E-Paper
US media mourning over Reagan's death
If journalism is history's first draft, the death of Ronald Reagan has caused a step-up in the mass production of falsified history.
If journalism is history's first draft, the death of Ronald Reagan has caused a step-up in the mass production of falsified history.
It's mourning in America.
The main technique is omission. People who suffered from the Reagan presidency have no media standing today. It's not cool to mention victims of his policies in, for example, Central America.
President Reagan lauded and subsidised the contra guerrillas -- extolling them as "freedom fighters" while they terrorised the population in Nicaragua, killing thousands of civilians. And he proudly funneled large-scale support to governments aligned with death squads murdering thousands more in Guatemala and El Salvador.
With all the media-fueled mourning in America, there's been none left for the victims of Reaganite policies in Angola, either. His tireless support for the guerrilla forces of Unita "freedom fighter" Jonas Savimbi deserves much of the credit for making Angola the artificial limb capital of the world. Reagan saw to it that Uncle Sam walked in the bloody footsteps of colonial Portugal and apartheid South Africa to sustain Savimbi's monstrous warfare.
