4 ms·

Reagan was a master of politics. Here's the warm, friendly letter he sent, before getting elected, to the union union of Professional Air Traffic Controllers (

• InTheArena 6y ago
  Do you really think that linking to dailykos, which considers Reagan only slightly worse then Bin Ladin is really a good link? You can argue what Reagan wanted, but there is also no doubt that the union dramatically overplayed it's hands. This was not unusual in the aviation business at the time. There was a major carrier that went to the union and claimed they needed concessions to reform their business to deal with deregulation. The union said, sure, we will do it if you open all your books to us and prove it. The company did, then asked for ratification of the pre- negotiated contract. The union looked at the books, decided that the companies was in fact doomed without them. However, the union represented not just workers at that carrier, but other carrriers as well, and since the union was also present in other carrier theydemanded a top of the market contract to bleed the company dry (and force other carriers to match the contract) figuring that if the company was on it's way it, it should take as much as possible as it could before they went down. (The union/corporate battles at this time are insane. Both the union leaders and the executives were forbidden from exercising leadership ever again - see Frank Lorenzo, Jack Bavis, Charlie Bryan).
  • freeflight 6y ago
    > Do you really think that linking to dailykos, which considers Reagan only slightly worse then Bin Ladin is really a good link? I don't see how that interpretation is that wrong, except maybe for offending some American sensibilities. But the Reagan Doctrine was really not that different from what OBL did: Finance and support subversive elements in other countries for the sake of overthrowing the established political order, to replace it with one more aligned to that of the perpetrator. These similarities get even more blatant when looking at incidents like Iran-Contra: Using drug trade to finance such operations, which is really not all that different to what a lot of terrorist groups are doing. Heck, there's even somewhat of a direct link when accounting for the US support that flowed to the Mujaheddin to oppose the Soviets and what later became of that. Again: I realize this interpretation might be offensive to some Americans, but for a moment try to see it from the PoV of those countries and people that were directly, and often very negatively, affected by that kind of foreign policy.
  • cs702 6y ago
    Please don't attack a strawman. I linked to that dailykos page because it happens to be the only one that had a copy of Reagan's letter on DuckDuckGo's first page of search results for "reagan letter to patco". For what it's worth, when I first read that letter years ago, I remember being in awe at Reagan's mastery of the political arts. If I may quote Jeffrey Pelt from The Hunt for Red October: "Listen, I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open."
• justin66 6y ago
  That's not masterful, that's just setting them up for some backstabbing. The masterful part happened later, when he sold it to the American people and largely convinced a generation of workers that they'd certainly be better off without unions.
• ErikVandeWater 6y ago
  He did offer them improved working conditions, and then they went on an illegal strike and he fired them. Boo hoo. I'm no Reagan apologist either; He was responsible for an incredible amount of CIA evils against the world. And I don't buy for one second the "strategy" of massive increase in military spending forced the USSR into bankruptcy - That is just the natural conclusion of socialism.