Posts Tagged ‘Ronald Reagan’

Josef Joffe im New Republic über die verlogenen Reaktionen auf Gaddafis Gewaltorgie:

When Casablanca’s corrupt police captain Louis Renault closes down Rick’s Bar Américain to please Major Strasser, he huffs: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A second later, the croupier hands him a pile of money: “Your winnings, sir.” It took the West and the Rest 42 years to be shocked by what has been happening in Muammar’s Café Libyien. And it wasn’t gambling.

Now, it’s no more U.N. Human Rights Council for Qaddafi. Now, the International Criminal Court is investigating. Now, the E.U. is cutting off arms supplies and freezing bank accounts. Even the supple Swiss are getting religion, sequestering funds thought to belong Gaddafi and relatives.

There is no reason to be “shocked, shocked.” Everybody—and that goes for the West as well as for Arabs, African, and Asians—has been able to see all along what’s been happening in Libya. But the Human Rights Council did not seem notice—perhaps because it was too busy passing 32 resolutions against Israel since its creation in 2006, almost half of the total it’s issued. The Council must have acted in a fit of dizziness when it elected Libya as a member.

And yet. The only time shock led to counter-shock was when Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli in 1986. The attack unleashed an uproar in Europe; this was worse than the slaughter of Libyan civilians, it was neo-imperialism! Four years earlier, a delegation of German Greens—idealists and pacifists all—had come to Tripoli to pay their respects to “Brother Leader.”

Unbedingt lesenswert: Why is everyone acting so shocked about Muammar Qaddafi’s crackdown?

Man muss ihn nicht sympathisch finden – doch Ronald Reagan hat gerade in Berlin Anerkennung und Ehre verdient. Eine Ronald-Reagan-Straße ist das Mindeste. Kein Politiker hat einen so großen Anteil am Fall der Mauer. Kein Präsident, kein Kanzler hat so eindeutig, direkt und unmissverständlich auf die Erosion der Sowjetmacht hingewirkt. Keiner war ein so erfolgreicher kalter Krieger.

Weiterlesen im TAGESSPIEGEL: Der Wildeste im Westen

Aus dem Land / Das sich selbst zerstört / Und uns den way of life diktiert / Da kommt Reagan und bringt Waffen und Tod / Und hört er Frieden / Sieht er rot / Er sagt als Präsident von USA / Atomkrieg ? – Ja / Bitte / Dort und da / Ob Polen / Mittler Osten / Nicaragua / Er will den Endsieg / Das ist doch klar.

Der Klassiker unter Freunden des Fremdschämens:

When Ronald Reagan went before the Brandenburg Gate, he did not say Mr. (Mikhail) Gorbachev, that wall is none of our business.

(Mike Pence)

United States House of Representatives condemns Theran crackdown on Protesters (via):

WASHINGTON (AP) – In the strongest message yet from the U.S. government, the House voted 405-1 Friday to condemn Tehran’s crackdown on demonstrators and the government’s interference with Internet and cell phone communications.

The resolution was initiated by Republicans as a veiled criticism of President Barack Obama, who has been reluctant to criticize Tehran’s handling of disputed elections that left hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power.

Btw: Who the fuck is Ron Paul?

Nachtrag: Das Weiße Haus will von einer Klatsche nichts wissen:

Shortly after the House vote on Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the resolution’s language is “very consistent” with what President Obama has said since the chaos began.

“Obviously, we welcome the resolution,” Gibbs said, adding that he believes “that it echoes the words of President Obama throughout the week.”

Except that’s a lie: the White House has not condemned the Iranian regime. Perhaps someone should ask the president personally to do so.

DIE ZEIT über das Zeitungssterben in Amerika:

Die Ente vom Ende

Das Printgewerbe in den USA kämpft um seine Existenz, nicht erst seit der Wirtschaftskrise. Jetzt droht die Politik der Presse mit Hilfe.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

(Ronald Reagan)

Peter Bofinger über einen möglichen Krisen-Soli:

Das darf man erst machen, wenn sich die Wirtschaft eindeutig stabilisiert hat. Dann kann man darüber nachdenken, denn die Steuerbelastung in Deutschland ist insgesamt zu niedrig.

Yum Yum!

Ketchup Is a Vegetable

(Ronald Reagan)

The phrase “What would Reagan do?” (often abbreviated to WWRD) has become popular in the United States in the 2000s as a personal motto for thousands of Conservative Republicans who used the phrase as a reminder of their belief that Ronald Reagan is the best example of a conservative politician, and that all Republicans should act in a manner of which Reagan would approve. The initialism WWRD is sometimes also used. It is a phrase used to lambaste what many Republicans perceive as the big spending tendency of the Republican Party. It originated by analogy from the earlier phrase “What would Jesus do?”

(Wikipedia)

Eine der zeitlosesten Antworten auf diese Frage hat Reagan in seiner A Time for Choosing Rede am 27. Oktober 1964 gegeben, in der unter anderem dieser Satz steht, der selbst die Farewell Address in den Schatten stellt:

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters.”

Auf YouTube finden sich die letzten Minuten der Rede; angesichts der hartnäckigen Zeitlosigkeit der moralisierend daherkommenden Unmoral des Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters sind diese 4 Minuten 15 Sekunden sehenswerter denn je:

(Zugegeben, diese Persiflage des WWRD ist auch nicht schlecht.)

Die hier haben wunderbare Straßennamen, die hier prächtige Boulevards, und meine Wunschvorstellungen für den Pariser Platz wurden bereits von einem mir unbekannten Dr. rer. nat. Peter Petersen artikuliert.