policies that would help them. And, as union members, they voted for the political party that would represent their interests: The Democrats.
Reagan appealed to the racism that was there in the pre-Reagan unions many of which had discriminated against anyone who wasn't white in their training and employment programs prior to the anti-discrimination movement of the 1960s that continued into the 1970s.
Union members voted for Nixon and then Reagan. And Reagan began the end of unions.
Working people still benefit from some of the laws that unions fought for. But there is still a lot of work to be done to make our country an even playing field for all of us.
Intellectuals, especially economists and writers and film-makers left tackling social injustice and their basis in economic injustice up to the unions for decades. We are seeing the results of the neglect by working people and intellectuals: the destruction of our industrial base; the empowerment and personification for purposes of civil rights of corporations; and growing disparity in the incomes of those who have and those who have not in our country.
Thank you, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Richard Wolff for leading the way, for finding the courage to speak against the conservative tide. I hope it isn't too late for working people including family farmers to do their part, form unions, maybe their own worker-owned businesses and speak up for themselves. And I also hope that it isn't too late for those of who see the dangers in this conservative economic trend to take back the Democratic Party from those who have sold out to the same corporate interests that bought the Republican Party long ago.
= new reply since forum marked as read
