hero worship

As you all likely know by now, Former President Ronald Reagan died today. I celebrate this death because it means the end of long years of suffering for his family, watching someone they loved slip away and leaving an empty shell. My grandmother has Alzheimers- it's a disease that robs you of your soul much like the Spectres in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (which you all should read).

While my condolences go to those near to the Reagans, I must at the same time denounce the hero worship that surrounds such a figure. Made legendary by the news media, by politicians, by an American people willing to blind themselves to truth, Reagan really did...what?

Now, this is not a post to shake fingers, to say that he did nothing good for America, because it is impossible for one person to satisfy everyone. I know little about his policies, his presidency- being born the year he was initially sworn into office I spent the blissful ignorance of my childhood in the Reagan era. What reading I have done has cited the mistreatment of women's rights and reproductive freedom by the Reagan administration, and the willful disdain of the AIDS/HIV threat.

My dad asked me today what my thoughts were on President Reagan, and I told him basically what is in the paragraph above. Naturally, I was discounted and harangued with hero worship. Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall (in memoriam, I have watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch and dedicated it to Reagan's memory), Reagan created a booming economy.

I know very little about these things. I do know, however, that each person in his or her life does a world of good and a world of bad in the same breath. This CEO gives to charity, but his product is made by third world workers in unliveable conditions. This president speaks of freedom and inspires people to believe in the power of their country, yet enslaves the people of other nations under the same speech.

It's no secret, I think our value systems in this country, in the greater capitalist world, are out of whack. Our priorities ignore lives, our ambition creates poverty in its wake. Each person in power in our society has a duty to uphold that system of power, whether they like it or not. Society is thick and convoluted, and works to set up one shining figure above the rest (or one dark horse, or one evil dictator) that will distract us from the true problems (like birds we are attracted to shiny objects, like cart horses, we wear blinders). Thus, when one of them dies, we bow down and pay homage to the puppet while the director moves unseen.

I choose to break the cycle tonight. There will be no mourning here, except for the countless millions upon billions of people who have died for "freedom", for "economic security", for "moral obligations", for "consumer satisfaction". Reagan is as guilty as Clinton or Bush, or you or I, who do nothing to stop it because we are held back by the bonds of enforced memorial. We are all guilty, we are all dying, and like a sufferer of Alzheimers, we are forgetting.