Remember when Reagan broke the PATCO and fired 10,000 air traffic controllers?

[Herman Munster]

What a stand up guy he was! The country was never more united!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Traffic_Controller_Strike

On August 5, following their refusal, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order,<1><2> and permanently banned them from federal service. They were replaced initially with nonparticipating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some nonrated personnel, and in some cases by controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities. Some military controllers were also used until replacements could be trained. The union was decertified on October 22, 1981.<2>

[Clarkansas]

1. This makes me want to vote for Hillary Clinton!!!11!

Just kidding. Not even a gun to my head could make me do that.

[dkf]

20. lol. u funny.

[Big Blue Marble]

2. It was awful.

It changed the dynamic between unions and employers, to the unions detriment. But the irony you are missing is
he got away with it because the country was behind him, supported him, and hardly whimpered.

Obama with the country behind him will go in the opposite direction. Correct much of the damage that has
been done by the Republicans.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

10. How do you KNOW that???

Bush claimed over and over he was going to be a 'uniter, not a divider'.

Call me a cynic ... but I need more than prepared speeches, eloquently presented by a gifted speaker.

[Horse with no Name]

12. He got away with it because he TERRORIZED people into thinking

that the fucking planes would be crashing all over the country because of the strike. He terrorized them into thinking that the halting of flights would bankrupt the country.
The use of terror in herding the sheeple hasn't exclusively been used by GWB.

[Mind_your_head]

3. Yep - I remember that

I was in my very early twenties and it was absolutely stunning! Unheard of! It FELT like a turning point of some sort and now in viewing it through time - indeed it was a turning point ~ a very BAD development for unions and ALL that the people behind them had worked and indeed, died, for.

[PDJane]

4. Yeah, I remember it.

Unfortunately, I have an excellent memory.

[jackson_dem]

5. Reagan considered unions to be a "special interest" too like 1 guy running for the Dem nomination

[BenDavid]

6. Reagan was a damn racist:

Racist is as racist does. I care, how Reagan mistreated African American in his personal life and in his budgets. I care that prominent people seem to think that he wasn’t really a racist and maybe obama doesn't either. What I care about is that Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the Conservative Movement, made a career out of deliberately appealing to the racist vote. it brought him to power and, as the above shows, it was a constant tool throughout his career. Ronald Reagan acted in public as a racist acts. He deliberately set out to appeal to racists and continue the odious Southern Strategy. In doing so, he helped to mainstream racism in the GOP and thus the country.

[Historic NY]

7. It eventually killed my cousin at age 50........

that was all he did after leaving the service.

[virgdem]

8. I remember it very well...

I was selling Insurance for Prudential from 1980-84 and when the air traffic controllers were fired, several of them came to work for Prudential. They were decent guys, desperate for some decent employment, and they were forced to take jobs that they otherwise would never have considered. I was friendly with one guy who was a controller for 15 years and he seemed absolutely lost. It was very sad to see.

[Lugnut]

9. I remember it well

Most union members from that time have it etched into their brains.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

11. With a shit eating grin on his fucking face too.

[Hekate]

13. Like it was yesterday. One of my neighbors at the time was an air traffic controller, too.

Ronald Reagan, aka The Great Communicator, was a flaming *hole. Anybody with half a brain (and that clearly excluded him) could have foretold the troubles we are having today with our airports.

Hekate

[LittleClarkie]

14. Ah yes... good times... good times.

Meeeemories....

[Ikonoklast]

15. Yep. It is etched in my memory.

Card-playing buddy of mine worked the Oberlin Center. He damn near lost everything.

Reagan was a disaster for the working people of this country, and a boon for the billionaires.

May he rot in hell.

[0007]

16. How could anyone ever forget that asinine asshole and his

bag full of tricks shit.

[windbreeze]

17. you betcha I do.....

I told my husband, who was a union member....you mark my words, IF the other unions in this country, allow him to get away with this...it is the beginning of the end of unions in this country..he disagreed...I said ok...you remember what I said...IMO...every union in the country needed to go on strike and totally shut the country down, in support of the air controllers...I figure it would have taken about 24 hours to have stopped the whole thing, right in it's tracks...but they didn't...and we now see the results....wb

[Pooka Fey]

24. Yup.

[Kat45]

18. Yes I do remember. The beginning of the end of organized labor.

Well, we're not at the end of it yet, but it seems to be getting closer every day. When Reagan did that, it let the corporations know that they could trample over workers and unions with impunity and get away with it. I used to think he was our worst president, until our current one came along. Reagan ushered in the "greed is good" eighties, the beginning of the right wing's ruination of our once great nation.

I still remember the day he got elected. I was riding the subway into Boston, writing bad poetry expressing the scary place to which our country was heading. I was terrified for the future of this country, especially thinking of what he could do to the Supreme Court with any appointments he might have. Unfortunately, bush le fils has picked up where he left off--in overdrive--in all areas AND has appointed right wing activist judges who will continue making things worse for this country for years to come.

[sjdnb]

21. Just as the 'masters' intended, using the easily manipulated actor as their puppet -

and completely the opposite of what was meant by the "American Dream" (aka Shining City on the Hill)

[Luminous Animal]

19. No doubt he did it...

optimistically and with clarity. Somebody had to address excesses of strong unions of the 60s and 70s!

[jackson_dem]

22. We don't want to refight the boomer's battles. We surrender retroactively to the rethugs!

[Mythsaje]

23. One of the few unions that supported him.

What a prick.

[Lerkfish]

25. hilarious! pro-corporation clinton supporters trying to frame the issue

that she's pro-union by a weird transitive property guilt by association thing.

hilarious! you can't put lipstick on a pig and call it angelina jolie. Clinton is the WORST dem candidate for labor. period.

[jefferson_dem]

26. Given this, I wonder why Hillary and Bill would say Raygun

"personified the indomitable optimism of the American people..."