaragua. And killing thousands of innocent citizens. And lying about it. And then lying about lying about it. And then denying that Reagan had known or said anything about any of this in the first place.
And so while Reagan was playing superhero in the White House, the members of our little church (like countless other churches all over the U.S.) were frantically finding housing for homeless families, sheltering refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala (where a previous U.S. superhero had overthrown a democratically elected president and replaced him with a genocidal dictator), providing residence for a Nicaraguan family, and a host of other things that resulted from the now "feel good all over and be nostalgic" Reagan legacy.
I certainly have sympathy for Nancy, other members of Reagan's family, and his close friends. Losing a loved one is difficult and traumatic, even when that death has been expected and anticipated for so long. I know that it is a tremendous loss for them and I have prayed for them. Such loss binds us all together as a human family.
And I understand that the death of a former president, prime minister, or top leader is a significant event for any country and needs to be ritualized.
But forgive me if I don't stand up and cheer or shed a tear with all of the corporate media falling all over themselves to salute the Reagan legacy of leadership and statesmanship. I've shed too many tears for too long over the pain and suffering that his policies caused.
Which brings me to one final Reagan policy that affected so many of us in the U.S. and literally millions of people around the world. As Reagan began his first term in office, what was to be known later as the AIDS epidemic was also beginning. Reagan had an opportunity to be truly a superhero had he made it a priority to find a cure for this virus and to provide support and care for those who contracted it. But his policies of neglect and indifference ensured that a world-wide pandemic was our destiny. Reagan demonstrated his homophobia as the disease's first impact in the U.S. was in the gay community. It led him to comment at one point that "maybe the Lord brought down this plague because illicit sex is against the ten commandments." Bad policy and bad theology.
My pastoral ministry in California was more defined by the AIDS epidemic than by any other single factor. In many ways, it affected my entire life. I lost count of the funerals of friends and colleagues as the number swelled into the dozens. Jerene and I were married in 1994. On our first anniversary, we reflected that eight persons in our wedding pictures were no longer living because of AIDS.
The media coverage of the last few days has done one thing for me. I have paused and reflected on Reagan's legacy. And I have wept again for all those who suffered and died because of his policies and practices. For their sakes, I will rededicate myself to work with renewed energy for peace with justice. Because those same policies are still alive in Washington and other parts of our world.
Jim Lowder
Interim Director
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
P.S. Pasted below is a very poignant letter about Reagan and the AIDS epidemic sent to me by a friend.
For Reagan, AIDS was a blind spot
By MATT FOREMAN
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, wrote this letter yesterday to his friend Steven Powsner, the former president of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center.
Dear Steven,
I so much wish you were here with me to tell me what to do. You would know if I should comment on President Reagan's death or just let the accolades pass. But you're not here. You died in November 1995, at age 40, of complications of AIDS.
The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.
I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Nancy Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer's.
But even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over his nonresponse to the AIDS epidemic.
AIDS was first reported in 1981. Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987. By then, there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS - and 30,000 deaths.
I remember that day, Steven. You were staying round-the-clock at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, caring for your dying partner of 15 years, Bruce Cooper. There would be another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died.
During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?
I know for a fact that you would be alive today, Steven, if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic. If protease inhibitors had been available in July of 1995 instead of December, you'd still be here.
I wouldn't feel so angry if the Reagan administration's inaction was due to
ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. But it was deliberate. The government's response was dictated by evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God's just punishment.
Remember? The White House director of communications, Patrick Buchanan, would later go on to write that AIDS was nature's revenge on gay men. Reagan's secretary of education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and Christian decency, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they considered God's work.
I do not presume to judge Ronald Reagan's soul or heart. But I do know his AIDS policies resulted in despair and death.
That is why I write this letter. And why you will never read it.
Love, Matt
I'm pretty cynical about the U.S. media, so I don't know why I am so bothered by the non-stop coverage of the "Reagan legacy," with commentators trying to outdo one another in making us all feel warm and gooey. They are depicting him as all of the super-heroes all bound into one.
Maybe it disturbs me because my personal experience was so different. I moved to California in June, 1981, about six months after Reagan was first elected president. He had previously served a stint as governor of that state, where he had an enormous impact. I would soon learn about it first-hand.
By 1982 California cities were inundated with homeless people, with more than 30 percent of them having mental disabilities. Turns out that Reagan, as governor, had pretty much dismantled the mental health system (among other things) in California.
As Reagan's social policies were implemented in the early 80s, the rich got richer and the poor got - well, precious little, if anything. One columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle summarized Reagan's policies as "unleashing greed."
Our church was besieged with families needing shelter, food, clothing, actually, just about everything. Homelessness had previously been consigned to a few "rescue missions." But now a new genre of services known as homeless shelters and transitional housing were coming into being. What had been a couple hundred homeless persons in San Francisco now mushroomed into thousands. But job training, mental health services, and affordable housing programs were being reduced at both the federal and local level. At the same time, under the leadership of Reagan, the U.S. was creating the greatest "peacetime" financial deficit in its history.
About 40 miles east of San Francisco were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. These labs were the "brain center" of U.S. nuclear weapons development. And they were an example of how a nation could be spending so much money while more and more of its citizens were being pushed into poverty. Many people of faith and conscience recognized that, tried to close the labs, and received an education about the U.S. prison system from the inside.
And then there were the refugees. Despite everything Reagan could do to stop them, refugees poured into the U.S. By 1986, it was estimated that 50,000 men, women, and children from El Salvador alone were living in San Francisco. There were brutal dictatorships all over Latin America supported by the U.S. And where there wasn't one, Reagan and his men were determined to create one. Most notably in Nicaragua. Reagan's support of the "contra war" in Nicaragua cost more than 30,000 lives.
Through the media, the Reagan administration tried to market this effort as working for democracy. But too many of us had personal connections for that lie to be completely pervasive. Our church, like many others, had a "sister congregation" in Nicaragua and we traveled there and met with folks who gave us a picture of a completely different reality.
Not that Reagan limited his strange and perverse international policies to Latin America. A certain Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon was good buddies with a "friendly" leader named Saddam Hussein. It seems that no one in the media coverage of Reagan's legacy is talking about the years of U.S. support of Iraq under Hussein.
And, of course, there was that little matter of the Reagan administration covertly selling weapons to, of all places, Iran. And, if that wasn't illegal and immoral enough, then using the money to fund rebel contras seeking to overthrow a legitimate government in Nicaragua. And killing thousands of innocent citizens. And lying about it. And then lying about lying about it. And then denying that Reagan had known or said anything about any of this in the first place.
And so while Reagan was playing superhero in the White House, the members of our little church (like countless other churches all over the U.S.) were frantically finding housing for homeless families, sheltering refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala (where a previous U.S. superhero had overthrown a democratically elected president and replaced him with a genocidal dictator), providing residence for a Nicaraguan family, and a host of other things that resulted from the now "feel good all over and be nostalgic" Reagan legacy.
I certainly have sympathy for Nancy, other members of Reagan's family, and his close friends. Losing a loved one is difficult and traumatic, even when that death has been expected and anticipated for so long. I know that it is a tremendous loss for them and I have prayed for them. Such loss binds us all together as a human family.
And I understand that the death of a former president, prime minister, or top leader is a significant event for any country and needs to be ritualized.
But forgive me if I don't stand up and cheer or shed a tear with all of the corporate media falling all over themselves to salute the Reagan legacy of leadership and statesmanship. I've shed too many tears for too long over the pain and suffering that his policies caused.
Which brings me to one final Reagan policy that affected so many of us in the U.S. and literally millions of people around the world. As Reagan began his first term in office, what was to be known later as the AIDS epidemic was also beginning. Reagan had an opportunity to be truly a superhero had he made it a priority to find a cure for this virus and to provide support and care for those who contracted it. But his policies of neglect and indifference ensured that a world-wide pandemic was our destiny. Reagan demonstrated his homophobia as the disease's first impact in the U.S. was in the gay community. It led him to comment at one point that "maybe the Lord brought down this plague because illicit sex is against the ten commandments." Bad policy and bad theology.
My pastoral ministry in California was more defined by the AIDS epidemic than by any other single factor. In many ways, it affected my entire life. I lost count of the funerals of friends and colleagues as the number swelled into the dozens. Jerene and I were married in 1994. On our first anniversary, we reflected that eight persons in our wedding pictures were no longer living because of AIDS.
The media coverage of the last few days has done one thing for me. I have paused and reflected on Reagan's legacy. And I have wept again for all those who suffered and died because of his policies and practices. For their sakes, I will rededicate myself to work with renewed energy for peace with justice. Because those same policies are still alive in Washington and other parts of our world.
Jim Lowder
Interim Director
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
P.S. Pasted below is a very poignant letter about Reagan and the AIDS epidemic sent to me by a friend.
For Reagan, AIDS was a blind spot
By MATT FOREMAN
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, wrote this letter yesterday to his friend Steven Powsner, the former president of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center.
Dear Steven,
I so much wish you were here with me to tell me what to do. You would know if I should comment on President Reagan's death or just let the accolades pass. But you're not here. You died in November 1995, at age 40, of complications of AIDS.
The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.
I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Nancy Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer's.
But even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over his nonresponse to the AIDS epidemic.
AIDS was first reported in 1981. Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987. By then, there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS - and 30,000 deaths.
I remember that day, Steven. You were staying round-the-clock at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, caring for your dying partner of 15 years, Bruce Cooper. There would be another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died.
During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?
I know for a fact that you would be alive today, Steven, if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic. If protease inhibitors had been available in July of 1995 instead of December, you'd still be here.
I wouldn't feel so angry if the Reagan administration's inaction was due to
ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. But it was deliberate. The government's response was dictated by evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God's just punishment.
Remember? The White House director of communications, Patrick Buchanan, would later go on to write that AIDS was nature's revenge on gay men. Reagan's secretary of education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and Christian decency, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they considered God's work.
I do not presume to judge Ronald Reagan's soul or heart. But I do know his AIDS policies resulted in despair and death.
That is why I write this letter. And why you will never read it.
Love, Matt
posted by Rev. Rick Mitchell, PhD at 4:04 PM
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