May 5th is obviously a famous day. These days, for several reasons. It is both Cinqo de Mayo, the day when Americans at least claim to recognize Mexico and Mexican history. Or at least, they use it as an excuse to drink and eat Mexican, and often get drunk.
These days, it is also known as "Revenge of the Fifth" Day for Star Wars fans, building off "May the Fourth" as the unofficial Star Wars holiday.
And for several years now, I have indeed recognized both of those holidays as such here. That includes today, where I posted my traditional blog entries about, and honoring, those occasions.
However, I also wanted to post a very different kind of blog entry today. Because it is the anniversary of something else, something which Americans in particular should perhaps reflect on a lot more seriously than they generally have in the past.
It was on this day back in 1985 that then sitting American President Ronald Reagan, still enjoying what could be called "political capital" and serious momentum after his massive re-election win, visited the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany. This visit generated considerable controversy at the time, although it seems to have been largely forgotten since.
Back in those days, it felt as if the entire country was as utterly and hopelessly in love with Reagan as they could be. I had never seen before, nor seen since, the kind of reckless adoration by a seeming vast majority of people as was evident in the United States since. Everyone seemed to know, right from the beginning, that Reagan would easily win another term in office. Still, it was astonishing to see almost the entire map of the United States colored in favor of Reagan, with only Minnesota and the District of Columbia voting for the other major candidate, Democrat Walter Mondale.
For a very long time, it seems that the memory of former President Ronald Reagan was mythologized to such an extent that he was elevated almost to the status of a God. That he did no wrong, that he was beyond reproach. In fact, many conservatives and/or Republicans still seem to worship the political ground that this man tread. They feel that he straightened out the direction the country was going in, that he was a strong and steely leader who met great challenges and was effectively a visionary, who laid the ground for a better country with a promising future.
In fact, the reality was very different. Reagan brought about many of the problems that have only grown, if not even exploded, in the years and decades since Reagan left office. Prominent leaders getting away with massive political scandals, and getting high approval ratings, for example. The deterioration of environmental regulations. The staggering levels of borrowing, and the ever escalating national debt. A tunnel vision version of how great the economy is doing based on how Wall Street is doing, rather than how Main Street is doing, and along with that, attacking unions and doing everything in their power to detract hard won gains and benefits for American workers, the military industrial complex getting an ever bloated budget and gaining ever more control over the country, particularly since Reagan basically got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and allowing those with vested interests in how the news is reported to own the major media channels without any kind of serious retort or fact-checking. Opinion television began to pass as "news" under his watch. All of these things which we generally tend to identify as huge problems in this era began during the Reagan years, and under the specific direction of his administration.
Reagan also seemed to be quite tone deaf in a lot of areas. Look at how pathetic the response of the Reagan administration was when it came to the AIDS crisis, which basically was and encouraged a homophobic response. Or more recently, we learned that Reagan seemed to harbor some pretty blatantly racist views during a phone conversation to a very receptive and clearly amused Richard Nixon. Of course, this did not come as a huge shock for some, given that Reagan said in 1968 that a person had a right to discriminate against blacks in housing, that he campaigned for "states rights" (the side that favored against desegregation and claimed that the national government was interfering and acting in a dictatorial manner when trying to promote greater equality in the Jim Crow South, and that his administration effectively supported the white minority government in control of apartheid South Africa at the time.
Well, there was another major controversy that Reagan was involved with regarding prejudices and a very troubled past. This was the Bitburg controversy of 1985, when President Reagan paid a visit to Bitburg cemetery, where many who fought and died in World War II were buried, including Germans who fought and died for Nazi Germany, claiming that they were victims, too. Many felt that it was the wrong message to send. Reagan went ahead with it anyway, against the wishes of many protesters and Jewish organizations. None of the criticism seemed to matter to Reagan, in the end.
And that, too, seems to be the precursor of modern politicians, who seem these days almost to boast about their indifference to those who protest their actions and, in some cases, displays of prejudice.
In recognition of the controversy, I decided to include a link to the controversy on Wikipedia, as well as a video from the Ramones that protested Reagan's Bitburg visit.
Enjoy!
Bergen-Belsen controversy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitburg_controversy
Ramones - Bonzo Goes To Bitburg (Official Audio)
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