Health & Fitness
Blog: Ronnie Could Do No Wrong, Right?
Ronald Reagan fans forget about his administration's mental healthcare fiasco, the Iran-Contra scandal, and his ambivalence regarding collective bargaining.
His fans seem to forget.
Reagan practically shut down the entire mental healthcare system by closing mental health hospitals in California, and later, by cutting aid to federally-funded mental health programs. He thought it would save money to empty the hospitals and let mentally ill patients fend for themselves, or rely on charity. You see them today pushing grocery carts, living in cardboard boxes, napping on street benches or under a bridge – before the cops arrive.
By now, you’ve forgotten all about the Iran-Contra scandal. Although it pales by comparison to Bush’s fiasco in Iraq, the Reagan administration secretly sold arms to Iran – to secure the release of American hostages – and a portion of the sale went to anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua. Very secretive, very complicated, totally prohibited by Congress! Reagan claimed he never knew, and blamed it on Oliver North and the National Security Council.
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I am surprised that “Trickle-Down” Reagan fans hate unions and collective bargaining. What’s up with that?
You can’t say Ronald Reagan hated unions – at least not as much as his friend Margaret Thatcher hated them.* On Labor Day 1980, Ronnie said, “Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.” He couldn’t get elected today if he said that.
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Ronald Reagan was President of my union, back when – SAG-AFTRA. It’s bragging to say we first met in the Oval Office. We were standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder for a couple of hours. He never knew who I was. Soon after he became President of the United States, Ronnie and his party forgot about unions and the working class. I never got to ask him why. Maybe he didn’t know that either.
* “Between them, Thatcher and Reagan enacted and enforced the economic and ideological dogmas that left Western democracies, and their workers and voters, in a straitjacket of fewer rights, lesser protection, declining incomes and rising inequality.” (AFSA, AFL-CIO)
Jac Flanders is the author of “What I Learned On The Way Down” - eBook and paperback at Amazon.com.
