Reagan youth

[gordonzola]

And since I'm in a mood, can I say one ting about the plane crash in Kentucky? Do you think that if the air traffic controllers had a strong union that they could have prevented the FAA from ordering staffing levels in violation of their own safety codes?

Thanks Ronnie. Everytime I think we can total the death count, another 50 or so have to get added to the list.

Comments

[twostepsfwd.livejournal.com]

I have a friend whose family was intimidated and harrassed for years in their own home by the government because her dad was an air traffic controller and involved in trying to unionize.

i think MANY of the industrial accidents we hear about (this counts) could have been avoided with stronger unions.

[the-living-end.livejournal.com]

it boggles my mind when anyone ever says anything nice about reagan. he ruined everything!

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I don't know why it became so for him, exactly, but the busting of PATCO seems to be the thing that is emblematic of all of Reagan's anti-unionism for my dad. He was never a member and never worked with them during his time with the AFL-CIO, but he remains bitter about that one.

I'd like to shoot the fuckers responsible for renaming Washington National for the bastard.

i assume you know this, but

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

that's some pretty bad reasoning right there!

[nationofsheep.livejournal.com]

Yeah that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the cause of the crash. And from the comments section, the other casualty of the Reagan era seems to be the understanding of cause and effect. We have gone from plausible deniability to just flat out denying that anything happened at all ever.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Charming responses here. I haven't seen so many references to "straw men" since USENET circa 1994.

Incidentally, I've been reading And the Band Played On for the past three weeks or so, for the first time. I am sorry to admit that it is my first time reading it. While I've read many other AIDS histories and recriminations of the lack of action/blood on the hands of the Reagan administration, the painstakingly researched and meticulous nature of this book is pretty intense and damning (whatever one's take on Shilts' sexual politics may be, something I don't feel like arguing right now, anyway).

Hope that's not, you know, a straw man.

Unrelated to our greatest president ever...

[rfd.livejournal.com]

How's Saturday for you for the Russian food fest?

[strix-an-stones.livejournal.com]

Dumb question, but would small airports with only two runways have had air traffic controllers that would have been in the union? Our local airport in the Reagan years had a controller who was non-union because the budget couldn't afford one. When he unionized they dropped having a controller. It's now 2006 and they still don't have one and it has two runways comparable to the Kentucky field.

You can blame a lot of stuff on a lot of folks but unless you can say for sure and certain that the airport would have had unionized ATCs you really can't make that statement. They could have chosen to employ non-union workers or simply dumped having one period. In that case there would be a system by which pilots are given information on runway size and location - they radio a general announcement of intent to land and handle things fine without ATCs.

[whimsicalpops.livejournal.com]

Or the fact that the FAA knew the controller was on his 2nd shift with little sleep and the only person.

When does our safety count for us? When do we as a nation realize that safety standards are related to paying people decently and having adequate staffing? When do we stop playing chicken and saying that 98% of the time we slide by and are willing to risk 50 poeple dying so we can save a buck in government services.

just saw this...

[sparkle-shortz.livejournal.com]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/weekinreview/03basic.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued its managers conflicting instructions; they are supposed to avoid having a tower controller perform both ground and radar duties, but also to minimize manpower to the lowest level consistent with safety. The F.A.A. once had negotiated agreements with the controllers’ union on staffing levels; now it says it tries to “staff to traffic.’’