Bee-otches of the Day: Ronald Reagan worshipers

Names: various
Ages: various
Occupations: various
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: kissing Reagan's ass

Thanks to my job, I go to bed a wee bit early. 

Thursday night, I was watching the tail end of Inside Edition on WOOD-TV 8 here in Grand Rapids. After the show ended, they aired a commercial for Kamala Harris, showing a young woman who had an abortion at 12 after being raped by her stepfather. She added on to the way too many reasons why I will definitely be voting for Harris.

However, as 8 p.m. approached, i noticed something was wrong with TV 8. They were supposed to air Law and Order: SVU at that time. But instead, they aired a documentary on Ronald Reagan produced by NewsNation. Both NewsNation and WOOD-TV are owned by Texas-based Nexstar. I went straight to bed and didn't waste my time. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and WOOD-TV was showing that episode of SVU they pre-empted earlier, probably to please NBC and to throw a bone to fans of Mariska Hargitay. 

Now, granted, it seems fashionable nowadays to like the 40th president of the United States. After all, a recent indie movie about his life starring Dennis Quaid has done quite well at the box office, grossing over $26 million on a $25 million budget. Critics have panned the flick, saying it breaks itself from reality and history. The movie is also noted for its abundance of rightie actors, such as Jon Voight, Pat Boone, Kevin Sorbo, and Creed lead singer Scott Stapp, who plays Frank Sinatra. 

Despite bad reviews, audiences love the film. But chances are that many who have seen it are Repukes themselves and look to Ronnie as their spirit animal. But as someone born five months into his first term in office, I shake my head thinking about how my life could have been if he wasn't president.

When I was born, my father was a bus driver for the local school system in Elk Rapids, Michigan, and my mother worked as a secretary at a local machine shop. When I was about five, my mother lost her job. The company packed up and moved to southern Michigan because of Reaganomics. My mother ended up working the overnight shift at the Shell gas station down the street. There, she became friends with the manager, a heavy-set woman who also had significant financial problems. Fortunately, my mother found other secretary jobs, both in Traverse City. If she lost a job, the Shell station was her safety net.

However, at one of her jobs, she met her future husband. She also worked with the fat bitch at the Shell station to move into the top flat of her house. On May 18, 1993, my mother dragged me away from my Nintendo to live with the bitch. The place sucked. The kitchen had no working stove (we had to get a hot plate from KMart), the shower curtain only covered part of the tub because it was right next to where the ceiling sloped, and worst of all, there was no heat. I remembered having to go to my dad's because he had heat. 

In the 80s, Reagan championed shipping jobs overseas and busting unions. Because of him, my mother lost her job and so did hundreds of people in Elk Rapids. Because of him, I got stuck with a 6-foot, 300-pound whore who forced me to listen to Bonnie Raitt's "Luck of the Draw" album and the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" while she was giving blowjobs to anyone who wanted one. Also because of Reagan, my mother traded my father in for an alcoholic douchebag who not only squandered her family fortune on a failed computer repair shop, but left her for another woman as well. Personally, I wonder if my parents would still be together if her shop in Elk Rapids stayed open.

When I was young in the 80s, Elk Rapids had a problem. A chunk of its downtown was abandoned, and the marina was up for sale. In 1986, beloved businessman Joe Yuchasz became the town's village president, or, in other words, mayor. Joe, who owned the Elk Rapids Cinema and Ye Olde Music Shoppe, was forced to move his music store to his theater's lobby because he couldn't afford the taxes. Under his leadership, Yuchasz transformed Elk Rapids from a town littered with "for sale" signs to a tourism boon. I visited Elk Rapids last spring, and the sole abandoned building I saw was the old T.J. Charlie's Restaurant, whose proprietors retired last year.

It's nice to see my old hometown flourishing, especially with mostly local businesses. The sole supermarket in town, Village Market, just celebrated its 50th Anniversary under Rick Young's ownership. Young also owns the adjacent gas station to his 15,000-square-foot store, one of only three in the town of 1,600 people. The EZ Mart/Mobil station is owned by Blarney Castle Oil, which is based in Bear Lake, 60 miles away. The Shell Mini-Mart is owned by Ohio-based True North Energy but was previously locally owned by Traverse City-based Schmuckal Oil. Most of the restaurants are locally owned as well. However, Elk Rapids has no fast-food chains. It used to have a Subway located in the EZ Mart, but that closed a few years ago. The Village might be one of the largest towns in the state without a McDonald's (the nearest one is in Acme, nearly 10 miles away). 

Aside from McDonald's, Elk Rapids has been known for crying NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) when big businesses want to come to town. Years ago, the village rejected Walgreens' proposal to build a store at Ames and US-31. The same goes for Dollar General, who wanted to build a location on Elk Rapids' east side.

But Elk Rapids—and other resort towns—have a huge problem: the lack of good-paying jobs. Homes in the village aren’t cheap, and because of this, it has become a factor in the closure of some restaurants. Two recently closed restaurants, Vasquez Hacienda and Elk Harbor Restaurant, have been repurposed as a liquor store and veterinarian clinic, respectively. Granted, ER does have Shorts Brewery, and it is close to Traverse City, but there are some factors that hurt the community’s image. One of them is the lack of 20- and 30-somethings in the area. The evidence is the fact that since the economic meltdown of 2008, Elk Rapids Schools has lost a great deal of attendance. As a matter of fact, Mill Creek Elementary is now a charter school. It’s sad considering that I remember it being built because Elk Rapids’ elementary school, Lakeland, was once overcrowded.

But, Elk Rapids isn't alone.

Recently, Suttons Bay voted 776-628 to demolish part of their school because the district is half the size of what it was 20 years ago. Today, only 600 students attend the village's school, situated in a town that's also around 600 people. Suttons Bay has the same problem Elk Rapids has: a lack of affordable housing. 

It's true that every town in America has its pluses and minuses and some situations are easier to solve than others. And usually, that problem can be solved with high-paying jobs. Tourism is nice, but when the biggest employers in town don't pay jack shit, then that employer may end up realizing that their loser jobs need winning wages. 

It's worth noting that the aforementioned Joe Yuchasz died last year at the age of 82. He willed his beloved Cinema to his niece and nephews, who then sold it to the nonprofit Chalfonte Foundation. Chalfonte was founded by Father Jim Meyer, a Catholic priest who, unlike far too many people in his occupation, supported gay marriage and Black Lives Matter. Yes, he was a liberal, as are the people now running his organization three years after his death at the age of 86. Chalfonte was founded to alleviate childhood poverty. Father Meyer's parents owned a home in Elk Rapids. When they died in the 1980s, Meyer decided to turn the house into a camp for children.

Since Chalfonte purchased the Cinema, they have shown the community that they are not Joe Yuchasz. Joe was known for waiting a month or two to show popular films after they peaked in popularity so he could get a one-week contract. Chalfonte, however, knows that there are many films where they can get a two-week contract in the first week of release. Recent examples include "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" and "Wonka." They also show classic films once per week; this month, it's the 1951 film "An American in Paris" starring Gene Kelly.

However, as I type this, guess what movie the Cinema is showing? Yup, "Reagan."

Now, when Joe was alive, he was known for listening to what the people wanted. He also mentioned that most of his audience was over the age of 50. When I visited the cinema last spring for a matinee showing of "Arthur the King," I was the youngest person in the building. It was just me and a bunch of elderly folks. One person even asked me if I knew how long the cinema had been in business (of course I knew—1940)! Obviously, the people who came to the cinema that afternoon were not from the Elk Rapids area.

There is a part of me that the new, old folks who now call Elk Rapids home never knew about—the once-good jobs the town had. And yet, they went and saw a movie about the reason why those jobs moved away. It's interesting to know that the Cinema's manager, Marianne Burrows, is a Realtor during the week. I have to wonder how she feels about the fact that in 2000, my childhood home was sold to a Detroit-area family who really wanted to have a good, full-time job up north. However, during the economic meltdown of 2008, it fell into foreclosure. It wasn't even a big house, either; it was only one floor, with three bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, and a pole barn in the backyard. The house next door also fell into foreclosure, and despite it being much bigger—two floors, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms—the bank sold it for just over $100,000.

On my father's bus route, he passed a TON of houses. Some of those were simply summer homes, and others were occupied by old folks. Some of the kids were dirt poor. One rumor I heard was that one of the families was so poor that our elementary school principal had to buy clothes for them. There were wealthy folks, too, including a family whose mother's family purchased the house for them.

Well, I grew up and entered the workforce. I wanted to be a radio personality when I grew up, but I threw that dream away. Why? Because I learned that there are too many radio personalities who were fired because even though they had ratings, the owners were all about the almighty dollar. I realized that you have to be a corporate puppet who pretends to like the artists you're playing. Not only that, I cringed knowing that local talk radio stations were all leaning to the right thanks to Reagan's FCC eliminating the Fairness Doctrine.

I finally got my first "adult" job in 2002 a year after I graduated from tech school. I spent that year washing dishes at a restaurant and stocking shelves at a convenience store. There were no real jobs up north. I had to move to Grand Rapids to make real money and live a normal life. 

The first ten years at my job were rough. I had to work with a Bosnian who bullied me and my boss was a bigger asshole. Thankfully, the Bosnian quit because his wife could no longer work and he couldn't afford to work there anymore. As for my boss, I had to face ten years of no raises. Instead, we got Dave Ramsey videos and visits from the bank, teaching us on how to save money. If we were lucky, we got a $25 Meijer card.

Things were so bad at my shop that a woman who worked for us who was anti-union told us that she wished we were a union shop. Some years before, there was a guy who also worked for us who talked to us about doing a strike. But, that never materialized because he ended up quitting. My father never worked a union job and neither did my mother. As a matter of fact, she told me that at her in-laws' machine shop, if someone came in with a union, they would be fired. Because her idiot husband gaslighted her into thinking that unions were the devil, she discouraged me from joining one.

Over the years, my boss treated my position like that of a fast food worker. I saw a lot of people sitting on their asses playing on their phones who made more money than me. However, my boss thought I was lazy despite wearing a drenched shirt. 

However, it was the 2000s, and people were lucky to have jobs. Some of my cousins had to move back in with their parents because they didn't have good jobs either. I didn't have that option because both my parents were in their second marriages and living in other states. By the time my boss finally retired in 2012, I was living off three nearly maxed-out credit cards while he was going on vacation every other month.

Thankfully, my life changed for the better when my company changed hands with my ex-boss's business partner. I got plenty of raises and my debt melted away. Part of it, too was that when my ex-boss was in charge, people were either retiring early or finding out that they could make more money doing something else. Also, it was 2013, and America was finally healing from 2008 thanks to President Obama's policies. 

Today, I'm much better off than I was 22 years ago in part because of policies created by Presidents Obama and Biden that have helped the middle class. Even better, the sole debt I have is my mortgage. Thanks to them, my bosses have to give me a wage to stay competitive against the competition. However, I do wonder what my life would have been like if Reagan hadn't been president at all. Chances were that I would have had a good-paying union job, better wages, better benefits, and more competition so if I didn't like the job I had, I could have gone across the street. Instead of trying to pay off credit card debt at 30 years old and living in a shitty apartment that caused embarrassment for me, I would have probably been able to buy a house and start a family. But because the media was busy trashing Jimmy Carter in 1980, I was stuck being told that no matter how hard I worked, I was a failure. 

My shop just happens to be just down the road from the old 36th Street GM plant in Wyoming. It was demolished during GM's restructuring 15 years ago. Now, after all those years, a new battery plant by German-based Benteler will soon emerge from the empty concrete meadows, employing 500. But being the Debbie Downers that they are, The Repukes are all crying because some of the battery plants being built here in Michigan are Chinese owned and the people bringing those jobs to the state are all Democrats like Governor Gretchen Whitmer. 

There's no doubt that the Repukes hate China to the point that they're trying to outlaw TikTok, though some argue that it will infringe on freedom of speech regarding the internet. But, guess who championed outsourcing of jobs in the first place? Why, it was none other than Reagan himself!

Thanks to Reagan, millions of American jobs were shipped out to countries where standards are much, much lower than here. Much of our clothing was now made in sweatshops. As a matter of fact, in 2012, a massive fire at a Bangladesh garment factory killed 124 and injured 200. The cause of the fire was exposed wires. Among their clients included Walmart. 

In the 1998 Michael Moore film "The Big One", he went to Nike's headquarters and talked to founder and CEO Phil Knight. Knight told Moore that Americans didn't want to build shoes. So, he went to his hometown of Flint, Michigan where people signed a petition to build a factory there. Moore showed Knight the video of Flintstonians telling him that they wouldn't mind making Air Jordans. Without saying a word, Knight stood up and walked out of the room. 

By the way, Knight is worth $38 billion. 

“The Big One” also jabbed at President Clinton for his weak economic policies that did nothing to help American jobs or the middle class. Although he did raise the minimum wage (Reagan did not) and balance the budget, in reality, he was the most conservative Democrat in the White House in the 20th century. I fondly remember that before he left the White House, too many companies were laying off workers.

True, Reagan left office in 1989 and he's been dead since 2004. But the fuck-ups he created while in office still survive. When he took office in 1981, the wealthy were paying 70% of their earnings in taxes. Today, some billionaires hardly pay a dime. In 1981, some unions protected American workers from crooked bosses. Today, that's only a pipe dream.

A few times a week, I take my dog to a park down the street from my house. There's a picnic area where a few homeless people hang out. Recently, a young husband and wife moved into the park. The wife is a cancer survivor, while the husband has had to deal with the fact that some of his family members are or were addicted to drugs. They had been living in his grandmother's house, but his family had them evicted because the grandmother was on Section Eight and the husband and wife were not. Then, they moved in with her sister, who had a small two-bedroom apartment in Grand Haven. However, her landlord threatened to raise their rent, so they decided to leave their baby with the sister while they were forced onto the streets. The husband works in a factory and makes $500 per week, while the wife is currently unemployed.

And to think that once upon a time, a family of four could make it on only the father's income.

I have a cousin who works for a temp agency, and he told me that America is evolving into a gig economy. Our family had three generations of dedicated school teachers. Today, we have none. I've heard the horror stories of teachers having to go to food banks because they live in poverty. Some even quit because they made more money as bartenders. I know of one person who teaches during the week and works at a small restaurant on the weekends, but she does it because she loves making her children smarter. The world needs teachers, and they deserve a living wage.

"thEY onLY wOrK 9 MoNThs a YEar!" 

True, teachers do have benefits and they do get paid year-round. But the pay sucks. My aunt was a schoolteacher for 30 years, but she had a husband that got paid quite well. However, I had another teacher who I remember working at a bakery during the summer. It depends on the situation and the town the teacher works. 

Look, my late friend, beloved Flint radio talk show host Dave Barber once said of the Republican Party that they only care about the peanuts while the elephants walk by. And that, my friends, is Drumpf to a tee. He wants us to feel that illegal immigrants are the biggest problem in America. His campaign is putting out stupid ads featuring people whose family members were murdered by illegals. So? Blacks murder. Are the Repukes going to put out ads telling people to support their local neighborhood KKK? Whites murder. Should we round up every last white person and throw them in jail? 

I'll tell you what the real problem is, and it's corporate America. When Reagan took office in 1981, the wealthiest man in America was a shipping tycoon named Daniel Ludwig, and adjusted for inflation, he was worth $6 billion. Back then, America only had 13 billionaires. Thanks to Reagan's policies and the protection they got from just about every president since him, there are now more than 700 billionaires in America. Today, the wealthiest man in America is Elon Musk, who is worth $272 billion, a lot of it from inheritance. It's also noted that Musk is butt buddies with Drumpf. 

Yes, even the Democrats aren't doing enough to combat excessive wealth. After all, Oprah is worth $3 billion and the man some cry about the Dems being too wealthy themselves, George Soros, is worth over $7 billion. Granted, it's nice that Biden and Harris are combating some folks, but then again, there's a lot that needs to be done to fight income inequality. 

If there's anything I'm happy about regarding the Democratic presidents in my lifetime, they've gotten more liberal. After all, Biden sat with striking GM workers not long ago, the first of any president. His office also cracked down and questioned monopolies like Facebook and other facets of social media. However, the Drumpf supporters have spun Biden's policies, claiming that inflation was his fault. In reality, when you only have six oil companies running gas prices and small towns losing their grocery stores all because there are fewer places to do a full week's shopping, well, there you go. 

You see, I give Michael Moore a lot of credit for exposing who Reagan really was in his movies. Not only that, on Larry King Live years ago, he apologized to the people of my generation and younger for voting him in, plus others who made things tougher. The fact that he was a Jebus freak weakened his image, especially when it came to the AIDS crisis in the 80s. He even allegedly said, "They that live in sin die in sin". 

What's sad is that in recent years, Moore has kept a somewhat low profile. He discontinued his Traverse City Film Festival and his State Theater no longer shows first-run films while his other cinema, Bijou By The Bay mysteriously closed earlier this year. Many in the Grand Traverse Area are wondering if there's anything truly wrong with Mike, though he still has a podcast, Rumble, and maintains a blog at MichaelMoore.com. However, he recently wrote a very thought-provoking article about James Earl Jones and why he was refused service at a Traverse City restaurant as a teen. I read it, and it does make me cringe about northern Michigan in general.

If I owned a TV station, I would show Moore's movies because people need to know the truth about Ronald Reagan. He hated the middle class and forced my generation to move back in with our parents. As a matter of fact, if Reagan ran for president today, the Republicans would consider him too moderate. At least early on in his presidency, he was pro-choice to ease poverty. 

But, what do you expect from a man whose full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had six letters in each name?

---

Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!

Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com

Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!

CHUCK69.COM IS ALWAYS ON!