Shut Up And Listen 169

Speaking Ill Of The Dead

I believe I'll leave the election for this week and instead talk about the thing that has been the biggest news story of the week: the late Ronald Reagan. Oh yes, this shall be grand.

Reagan was president when I was born in January of 1983, but that doesn't really matter to me. The first president I remember hearing about was Bush, so to me, Reagan's just a name from history. Oh sure, it's recent history, but he's just some guy was elected president before I was born and left office before I was old enough to really know anything about him. That, and I'm Canadian. That all gives a nice mixture for me not having any memories of him really.

The first thing I think about when I try and think of Reagan is Frank Miller's graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns where the president is essentially Ron Reagan. I also think of Bret Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho. And "Star Wars". And that immortal speech on how Earth will be united by space aliens. I also remember reading Hunter Thompson's book Generation Of Swine and all about the Iran/Contra scandal. Alex P. Keaton also pops up at some point with Reagan's name. Even Warren Ellis and his lines about Reagan being a little crazy, but Thatcher being an absolute bad-shit loon of a monster eventually come to the surface.

You could say the history I've been exposed to of Reagan has not been one that reflects him a good light.

This past week, I've done some reading on him. I'll admit it hasn't been much, mostly the negative press. It's hard to pay attention to the positive press when you have obvious morons demanding that Mount Rushmore be changed to include Reagan. Maybe in a year or two, I'll be able to read about Reagan and get a little bit of objectivity. I mean, that is what's lacking right now. On one side, you have the people showering the guy with praise as if he was the fucking messiah and they were just pulling him off the cross, and on the other, you've got "tasteless" "assholes" who are "showing no class" by "speaking ill of the dead."

One of the more notable critiques of Reagan this past week was writer and cartoonist Ted Rall. Now, me, I'm a fan of Rall. I have his editorial cartoons e-mailed to me. More often than not, I agree with the guy. He's not one to hold back and I admire that. If he thinks something should be said, he says it. He wrote a column this week, as he does every week, and in it, he gave his impressions of Reagan. They were not good impressions. If was the same age I am now back when Reagan was in power, I have a strong suspicion, I would have had the same impressions. The question though that has come up is not whether or not Rall was right, as such a thing will never be solved because it's opinion, but whether or not he was right to say such things a few days after Reagan had breathed his last. What about respecting the dead?

Well, here's the thing: fuck the dead. Who the fuck gives a shit about the dead? They're fucking dead. I could go up to where Regan is buried, call him a retarded piece of shit, and guess what? He wouldn't fucking know because he's dead! Just because a person dies does not mean a person's opinion of them should change. If Rall thought he was a piece of shit president while he was still clinging to life in basically a coma, then why would his opinion changed when the guy finally died?

"What about the feelings of the deceased's family?" you ask. That is where I'm torn. Yeah, I don't want to see people still alive, and thus able to actually be offended by things that are said, be hurt, but I've got to point out that guys like Rall didn't exactly walk up to Nancy Reagan and say these things. I'd also like to point out that their comments are just as legitimate as those that show Reagan in a positive light. In fact, the simple fact that those comments are allowed justifies comments from the other side. If you're going to lay it on as thick as many on the American right have been, you have to expect the "democratic response".

The thing that I always find baffling when things like this happen is the "regular people" who go overboard with grief. I was reading an excerpt of Rush Limbaugh's radio show on Rall's website (Rall put it up because Limbaugh and a caller were discussing his column) and the caller was a woman who was "heartbroken" over Reagan's death. This is just sad, in my opinion. Honestly, there is nothing more pathetic than when a famous person dies and people treat it as if a genuinely sad thing has happened to them personally. I remember when it happened after Princess Diana's death and it sickened me then just as much as it does now. I'm not talking about the regular "Oh, be died. Well, shit, that sucks." I'm talking about being heartbroken and weeping for extended periods of time. I'm talking about acting like it was a parent who died. I find that rather sad.

But I guess that brings us near to the end and with one question remaining: how will history remember Ronald Reagan, fortieth president of the United States of America? Someone said that will be the true judge of the man. All I know of Reagan, I know of from other people, from books, from news clips and every other source you can imagine except for actually being around when he was president (at least in any fashion to understand what was going on and form opinions). Basically, all I know of Reagan is from history of a sort. Me, I'll remember him as a crazy old man who was good at appearing like a kindly old man who essentially fucked Americans, except for the wealthy, claimed that he knew things about the economy while running up a huge deficit, did a lot of things that have recently come back to bite America in the ass in other countries (Iraq and Afghanistan being the big two) and basically was a lacklustre leader when it came down to it. He was an actor and he was politician. Of course people loved him for his personality. It should be obvious why.

Maybe I'm not the best example of how the "official" history books will remember him, but I could be.