Pubdate: Sat, 19 Mar 2016
Source: Brattleboro Reformer (VT)
Copyright: 2016 Brattleboro Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.reformer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/59
Author: Vidda Crochetta

JUST SAY NO TO THE REAGAN LEGACY

Editor of the Reformer:

"There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers," said Ronald Reagan.

He was right insofar as Nancy Reagan is concerned. But in many ways 
it's not easy to point out how so much more harm this Hollywood 
couple did, than good, as they occupied the White House. That is 
because the twin legacies of a "Just Say No" draconian, racist drug 
war and their homophobic reaction of inaction doing nothing about the 
AIDS epidemic left Americans with two chronic, domestic gashes that 
never fully healed.

Many in the nation back then sensed that the election of a Grade B 
actor might be suitable for governor of California but to elect him 
as president of our country left a lot of people uneasy. The fact 
that he was an aging conservative Republican did not sit well, 
particularly with a thriving Just Say Yes youth culture that lived 
closer to its sunrise than it was to its sunset. Even in the context 
of popular recreational drug use, flipsided by a deadly epidemic of 
incurable proportions, the greater harm was done to our precious 
youth and their future.

Following the Reagan/Bush's administrations, young people then and 
young people now never had a snowball's chance under the sun of 
enjoying the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. Advertisement

Never before has so much harm been done to so many people during 
peacetime. The fact that much of that harm continues to this day is a 
reason to reverse the excessive, saccharine accolades doted on Nancy 
Reagan following her recent death.

She simply doesn't deserve it.

Vidda Crochetta, Brattleboro, March 14
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom