Scott Walker Stands By Claim Reagan's Union-Busting Was 'Most Significant' Foreign Policy Decision

Huffington Post ^ | February 28, 2015 | Ashley Alman

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is doubling down on claims that the strongest foreign policy move in his lifetime was former President Ronald Reagan's decision to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers.

In 1981, almost 13,000 air traffic control employees walked off the job when contract negotiations between the federal government and the controllers union stalled. Reagan claimed the strike was illegal and demanded the air traffic controllers return to work; when some 11,000 did not, he fired them.

Walker, who has long idolized Reagan and previously lauded the former president's standoff with air traffic control, on Saturday called it "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" during an address at the Club for Growth's winter meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida.

"It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world," Walker said, according to The Washington Post, claiming the action showed foreign allies and enemies that "we weren't to be messed with."

Walker made almost identical comments during a January MSNBC appearance, where he claimed there were documents that proved the Soviet Union treated the U.S. differently following the standoff.

"Years later, documents released from the Soviet Union showed that that exactly was the case," he said. "The Soviet Union started treating [Reagan] more seriously once he did something like that. Ideas have to have consequences. And I think [President Barack Obama] has failed mainly because he's made threats and hasn't followed through on them."

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This is a good read: The GE Years: What Made Reagan Reagan ".....A slick monthly magazine often tied Reagan’s GE Theater news to ideological messages. And a defense quarterly, featuring GE’s efforts in the field, was enhanced by commentary from leading experts (e.g. well-known academics and occasional Cabinet officials) on military and geopolitical matters. The evidence is compelling that Reagan read all of these. The frequent question periods after his talks with GE workers insured that he would be asked about them. They influenced his foreign policy as well as his domestic views. An article in the defense quarterly presaged the Reagan Doctrine and contains the earliest mention of what later became the strategic defense initiative.

The subject matter of the publications ranged from narrow employment issues (“How Big Are General Electric Profits – Are They Too Big?” “Why the company can expect union officials to ‘demand’ a strike from them”) to broader economic concerns (“Let’s Learn from Britain”--which concerned the failures of socialism and a government-run medical profession--and “What is Communism? What is Capitalism? What is the Difference to You?”). The folly of many government programs and the negative consequences of burdensome taxation were frequent topics. The book clubs of employees and their spouses spent thirteen weeks discussing Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt or How You Really Earn Your Living by Lewis Haney and other conservative offerings.

In time, Lemuel Boulware and GE CEO Ralph Cordiner mounted a national grass roots campaign, recruiting major corporate allies, creating schools where GE employees and others could learn the fundamental political skills to win elections, developing shareholder lists for political mailings, and turning GE workers into “communicators” and “mass communicators” (Boulware’s words) who could spread the message of free persons and free markets to a decisive number of local voters. In the course of this Ronald Reagan was taken out of the plants and put on what he called “the mashed potato circuit” of civic forums largely in the south and smaller states, often towns where GE dominated the economy, where he would be most effective. In due course, the “great communicator” was born. In today’s parlance, most of these states turned from blue to red......"

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Reagan and SDI ".............The Strategic Defense Initiative was roundly criticized and belittled by many in the west, who thought it “destabilizing.” Numerous scientists, including those who had done weapons work, criticized it as ”unachievable.” Arms control “specialists” decried “Star Wars” as ”provocative” and an escalation of the nuclear arms race. But Reagan did not listen to the naysayers and insisted that SDI proceed. The number one foreign policy objective of the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence was to eliminate SDI; the famous Reykjavik Summit of 1986 collapsed on this point, when Reagan would not trade SDI to Gobachev and the Soviets in exchange for massive cuts in ballistic missiles.

If the bulk of academic and diplomatic opinion was so averse to SDI and to some scientists, very idea of missile defense was so “unworkable,” why then did the Soviet Union fight so long and adamantly against it? The Soviet Union was convinced the SDI would work and were convinced that America could achieve exactly what we set out to do. Here is Apollo’s legacy: Any technological challenge America undertakes, it can accomplish. The reason this legacy had currency was the success of Apollo. We had attempted and successfully achieved a technical goal-one so difficult and demanding, that it made virtually any similar technical goal seem achievable. Moreover, this was goal that the Soviets themselves had attempted and failed. They reasoned that getting into a decade long competition with America on SDI would similarly end in an American victory and would be a race that would destroy their system, as indeed, it did.

President Kennedy started Apollo and the race to the Moon as a Cold War gambit; a way to demonstrate the superiority of the free and democratic way of life to that of our communist adversaries. That goal was successfully achieved to a degree still not fully appreciated today. The success of the Apollo program gave America something it did not realize was so important - technical credibility. When President Reagan announced SDI twenty years later, the Soviets were against it, not because it was destabilizing and provocative, but because they thought we would succeed, rendering their vast military machine, assembled at great cost to their people and economy, obsolete in an instant. Among other factors, this hastened the end of the Cold War in our favor. Space advocates often lament the lack of direction of today’s space program. An unspoken concern by many who feel this way is the accompanying lack of determination and commitment in our current space program. They look back wistfully on the glory days of Apollo, when esprit d’corps was high, the work days were long and hard, and sleeves were rolled up and teeth were set in determination. It was like a war then. It was. And we won it."

[C210N]

[Ø] has failed mainly because he's made threats and hasn't followed through on them.

Like printing a Trillion-Dollar coin? How lucky we are that he didn't follow thru on that one.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Websites Forced To Correct And Retract False Stories About Scott Walker "Several websites were forced to correct, and in one case retract, stories they published Friday which falsely accused Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker of wanting to rollback sexual assault reporting requirements at state colleges and universities.

The left-leaning website Jezebel kicked off the latest attack on Walker, a Republican who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, with an article headlined “Scott Walker Wants Colleges To Stop Reporting Sexual Assaults.”

“Under Walker’s budget, universities would no longer have to report the number of sexual assaults that take place on a campus to the Department of Justice. Under Walker’s plan, university employees who witness a sexual assault would no longer have to report it,” Jezebel reporter Natasha Vargas-Cooper wrote on Friday............."

Walker must be over the target.

Warren dings Walker over comments on unions and ISIS - "Warren, who is closely aligned with progressive union groups, ripped Walker in a tweet Saturday for what some saw as a comparison between union members and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria:

"If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it's time we take a closer look at his friends.”....."

[gogeo]

Great stuff.

Example #632 illustrating the impulse to ignore what experts say is often the correct one.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Reporter Mocks Scott Walker For Claiming To Communicate With God Through Prayer

"Me" = MEDIA!

"RR" = WALKER!

Mother Jones: [FR thread] Scott Walker Would Be the Most Conservative GOP Candidate Since Goldwater

[FR thread with good links] Milwaukee County says nearly all Walker emails released [Taxpayer funded witch-hunt in Wisconsin]

[FR thread] Christie and Walker take different paths on union issues "..."You fight the good fight against Walker and he beats you," said Seth Markgraf, a 34-year-old construction worker from Arlington, Wisconsin. "They beat us in the recall and they beat us in another general election. It's just apathy. How do we beat Scott Walker?"

Big Labor's Most Profane & Outrageous Signs at Anti-Right-to-Work Protes **Language Warning** February 26, 2015 - [Madison, Wisc...] The energy and crowds are nothing like four years ago when Gov. Scott Walker and legislators passed Act 10 - which reformed public-sector collective bargaining privileges. But, the heated and over-the-top rhetoric from the left has not changed. Big Labor threw out all the punches during protests in Madison this week.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Example #632 illustrating the impulse to ignore what experts say is often the correct one.

Exactly. The Left's appeal to authority has fooled a lot of people - too many Americans have forgotten how to THINK because it is so easy to believe what someone else tells them. Being informed is work - but it opens your eyes.

A lot of the new generation(s) think a click on the Internet will tell them all that they need to know, but they don't have enough basic knowledge about history and science to know where to begin being skeptical. They're lemmings.

[Gene Eric]

Does that guy’s jacket read “Goons for Peace” ?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Something like that.

: )

[Cowboy Bob]

Walker really makes the people at the HuffPo nervous.

And that’s a good thing!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Scott Walker has progressives in high dungeon.

---

"Members of the media were quick to report that, included in Gov. Scott Walker's budget, was a removal of the requirements that colleges report campus sexual assault statistics to the state.

The Daily Beast, Huffington Post and others all jumped on a report in Jezebel that tried to paint Walker as being unsympathetic to sexual assault victims. Daily Beast writer Brian Weidy went so far as to claim that Walker's proposal was "just short of explicitly violating Title IX regulations" and possible even "crossing a legal line."

So not only is Walker a terrible person who hates victims, but he's also maybe breaking the law. Or so they said. But for all their eagerness to pile on a leading GOP candidate for president (note the contrast to reporting on Obama in 2008), they were just plain wrong. The outlets involved had to retract the story, although a simple Google News search could have spared them the humiliation........" Media tries to smear Walker on campus sex assault reporting, gets it horribly wrong

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WSJ - Peggy Noonen - "...You can’t cover up differences in a passive-aggressive way—at their feet when you really want to be at their throat......" ["Sorry, Jeb, the Race Is Wide Open"]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I have to laugh each time I watch this 3 minute video of Julie's call to a liberal radio show - she can't understand how Walker got started in WI and why there are "STAND WITH WALKER" signs on lawns in poor neighborhoods. And some other "info" from the host....

Caller: How Scott Walker Made it in Wisconsin... [don't read the rolling dialogue captions they're screwed up - just listen]

[Monorprise]

Walker is right of course, the ability to make hard choices and carry thou dispute the difficulty is absolutely critical to your legitimacy at the negotiating table. The USSR would never have respected Regains claims if they believed he would back down rather than risk an uncomfortable conferation.

Simply put Regains demonstrated exactly the opposite of what Obama, Mitch, and John have been demonstrating. Spine and as a result by the end of his presidency his words meant something because the opposition knew for certain that they would be backed up by action no matter how unconformable, risky, or even in their eyes ‘unwise’ that action was. Thus the choice for them was between the consequences of that action and the cost of compliance.

This is a far different thing with Obama and John who have demonstrated the utterly meaningless of their words & resolve again and again. As a result in each of their conversations the opposition walks right over them, knowing they will back down. John and Mich worse still basically just told the opposition that they would take their only trump card off the table. It is difficult to understand how men can become leaders in our party while being tactically so stupid, but I suppose they got that position by being good at internal politics and being relatively secure in their own reelection. Such is the corrupt nature of Congressional ‘seniority rules’.

As for Obama we all know how he got his position and it didn’t have much to do with merit, as he never ran anything in his life.

[elcid1970]

Haven’t seen “Crying Guy” this time around.

[diogenes ghost]

The hue and cry against Walker is only because the left perceives him as the front runner, and will not diminish until someone overtakes him.

Then their focus shifts to the new guy.

Rinse and repeat.

[Gumdrop]

A long time ago, perhaps in the middle or late 1990’s I read that when RR fired the Air Traffic Controllers [and busted their union], the fact was noticed in Moscow. They became convinced that RR was going to be a formidable adversary.

RR said what he meant and meant what he said. That is important in politics when you are negotiating for anything of serious importance.

[dominic flandry]

I watched your suggested video. The host and the caller are idiots. One has to wonder how they cope with life.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Unlike Mr. Obama, President Reagan wasn't afraid of armed soldiers. Yes, we were armed in that photo.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Great post.

Great points.

Great president.

Ronald Reagan Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day - May 15, 1982:

"Where to we find such men? "..........In James Michener's book "The Bridges at Toko-Ri," he writes of an officer waiting through the night for the return of planes to a carrier as dawn is coming on. And he asks, "Where do we find such men?" Well, we find them where we've always found them. They are the product of the freest society man has ever known. They make a commitment to the military—make it freely, because the birthright we share as Americans is worth defending. God bless America.".......