That depends where you live though, doesn't it? I mean, personally, I would say that Helen Clark and indeed, John Howard have had far more direct input on the world as I know it. Regan, sure he was very important, USA is a superpower and so anything that affects the states affects us and blahblahblah....but all the intense coverage of his funeral is a bit much... we know he is dead, we can pay our respects and whatnot through the nightly news whatever - I just think that there are perhaps more relevant cultural issues that NZ/OZ tv could be tuned to. But I suppose I'd rather have extreme media devotion to Regan rather than Shrek the Sheep - every NZ media piece became like the ODT that day...
I didnt watch any of the reagan shit, i'm not sure why you guys got much of it at all. There was far too much of it here. Maybe it was a breather from iraq? While i agree that it *would* depend on where you live on how influential reagan was. However, as western history seems to be eurocentric, he played a huge part in it. Sure reagan or any politician might not mean much or influence joe schmoe who only cares about football or rugby and not a single thing the government does, it does effect the governments of their country. But those people arent the ones writing history books. Anyways, the reagan shit was way overdone, and now they are talking about putting him on the 10 dollar bill or dime(10 cent piece). What a crock, hopefully that gets shot down quick.
i've known people who're dual american/australian. born in aus and then (for some bizarre unknown reason ) moved to america. you know, the whole time that i lived in america i heard shit loads of patriotism for the Bushs, Roosevelts and Lincoln and every other supposedly "great" president, but not a single thing about Reagan...... to me this is just a case of glorifying the dead. After seeing all this crap on tv i can only hope we do something bloody special for Whitlam.
oh ok..... now i see why he was so loved over there: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18874
Reagan is very much a cult figure.....in 1984 he won all but 1 state and no one has ever won nearly that much before. Half the US think he is a god and half the US think he is the devil(atleast now, not then)......Since the media tends to be big wealthy guys and he cut taxes, you can guess which side they are on..... and yeah, reagan did a lot of bad things , people loved his speeches and his tough stance on communism though.
