Recovered Memory Syndrome

The Intellectual Conservative ^ | 11 June 2004 | Michael R. Bowen, M.D.

[Lando Lincoln]

As long as the Left confines itself to recollections of Reagan's sunny personality and his ability to speak to the American heart, they do reasonably well. When it comes to historical fact, however, they go directly off the rails.

I was being thrown out of the den again. ABC News was "remembering" Ronald Reagan, and I couldn't stand it. I asked the kids how long they thought it would be before Peter Jennings hinted that perhaps Reagan's Alzheimer disease had already begun when he was in the White House. Jennings made the allusion before the kids could answer. When one talking head, narrating a retrospective of video clips, referred to Reagan's "failed" attempt to stem Communist expansion in Central America, I finally lost it. "Yes, kids, that's why there are no Communist states in Central America today. That's why the Sandinistas were forced to hold a real election, and the moment the Nicaraguans had a vote they threw the Communists out. What the heck is wrong --"

"Mike. It's just the television, for crying out loud. Go fishing or something." So I did.

As long as the Left confines itself to recollections of Reagan's sunny personality and his ability to speak to the American heart, they do reasonably well. When it comes to historical fact, however, they go directly off the rails. A brief survey of liberal web sites yields an astounding crop of whoppers:

"Through the late 1970s, wages and working conditions were improving for ordinary Americans," says David Swanson, writing for Democratic Underground, in a column which also notes that he was 11 years old when Reagan took office. That might explain his recollections. Maybe his allowance went up in 1970s, but the grownup economy was going down the tubes.

"His economic policies were mostly a failure," opines Mark Weisbrodt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. I think he's referring to the unprecedented and sustained expansion of our economy which followed Reagan's tax cuts. Mr. Weisbrodt must have been quite happy with the way things were in 1979.

At CommonDreams.org, Paul Douglas Newman laments the many glowing farewells, and with that sadistic touch so typical of the Left, speculates that we have a "national case of Alzheimer's disease" which has caused us to forget the failure of Reagan's economic and foreign policies, and has doomed us to repeat our past mistakes in today's "descent into Bushism." To review: a Democrat gives us high taxes, economic doldrums, national pessimism, military weakness, and timidity abroad. A Republican replaces him, cuts our taxes, boosts our military and confronts our enemies squarely, leaving behind him a booming economy and a strong America. A Democratic administration soon follows, with rising taxes and more timidity in the face of our enemies, and by the end of that administration the economy slumps and our foes boldly attack us. Now a Republican has taken over, cut our taxes, and is taking the war to our enemies. Anyone can see a pattern here, unless you're an associate professor of American history. As Orwell said, some things are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.

In the 1970s, the Left told us we were mad to confront the Soviet empire. Their vast arsenal and titanic economy left us no possibility of victory. We were on the wrong side of history, and communism was making its inevitable advance: South Vietnam, Nicaragua, Grenada, South Yemen, Afghanistan. It was time to wise up and face facts instead of getting into a fight we could not win.

Once the Berlin Wall fell, all that changed. Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com now tells us that the Soviet Union was teetering on the brink of collapse before Reagan ever took office, and its fall during his tenure was mere coincidence. "Cold warriors Nixon and Kissinger -- along with much of the US intelligence community -- had recognized the systemic weaknesses of the Soviet system, which was falling desperately behind the West…" Funny, that wasn't how the Left used to talk. The Soviet system didn't have "systemic weaknesses;" it was always a system "from which we have much to learn."

So let's see: Reagan was a fool not to recognize the failure of the Soviet system and its resultant impending collapse, while at home, he was a fascist for opposing the socialism championed by that same failed Soviet system. Neat.

In the 1990s, headhunting prosecutors in child molestation cases became notorious for their use of the bogus "recovered memories" planted in the minds of child witnesses by psychologists. Today, the American Left has performed the same operation on itself. America is far from suffering a national Alzheimer's disease, but the Left is deep in the throes of its Recovered Memory Syndrome. Sweet dreams, folks. The rest of us have work to do.

Michael R. Bowen practices Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine, and has a weekly column on America's Voices.

[Lando Lincoln]

Lando

[Kozak]

In 1982, Dr. Seweryn Bialer, a Sovietologist from Columbia University, proclaimed, "The Soviet Union is not now, nor will it be during the next decade, in the throes of a true systematic crisis."

Later that same year, historian Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. indicated that "those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse (are) wishful thinkers." Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger insisted that "the Soviet system will not collapse."

John Kenneth Galbraith, the distinguished Harvard economist, wrote in l984: ¡§That the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene„mOne sees it in the appearance of solid well-being of the people on the streets„mand the general aspect of restaurants, theaters, and shops„mPartly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.¡¨

Equally imaginative was the assessment of Paul Samuelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Nobel laureate in economics, writing in the l985 edition of his widely-used textbook. ¡§What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth„mThe Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth.¡¨

But the genius award undoubtedly goes to Lester Thurow, another MIT economist and well-known author who, as late as l989, wrote, ¡§Can economic command significantly„maccelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can„mToday the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States.¡¨

Throughout the 1980s, most of these pundits derisively condemned Reagan¡¦s policies. Strobe Talbott faulted the Reagan administration for espousing ¡§the early fifties goal of rolling back Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,¡¨ an objective he considered misguided and unrealistic. ¡§Reagan is counting on American technological and economic predominance to prevail in the end,¡¨ Talbott scoffed, adding that if the Soviet economy was in a crisis of any kind ¡§it is a permanent, institutionalized crisis with which the U.S.S.R. has learned to live.¡¨

Yeah those brilliant liberal intellectuals sure called it.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

My favorite counter-example to the praise that these wayward economists were heaping on the centrally planned economy of the soviet union was something which appeared in The New York Times during the final months of the evil empire. Foreign goods which had not been able to get onto the black market in prior years were beginning to appear in Moscow in September of 1991 and the Times reporter sampled items and tried to place their price in context of other goods and services then available under central planning. What I will remember for the rest of my life was the comparison of two vastly different things - milk and air travel. The reported indicated that on the black market you could buy 5 quarts of Finnish milk for the same price as the cost of a round trip flight from Moscow to Vladivostok (12 time zones to the east). The brilliance of the communist centrally planned economy.

[lainde]

bttt

[GoLightly]

Great read Lando!!

[AQGeiger]

Ok, I'll admit that I don't understand what this implies. Help, if you please?

[TASMANIANRED]

The 1970's were a hell hole.

I was really too young to understand it but I can remember my Dad reading the paper and fussing about Nixon and Price controls.

When Carter took over after Ford, the Oil Embargo, Intrest rates on home loans 16%, Unemployment over 10%. This was worse than malaise. It was near depression era recession.

Clinton won by rewriting the minor recession during Bush I as the worst economy since the Depression. Apparantly he had total amnesia for the Carter years.

Liberals,since they climbed up out of the primordial slime, have been making up history. Stalin never had any purges, neither did Mao. The Dixiecrats did everything but seceede to prevent the Civil Rights act but the Republicans are are rascists. The footage of black children being prevented from entering schools happened under Democrat Governers.

Kerry pounds his chest about serving in Viet Nam and Mr Nixons war in the same breath but he served under Lyndon Johnson.

If their lips are moving they are lying about something.

[Old Professer]

The first sign of wellnes is annoyance.

[Old Professer]

Darn keyboard, darn keyboard, darn keyboard, clumsy old fingers rotten stinkinfratzenwratzensnappenpuss!!!

[tubebender]

This Doc sounds just like my Family GP. We have a great relationship and evry time he sees me waiting for a BP check he gives me a thumb's up.

In the late seventies I saw interest rates in the teens, credit card rates at 22 % and inflation at about 18% per year. I made lots of funny money by buying trailer loads at the first of the year and watching three price increases a year on those goods. Of course all I was doing was keeping even

[FastCoyote]

Thanks for the quotes.