REME EER. Barry Goldwater? He was the US prondential candidate in 1964 who wanted to drop nuclear bombs on North Vietnam.
Well, Barry Goldwater Ronald Reagan for being Reagan is now favourite to be the next president of America. Last week he was assured the nomination of the Republican George Bush, the ex-boss of the CIA, announced he was withdrawing from the race.
Here's more information about Ronald, or 'Dutch' as he is known to his friends.
When asked, he didn't know the the president of France; he favours the death pellaity, he thinks nuclear should be left to private enterprise; he has said that abortion is 'murder" and that he wants it banned 'completely; he is against school bussing for desegregation; and he demanded that the US 'intervene" to save the Shah in Iran. and Somoza in Nicaragua.
All of which suggests that if Reagan really believes what he says then he is a right-wing extremist.
Good But now for the good news. Reagan is a well known liar. Journalist Simon Winchester has related this story: 'We (Reagan) told me how he s became a nennoei Party, how he had'undergone a metamorphosis from a small-town democrat into a freewheeling lassez-taire Conservative...
'He arrived at Southampton Docks in 1949, a fully paid up member of the Democratic Party. But. "a winter in Mr Attlee's England" convinced him of the "utter wrongheadedness" of socialist policies. a dreadful warning tokus all back home", he declared. A good stor kand, as it later turned our, quile unlruc.
The real story is thee Reagan remained a member of the Democratic Party until 1960; he told Winchester that tale because he thought it might get him some good publicity in Britain.
there California, the size of the government grown 75 per cent in eight years (before he took •Hocel. During the ministration, there was virtually no growth at all.' • hag criticised "trigger-happy'.
• Party when name of waste disposal of the Republican "I sav what was happening as 'In SALCICUL had ¡lally.
elght vears oi our aaThe real figures are a growth of 130 per cent in the previous eight years and 122 per cent during Reagan's eight-year term of office.
Reagan has claimed: 'I was elected governor by a million votes and re-elected by nearly as In fact although elected by a majority of 993,739 he was re-elected by only 501,057.
There is nothing new in politicians lying through their teeth, but the difference with Reagan is that he does it so badly. market place.?
SUCHANAK TREA His contempt for facts was also shown when he annonced his energy policy: 'There is more oil in this country yet to be found than we have so far used. All we have to do to solve the energy crisis is for the government to get out of the energy industry and turn it loose in the Even the oil companies said that Reagan was talking a load of rubbish, but that didn't worry him. He insists: 'For many years now we YULELD an Afghanistan.
nick of time and, save How much retoric? Certainly, financial, Recession options. But Reagan's policy social spending, made to pay and pay again.
•cue ualan And even more scarey. power to begin the world again.' seriously, product of that militarism.
rebellions abroad and Reagan to start the last shoot-out. have been told there are no simple answers. Well, the truth is that there are simple answers.' Therein lies Reagan's appeal; the reason he is leading the opinion polls. He has cultivated the image of the simple man, with simple, old. fashioned American values. This, it is believed. could prove a popular image with American year of crashed helicopters, Iranian upstarts, and Russians in Ronald Reagan, like the cavalry in the last reel of one of his old movies, will arrive in the White Anglo-Saxon of this is just image and when he was governor of •California, Regan was not nearly as right-wing in office as he had promised he would be.
But the United States in 1980 is not the California of 1966; it is much more crisis ridden at home and abroad, and the fact that Reagan has behind him a vast array of backers from the academic and defence establishments suggests that this time his words cannot be dismissed as so much election talk.
The economic recession does not leave the American ruling class with a large number of - massive cuts in reduction of company taxa tion, especially that of the oil companies one of those options, summed up in the view that the American working class will have to be In convincing the working class that such a sacrifice is necessary, Reagan's 'patriotism' is a convenient weapon. In return for wage cuts and cuts in welfare, Reagan promises the pride of "We intend to be so strong that no countr will dare lift a finger against us,' he has said.
'We have it in our Reagan needs to be taken seriously just as the growth of US militarism needs to be taken and Reagan's rise in popularity is a The American ruling class is faced with economic slump at home. Many of the capitalists believe desperate measutes are necessary if their system is to survive. In that context it is not beyond Ronald
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