{"article":{"id":112925,"heading":"Resurgent America: Crimes and Times of Reagan","author":"iskra","created":"2004-06-19 16:25:15","modified":"2004-06-19 16:25:15","last_modified":"Sat, 19 Jun 2004 23:25:15","article":"

Revolutionary Worker #1244, June 20,\r\n2004<\/em>, posted at http:\/\/rwor.org<\/p>\r\n

Ronald Reagan--the U.S. president from 1981 to 1989--relentlessly\r\ndrove this planet to the very brink of nuclear world war--while\r\npreaching, with a fundamentalist fervor, that a nuclear Armageddon was\r\n\"winnable.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

He rallied vicious legions of fascists, killers, and mindless\r\nreligious patriots to his cause--and had them trained, funded and\r\npromoted in an unprecedented way.<\/p>\r\n

Everything that opposed the domination by U.S. capitalism, anything\r\nthat was progressive (or even just vaguely enlightened) became a\r\ntarget. Christian crusaders, bigots and rightwing death squads were\r\nunleashed on the people in countless ways, both open and secret.<\/p>\r\n

Now Reagan has finally died. And this empire, its leaders and its\r\nutterly shameless media are all honoring this monster. This\r\nmyth-making, this utter reversal of right and wrong, says a lot about\r\nthem and their system. And it says a lot about this<\/i> moment in\r\nhistory--when American is in a midst of a new aggressive global\r\noffensive.<\/p>\r\nThe Rise of a Rightwing Hatchet Man\r\n

Ronald Reagan was active in the anti-communist witch hunts after\r\nWorld War 2. Reagan, a hack actor in Grade B westerns, introduced a\r\n\"loyalty oath\" for actors and for the officials of the union he headed,\r\nthe Screen Actors Guild (SAG). He testified before the \"House\r\nUn-American Activities Committee\" and privately snitched to the FBI to\r\nhelp them purge Hollywood of \"disloyal\" artists.<\/p>\r\n

Anti-communism soon became his career. Reagan toured the U.S. for\r\nGeneral Electric, giving speeches that promoted \"free enterprise\"\r\ncapitalism and rightwing politics. Prominent ruling class forces saw\r\nReagan could put a slick \"aw shucks\" face on rightwing politics. With\r\ntheir backing, he became governor in California in 1966, running as a\r\nrabid opponent of \"unwashed kooks, campus malcontents and filthy speech\r\nadvocates.\" He announced, \"I would have voted against the Civil Rights\r\nAct of 1964.\"<\/p>\r\n

And once in office, he launched a high-level vendetta against the\r\nrising radical currents--like the Black Panther Party and the youth\r\nmovement in Berkeley.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In May 1969, police moved against the communal Peoples' Park in\r\nBerkeley that symbolized a rejection of capitalist property. Street\r\nfighting erupted. One man, James Rector, died of gunshot wounds as\r\nsquads of police opened fire in the streets. Reagan sent his National\r\nGuard troops marching through the Berkeley campus with fixed bayonets\r\nas state helicopters gassed the crowds. Reagan personally defended the\r\npolice decision to shoot people.<\/p>\r\n

In 1974 Governor Reagan bitterly denounced huge crowds of poor\r\npeople who excitedly showed up to get free food that the Hearst\r\nCorporation had been forced to distribute by the SLA kidnapping of\r\nPatty Hearst. Reagan said: \"It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic\r\nof botulism.\"<\/p>\r\n

Reagan was an arrogant opponent of Black Liberation, a supporter of\r\nU.S. escalation in Vietnam, a law-and- order counter-revolutionary, and\r\na sneering enemy of the radical youth culture. He was a hated symbol of\r\neverything the '60s radical upsurge wanted to overthrow.<\/p>\r\nAmeriKKKa is Back\r\n\"We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing\r\nbeside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got\r\nthat way by taking advantage of the thin one!\"\r\n

Ronald Reagan, 1964<\/p>\r\n\"Why should we subsidize intellectual\r\ncuriosity?\"\r\n

Ronald Reagan campaign speech,\r\n1980<\/p>\r\n\"Beginning with Reagan in particular, when he became\r\nPresident in 1981, there was a massive ideological assault to undo what\r\npeople had learned, to make them `stupid' and to promote another view,\r\na reactionary viewpoint.\"\r\n\r\n

Bob Avakian, \"We Want State\r\nPower--and We Should Want It,\" Revolutionary Worker,<\/i> May 4,\r\n2003<\/p>\r\n\"Reversing correct verdicts goes against the will of the\r\npeople.\"\r\n

Mao Tsetung<\/p>\r\n

The dreams of an \"American Century\" were punctured by the 1960s. The\r\nU.S. invasion of Vietnam was defeated. The U.S. was widely exposed as a\r\nglobal oppressor whose roots lay deep in slavery, genocide and\r\naggressive expansion. Mindless patriotism, conservatism, conformity,\r\ntraditional sexual roles, support for the military, \"get rich\"\r\nmanias--all were put on the defensive.<\/p>\r\n

Presidents toppled. First Lyndon Johnson, then Richard Nixon left\r\noffice in disgrace.<\/p>\r\n

By the late '70s, the U.S. ruling class was looking for a way out of\r\nthis \"malaise.\" In 1979, they were hit hard. Vicious U.S. puppets were\r\noverthrown in Nicaragua and Iran. And their social-imperialist rivals,\r\nthe Soviet Union, invaded Afghanistan. The U.S. ruling class decided to\r\nmount an aggressive global comeback challenge. To spearhead this, they\r\ntapped Ronald Reagan, a man from the extreme right fringe of U.S.\r\npolitics, and made him president in 1980.<\/p>\r\n

He set out to mobilize every reactionary and backward force in a\r\ncrusade for U.S. supremacy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Reagan's political work was packed with chilling racist symbolism.\r\nAfter getting the nomination--he praised \"states rights\" in his first\r\nspeech--made in Philadelphia, Mississippi, known for the 1964 Klan\r\nmurder of three young civil rights workers. Reagan ranted about\r\n\"welfare queens\" supposedly riding around in Cadillacs. He even said\r\npeople were homeless \"by choice.\"<\/p>\r\n

Reagan mobilized the so-called \"Moral Majority\"--and demanded a\r\nreturn to \"traditional moral values,\" which meant banning abortion,\r\nimposing prayer on kids, and enshrining conservative Christianity as an\r\nofficial religion in public life.<\/p>\r\n

He mocked environmental concerns saying most air pollution was\r\ncaused by plants: \"So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing\r\ntough emission standards from man-made sources.\" His press secretary\r\npointed out a window and shouted: \"Look, killer trees!\"<\/p>\r\n

Within months of his inauguration, Reagan crushed the Patco strike\r\nof air traffic controllers--and set a pattern of union busting that has\r\ncontinued until today.<\/p>\r\n

When Reagan's administrators cut money for school lunches, they\r\nclassified ketchup and relish as vegetables to hide the drop in\r\nnutrition.<\/p>\r\n

For six years after the first cases of AIDS appeared, Reagan refused\r\nto sound the alarm, or mobilize social resources. By the time Reagan\r\neven mentioned the word \"AIDS\" in 1985, 30,000 people had died, and the\r\nepidemic was in full swing.<\/p>\r\n

*****<\/p>\r\n

In 1985, at the height of the Reagan Years, the Maoist magazine A\r\nWorld To Win<\/i> described those times:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\"The United States of America appears to have gone totally\r\nmad. It screams that its `hesitancies' and `self doubts' left over from\r\nVietnam are dispelled. `We won't be pushed around any more!'.Official\r\nAmerica brims with unapologetic self-love. Amid a reborn worship of\r\n`free enterprise,' the proletarian, the poor, the non-white are openly\r\nscorned as `losers' who have somehow personally failed to take\r\nadvantage of the `limitless opportunities' in the `land of the free.'\r\nClassic American know-nothingism is back in vogue. `Traditional social\r\nroles,' especially for women and youth, are exalted and increasingly\r\nenforced. Backwater religious fanatics are handed respectability and\r\ninfluence. Submissiveness, motherhood, unthinking obedience are\r\nwatchwords of the times.\"\r\n

(From \"Resurgent America Turns to Reaganism,\"\r\nCarl Dix, A World to Win,<\/i> No. 2, 1985)<\/p>\r\nRonnie Ray-Gun at the Brink of World War 3\r\n\"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that\r\nI've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin\r\nbombing in five minutes.\"\r\n

Reagan's chilling \"joke,\" before a\r\nradio broadcast, August 11, 1984<\/p>\r\n

Reagan's politics marshaled everything backward in the U.S. for a\r\nglobal military drive to win U.S. domination. Their main target was the\r\nSoviet Union and its allies, which had formed as a rival imperialist\r\nmilitary bloc.<\/p>\r\n

After the restoration of capitalism in the USSR in 1956, its rulers\r\ntried to carve out their own profitable imperialist empire, and as the\r\nU.S. stumbled in the 1960s and '70s, the Soviet social-imperialists\r\nstepped up their efforts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Reagan set out to force a roll-back of Soviet influence, using raw\r\nmilitary power. In the first years of Reagan's rule, the U.S.\r\ngovernment spent a full $1.5 trillion to build a \"global war-fighting\r\ncapacity.\" President Jimmy Carter's push to deploy \"first strike\"\r\nnuclear weapons was carried through, and Reagan added a new ingredient\r\nfor nuclear war-fighting: plans for a Star Wars system in space.<\/p>\r\n

The U.S. military was moving to be able to launch a quick,\r\nunannounced nuclear strike, and then \"defend itself\" against any\r\nattempt by the Soviet Union to retaliate. These were preparations for\r\n\"waging and winning\" nuclear war. Reagan openly argued that such a war\r\ncould be winnable.<\/p>\r\n

This horrible offensive deeply marked the 1980s--it filled the\r\nnightmares of a generation. Europe was treated as a potential nuclear\r\nbattlefield. And millions of people were drawn into active resistance\r\nto this great threat of global nuclear war between two imperialist war\r\nblocs.<\/p>\r\nDeath Squads of the Reagan Doctrine\r\n

Now, over Reagan's casket, his successors praise him for a\r\n\"bloodless victory over the Soviet Union.\" Their mythmaking hides\r\nmountains of bones and fields filled with mass graves. Under Reagan,\r\noppressive governments all over were armored with new weapons for\r\nthreatening their neighbors. Proxy wars raged throughout the third\r\nworld. And Reagan's government unleashed history's greatest wave of\r\ncovert CIA operations and secret wars.<\/p>\r\n

On December 1, 1981, Reagan signed a secret National Security\r\nDirective (NSD) that authorized the CIA to create a mercenary army to\r\nattack Nicaragua's new Sandinista government. These \"Contra\" killers\r\nlaunched an intense campaign of sabotage and assassination against\r\nNicaragua's people. Reagan also sent \"military advisors\" to El\r\nSalvador--to escalate a rightwing death-squad campaign against rebels\r\nand peasant villages.<\/p>\r\n

Reagan's CIA armies used secret drug trafficking to finance their\r\narms purchases--flying planes into U.S. mainland bases loaded with\r\ncocaine, and flying back to Central American bases loaded with arms for\r\nthe Contras. The flood of cocaine helped create the \"crack explosion\"\r\nthat hit U.S. ghettos in the early '80s (all while Nancy Reagan\r\ndeclared a \"war on drugs\" with her \"Just Say No!\" campaign).<\/p>\r\n

In 1982, a Pentacostal fanatic, General Efrain Rios Montt, staged a\r\ncoup in Guatemala, with strong support from the U.S. \"Moral Majority.\"\r\nHe carried out genocidal campaigns against Mayan villagers, killing an\r\nestimated 200,000 people. In the middle of this campaign, Reagan\r\npersonally met Rios Montt to praise him as a \"man of great personal\r\nintegrity and commitment.\"<\/p>\r\n

Meanwhile, the CIA poured billions of dollars into their largest\r\ncovert operation in history--organizing an extreme Islamist\r\nfundamentalist army to attack Soviet troops in Afghanistan and trap the\r\nUSSR in an unwinnable Vietnam-style quagmire. The CIA's \"Mujahedeen\"\r\nburned down schools and slit the throats of schoolteachers for teaching\r\nboys and girls together in mixed classes. In 1985 Reagan signed another\r\nsecret NSD--this time providing the Mujahedeen with sophisticated\r\nsurface-to-air missiles to use against Soviet helicopters.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

More than one million Afghani people died in this U.S. Soviet proxy\r\nwar, one-third of the population fled into the desperation of refugee\r\ncamps. The CIA's allies in this war, including Osama bin Laden, would\r\nlater create groups like the Taliban and al-Qaida.<\/p>\r\n

In Africa, the U.S. government recruited armed groups in southern\r\nAfrica--to attack the movements who had come to power in Angola and\r\nMozambique, and to help preserve the racist apartheid government in\r\nSouth Africa. The CIA's backing of Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement\r\nplunged Angola into long years of civil war that ruined the country and\r\nmade large parts of the population refugees.<\/p>\r\n

These Nicaraguan contras, Afghan Mujahadeen and similar groups\r\nthroughout the world were called \"freedom fighters\" in Ronald Reagan's\r\nspeeches. But they were armed agents of U.S. imperialism--even though,\r\nin the beginning, the direct U.S. role in their crimes was unknown and\r\nofficially denied.<\/p>\r\nThe Hot Wars of This \"Cold War\"\r\n

Meanwhile, Reagan launched repeated aggression directly using the\r\nU.S. military itself.<\/p>\r\n

In 1981, Reagan provocatively sent an aircraft carrier into Libya's\r\nterritorial waters where they shot down two Libyan planes. It was an\r\nopen U.S. provocation against this small, oil-rich, North African\r\ncountry. In 1986, Reagan sent planes to assassinate Libya's Col.\r\nMuammar Qaddafi in his bed. Qaddafi survived, but the attack killed\r\nover 30 people, including Qaddafi's infant daughter.<\/p>\r\n

In 1982, Reagan sent over 1,200 Marines into Lebanon's capital,\r\nBeirut. Reagan withdrew that invasion force, after 258 Marines were\r\nkilled in their Beirut barracks. But he quickly moved to burnish his\r\nimage of \"strongman\" by staging an invasion of the tiny Caribbean\r\nisland of Grenada.<\/p>\r\n

Grenada is only ten miles wide with a population of 90,000 people.\r\nIts major product is the spice nutmeg. A popular movement there had\r\nplaced an anti-U.S. government in power. And so Reagan unleashed\r\n\"Operation Urgent Fury\"--the October 1983 invasion by 2,000 troops. A\r\nphony justification was cooked up--claiming that U.S. medical students\r\nwere in danger there. Reagan later quipped (with raw imperialist humor)\r\nthat Grenada had to be conquered because Americans \"can't make eggnog\r\nwithout nutmeg.\"<\/p>\r\n

This rape of tiny Grenada was a signal to the whole region of what\r\nthe U.S. would do to anyone who defied them. Starting in 1983, the U.S.\r\nNavy repeatedly held massive exercises that, over and over, took an\r\ninvasion force within striking distance of Nicaragua.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In the Persian Gulf, the Reagan government backed the Iraqi\r\ngovernment in a brutal border war with Iran. The U.S. secretly helped\r\nfunnel billions of dollars in aid and arms to Saddam Hussein. During\r\nthat time Saddam Hussein developed chemical weapons and used them on\r\nKurdish villages and Iranian troops. The U.S. government prevented\r\nthese actions from receiving international condemnation--since they\r\nwanted their ally Saddam Hussein to continue undermining Iran's\r\ngovernment.<\/p>\r\n

Over a million people died as the U.S. government dragged out this\r\nsenseless eight-year border war--all to force Iran firmly back under\r\nU.S. domination.<\/p>\r\n

At the same time, as Carl Dix remarked in A World To Win<\/i>\r\n:<\/p>\r\n\"U.S. imperialism has found the banner of the `Free World'\r\nfar too useful for its purposes to abandon lightly. In fact, under\r\nReagan there has been a virtual fad of staging mock elections to\r\nprettify death squad regimes from El Salvador to South Korea to\r\nTurkey.\"\r\n

It has a remarkably modern ring to it: Ranting about \"bringing\r\ndemocracy to the world\" while unleashing torture, invasion, and U.S.\r\ndomination.<\/p>\r\nA Real-life 1984\r\n

Reagan signed NSD 52 that authorized the Federal Emergency\r\nManagement Agency (FEMA) and National Guard forces to prepare to round\r\nup over 400,000 people into prison camps. Under the guidance of an\r\nunknown Marine colonel, Oliver North, a secret operation called \"Rex 84\r\nBravo\" practiced these plans in April 1984.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The Miami Herald<\/i> published parts of a FEMA memo that\r\ndescribed an \"Alpha Two Phase\" of the exercise as a test of \"emergency\r\nlegislation, assumption of emergency powers.\" In other words, the\r\noperation included plans for martial law and the suspension of the U.S.\r\nConstitution.<\/p>\r\n

REX 84 was connected to the testing of two other major war plans.\r\nOperation Night Train deployed thousands of U.S. troops to Contra bases\r\nin Honduras for an invasion of Nicaragua. A separate operation\r\npracticed military command-and-control for global nuclear war.<\/p>\r\n

In short, the U.S. government was considering an invasion of\r\nNicaragua. And it was preparing, if necessary, to suspend the\r\nConstitution, round up hundreds of thousand of people within the U.S.,\r\nand be ready to wage a global nuclear war against the Soviet Union.\r\nThese intermeshed scenarios show how far the Reagan White House thought\r\nthey might be about to take things.<\/p>\r\n

At exactly that same time, Reagan was elevated to messianic status\r\nduring the 1984 presidential election. The media reported how they had\r\nmade this mummified mediocrity \"Teflon coated.\" A carefully\r\nmanufactured popularity handed him a landslide victory and a second\r\nterm. It was a sign of a sinister consensus that dominated the larger\r\nU.S. ruling class.<\/p>\r\n

The 1985 article in A World To Win<\/i> states:<\/p>\r\n\"Unlike the previous world wars of this century, the United\r\nStates stands in the very front trenches of a looming third global\r\nconflict. It must prepare its population to take the full shock of\r\ncoming collisions in a way they never had to before, even to the point\r\nof staring straight into the glare of the nuclear fireball. For this,\r\nthe U.S. imperialists must mobilize all of their political reserves,\r\nand prepare to put everything on the line in the coming gamble.. To\r\ndescribe the acts planned by these modern Hitlers, a whole new\r\nvocabulary would have to be invented. It is this extreme necessity that\r\nhas conjured up the extremism of a Ronald Reagan.\"\r\n\r\nIran-Contra\r\n\"I see that murderous clown Ronald Reagan--who couldn't\r\nremember anything about his part in the illegal war where tens of\r\nthousands of Nicaraguan people were butchered by Contra mercenaries. I\r\nsee his loyal lieutenant Oliver North--who has become a much quoted\r\nmoral authority these days--lying to Congress and then falling on his\r\nsword, while George Bush was allowed to slide and glide into the\r\npresidency.\"\r\n

Redwing writing in the\r\nRevolutionary Worker<\/i> , October 11, 1998<\/p>\r\n

Shortly into Reagan's 1984 reelection, the new Soviet leader Mikhail\r\nGorbachev adopted a new strategy: backing down from an all-out military\r\nshowdown with the U.S., seeking to buy time, delaying the outbreak of\r\nwar, all while trying to reinvigorate the Soviet economy and\r\nreconfigure their empire. Gorbachev offered concessions to U.S. demands\r\nand the U.S. imperialists (headed by Reagan) moved to accept those\r\nconcessions.<\/p>\r\n

Over the next years, Gorbachev's high-stakes strategy led to the\r\nunraveling of his empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its\r\nbloc, and the transformation of Soviet state-capitalism into more\r\nopenly privatized forms of capitalist ownership.<\/p>\r\n

At the same time, these developments also spurred an intense and\r\nescalating political crisis within the U.S. ruling class known as\r\nIran-Contra Affair.<\/p>\r\n

A Lebanese magazine, Al-Shiraa<\/i> (Nov. 3, 1986), leaked the\r\nfirst reports that the U.S. had secretly sold Iran 1,000 TOW anti-tank\r\nmissiles, weapons components, and radar, in exchange for the release of\r\na high-ranking CIA official held hostage in Lebanon. Reagan's envoy\r\nOliver North had taken the profits from this deal and (secretly and\r\nillegally) bought arms for the Nicaraguan contras.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Reagan denied the reports. But he was quickly forced to say, \"I told\r\nthe American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my\r\nbest intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the\r\nevidence tell me it is not.\"<\/p>\r\n

Reagan aides, like Oliver North, his boss John Poindextor, and\r\nGeneral Colin Powell, were caught lying on these matters to\r\nCongressional committees.<\/p>\r\n

Month by month, more came out about the murderous global campaign\r\nthat Reagan and his minions had carried out--including a massive global\r\noperation of pressuring allies and puppets to provide funds for CIA\r\ncovert wars. Poindextor tried to wipe out the records of these\r\noperations, but overlooked an email backup system in the White House\r\nbasement.<\/p>\r\n

White House spokesman Bernard Kalb resigned when it was revealed\r\nthat the U.S. government had accused Libya of preparing attacks on the\r\nU.S.--knowing that it was not true.<\/p>\r\n

A high-level U.S. ruling class committee, the Tower Commission, was\r\nassigned to resolve the crisis. Reagan was battered and widely\r\ndiscredited. But, in the end, he was not forced to resign (as Nixon had\r\nbeen). He was shoved to the political sidelines of his own White House,\r\nand a new political team (headed by Senator Howard Baker, and working\r\nclosely with Vice President Bush) took over the day-to-day operations\r\nof the U.S. government.<\/p>\r\n

This scandal, what it exposed, and the disgrace that fell on\r\nReagan--these have hardly been mentioned in the endless mythmaking that\r\nfollowed his death.<\/p>\r\n

*****<\/p>\r\n\"To the Reaganites, racists, misogynists, televangelists,\r\nwould-be Rambos, war planners, and America- firsters, we say the future\r\nis not yours. Because we see the potential of a different future, we\r\nwill Refuse and Resist.\"\r\n

Refuse and Resist!, 1987 Founding\r\nStatement<\/p>\r\n\r\n

What does it mean that the President today seeks to associate\r\nhimself with Ronald Reagan? What does it mean when the Democratic\r\nchallenger John Kerry calls off his campaign to honor Reagan--and\r\npraises Reagan's leadership and patriotism? Or when Bill Clinton\r\ncomplains that he is not allowed to make a public eulogy over Reagan's\r\ncorpse?<\/p>\r\n

It means that U.S. imperialism is furiously racing down the same\r\nroad blazed by that monster, Ronald Reagan! It means they dream of\r\nworld domination--and they want the world to believe ridiculous myths\r\nabout their good intentions.<\/p>\r\n

We live in extreme times, that have a new stink of fascism about\r\nthem. The U.S. government is seeking to exploit its position of\r\nmilitary superiority--as the \"world's only superpower.\" They have\r\nunleashed armies, death squads, torturers, and police spies.<\/p>\r\n

They have already put Reagan's name on an aircraft carrier and their\r\nnational airport--and they are now talking about engraving his face on\r\nsome of their holy dollar bills. Perhaps they should also etch his name\r\non every bullet they send to Iraq, and every cattle prod they use in\r\ntheir torture camps.<\/p>\r\n

Any system and ruling class that can honor Ronald Reagan--this\r\nhateful strangler of human hopes--shows what they are about. That alone\r\nreveals the intense need to liberate humanity from their rule, and\r\nbring something radically new into being.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nMasters of War\r\n

A song by Bob Dylan<\/i><\/p>\r\n

You that never done nothin'
\r\n\r\n But build to destroy
\r\n You play with my world
\r\n Like it's your little toy
\r\n You put a gun in my hand
\r\n And you hide from my eyes
\r\n And you turn and run farther
\r\n\r\n When the fast bullets fly
\r\n Like Judas of old
\r\n You lie and deceive
\r\n A world war can be won
\r\n You want me to believe
\r\n But I see through your eyes
\r\n\r\n And I see through your brain
\r\n Like I see through the water
\r\n That runs down my drain.
\r\n And I hope that you die
\r\n And your death'll come soon
\r\n I will follow your casket
\r\n\r\n In the pale afternoon
\r\n And I'll watch while you're lowered
\r\n Down to your deathbed
\r\n And I'll stand o'er your grave
\r\n 'Til I'm sure that you're dead<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n
\r\nThis article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker\r\nOnline
\r\nhttp:\/\/rwor.org
\r\nWrite: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
\r\nPhone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
\r\n<\/div>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Ronald Reagan--the U.S. president from 1981 to 1989--relentlessly drove this planet to the very brink of nuclear world war--while preaching, with a fundamentalist fervor, that a nuclear Armageddon was "winnable." Now Reagan has finally died. And this empire, its leaders and its utterly shameless media are all honoring this monster. This myth-making, this utter reversal of right and wrong, says a lot about them and their system. And it says a lot about this moment in history--when American is in a midst of a new aggressive global offensive.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/06\/112925.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}