RIP Ronald Reagan

[muckefuck]

I'm still keeping my exposure to news (particularly television news) low, so I haven't seen anything of the "flood" of eulogies that many on my Friends list are complaining about. I did do a Google search on "Reagan achievements", hoping to jog my memory with a solid, concise list. Out of the first twenty hits, only three seem positive enough to be considered encomia and one of these is over six years old. (The author laments the lack of a true successor and the eclipse of the Reaganite legacy among conservatives; it left me truly curious how he would evaluate Shrub, whose few good qualities--chief among them hawkish moral conviction--are among those he most admired in Reagan.) Most speak, at best, of a "mixed legacy". I'm guessing that this eulogy deluge is mostly a televised thing.

Some of you have mentioned that you hope there's this much of a fuss when Carter kicks it. Now, by contrast to the last four presidents, there's someone with an unmixed legacy: I can't name a single good thing he did while in office. Admittedly, I was very young at the time, but I'm hardly alone in conceiving of the late 70's as a time of stagnation and malaise. He's a good man and all, but, then, so was Neville Chamberlain, I'm sure. Should he also have a motorway named for him?

I've also heard several people deny that Reagan won us the Cold War. Or they grudgingly admit that he did only to point out that the USSR would've collapsed anyway. Yes, but when? In two years? In fifty? At what additional cost in suffering? Again, to reach for a WWII analogy, the Nazi regime in Germany was unsustainable in the long term and would've collapsed eventually, too. Does that mean that FDR's offensive in Europe wasn't necessary? And does anyone--even paleolithic bedrock conservatives--deny that he won WWII for the Allies? (Not in the sense that he did it alone, of course, but in the sense that victory wouldn't have occurred without his leadership.)

princeofcairo has mentioned to me how he's forced to grit his teeth and admit that a president whose social policies he abhors was the only candidate who would've made the morally correct choices and saved the world from barbarism. He's hoping for the day when American liberals will come to view Reagan in the same way he views FDR. After a decade of resistence, I'm willing to. I won't be shedding any tears for the Gipper, but I'm not about to join in the singing and dancing on his grave either.

Comments

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I don't consider things like the Clean Water Act or Superfund cleanup to be 'lame' - but I've worked for an environmental lobby in the past.

As far as Panama: it wasn't a matter of things might not be neutral, it was a matter of giving the Canal back to Panama instead of as a US-owned thing.

I didn't say the China thing was _major_, nor any of this - merely a 'good' thing as you asked for. It counts as 'his' because previous presidents had refused to do so; seeking some diplomatic ties to China was a Nixon thing, but we were still fresh out of viewing them as a Communist Foe from the Vietnam war.

The jobs bit was deliberately spurious. :) Since every president tries to claim job creation as being due to them, when it happens.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

As far as Panama: it wasn't a matter of things might not be neutral, it was a matter of giving the Canal back to Panama instead of as a US-owned thing.

Why was that a good thing?

Also, why "back to Panama"? They never owned it, prior to our giving it to them in Carter's treaty, and it's not as if there was any significant history of Panama controlling the Canal Zone prior to its construction. (It could certainly be argued that we owed Colombia something for essentially taking Panama from it, so that we could build our canal. But I don't really see that anything Panama had ever had was taken from it, or needed to be returned.)

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

Excellent point about Colombia. However, the first-Colombian-province-then-country of Panama certainly had sovereignty over that land before the US sent troops in to start the canal building/force independence for Panama.

The 'need' to return, resolve or otherwise change the state of affairs was mainly an issue that Panama (and other Latin American countries supporting them) was getting increasingly contentious and angry about it - for some odd reason they didn't appreciate having US military bases physically splitting their country in half, I guess. Anyway, it had been a big enough problem that the US was having to veto UN resolutions against them, fatal incidents of mob violence between US and Panamanian citizens had occurred, and the three presidents prior to Carter had unsuccessfully been seeking solutions (including failed attempts to negotiate similar treaties) to the issue for over a decade.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

As I recall, Ford negotiated the Panama Canal treaty -- a fact Reagan tried to use against him; Carter only signed it. Much like Clinton claims credit for Nafta when, in fact, the Reagan administration conceived it and G.H.W. Bush largely negotiated it.

While I can't see that the treaty generated any tangible benefits, even to Panama, it clearly has not had any negative effects on the U.S. So if the rest of the world feels better with one fewer example of U.S. dominance staring them in the face, God bless 'em.

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

Well, Ford and Nixon had both been trying to negotiate the same Panama Canal treaty for years, so it's arguable as to who should get the credit.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

The treaty was signed in September, 1977, only eight months into the Carter administration and likely less than six months after his cabinet was confirmed and put in place. That means either that he worked incredibly fast on a complicated international treaty or that it was already mostly completed.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've asked cassielsander the same thing, but why was establishing diplomatic ties with China, in and of itself, a "good thing"? Did we win some important concessions from them in return for them? Did they make the world--or even just East Asia--a safer, better place? Did they lay the groundwork for later gains?

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that they did make East Asia a better, safer place, in that it significantly reduced the holdover military tension between the US and China over things like discreetly fighting/funding a war in Vietnam, supporting Taiwan, etc. The ability to have trade relations with one of the biggest countries on the planet would also be useful, I'd think.

But generally, I'm a big fan of having the open hostility level between us and foreign countries be sufficiently low where we can exchange embassies and ambassadors and are willing to negotiate whatever comes up, instead of refuse to talk about anything.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The ability to have trade relations with one of the biggest countries on the planet would also be useful, I'd think.

If sheer size was all that mattered when it came to trade, then only China scholars would ever have heard of a 1,000 sq. km. speck on the map called "Hong Kong". How recently was it that our bilateral trade with all the rest of China exceeded that of our trade with this one little port? Getting back to the point, did Carter actually establish trade relations with China or just "make it possible"?

We haven't ever had diplomatic relations with North Korea. I guess that means we never negotiate with them about anything. If only we could get them accept one of our ambassadors, all this lingering tension from the Korean War would just melt away!

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Getting back to the point, did Carter actually establish trade relations with China or just "make it possible"?

Credit where credit is due:

"On March 1, 1979, the United States and China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. During 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved, and a bilateral trade agreement was concluded."

State Department Background Note: China

This was a bipartisan effort, started with Nixon and continuing into the Reagan years, but the Carter administration did AFAICT conclude the first trade agreement with China.