Pubblichiamo oggi un articolo da The Nation su Ronald Reagan di cui ricorreva qualche giorno fa il 102 compleanno. Reagan viene tuttora idolatrato dalla destra americana ed europea ed è stato pure rivalutato da una parte della sinistra. Quindi, al di là della propaganda, sarebbe ora di fare un pò di luce su una figura storica che è riuscita ad unire la farsa e la tragedia, a manipolare milioni di persone e a dare origine a quel periodo di deregulation che tanti danni ha provocato in tutto il globo.
Reagan è stato una sorta di Berlusconi ante-litteram, un contaballe imperterrito, sempre pronto a spararla il più grossa possibile (basta ricordare la Reaganomics e la balzana idea che meno tasse volesse dire più soldi per lo Stato), e con un concetto di democrazia a confronto del quale anche il nostro B. sembra un vero e sincero democratico. La lettura dell'articolo di Rick Perlstein è davvero illuminante.
di Rick Perlstein
da The Nation
I missed a friend's birthday a couple of weeks ago.
February 6 was the 102nd anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. I've been
spending a lot of time with the old fellow, as some of you know,
working on a book, and I really should make amends. Because he
astonishes me. A man as myopic as what you'll be seeing below really
deserves some sort of recognition. He really, really does.
As I noted in a recent post
on Reagan's contribution to the ideology of NRA vigilantism, I spent a
goodly amount of time this previous summer at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford listening to the daily radio broadcasts broadcasts by which he
reintroduced himself politically to the nation, beginning in 1975,
following his second term as governor of California. Listening to Reagan
with Google by my side was an astonishment, even knowing how much he
habitually stretched the truth. There was the time I heard him make an
impassioned brief against the Ahab-like maritime bureaucrats insisting
that a steamship that plied its trade up and down the Mississippi for
tourists, the Delta Queen, be fireproofed according to law, which her
owners said would put her out of business. Even though she "has never
had a fire...No matter, said the bureaucrats in Washington. The Delta
Queen could not be made an exception."
I went on Google Newspapers, typed in "Delta Queen" and "fire." And learned...she had caught on fire little more than two years earlier.
Fact-checking Ronald Reagan has been, sometimes, almost
comical. But it sometimes makes you want to punch through a window, too.
In July of 1975 he made an especially aggressive broadcast attacking
"the innuendos and the accusations that the CIA and our government had a
hand in bringing about the downfall of the government of Chile." (It
wasn't innuendo, as a Church Committee report published in 1976 definitively proved,
and which Reagan, as a member of the blue ribbon Rockefeller Commission
investigating the CIA that year had to have known when he uttered the
words).
He went on to flay Congressmen who "act as if fascism
had been imposed on the Chileans, to their great distress and
unhappiness."
He then cited a recent unprecedented Gallup poll
undertaken in the South American nation. It recorded that 83 percent
"agree with the new government's statement of principles," over 90
percent said "the government has either completed, or nearly completed,
these principles, which include that freedom of thought will be
respected,"; that sixty-four percent thought they were "living better";
75 percent liked their medical care; 73 percent thought conditions would
improve (only 11 percent disagreed). As for the new government which
had brought their nation to this happy pass, "60 percent gave it the
highest rating possible and only 3 percent feel it was bad. This is
quite a contrast to much of what we've heard in the news about a reign
of terror, political prisoners, torture, and a depressed and frightened
populace!"
The paradox will give you a headache, right? Polling
only works in a country without a depressed, frightened populace, no?
Were the public trusts authorities enough to tell them the truth without
fear of retribution. Chileans, since September 11, 1973 had lived under
an official "state of siege," renewed every month by military decree
and not lifted until 1978—at
which point General Pinochet revised the state of siege to a mere
"state of emergency." The new rules he magnanimously explained, meant "I
cannot banish anyone for more than six months and there will be no more
trials of a military nature" (through the nightly curfew would remain
in force). "This is not a threat but I am testing how people will
behave," he said. "The reality is that we are living in a tranquil
period and there is support for the government. I believe that this
backing permits me to lift the state of siege and maintain only a state
of emergency."
And what did he offer as his evidence, in 1978, that
these "relaxed" measures were acceptable? Ironically enough, a Gallup
Poll citing 80.6 percent support for his government.
Back in 1975, meanwhile, the first time Gallup came
calling in Santiago, by public law the military junta could banish
anyone they wanted, and keep them "in detention in locations other than
regular prisons"—such as, infamously, the national soccer stadium, where
some 40,000 political enemies had been held. By private law, thousands
of regime enemies were simply "disappeared," including an Air Force
official, Alberto Bachelet, who was tortured to death in 1974 (the
papers reported he died from cardiac arrest in a basketball game). His
daughter and mother were picked up for detention and torture six months
before this Reagan broadcast. Would you speak truthfully to a stranger
bearing a clipboard in a country like that?
Apparently Ronald Reagan never thought of that. Gallup
said Chileans loved their ruler, and that was good enough for him. Put
simply, there were good guys and bad guys. Augusto Pincochet,
vociferously anti-Communist, was one of the good ones.
Call it a preview of what was to come, ten years later, when he called
the proprietors of another set of death squads, the Nicaraguan Contras,
"our brothers," "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers and the
brave men and women of the French resistance." Happy birthday, Mr.
President!fonte: http://www.thenation.com/blog/172980/happy-birthday-mr-fortieth-president#
Se ti è piaciuto questo post, clicca sul simbolo della moschina che trovi qui sotto per farlo conoscere alla rete grazie al portale Tze-tze, notizie dalla rete
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento