On this day in 1981, Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 striking workers of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. In addition to being a terrible thing in itself, it marked open season on labor unions. Labor laws have pretty much not been enforced since then. It’s been a bit better under Democrats — but certainly not good.

There are those in the labor movement who welcome the coming of “right to work” laws. They think it may be what it takes to create a new kind of union — one that is backed by workers and takes care of their needs. Personally, I don’t see how the current status quo stops unions from re-imagining themselves. What’s more, it is hard not to see that unions haven’t been part of the problem.

Exhibit A in this regard is the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization itself. In the 1980 election, it endorsed Ronald Reagan. Now, it is true that Reagan had given the union some support during the Carter administration in its fight with the FAA. But did they really think that Reagan was a friend of any union?! It’s ridiculous on its face. And the union gave Reagan a great gift: allowing him to fire so many people all at once. What a big man! No one would ever question him again!

None of this means that I think the air traffic controllers should have been fired. Reagan was going to win that election regardless. But it does show that the union didn’t understand who its friends were. And that’s sad. I continue to wonder how it is that the power elite have managed to convince the workers of this nation that unions are somehow bad.

Regardless, it was a sad day 34 years ago.

On this day in 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the legislation that created the United States Department of Energy. It’s primary focus is on nuclear power — both for energy and military uses. But it also does a little environmental work. In general, conservatives don’t like it. I think it is as simple as this: as an organization, it is focused on safety. And conservatives like to think of themselves as the romantic heroes of westerns who never have to plan and can figure out a solution at the last minute.

In 2012, Rick Perry was responsible for the best moment of the presidential campaign. He said, “Let me tell you, it’s three agencies that are gone when I get there. Commerce, Education, and the um, what’s the third one there?” After some proctoring from his fellow debaters, he admitted that he couldn’t remember it. Then he said, “Oops!” That was actually pretty charming, if you ask me. But his advisers — who must have been going crazy while watching the debate — explained that the third thing was the Department of Energy.

I suspect that the real reason that Perry couldn’t remember Energy is because he’s not clear on why he wants to get rid of it. People have a vague idea that it is focused on the environment. I’ve even heard people wonder why we need the Department of Energy when we have the EPA. The truth is that Energy is much more a department that conservatives ought to support. It is, after all, the department that monitors all our existing nuclear weapons and makes sure that they are in proper working order. We don’t want to get in World War III with Russia without the Department of Energy doing its job!

What the whole thing shows is that the modern Republican Party is all about rhetoric. They want to get rid of this or that — not because they don’t like what it does, but rather because it sounds good. The Republican Party isn’t just post-policy — it is post governing. And I really fear that sometime soon — perhaps in a year and a half — we will have some idiot in the White House who does things because it makes him look tough. But then, I guess we’ve already been through that — one, twice, three times.

But happy anniversary Department of Energy!

On this day in 1943, after months of preparation, the Jewish prisoners of Treblinka revolted. They staged it for a hot day that many of the guards normally took off. They had made a duplicate key of the armory. So for about a half hour, they battled with the remaining guards. There were 700 men who took part in the uprising. But with the use of machine guns, the Nazis were able to kill the vast majority of them.

Still, roughly 200 of them escaped the camp. The Nazis pursued them in cars and on horses — killing most of them. But at least 70 made it to safety and lived at least until the end of the war. One of them was the 20 year old sculptor Samuel Willenberg — who is alive today.

Treblinka is an unimaginably horrible moment in human history. But it is hard not feel a certain thrill at the oppressed fighting back against their oppressors. Dying was certainly not the worst thing that could have happened to them. And the fact that a good 10% of them managed to escape and survive is a great thing. Not that the whole thing doesn’t make me both sad and angry.

We mark this day of the Treblinka revolt.

On this day in 1917, Frank Little was lynched. He was a union leader with the Industrial Workers of the World, organizing workers in various industries throughout the United States. He had gone to Butte, Montana to help organize copper miners. And then, early in the morning of 1 August 1917, six masked men broke into his hotel room and dragged him away. They beat him and finally hanged him from the Milwaukee Railroad trestle. He was probably 38 at that time.

It is widely believed that the men were Pinkerton agents, but there might have also been local law enforcement in the group. This is what capitalism is. This is what the owners do. Quite literally, small changes in their profit margins are more important than human life. Of course, one might say that things are better now. The capitalists have learned how to get the workers to self-oppress. That’s true. But if the workers ever wake up, the capitalists will go back to killing. They aren’t hiring assassins the way they used to only because they don’t have to.

We mark the noble life and sad death of Frank Little.

On this day in 1991, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — START I — was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was the first nuclear treaty that ever actually reduced the number of nuclear weapons that the superpowers had. It is stuff like this that makes what I hear today about the nuclear deal with Iran so frustrating. I recently heard a conservative say, “I just don’t trust the Iranians!” And why didn’t he trust the Iranians? No reason really. I discuss this glib acceptance of propaganda in an article later today. But it comes down to this: the media have told the people in countless ways that the Iranians can’t be trusted, so the people believe it — without any evidence.

But I at least understand that. What I don’t understand is how people can have forgotten that the exact same things were said about the Soviet Union. It was widely believed that the Soviets just couldn’t be trusted. They would supposedly start a nuclear war if they thought they could win. They weren’t rational. They weren’t like the enemies that came before. The fact that the Soviet Union had shown itself to be extremely rational didn’t matter — everyone just “knew” that it wasn’t so.

And so the same thing is said about the Iranians — because the same thing is always said about whomever happens to be our enemy. Like I said: I understand. What is it that most defines an enemy: lack of trust. Of course, when it comes to treaties, it isn’t about trust. If it were, and the Iranians truly couldn’t be trusted, then why did they negotiate? Why didn’t they just agree to everything, given that they intended to not abide by the treaty and there is nothing in the treaty to compel them? Of course, when it is phrased like that, the ridiculousness of the claim becomes clear.

What’s wrong with the average foe of the Iran nuclear deal is that what they really want is war. I know that’s shocking to say. After all, didn’t we just manage to mess up in a big way in Iraq with a war of choice? But I think these people believe that if we just repeated the Iraq War in every other country in the Middle East, everything would be fine. Of course, the opposite is true. And if we were to cause the fall of the current Iranian government, I believe the entire Middle East would be destabilized. There’s no telling what new horrible governments we would facilitate.

But it is nice to think back 24 years ago to the START I. What kind of a messed up world do we live in where George HW Bush looks like a great statesman? And give it another 20 years — we might think back fondly on the seriousness of his son.

On this day in 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 — thus creating Medicare and Medicaid. It is hard to imagine what we would do today if it weren’t for these programs. The society has changed so much since that time. Workers who get pensions are now incredibly rare. What would the elderly do for healthcare? What’s more, the ability of anyone to get treated at just about any hospital is due to the fact that hospitals that take Medicare are required to treat all patients. I’d like to think that if we didn’t have Medicare, we would have had to have come up with something similar. But there’s no certainty of that.

What’s more, Medicare could never be passed today. But in 1965, it was a different matter. In both the House and the Senate, it passed with overwhelming support from the Democrats and about half of the Republicans. So yes, even back then, a lot of the Republicans were jerks. But that’s the thing: the parties were diverse then. Since then, all the jerks in the Republican Party stayed, and all the jerks in the Democratic Party moved over to the Republican Party. Now it is as pure in its makeup of jerks as it is its makeup of whiteness — not perfect, but close!

As I noted last week, the Republicans still want to kill off Medicare, Jeb Bush Wants to End Medicare Like Them All. They always claim this is because it isn’t sustainable and that it is inefficient. Of course, the real reason that they want to kill it and Social Security is because they are prime examples of extremely efficient government programs that are popular. And the Republicans have always claimed that — contrary to all evidence — the government is always the problem. Paul Krugman provided this graph on the issue of sustainability:

And he provided the next graph that shows that actually Medicare has consistently kept costs down compared to the private insurance industry:

So at 50 years old, Medicare is looking pretty good. But don’t expect conservatives to stop ranting about how it is killing us. And don’t think for a moment that if the Republicans get control of Washington in 2017 that they won’t turn Medicare into a block grant and then starve it to death. They are eager to do it. Government may not always be the problem, but if we put the Republicans in charge, they will make sure the government is always the problem.

Happy birthday Medicare and Medicaid!

On this day in 1973, the people of Greece voted overwhelmingly to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. It was a gambit by the military junta leader, Georgios Papadopoulos. He figured he could finesse the resulting democracy. But what actually happened was no democracy and much chaos. Almost a year and half later, the people of Greece got to vote again and they created more or less the system they now have.

But as I was reading about it, I couldn’t help but think it sounded very familiar: the Greeks vote overwhelmingly for something — and then they don’t get it. But at least in 1973, they were living under a dictatorship. Now it was their own elected officials who called for an election, celebrated its victory, and then did the opposite.

Of course, there is a real question of whether Greece still has a democracy. It seems that once a country enters the eurozone, it is no longer a democracy. This is actually why I don’t think that the eurozone is going to survive. In the 1930s, European countries had to fall militarily to Germany. This time, they’ve just surrendered to Germany. I can’t imagine that the people of Europe are going to continue to enjoy living under Germany’s thumb — especially with the way that Germany gleefully abuses its power and tells everyone they would be fine if they were more like Germany. The last thing we need are more countries acting like Germany.

But we mark this day 42 years ago when the people of Greece voted and then were ignored.

On this day 70 years ago, a B-25 Mitchell flew into the Empire State Building. Three crew members got lost in the fog and slammed into building at roughly the 79th floor. The crew members were killed as well as 11 people in the building. It is mostly notable to me that the story of this was widely told to me as a reason to think that either the 9/11 attack was a hoax or that people had really messed up in designing the World Trade Center.

On the issue of 9/11 being a hoax, well, I don’t have a lot to say about that other than that I wish such people would spend half that effort being engaged in actual politics. On the issue of design failure, well, hindsight is a really great thing, ain’t it. Regardless, there is a big difference between a medium sized propeller airplane at the end of its flight, and a Boeing 767 just filled with jet fuel for a transcontinental flight.

But there you are. There will always be a lot of woulda, shoulda, coulda reactions to these kinds of things. Because humans don’t like the idea that they aren’t in control. But they should get used to it. Americans especially should be waking up to the fact that their economic station in life is wholly dependent upon factors beyond their control. And some times, you starve to death because of a global warming induced drought. And other times an airplane slams into your office and kills you.

Seventy years ago, that happened to a small group of people in the Empire State Building.

On this day in 1974, the Supreme Court decided unanimously against the president in United States v Nixon. This was the decision that said that Richard Nixon had to hand over the tapes. It was Nixon’s last hope. He resigned 16 days later.

Here’s what I find interesting. Somehow, all of the justices managed to get together on his decision. Does anyone doubt that had the current Supreme Court decided the same case that at least three justices would have found in favor of Nixon? And given what happen in 2000 with Bush v Gore, it is hard not to escape the conclusion that Nixon would have won with a 5-4 ruling.

I don’t much go in for all the discussion about this or that judge overstepping their bounds. The Supreme Court really has been mostly terrible throughout its existence. And the truth is that judges have generally been bad throughout human history. The justice system was created as a way of formalizing the oppression of the weak. It isn’t about determining truth.

So now we have three judges — Scalia, Thomas, and Alito — who have given up all pretense of judicial restraint. They don’t even need to come into work any more. They could outsource the work to Rush Limbaugh, who could just fax in their opinions each morning. And think about that. If Nixon hadn’t lost that case, he never would have been forced out of office and conservatives would still be claiming that he did nothing wrong. And if we had our current Supreme Court, that might have happened.

How far we’ve fallen!