Greg Palast wrote this after Ronald Reagan's death in 2004. But he had it re-printed to counteract the 100th anniversary bullshit we're currently enduring. If anything, this article is too short because Palast didn't tell enough of Reagan's crimes. So I've added my own list below Palast's article.

Reagan: Killer, Coward, Con-man
The Observer London
by Greg Palast
Monday, February 7, 2011

You're not going to like this. You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. But in this case, someone's got to.

On the 100th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth, as we suffer a week of Reagan-kitcheria and pukey peons, let us remember:

Reagan was a con-man. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was a killer.

In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis.

People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics. But Ronald Reagan, big-hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had elected.

Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young woman's lungs filled up and she stopped breathing. Reagan flashed that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three.

And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior ran away like a whipped dog - then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold parades for gunning down Cubans building an airport.

I remember Nancy, a skull and crossbones prancing around in designer dresses, some of the "gifts" that flowed to the Reagans - from hats to million-dollar homes - from cronies well compensated with government loot. It used to be called bribery.

And all the while, Grandpa grinned, the grandfather who bleated on about "family values" but didn't bother to see his own grandchildren.

The New York Times, in its canned obit, wrote that Reagan projected, "faith in small town America" and "old-time values."

"Values" my ass. It was union-busting and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness, bringing starvation back to America so that every millionaire could get another million.

"Small town" values? From the movie star of the Pacific Palisades, the Malibu mogul? I want to throw up.

And all the while, in the White House basement, as his brain boiled away, Reagan's last conscious act was to condone a coup d'état against our elected Congress. Reagan's Defense Secretary Casper the Ghost Weinberger with the crazed Colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster of the Mideast, Ayatolla Khomeini.

Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatollah. Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini, pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages.

Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the maniac mullah - no kidding - in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.

Then the Reagan roaches mixed their cowardice with crime: taking cash from the hostage-takers to buy guns for the "contras" - the drug-runners of Nicaragua posing as freedom fighters.

I remember as a student in Berkeley the words screeching out of the bullhorn, "The Governor of the State of California, Ronald Reagan, hereby orders this demonstration to disperse" - and then came the teargas and the truncheons. And all the while, that fang-hiding grin from the Gipper.

In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers stayed awake to guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra terrorists. The farmers weren't even Sandinistas, those 'Commies' that our cracked-brained President told us were 'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' What the hell would they want with Texas, anyway?

Nevertheless, the farmers, and their families, were Ronnie's targets.

In the deserted darkness of Chaguitillo, a TV blared. Weirdly, it was that third-rate gangster movie, "Brother Rat." Starring Ronald Reagan.

Well, mis amigos, your kids can sleep easy tonight. The Rat is dead.

All week you're going to hear about how Reagan restored America's sense of patriotism - as if heartless slaughter, Club Med wars and making racism respectable are patriotic . (When they said "small town values" you know the color of the town, don't you?).

I wonder if the Reaganauts can recognize any of the weapons they sold the mullahs when they see students gunned down in Teheran.

I do plan a memorial, for the victims, not the victimizer.

Please join me in commemorating the ill star that brought us a celluloid cowboy on his movie-set horsey by lighting a candle for a mom from Chaguitillo.

******
This obituary was originally published in The London Observer on Reagan's death in 2004. The author received close to 150 death threats and suggestions for acrobatic acts of intercourse with beasts and relatives. Therefore, we have reserved a special email, deaththreat@gregpalast.com just for your next threats.

****** Below is Steve's list of additions to the horrid Reagan legacy *******

Reagan ended or gutted government programs for the low-income people, such Medicaid, food stamps and other nutritional programs (such as cutting $1 billion for school lunch programs and re-classifying catsup as a vegetable, justifying the decision by saying it was "red and comes from tomatoes"), job training programs and legal assistance programs. In a heartless and mean-spirited manner, he worked to systematically dismantle programs initiated by Roosevelt and LBJ that were designed to improve people's quality of life. Compassionate conservative, my ass!

In fact, he publicly demonized the poor, creating phony stories of "welfare queens" driving "pink Cadillacs."

Like most Republicans, he worked to undermine Medicare and Social Security. Remember the record album released in 1961 by the AMA called "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine"? In this record he warned, "behind Medicare will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country" and "pretty soon your son won't decide when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him." Could those quotes be brainfarts that were the precursors to his eventual senility?

As governor of California, he effectively closed the state mental hospitals by turning their management over to the California Department of Corrections, resulting in thousands of former patients becoming homeless.

Then there was the fiscal irresponsibility: creating the largest federal deficit (at that time), mostly to fund his egregious military spending, especially the "Star Wars" missile defense program; and, of course, the deficit was created also so the mega wealthy could get massive tax cuts. You know, so that they would have more money to invest in the economy and how, gosh, that would create the "voodoo economics" in which money would "trickle down" on to the rest of us because, er, um, "a rising tide lifts all boats." Sadly, most conservatives still subscribe to this thoroughly discredited economic theory.

Besides Grenada, Reagan's other "Club Med" war, which was in Panama.

He openly improved diplomatic relationships with dictators, such as Chile's Augusto Pinochet, the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos and, even after he gassed 3,000 Kurds, Saddam Hussein. He also supported the Argentine military junta's "Dirty War," in which up to 30,000 political activists were "disappeared."

Reagan vetoed a bill passed by both (Democrats AND Republicans in Congress) that would impose economic sanctions against the apartheid government in South Africa (Congress overrode his veto). He apparently identified Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress as communists.

He also gutted the Civil Rights Commission and relentlessly attacked Affirmative Action programs.

He opposed making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.

His assault on unions and working people in general, starting with firing the striking Air Traffic Controllers union, putting public safety at risk; the first time, Reagan made it legal for union-busting companies to hire "permanent replacement workers"; also, average wages did not increase during his presidency--for the first time since World War II; this resulted in a clear erosion of the middle class, at whom Reagan, using his "kindly grandpa" facade, smiled, winked and showered with platitudes while pretending he was looking out for their interests; so much for the "shining city on the hill"

He appointed James Watt as Secretary of the Interior, who had no love of the natural environment and sold off federal lands and mining/ranching rights for pennies (not to mention his plethora of "ethnic jokes"). He also appointed Burford Gorsuch as head of the E.P.A., who brought us the Superfund scandal. He also appointed Anton Scalia to the Supreme Court..., do I really need to add any more information to that one?

Reagan had a unique ability to hire the corrupt and greedy. About a dozen high-level officials in his administration were indicted--more than any other presidential administration in history. Oliver North, John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane and the afore-mentioned James Watt were just a few of Reagan's luminaries. Eventually over 200 Reagan-era officials had faced investigation and prosecution.

His fervent deregulation of businesses, such as anti-trust laws, which created behemoths in the retail and media industries, subsequently destroying many small businesses; his deregulation also led to the "mergers & acquisitions" wave, which destroyed countless businesses and jobs; and let's not forget how his deregulation fervor led to the Savings and Loan crisis, which economist John Kenneth Galbraith described as "the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time."

His phony religiosity that he "wore on his sleeve" (even though the guy almost never went to church) instead of treating it as a personal matter; Reagan worked with and legitimized America's extreme religious fundamentalist leaders, like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. The Religious Right's influence on Reagan and the GOP brought disastrous effects on women's health care, textbook censorship and the AIDS crisis, which Reagan utterly ignored. After his presidency, he claimed God had brought the AIDS plague to America because, in his opinion, too many of us engage in "illicit sex."

His failure to follow up on Carter's Camp David peace accords, thereby leading to more bloodshed in the Middle East.

The use of astrology to help make critical policy decisions.

Because of his horrid foreign policy (some of which was guided by Nancy's astrologer--I'm not kidding!), Americans became targets around the world, including killings, kidnappings and me sewing a Canadian flag on my backpack when I was in Europe in 1985 to counteract the sudden hatred of all Americans there.

Because of the GOP's love affair with their precious boyfriend, we have endured having endless buildings, highways and airports being renamed the "Ronald Reagan Memorial ____," forever rubbing his evil legacy in our faces. Conservatives had even proposed replacing President Grant's picture on the $50 bill with Reagan's. Nothing like having daily reminders of a leader who worked to undermine your nation.