calimary
calimary's JournalDon't forget Supply-Side Jesus!
They worship him, too! And his father, the "God" who shows his favor upon you by making you rich. God wants you to be rich, dontchaknow.
Welcome to DU, rustbeltrefugee!
Glad you're here! And YES it was a dog-whistle. Remember, he had people like lee atwater and david gergen and roger ailes and richard viguerie with his well-refined and tested mailing-list shakedown schemes, and other master manipulators of the media and the public zeitgeist working for him. And fiends like kkkarl rove were eager young up-n-coming students. And the rise of the evangelicals like jerry falwell and pat robertson and too many others were on the rise, with their empires building and their takeover of America was metastasizing like a fucking cancer! Pirates On Parade. YOU BET YOUR BIPPY they knew about this kind of mind-game. And don't forget - the 1980 election also brought newt gingrich into Congress - with his GOPAC and his little black book - his sneaky-ass and soon-to-be-famous lexicon, in which he issued lists of words and phrases to use to, well, "decorate effectively." As in - adding the meanings and inferences and subtle suggestions of your choice to multiple concepts. There were lists of negative words and phrases to use when talking about Democrats and liberals, and there were comparable lists of positive words and phrases to use when talking about all things republi-CON and CONservative.
Words were POWERFUL!!!! They made a science of this. frank luntz was busy warming up in the bullpen and refining his version of this with his focus-group testing of people's reaction to words and phrases and the impressions they'd come away with, upon hearing this stuff. Words like "family" and "faith" and "patriotic" and other stuff were always attached to CON subjects, topics, and people. You weren't supposed to attach those words to anything regarding the Dems. That way you could VERY subtly paint a picture - and add a taint to what you didn't like (like the Dems) and you could make Democrats and liberals look and sound un-American and unpatriotic and godless and Communistic, while all things republi-CON were painted with apple pie and Mom and red-white-and-blue America colors, and it was all under-the-radar. And it worked. And YES, "welfare queens" was used to slam an entire demographic group = blacks.
Then on top of that, reagan was such a smooth talker and so congenial with his aw-shucks schtick. Lovable and amiable and harmless, just a nice-friendly-old-uncle. Reminded me of the manipulative "Friendly Angel" monster in one of the original "Star Trek" series episodes. It was all schtick. And straight outta Hollywood, no less! What a salesman - WORLD CLASS. And it worked. The ground was all nicely softened and ready for planting seeds. People were already favorably predisposed towards nice, kindly "Old Dutch" and "The Gipper" and all this other cosmetic crap that was spewed all the time. And it worked. Mind games and mind control EVERYWHERE. They managed every molecule carefully and meticulously, and had their once-in-a-lifetime salesman out there selling it to America, and damned effectively, too. As silky and subtle and sneaky-ass as hell. They left no fingerprints. DAYUM those bastards were good. That's how so much of the shit we're now wading through got started and imbedded and implanted in the backs of gullible voters everywhere who yearned for some hero, some Captain America type - and they were given it with all the empty calories of whipped cream and a cherry on top.
To this day I despise ronald reagan. I think he was the worst thing to happen to the United States of America in modern times. It all got started on his watch. All the demons and cockroaches and snakes and rats and other political vermin were unleashed on his watch. The foxes were unleashed on the henhouses, and the theft and gorging and gouging were unrestrained. The damage he did, that he caused, that he begat - LONG-TERM damage that in some cases is so deeply imbedded and ingested that it'll take generations to undo - was damn near criminal. Hell, it was FLAT-OUT criminal when it came to things like Iran/Contra. What a bleak decade. The only good thing I can say about ronald reagan, to this day, is that he's dead.
On edit - ...and NO, you're NOT crazy.
This gives me TREMENDOUS satisfaction. SWEET as hell to read and savor!
SOOOOO satisfying! I was working on-air during that bleak period in American history. Covering it was just a little bit o' misery every day - and there were weeks - even months on end where every damn story I wrote and/or anchored, or heard my other colleagues on the network writing and/or anchoring - about government doings and legislation and other stuff - had some inevitable wording in it about "... if President reagan gets his way..."
And it just GRATED. It was nauseating. WAVES of nauseating! He just steamrolled everything. Made me wonder sometimes whether he'd made some secret pact with the Devil - maybe selling his soul to get the green light and the all-clear on everything he did in the White House. It just seemed as though he just ramrodded every doggone thing he wanted into reality and, again and again and again, Congress just fell on its collective knees (the blighted years of bush/cheney took me back to that shitty time). But there WERE rare and wonderful occasions when the ol' fart did NOT get his way. Rare occasions. Occasions that I secretly celebrated even while trying to sound objective and non-partisan on the air (believed that was part of my job).
The rare moments when that bastard did NOT get his way renewed my faith that things weren't always quite as hopeless as they seemed.
Must just kill chuck todd to have to announce stuff like this...
GOOD! That makes it even better!
Yes, of course. I didn't care for it then either. But I was focusing on the modern era.
It just seems anathema to me that the Pope should be prancing around in fancy red Prada shoes. Just bothered me a lot. The Pope's not supposed to be about that. Christ never pranced around in fancy shoes. And the Pope's supposed to be His chief representative here on earth. Every member of the religious, whom I knew or by whom I was taught all through Catholic school - took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. That should be across the board and include the Pope, too. Which is why I find the new guy so interesting as well. Seems to me he's doing what the Pope really should be doing: focusing his everything on those whom Christ referred to as "the least of My brethren."
And btw - I don't remember EVER studying anything in the four Gospels that quoted Jesus
as saying "if you don't work, then you don't eat." I do remember something about the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin but not even the finest nobles are not arrayed like one of these." And that thing about the birds of the air that don't do any "work" - "yet your Heavenly Father feeds them." Try THAT one on and wear it around, michele bachmann!
I'll never forget that lovely Chris Matthews abomination - "we're all neocons now."
After the White House squatter pranced around with his stuffed flight suit and his "Mission Accomplished" banner. Revolting!!! And I remember you could almost feel the hard-on Matthews had stuffed in HIS pants that night. I remember him yammering on about "that's a GUY! We've got a GUY for President. America likes a GUY for President!" What a ridiculous, embarrassing man-crush he yammered on about. Just disgusting and repulsive! You just can't get up off your knees to this pompous lying cheating chickenhawk poseur, Matthews - so what does that make YOU, then?
I'm STILL angry about it. And I still take everything Chris Matthews says with a grain of salt the size of the Matterhorn. What a disgrace. He was bush's Monica for sure. Sure had his Presidential Kneepads at the ready.
Welcome to DU, cer7711!
Glad you're here! Who can tell? These subjects usually take me back to when I read "Childhood's End" and got thoroughly shaken up by it.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
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