There are quite a number of good articles on the subject if you want a thorough answer, but some of the main things are:
He’s responsible for a massive deregulation of financial institutions that were a precursor to the Wall Street issues that led to the giant government bailout.
He pushed “trickle down economics,” which is the theory that if you cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, they’ll succeed more and create more jobs so that everyone wins. This is something conservatives always push and it’s always a horrible failure that results in a bigger and bigger income gap.
He funded his big tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy) by slashing federal assistance programs, including low income housing subsidies and mental health support, resulting in an unprecedented surge in homelessness that we’re still wrestling with today.
Nancy Reagan was the “Just say no to drugs” lady - the figurehead of the largely failed war on drugs which was like trying to prevent teen pregnancy with an abstinence only education program.
There’s a lot more, but those are some of the big ticket items.
Reagan was massively anti-labor and oversaw the air traffic controller strike and fired employees who were striking for better wages and conditions. It was a harbinger of things to come for labor unions, many of which were then so gutted by outsourcing and neoliberal Clinton passing NAFTA, the single most anti-union, anti-middle class piece of law ever. Reagan set the table against labor, Clinton and the Dems delivered the death blow. Organized labor now only accounts for less than 10% of jobs in the US, and only with Coronavirus-driven alignment and efforts is labor finally starting to regain its legs. 40 years Reagan helped kill the American middle class.
I almost added a bullet about killing unions, but it was hard to know where to stop. He also wasn’t great for the environment, but I think it’s generally accepted that he wasn’t the environmental train wreck that people thought he’d be.
Yes definitely “some”. One rather big one though that I’d like to add.
Reagan was a sponsor of international terror. Selling arms to iran. Circumventing a US embargo.To arm Nicaraguan rebels, trying to overthrow the government that had ended the American occupation. Training and arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Who were part of a group many might recognize al’queda. Run by some guy called Osama Bin’laden. I think I’ve heard of him maybe… All because “the commies” whom Regan and all Americans were pavlovianly trained to become apoplectic about at the mere mention. Marched into Afghanistan, failing and flailing much like the United States just finished doing. And that’s only two of the bigger ones.
Also it bares repeating but Reagan has a large part of the blame for the aids epidemic nationally like Mike Pence did in Indiana. Simply because they were both raging homophobic racist bigots.
The HUD rigging scandal was another good one. Did I mention Reagan was a hyper partisan dog whistling racist bigot yet? Either way it’s not repeated enough. Rewarding HUD contracts to Republican doners as quid pro quo.
Sooooooooo many scandals at the EPA.
Savings and loan scandal. A nice cancerous outcropping of Reagan’s deregulation that still harrows us to this day.
He’s literally a bottomless pit of harm and scandal.
Don’t forget destroying the budget of mental health facilities, causing people to be sent out on the streets in droves, without resources. That is the biggest reason for our homeless crisis to this day.
💯! Reagan was a modern Republican through and through. There was almost nothing he touched or even looked at that didn’t suffer for it. It says a lot that his biological son named after him, disassociated from him so much. And only his adopted son carried on dealing with the cults perpetuating the misplaced hero worship.
I like Vesper (2022) as one of the few I know of that focuses on biological technology, and it is part of the story as opposed to a backdrop.
There’s a lot of body horrror/Cronenburg stuff I like that gets close. Stuff like The Fly, Testuo the Iron Man, Videodrome, etc. But that’s focused more on the “wouldn’t this be fucked up?” than the exploration of biotech.
Repo Men (2010) and Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) have a strong focus on the commoditization of the human body and organs especially. Gattaca (1997) is a little similar in that genetic therapy is important to society. And The Island (2005) is centered on cloning. Of these four, I like Repo! the most, but for other reasons than its take on Biopunk.
eXistenZ (1999) is probably Cronenburg’s most straight forward take of biology as technology, as opposed to just a source of horror, but I haven’t actually watched this one yet.
District 9 (2009) and Akira (1988) have situations that cause massive biological change, but not centered on Biopunk in my opinion.
The Blade Runner films, despite being the posterboys of Cyberpunk film, have a lot of potential considering that at the end of the day Replicants are biological. Splice (2009) at least focuses on the actual development of new biological technology, but winds up being more of a Frankenstein tale than anything.
The Alien universe has hints of this with the Space Jockeys, xenomorphs, and androids. But it’s not ubiquitous.
Alita: Battle Angel is a fun exploration into Bio modification as well as the hero’s journey. The first season of Altered Carbon also comes to mind, although the biomodification concept is in the lore, and not explicitly seen on screen. If you haven’t seen it, you can stop after the 1st season because the 2nd season is pretty garbage.
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