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!

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

yeah, it totally sucks how everything is ruined now.

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

wow, that would increase the number of innocent people killed due to Reagan's firing the illegally striking air traffic controllers even more!

[dcart.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but they would be the first not to be innocent victims.

Re: i assume you know this, but

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because understaffing and overworking people doesn't have any effect on job performance.

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

They just have a different favorite president than you. I'm pretty sure that counts as innocent!

(My favorite president is George Washington and I think more things should be named after him. Please don't kill me.)

straw man!

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

If that had actually been the central point of Gordon's post then you'd have totally gotten me there and that icon would totally been rubbing it in my face!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I wish I could figure out some way to do my jello imitation on an LJ comment.

Re: i assume you know this, but

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yes, because history doesn't matter in today's America.

Put trolls on the do-not-fly list

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

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?

Whoopsie! Somebody missed their high-school English class the day they covered "stating a central point very clearly."

baby trolls are cute!

[substitute.livejournal.com]

You're promising, I have to say, but the pretense is still too obvious. I think this persona might need more faux sincerity and less grinny icons if you want the three-screen eight-deep threads you dream of.

Sharpen your skills, my boy. A few weeks on Wikipedia talk pages and you'll be hooking 'em like never before.

Re: i assume you know this, but

[sparkle-shortz.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, as a non-troll, a bit/link about the history would have made this post make more sense to me. I mean, I'm willing to blame Reagan for anything, but...

[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.

[jamie-miller.livejournal.com]

Re: i assume you know this, but

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

here's one article:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/07/31/an_old_lesson_still_holds_for_unions/

Re: i assume you know this, but

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

or this one:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5604656

Re: Put trolls on the do-not-fly list

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

xoxo

Re: Put trolls on the do-not-fly list

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

No. That "understaffing and overworking people has an effect on job performance" is a premise that is assumed by his argument, with which I obviously do not disagree with because I'm not retarded.

The central point of his post was that Reagan is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths in Kansas.

xoxo

Re: i assume you know this, but

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

wha?? no, because it's kind of the absurd causal link that you've constructed there. what is it with people and the straw man arguments today?

Re: baby trolls are cute!

[fidelity-astro.livejournal.com]

Um, no. Saying that Reagan choosing to enforce a preexisting law was responsible for the deaths in Kansas is pretty ridiculous and there's nothing trollish about pointing it out.

And, dude, you write like that and you're telling ME that the pretense is too obvious? Ay yi yi.

Re: i assume you know this, but

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

It's three sentences not a thesis. I don't think that Reagan's ghostly hand reached up from hell and turned the plane's steering wheel. Though I wouldn't put it past him either.

1.Reagan smashes union.
2.Workers lose power over bad staffing practices that they have never recovered.
3.Bad staffing practices are a factor in plane crash.

The plane crashed because the pilot drove down the wrong runway. The safeguards that might have helped prevent it, much like the safeguards to keep people out of poverty, were removed. So yes, Reagan didn't kill those people. He simply put events into play that may have kept their deaths from being prevented.

and really, you know that's what I was saying.

Re: i assume you know this, but

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

excuse me. my post was actually four sentences.