Its a sad day In California. The Govenor has signed into law two bills that honor Ronald Reagan.
Follow me down to the gutter...
one bill declaring Feb. 6 as Ronald Reagan Day, the other establishing a state commission to plan celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth in 1911.
I could not be more disgusted.
Putting him in the same category as Cesar Chavez, Harvey Milk and Martin Luther King Jr.
(sound of me throwing up)
Conservatives like to portray Reagan as a "true conservative hero" and an "american patriot". Well, maybe he is a conservative hero to homophobes and chickenhawks but he certainly is no American patriot.
Lets reflect on the REAL legacy of Ronald Reagan:
In 1981 he summarily fired 12,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike for better working conditions. This ushered in a new and dark era of labor relations, with employers now free to "permanently replace" striking workers. The median real wage failed to grow during the decade of the 1980s.
After years of negligent silence, President Ronald Reagan finally uses the word "AIDS" in public.
On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: "
How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons."
By that time he uttered those words 41,027 persons had died and
71,176 persons diagnosed with AIDS in the US.
And serious funding of aids did not start until it became clear that this was not just a "gay disease" and had infected straight white people. But by that time thousands of people had died and thousands more were dying thanks to his bigoted negligence. For that alone, I hate Ronald Reagan. Thanks to him and his administration thousands of people needesly died a painful death and their families are still suffering their heartbreak today.
State mental hospitals were taken away by Governor Reagan in the seventies, and federal mental health programs were later taken away by President Reagan in the eighties. Funding was cut for federal institutions which resulted on closures throughout the country. Homelessness in California grew throughout the seventies, a direct result of Reagan closure of mental institutions. I still see the results of that here in California, mentally ill people out on the streets with nowhere to go and noone who cares.
Saint Ronnie eh?
Reagan's REAL legacy is one of death, homophobia, intolerance, disdain, injustice, and total disrespect of human rights.
This man does NOT deserve any happy commemoration. I will be celebrating on Reagan Day. I will be celebrating that he is not in office any longer to inflict pain and suffering on Americans and the world. And I will be celebrating that Barack Obama is the President.