Ronald Raygun

From the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back:

On this day in 1981 newspapers and other media outlets were filled with reports concerning the shooting of President Reagan. By way of contrast, the event received scant and scathing coverage in the Socialist Standard of May that year:

"As for the shooting of Ronald Reagan, we have no sympathy for the figureheads of the most violent and barbaric society the world has ever known: world capitalism. America is one of hundreds of states competing to see who can exploit their population most efficiently, and organising wars all in the interests of the privileged minorities (including Reagan himself) who profit from expanding markets. American expenditure on weapons of violent destruction is rapidly approaching $400 billion a year, that is more than twenty million pounds an hour. Massive military aid is given to murderous military regimes such as that in El Salvador. Each year millions die of starvation, while millionaires like Reagan are prepared to use any kind of violence to defend their privilege and profits. He represents a system in which those with power are free to kill, free to exploit.

So we will not shed any tears over Reagan's wounds; unlike his fellow capitalist rulers, President Brezhnev sent a telegram from Russia: "I wish you, Mr. President, a full and early recovery". President Zhao Ziyang of China was "shocked to hear of your being wounded...I wish you a speedy recovery", while the Pope and Prince Philip both organised prayers for Reagan...there are thousands of others being murdered all the time, for it is the poverty, the coercion and the frustration of the present system which provokes theft, despair and violence. Let Reagan think of that the next time he orders the murder of a few thousand people from Latin America or Vietnam or anywhere else in the name of "freedom".

RS