FEBRUARY 6, 1911). Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2011/01/ronald-reagans-centenary.html
(#1
Feb. 6, 2011; #2 Feb. 6, 2012).
OMNI
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change.
One of the most powerful modes of information control to
control the minds of the public is the nation’s official heroes. Reagan received one of the longest
presidential funeral since the beginning of our country. That would not have happened had the people
been well-informed about the harms he caused the US and the world. Here are a few glimpses into his real
life.
Contents of #1
Dick Bennett’s Writings about Reagan
William Blum on Reagan’s Record
Contents of #2
Dick Bennett, Rev. of Reagan
Speaks
DeWitt, Reagan’s Deceptions
- Rhetoric Society Quarterly Vol. 17,
No. 3, Summer, 1987 >
- Review of Reagan
Speaks by Dick Bennett
Contents #3
Dick, The World
of Orwell’s 1984 was Ronald Reagan’s
World
Jeff Madrick, “The Age of Cruelty”
Reagan Origin of NSA Surveillance Sweep
Daily Cos/Steven D, Reagan’s Crusade Against Air Controllers
and Unions
Dick, “Reagan’s
Doublethink in a Speech on Arms Reduction”
RONALD REAGAN, SELLING THE
SOVIET THREAT
By Dick Bennett (James R. Bennett, “Oceania and the United States
in 1984: The Selling of the Soviet Threat.”
Social theory and Practice, Vol.
10, No. 3, Fall 1984). The following is an edited reduction of one
section of the article.
Day after day in
speech after speech composed of a tangle of truths, half-truths, innuendoes,
and lies impossible to disentangle without extensive historical knowledge,
president Reagan attacked the evil Soviet Union (SU) for threatening not only
the US but, in his melodramatic language, Western civilization itself. For example, to Reagan, the obstacle to arms
reduction, ”which we want so dearly is not Washington ,
and it never has been; it’s Moscow .” But former President Carter declared that “in
all past negotiations with the Russians. . .the Russians have always bargained
in good faith, and the Soviet Union has never
violated an arms agreement.”
The evil most
represented by the SU was spreading throughout the world as “international
terrorism,” a phrase he loved for its fearful vagueness—“vicious, cowardly, and
ruthless.” This “force’ was taking over
the middle East, in Yemen , Ethiopia , Syria , and throughout the
world. In partial response the US invaded and smashed the threat of Grenada in
triumph.
And on and on day
after day. Our troops are sent into a
foreign country, they are resisted, and President Reagan decries another
heinous outrage by the vicious enemy.
And invasion after intervention, even the soberest of us, like Winston
Smith in 1984, have difficulty
resisting being swept up by the deceptions and the lies, the images and the
emotion, the fear and vindictiveness and victories by which rulers control
their populations. The figure of a
Eurasian/Eastasian soldier (Soviet, Chinese, Libyan, Cuban) is always
advancing, “huge and terrible, submachine gun roaring,” and the message
repeated, “PEACE IS WAR,” knowing that in our ignorance is his strength.
J. William
Fulbright wrote, “You see the periodic revival of the same kind of sentiment,
this paranoiac anticommunism. Reagan’s
initial rhetoric was a virulent revival of the old McCarthy attitude. . . .” (The Price of Empire, 51).
And when the Soviet
Union collapsed and the possibility of a conversion from a
militarized economy and foreign policy was within reach, the warrior leaders marched
immediately into a ‘War on Terrorism,” and the permanent war Orwell described
in 1984 continued. .
Jeff Madrick, “The Anti-Economist: The Age of
Cruelty.” Harper’s
Magazine (May 2013). In a
few pages a summary of all the ways Ronald Reagan began the US “age of
cruelty” that continues under Pres. Obama, an age of financial cuts that
“reflect an abdication by the government of its responsibility to maintain a
decent society.” --Dick
Most Of Nsa’s Data Collection Authorized By Order Ronald
Reagan Issued Posted, 2013-11-21
Star Telegram
McClatchy Washington Bureau WASHINGTON —The
National Security
Agency’s collection of information on Americans’ cellphone andInternet
usage reaches far
beyond the two programs that have received public attention in recent months, to a presidential order that is older than
the Internet itself. Approved by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Executive Order 12333 (referred to as “twelve-triple-three”)
still governs most of what the NSA does. It is a sweeping mandate
that outlines the duties and foreign intelligence collection for the nation’s
17 intelligence agencies. It is...more »
http://article.wn.com/view/2013/11/21/Most_of_NSA_s_data_collection_authorized_by_order_Ronald_Rea/
DAILY
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/09/1107835/-Remembering-Reagan-s-Sweet-Little-Lie-to-the-Air-Traffic-Controllers?Bdetail=email
News, Community, Actiop of Form
Daily Kos member
MON JUL 09, 2012 AT 11:39 AM PDT
Remembering Reagan's
Sweet Little Lie to the Air Traffic Controllers By
Steven D
[A few paragraphs have been excised—and indicated--
merely to shorten the newsletter. –Dick]
Most politically astute and knowledgeable people remember that
it was President Ronald Reagan who began
the assault on our unions by taking on the Professional Air Traffic
Controllers union (PATCO). By refusing to negotiate with the union
regarding pay and working conditions, and hiring replacements (i.e., scabs) to
take their jobs, he set the stage for the ongoing eradication of unions and the
working middle class. As The New York Times noted in 2011:
More than any other labor dispute of the past three
decades, Reagan’s confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and
their labor unions. It also polarized our politics in ways that prevent us from
addressing the root of our economic troubles: the continuing stagnation of
incomes despite rising corporate profits and worker productivity. . . .
By 2010, the number of workers
participating in walkouts was less than 2 percent of what it had been when
Reagan led the actors’ strike in 1952. Lacking the leverage that strikes
once provided, unions have been unable to pressure employers to increase wages
as productivity rises. Inequality has ballooned to a level not seen since
Reagan’s boyhood in the 1920s.
This event was and is rightfully considered a watershed moment
in the Republican Party's attempts to destroy unions and the union movement.
Since Reagan took on PATCO, unions have seen their membership number
decline precipitously, and most working class Americans have seen their wages
and salaries stagnant, even as the individuals (CEO's, Senior executives, and
people like Mitt Romney and his former firm Bain Capital) who control major
corporations and industries have seen their pay and income soar to levels once
though unimaginable.
What many may not know, however, is that Ronald Reagan in the
last days of the 1980 election campaign, sent a letter to the President of PATCO,
Robert E. Poli, promising he understood the many numerous concerns air traffic
controller had with their pay, outmoded equipment and working conditions.
Specifically, he promised to provide them with the most up-to-date
equipment and to work with them to provide more staffing and less brutal work
schedules in the interest of public safety. . . .
Dear Mr. Poli:
I have been briefed by members of my staff
as to the deplorable state of our nation's air traffic control system.
They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with
obsolete equipment has placed the nation's air travelers in unwarranted danger.
In an area so clearly related to public policy the Carter administration
has failed to act responsibly.
You can rest assured that if I am elected
president, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic
controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels
and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public
safety.
As in all other areas of the federal
government where the President has the power to appoint, I fully intend to
appoint highly qualified individuals who can work harmoniously with Congress
and the employees of the governmental agencies they oversee.
I pledge to you that my administration will
work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the
president and the air traffic controllers. Such harmony can and must
exist of we are to restore the people's confidence in their government.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
Based in part on this this letter Poli and
other senior PATCO officials had PATCO endorse Reagan for President.
PATCO was one of only four AFL-CIO affiliated unions to endorse Reagan
over Carter.
[N]ewly elected PATCO president Robert
Poli—who’d succeeded the more irenic incumbent John Leyden in a surprise
insurgent challenge—was keen to demonstrate his clout before the union’s
restive rank and file. He presumed to be bargaining from a position of strength
because during the run-up to contract negotiations, PATCO had sought to secure
firm Washington backing with another surprise move: it endorsed Reagan in the
1980 election, partly as a matter of heeding the shifting national mood, and
partly out of sheer exasperation with the Carter administration’s handling of
key controller concerns.
Never has a Union
leader made a more serious mistake in judgment. The Reagan appointed head
of the FAA failed to negotiate in goof faith, reacting to PATCO's demand for
pay raises, improved equipment and less arduous working hours with a
counteroffer equal to approximately 1/7 of the cost of the union's offer.
Poli accepted the offer, but did so with
little enthusiasm. Reagan had doubled crossed him and put his position
with PATCO's membership at risk. The administration's hard line only encouraged
those at PATCO to strike, which was Reagan's goal all along.
He immediately invoked the Taft-Hartley act
and fired all the striking air controllers on August 5, 1981, a total exceeding
11,000. Reagan then hired 5.500 scabs as the FAA head, Drew Lewis claimed
that there had been a "surplus of controllers." The FAA also reduced
flights by 25% and also brought in 370 military controllers. Though the
FAA promised to have staffing levels up to pre-1981 levels within two years, in
fact it took almost a decade before those levels were again achieved.
This was due partly to Reagan's ban on rehiring any of the fired PATCO
controllers.
Reagan never had any
intention of working with the union. This can be best demonstrated by the
fact that in February, the Reagan Department of Justice, aided by the FAA, had
complied a list of air traffic controllers to be arrested and prosecuted in the
event of a strike. One Federal District Judge in Denver
Today, of course, the Republican candidates
feel free to openly demonize unions and seek to destroy the right to
collectively bargain. We've seen the actions of Republican governors
elected in 2010 as proof of that. The nation's political landscape is
vastly changed by what Reagan accomplished in his showdown with PATCO.
Reagan gambled that he could get away with his lies back then, and he
succeeded. Now Republicans can lie on a daily basis and no one in the
media even bothers to check the claims they make, the numerous falsehoods and
prevarications they promulgate. Now the unions are shrinking, and they
more often than not refuse to strike our of fear. Now Democrats govern as
1990's era Republicans, catering far to often to the wealthy elites and
multinational corporations and failing to support unions.
And it
all started with Ronnie Reagan's sweet little lie to the air traffic
controllers. He wasn't concerned about the safety of air travel. He
wasn't willing to work with PATCO to improve working conditions or modernize
our air traffic control system. He wanted an easy target to make the case
that unions are bad for America
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Bennett, James
R.
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title
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Doublethink and the rhetoric of crisis: President Reagan's
October 22, 1983 speech on arms reduction
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date
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1985
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book
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In Kneupper,
Charles W. (Ed.), Oldspeak/newspeak: Rhetorical transformations;
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pages
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54-66
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keywords
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political, deception, language-analysis,
doublespeak, doublethink, military, arms control, arms reduction,
presidential
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annotation
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RONALD REAGAN NEWSLETTER #3
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