General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's the final countdown...
A timeline for the ages
Took them 40 years but they have finally brought the USA to its knees.
captain queeg
(10,188 posts)DEbluedude
(816 posts)I remember seeing Ralph Reed on the cover of Time sometime in the 90's. Prior to that, for me, the concern for the survival of our democracy was never an issue. Limpballs, Fox and the rest soon followed, as you say. The beginning of the end as we knew it.
sop
(10,167 posts)ck4829
(35,069 posts)https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cathie-adams-finds-proof-grover-norquist-is-a-secret-muslim-as-you-see-he-has-a-beard/
As I said in another thread a couple of days ago, it's good he's not being listened to anymore, it's not good that it's not because his ideas have no merit, but because he has a beard and a Muslim wife.
They created a monster.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization or PATCO was a United States trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following an illegal strike that was broken by the Reagan Administration. According to labor historian Joseph A. McCartin, the 1981 strike and defeat of PATCO was "one of the most important events in late twentieth century U.S. labor history"
Perhaps the most important, and then highly controversial, domestic initiative was the firing of the air traffic controllers in August 1981. The President invoked the law that striking government employees forfeit their jobs, an action that unsettled those who cynically believed no President would ever uphold that law. President Reagan prevailed, as you know, but far more importantly his action gave weight to the legal right of private employers, previously not fully exercised, to use their own discretion to both hire and discharge workers.
Reagan's firing of the government employees encouraged large private employers, like Phelps Dodge (1983), Hormel (19856), and International Paper (1987), to hire striker replacements instead of negotiating in labor conflicts.[17] Comparatively, in 1970 there were over 380 major strikes or lockouts in the U.S., by 1980 the number had dropped to under 200, in 1999 it fell to 17, and in 2010 there were only 11.-Wiki
This was the beginning of the end of the middle class.