Feb 19, 2011

On Wisconsin!

The Wisconsin riots are being characterized by AP this morning as "unmatched in their sustained, impassioned energy...".

They're probably not "unmatched," but we can let that slide as a workaday media solecism as reporter and editor grasp for the blaring headline. It's bad journalism but routine these days.

It is the approving tone of "sustained passion"  in a public policy debate that  worries thinking folks. Reducing the Wisconsin budget problem is a matter of arithmetic, not heavy breathing drama.

Public employees earn adequate-to-handsome salaries and enjoy luxurious benefit packages which poor saps in the private sector never had or have lost in the age of globalization. Some one pays for their, wages, insurance, and guaranteed pensions. That some one is the unfortunate family head who is trying  to feed kids and stave off the bill collector on a precarious 12-buck-an hour job which can be lost in a heartbeat.

The Wisconsin public titters are having a marvelous time at the trough, and it is the fear of losing it which is turning them into a mob of petulant children. They react precisely as six-year-old Bratty Suzie does when asked to share her Snickers with Little Brother.

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That said, the demonstrating teachers et al.  look almost statesmanlike compared to their 14 Wisconsin Senate protectors who react to administrative challenge by going to the mattresses in Chicago.

2 comments:

SpeakerTweaker said...

Jim, you pretty much nailed it with this one. I'm posting it up on Facebook, where I've a teacher friend in TN who's nervous about the situation.

Basically, I told her that I'm all for teachers, but the unions can lick the bottom of my boot, preferably after cleaning out a horse stall.



tweaker

Jim said...

Tweaker. Appreciate it, Friend. And I agree with you that there are teachers and there are union teachers with a fair amount of difference between the two breeds.

Lisa: I'm not hip to just how broke the Minnesota SSR is, but when your politburo is forced into Wisconsin-like moves, I think you'll be able to cover public porker riots from your front lawn.