Lisa Fabrizio
Union blues
By Lisa Fabrizio
Back in the good old days, if you weren't a union supporter, you were un-American. Those of a certain age remember movies like Norma Rae, where poor, impoverished Southern women were crushed under the heels of evil, white slave-drivers before being rescued by altruistic union organizers. Or the made-for-TV weeper, The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal, where poor, impoverished Northern women leapt to their deaths because of evil, white slave-drivers who were later punished by altruistic union organizers.
Thanks to tremendous amounts of propaganda over the years, an inordinate affection for unions has, over time, wormed itself into our national psyche. Name one Hollywood movie made in the past 30 years that fails to portray them in a good light. The last was probably Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, which actually only bashed the crooked leaders, while continuing to sanctify the rank and file; a practice which has continued unabated in the media up to this very day.
But it had to happen sooner or late in this age of 24/7 media coverage: the lid has finally been lifted from the boiling cauldron of government union corruption; friendly fire from class warfare has finally caught up with the liberal machine. In Wisconsin and across the nation, the ugly stew of union thuggery and liberal skullduggery has come to the national forefront and is widely available for sniffing. And, try as they might to euphemize away the struggle — calling groups of hyper-organized, bussed-in union members, "citizen uprisings — the American people are finally seeing through the rhetoric and getting a glimpse of a truth once obvious only to us right-wing extremists.
Gone are the days when Hollywood screenwriters and their fellow storytellers in the media can sing sad songs and paint pathetic pictures of downtrodden, peons laboring under the brutal yoke of big business. Some of the largest salaries and benefit packages in the nation now belong to those sucking the lifeblood out of U.S. taxpayers. Although the dirty dealings between pubic sector unions and the Democratic Party have been well-chronicled in certain circles, the public has been mostly unaware of the self-perpetuating aspects of this unholy marriage; until now, that is.
Inevitably, after private sector unions have almost vanished in this country by bankrupting nearly every industry associated with them, they have now demonstrated their smothering effect on our city, state and federal governments. But how did this happen?
Decades ago, people became civil servants because they either truly wanted to serve the community or just couldn't get jobs elsewhere. The pay was not too hot but the benefits were usually good. Then came the big labor organizers and with them, the attendant brain-washing. Just try and talk to a civil servant; or worse, an uncivil postal employee on the subject. Otherwise clear-thinking men and women turn into raging monsters at a hint of questioning the justice of collective bargaining or the mere mention of Ronald Reagan's name. Their union membership all but made them the worst caricature of one-issue voters as well as a breeding ground for generations of dependable Democrats.
But you know the tide is turning when even New York's Governor Cuomo, son of liberal demigod Mario, has seen the light and taken the pledge. It's getting so bad that even my ultra-liberal hometown paper had a front-page piece exposing the outrageous pay and practices of our police department, where one officer made a total of $274,988 on the city payroll and another made $95,962 in overtime alone. No, it's getting harder and harder for liberals to claim that the salaries of corporate America are obscene, when the true obscenity is as close as your local police station or the schoolhouse door.
We were lectured ad nauseam by our president for two years — until the 2010 midterms — that "elections have consequences," and so they do. More and more Americans are finally getting the connection between more taxes and less freedom; between socialism and labor unions and most importantly, between government employees and the heretofore unwitting dupes who pay them.
They are looking around at their fellow citizens who are members of government unions and seeing, not dozens of poor, noble Norma Raes who desire only enough to feed their struggling families, but six-figure earners who will retire at 55 with lifelong pensions and benefits; all on their dime.
© Lisa Fabrizio
February 25, 2011
Back in the good old days, if you weren't a union supporter, you were un-American. Those of a certain age remember movies like Norma Rae, where poor, impoverished Southern women were crushed under the heels of evil, white slave-drivers before being rescued by altruistic union organizers. Or the made-for-TV weeper, The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal, where poor, impoverished Northern women leapt to their deaths because of evil, white slave-drivers who were later punished by altruistic union organizers.
Thanks to tremendous amounts of propaganda over the years, an inordinate affection for unions has, over time, wormed itself into our national psyche. Name one Hollywood movie made in the past 30 years that fails to portray them in a good light. The last was probably Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, which actually only bashed the crooked leaders, while continuing to sanctify the rank and file; a practice which has continued unabated in the media up to this very day.
But it had to happen sooner or late in this age of 24/7 media coverage: the lid has finally been lifted from the boiling cauldron of government union corruption; friendly fire from class warfare has finally caught up with the liberal machine. In Wisconsin and across the nation, the ugly stew of union thuggery and liberal skullduggery has come to the national forefront and is widely available for sniffing. And, try as they might to euphemize away the struggle — calling groups of hyper-organized, bussed-in union members, "citizen uprisings — the American people are finally seeing through the rhetoric and getting a glimpse of a truth once obvious only to us right-wing extremists.
Gone are the days when Hollywood screenwriters and their fellow storytellers in the media can sing sad songs and paint pathetic pictures of downtrodden, peons laboring under the brutal yoke of big business. Some of the largest salaries and benefit packages in the nation now belong to those sucking the lifeblood out of U.S. taxpayers. Although the dirty dealings between pubic sector unions and the Democratic Party have been well-chronicled in certain circles, the public has been mostly unaware of the self-perpetuating aspects of this unholy marriage; until now, that is.
Inevitably, after private sector unions have almost vanished in this country by bankrupting nearly every industry associated with them, they have now demonstrated their smothering effect on our city, state and federal governments. But how did this happen?
Decades ago, people became civil servants because they either truly wanted to serve the community or just couldn't get jobs elsewhere. The pay was not too hot but the benefits were usually good. Then came the big labor organizers and with them, the attendant brain-washing. Just try and talk to a civil servant; or worse, an uncivil postal employee on the subject. Otherwise clear-thinking men and women turn into raging monsters at a hint of questioning the justice of collective bargaining or the mere mention of Ronald Reagan's name. Their union membership all but made them the worst caricature of one-issue voters as well as a breeding ground for generations of dependable Democrats.
But you know the tide is turning when even New York's Governor Cuomo, son of liberal demigod Mario, has seen the light and taken the pledge. It's getting so bad that even my ultra-liberal hometown paper had a front-page piece exposing the outrageous pay and practices of our police department, where one officer made a total of $274,988 on the city payroll and another made $95,962 in overtime alone. No, it's getting harder and harder for liberals to claim that the salaries of corporate America are obscene, when the true obscenity is as close as your local police station or the schoolhouse door.
We were lectured ad nauseam by our president for two years — until the 2010 midterms — that "elections have consequences," and so they do. More and more Americans are finally getting the connection between more taxes and less freedom; between socialism and labor unions and most importantly, between government employees and the heretofore unwitting dupes who pay them.
They are looking around at their fellow citizens who are members of government unions and seeing, not dozens of poor, noble Norma Raes who desire only enough to feed their struggling families, but six-figure earners who will retire at 55 with lifelong pensions and benefits; all on their dime.
© Lisa Fabrizio
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