"My father is a federal criminal. My father is a hero," Barbara McVeigh writes in her memoir Redemption, How Ronald Reagan Nearly Ruined My Life. Reagan fired her father for a union strike in 1981 when he took a stand for political honesty, leading him and 11,500 other families into years of strife. Just thirteen years old, she lost her dream to become an oceanographer, and her beloved guitar lessons, as her family struggled emotionally and financially for years. She blamed her father for "following his ego," as her grandfather had termed it, and not placing family first. Reagan's heroic public image soared as America was told how he combated the alleged threats of communism, nuclear war and the Soviet Empire.
Thirty years later, Barbara marries and then takes up sailing at her late great uncle's urging, himself a passionate and accomplished sailor, who had been her best friend, where she finds an unexpected connection to the ocean and freedom of the complexities of the modern world. When hard, bitter truths emerge about the ocean's health and her fourteen-year marriage, Barbara packs her bags and leaves the illusory "good life." She takes the helm of not one, but two film projects, one with the world's paramount oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, and the other with renowned Brazilian guitarist Jose Neto. She does this with no experience and virtually no money, to reclaim her childhood dreams and, in a desperate effort, to remind the world of the awe, beauty, and truth we must always stand for. During her projects she confronts the dark shadows of Reagan's energy, labor, health, media, and environmental policies, revealing horrific truths about America's so-called "Hero of the Republican Party." Her father isn't a federal criminal. Her father and those union members of 1981 who stood for honesty should be considered heroes in America today.
"My father is a federal criminal. My father is a hero," Barbara McVeigh writes in her memoir Redemption, How Ronald Reagan Nearly Ruined My Life. Reagan fired her father for a union strike in 1981 when he took a stand for political honesty, leading him and 11,500 other families into years of strife. Just thirteen years old, she lost her dream to become an oceanographer, and her beloved guitar lessons, as her family struggled emotionally and financially for years. She blamed her father for "following his ego," as her grandfather had termed it, and not placing family first. Reagan's heroic public image soared as America was told how he combated the alleged threats of communism, nuclear war and the Soviet Empire.
Thirty years later, Barbara marries and then takes up sailing at her late great uncle's urging, himself a passionate and accomplished sailor, who had been her best friend, where she finds an unexpected connection to the ocean and freedom of the complexities of the modern world. When hard, bitter truths emerge about the ocean's health and her fourteen-year marriage, Barbara packs her bags and leaves the illusory "good life." She takes the helm of not one, but two film projects, one with the world's paramount oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, and the other with renowned Brazilian guitarist Jose Neto. She does this with no experience and virtually no money, to reclaim her childhood dreams and, in a desperate effort, to remind the world of the awe, beauty, and truth we must always stand for. During her projects she confronts the dark shadows of Reagan's energy, labor, health, media, and environmental policies, revealing horrific truths about America's so-called "Hero of the Republican Party." Her father isn't a federal criminal. Her father and those union members of 1981 who stood for honesty should be considered heroes in America today.
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