We are seeing a reversal of what happened after WWII

[AllentownJake]

The Golden age of America's workers rights. After the War, there was a world to rebuild and the labor market was competitive. The US worker had no real competitors because all the other manufacturing giants had been significantly bombed into oblivion.

Germany, Japan, Britain, Russia, France all had seen a significant portion of their manufacturing base destroyed by bombs.

The Atlantic Ocean protected the United States from sharing in their fate. The rest of the world was in shambles and their was one group left who could manufacture.

Companies, in order to be competitive had to offer workers something. It didn't hurt that we were just coming off a period where the most progressive President in US History had been in power for 13 years. The American worker was the only game in town.

The world we live in is far different than the world our Grandparents and Parents inhabited. Over the past 30 years our trade policies have been liberalized to make the American worker non-competitive. While countries in Europe adopted Social Safety nets to offer workers protections, our country left that in the hands of the corporations because they had been doing it for years and people were happy with it.

Now our manufacturing base is the one in ruins. It wasn't destroyed by bombs but by lack of investment by American's own corporations. The greed of our elites had our industries shipped overseas where the goods could be made cheaper due to the lack of worker, environmental, and corporate citizenship expectations we require here. In our trade policies that we have enacted expecting other countries to meet minimum standards of how they treat their workers or citizens have never been included.

The anti-tax, anti-government crowd have prevented any of the social safety nets from being built in America, thus making business more expensive to conduct here.

We really are at a point where we have undone everything the Greatest Generation accomplished. The question is, what does this generation do to bring it back, or can it be brought back?

[tabasco]

1. Thanks republican voters!

30 years of trickle down economics really ushered in a golden age.

A golden age of showers!

[AllentownJake]

2. Well if we are thanking people

We are thanking the Children of the Greatest Generation.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html

I know there were children who knew this was bad, but as a generation, they are the ones who ushered in this reality.

The question is do they redeem themselves, and do their children learn from their parents mistakes?

[AllentownJake]

3. We can also thank the blue collar workers of the 80s

who voted for their own destruction over cultural issues.

[anonymous171]

12. Don't blame the workers. The democratic party had already abandoned them by then.

So of course they turned to the GOP. At least they understood their "culture."

[AllentownJake]

15. If by culture you mean the culture that allowed the Willie Horton ad to be so effective

Than it was not a very good culture to begin with.

[anonymous171]

16. Thus the quotes. nt

[Deja Q]

8. Unions have SOME blame in this too...

I think it's unfair for multi-talented workers to be shifted in the company because of some bass-ackwards policy. Or unions defending people who are caught sending porn to other people, caught red-handed...

Unions did a helluva lot of good at one time; these days I'm not so sure.

I'm just sick of the shit on both sides. As far as I'm concerned, the truth is in the middle.

[AllentownJake]

13. Unions did some stupid things

In my area, they vetoed any attempt by management to modernize the steel mill. It wasn't really labor cost that killed Bethlehem Steel, eventually they were making an inferior more costly product. They thought they were protecting jobs. They helped to kill the plant (Management wasn't exactly the brightest bulbs either).

The behavior you've outlined there caused thinking rank and file to ignore their leaders when elections came along. Observing some of the idiocy made Reagan more attractive.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Not only were jobs exported, but unregulated financial services...

that charged usurious interest rates attracted the capital that normally would have gone to industrial modernization.

There was a great article in Vanity Fair a while back that laid it all out...I'm looking for the link.

[Junkdrawer]

9. I was wrong, it was Harpers...

If you happen to have a subscription to Harpers...
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/04/0082450

Here's a free discussion on DemocracyNow...
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/24/thomas_geoghegan_on_infinite_debt_how

[AllentownJake]

14. A 29% interest rate is a lot more attractive than a 10% interest rate for capital improvement.

Have to agree there.

[BlueJazz]

5. The Ones we can thank for this mess are White Protestants and White Southerners.

[AllentownJake]

7. Reagan and Bush I victories were not limited to the south or white Protestants

I believe the working class Catholics in the North East were significant contributors to this.

In 1980

Minnesota, Georgia, West Virgina, D.C, and Rhode Island were the only states to not go for Reagan.

1984

D.C and Minnesota

1988

The North East and Pacific North West started to turn along with Iowa and Wisconsin against the GOP.

It wasn't till 1992 that we saw the turn of the current Red State/Blue state reality we live in today.

[anonymous171]

19. Also remember that southern states (like Texas) helped put Jimmy Carter into the White House. nt

[Mudoria]

33. Somewhere a village is missing it's idiot

[msongs]

6. a special thanks to all who buy cheap foreign made stuff cuz it saves $$ nt

[Deja Q]

11. Their dead dogs, strangled babies, and those with higher dental and CC bills say "You're welcome".

* melamine
* recalled broken toys
* antifreeze in toothpaste
* drywall that emits chemicals that cause electronics to short-circuit

Who needs planned obsolescence when you can just built it shit cheap, without regulations or repercussions? Never mind QC, which is often shifted onto the consumer because *waaaah* it costs too much.

[omega minimo]

10. What to do? Don't go along with Reaganism in the first place! Don't let them destroy everything and

then ask what to do about it!

Don't be duped! Don't go along to get along!

Don't be selfish hypocrites!

Don't be Republican or even worse -- Republican Lite!

DON'T IGNORE ALL THE WARNING SIGNS AND THEN STAND IN THE RUBBLE AND WONDER WHAT TO DO.

[leftstreet]

17. We have to wait until the Bolivarian Revolution comes north n/t

[Mudoria]

34. No thanks

[baldguy]

18. The GOP has been working for 70 yrs to reverse the New Deal.

In the '82s thy finally got their chance, and W finished it.

[old mark]

20. They reversed the New Deal and caused the workers to be blamed for it.

The state of Unions in the US is deplorable - they stand for nothing but the status quo, keeping the peace, shutting down complaints by workers and keeping corporate profits high.
When the CEO makes a huge fortune and the workers pay for their "benefits" the unions have become traitors to labor.

mark

[paulsby]

32. bull

my union does nothing of the sort.

[old mark]

37. I was a Steward - My union certainly has. nt

[paulsby]

38. your union sucked :)

mine kicks okole!

[old mark]

39. I was in AFSCME.....It did suck. They are very closely tied with

the state and management, good at collecting dues, though.
You are luckey to be in a real union.
mark

[paulsby]

40. it's a police union

they do a great job.

[omega minimo]

21. any insight as to why there wasn't more outcry at the time?

[AllentownJake]

22. Lots of things

Soreness over our loss in Vietnam
Backlash at the Great Society by Johnson
Nationalist Jingoism against the Soviet Union
Inflation and the Gas Crisis
Embarrassment over Iran
Anger at the inefficiency of the bureaucracy
Carter's impotence with the Democratic congress
Decline of America's cities
American Society was changing to be more integrated and there was a backlash

[omega minimo]

25. That's all go along to get along, though. Why weren't more people speaking out at obvious dangers.

[AllentownJake]

27. Actually they were

George H.W. Bush ran an entire campaign against the economic policies. Than pushed them for 12 years.

They were overly simplistic and easy to sell, sold by a guy who after his film career dried up spent 15 years selling GE appliances on TV before becoming Governor of California.

[baldguy]

23. By then, the corporatocracy owned the media.

Kicking the American working class to the curb was "the good thing" to do for the country - meaning it would allow the rich to get richer.

[omega minimo]

26. That encroached gradually. It wasn't as complete as it is 30 years later.

I'm talking about normal folks seeing the Reaganist bullshit and speaking up about it. Youth culture did and the corporatocracy took care of that.

[lpbk2713]

24. Prescott Bush was a visionary.

And his little monkeys helped to make it a reality.

[Fovea]

28. Start voting for the most progressive

forward thinking candidates you can find-- in the primary, even.

Dont worry about labels, read their position papers.
See who PAC's them.

This mess is broken, and cannot be glued. It must be remade.

The alternatives on either side of the scale from violence to capitulation
are even less viable.

[AllentownJake]

29. I think there are going to have to be some nation wide protest

and civil disobedience. Some good pitchfork and torches looking crowds will be needed

However, I agree violence will never work. Whenever populist movements turn violent they accept that the ends justify the means. That is a guarantee that the system they replace will accept that as well.

The revolutions in Russia and France demonstrate that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Yes, and vote for the person YOU think is best, not the one you think is

"electable."

When I was working on the Kucinich campaign, if every person who said to every volunteer, "I love Dennis, but he's not electable," had actually voted for him, we would have gotten a lot more than the 17% statewide that we did get.

Again and again, I have seen people reject candidates that THEY LIKE for candidates that they THINK other people will like.

Unless we start voting for what we really want, no matter what the media tell us, we're going to be stuck with the same-old same-old.

If you think that some new daring person running in your primary is preferable to the incumbent, vote for him or her, and then vote for him or her in the general, and tell any D.C. Dems who come to campaign for the incumbent where they can stuff their incumbency.

Remember: Nobody owns your vote.

[leftofthedial]

30. we must end capitalism as we know it.

otherwise, there is no hope for our planet.

[AllentownJake]

31. What exists now isn't capitalism

It more resembles dark age feudalism than anything else.

[ColbertWatcher]

36. "our trade policies have been liberalized" Ugh.

I know the word "liberalized" is being used in a strict dictionary definition, but I think that particular usage implies a connotative meaning that wrongly faults liberals for the disaster capitalist policies of Milton Friedman.