The rich celebrate Reagan's 100th B'day. Workers can regret he was around so long but be happy he's gone

The US capitalist class are celebrating the birthday of one of the most anti-American worker presidents in US history.  Ronald Reagan would have been 100 today.  Those of us old enough remember this henchman for the rich.  He fired 13,000 striking Air Traffic Controllers in 1981 and smashed their Union.  The destruction of PATCO, was a green light for the employers as they went on the warpath throughout the 1980's.  I remember talking with a PATCO striker at the Labor Day Picnic here in Alameda County CA.  I seemed to recall the bias of the news media when I saw an interviewer ask a stranded passenger at a Midwest airport "What's does it feel like to be held hostage by the striking Air Traffic Controllers?"

The corporate mass media portrayed these workers as greedy, selfish and overpaid.  But there was much more to this strike than money as there is in any work stoppage. The PATCO striker said to me that "It's like playing PacMan really, referring to a popular video game of the time, "except if we have two blips meet each other we lose 300 people. Stress and working conditions were a huge issue for them. 

PATCO demanded an across-the-board wage increase of $10,000 a year for controllers. Their pay ranged  from $20,462 to $49,229.  The Union was also demanding a reduction in the workweek from a five day 40-hour work week to a four-day, 32-hour work week with full retirement after 20 years.

The capitalist class and Reagan as their front man saw the dangers of allowing what was an illegal strike to make any headway.  Not only did he fire them, he banned them from working in their industry for life and destroyed their Union.  As usual, the response from the AFL-CIO and its moribund leader, Lane Kirkland was to do nothing.  Kirkland simply referred to Reagan's actions as "Brutal overkill", in other words, the same sort of approach the top Union officials have today, not disagreeing with the employers that workers have to cut back back but simply pleading for less severe measures.

How right this PATCO cartoon was. Source

Instead of doing nothing, the heads of the AFL-CIO should have warned Reagan and the US bosses that this country would stop if the strikers were not returned to work and a nationwide campaign with meetings and discussions and a date set for a one day national strike should have been organized
Instead, pilots and machinists scabbed on the PATCO workers.  The Union officials always blame the lack of solidarity, class consciousness or willingness to fight on such developents but with no lead coming from above, workers are left with few choices.  Both these groups were to get their turn with Airline strikes at Eastern and TWA.  Had the heads of organized Labor actually organized a fightback, the situation in the US would be totally different today.

Reagan also tried to lower the minimum wage, weaken child Labor laws and slash job training for unemployed workers. His goal was to replace government workers protected by Unions and Civil Service rules with non-Union, temporary workers, a direction both Democrats and Republicans are heading in today. 

As he was crushing US workers, Reagan was applauding and supporting, including with money, the Solidarity movement in Poland.  And as we can see from the video, he was responsible for the thousands of deaths as well as torture of the workers and peasants in Central America.  He was a liar too. Look at the millions he got from his thug friends abroad to destroy the struggle for self determination in Central America.
 
At today's celebrations of what would be his 100th birthday there are lots of celebrity guests, rich folks and former partners in crime. One news source reports that an "Episcopal priest, provided a prayer that described Reagan as a man full of warmth and humor and absent pettiness or meanness, and an example as someone who lit the life given to him "on a lampstand shining not on himself but on America and into the world."

As usual, the religious hierarchy are in lock step with the plunderers of the world.  It would be a useful piece of information to have, how many members of the Liberation Theology movement lost their lives thanks to Ronald Reagan and those like him. It should also be remembered he was no friend of the natural world.  Workers, the environment, all things are poor runners up to profit taking.

As is usually the case, the heads of organized Labor will probably pay some respects on this day, after all, there's the "integrity" of the office and all that, he was "the president of all of us". They'll make some comments about him not being the best and worthy adversary and all that.

But the reality is that Reagan was a bastard.  His is responsible for the misery and death of untold millions of people---good riddance to him.