"They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good."
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Lawrence Rinke
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by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Marie Corfield, a New Jersey based art teacher, had her moment with destiny. She had the opportunity to take New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to task... and she took it.
Marie, slowly at first, told Governor Chris about teaching conditions.... about the importance of art classes... and, gathering speed and righteous indignation as she went... let him Have It about teacher salaries and how the State of New Jersey should be helping struggling teachers.
Marie felt good about what she said and awaited compliments from the inevitable YouTube video she made.Yep, there would be compliments, lots of compliments, for sure.
"They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good."
But Marie had forgotten her Bob Dylan. "Everybody Must Get Stoned" (released 1966)... even art teachers with a seemingly unanswerable argument.
Says, Marie: "People I don't even know are calling me horrible names. The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions." And Marie is a union gal.
Marie, all innocent and unaware, had kicked a bee-hive.... There would be no compliments of any kind, just an opportunity for enraged taxpayers to vent... at her, beneficiary of the Evil Empire!
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
In the face of a couple of wars, an historic recession and a punk, anaemic recovery, it seems Americans are spending more time emulating Peter Finch's character in the 1976 film classic "Network", opening up the sash and screaming to a world entirely ready to hear and attend to this challenging message: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
"They'll stone you when you're trying to make a buck."
The amazing thing is not that Americans are venting; (we're good at that). These outbursts, after all, go back to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 and, a little later, Shay's Rebellion of 1787. The amazing thing is who we're attacking this time: police, fire fighters, teachers -- and their unions -- the pillars and essential elements of all our communities. These are now The Culprits....as Marie Corfield found out.
Strong union states like California, New York, Michigan, and New Jersey are in the vanguard of crisis, flirting with bankruptcies that would devastate local citizens and imperil the economic recovery.
Why? Because the still very fragile economy cannot sustain the demands of voracious state, city and town budgets; budgets designed for more ample times and for the unions who waxed fat and happy in those good old days and want to keep this ball rolling, even in our leaner times.
Something's got to give.
Here are the various (union) factions:
There are the stand patters. These are the folks, call them the Ultras, who say: "I earned what I got fair and square. I'm not giving up a dime, no how, no way." They remember every minute of all the work they ever did and insist, with absolute moral certainty, on getting Everything They're Entitled To.
Then there are the moderate reformers. They say, "OK, I'll give up some future goodie, like a cost of living adjustment. In return for this gift of great magnanimity, I want Everything I've got now to be confirmed and sacrosanct. Got that, bub? Have a nice day."
Next come the folks, call them "go-goos" (good government types, liberal to a person). They are ready -- even happy -- to "give back" salary and benefit packages now clearly unwarranted and unsustainable. They accuse the Ultras of ostrich-like behavior and the most selfish of "apres moi le deluge" attitudes. These folks are Responsible, High Minded, Chablis-drinking, insufferable.
With such factions, each driven by the best of intentions and by high blown rhetorical flourishes that just won't quit, this promises to be the epic food fight of all times. "They'll stone you and then say they're all brave." Of course.
The stakes couldn't be higher. The players all want to be considered responsible and civic minded. They all know the value of a good rep.
Equally, all except the go-goos (who are above such petty considerations and wear their give-backs like the Red Badge of Courage) are determined to emerge not only with what they've got but what they can finagle, this being the time-honored American way.
Meanwhile the doomsday clock is ticking as the states, their unions, and all the police, fire fighters, and teachers therein move towards MAD, mutually assured destruction, city and town edition.
How did we get to this point anyway? And how do we get out of it, relatively unscathed?
Fred Siegel, a historian at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, has written "New Tammany Hall", a provocative book on the subject. Here he describes the "incestuous alliance" between public officials and labor.
Says Siegel, "Public unions have had no natural adversary; they give politicians political support and get good contracts back." Exactly. Prosperity cloaked a jury-rigged system whose inadequacies became glaringly apparent as the economy tanked. Now in the stark wake of the new realities, these inadequacies are blatant.
Taxpayers, more aggrieving than aggrieved, demanded Fast Action, or else. And so, in 2010 alone, 212,000 local government jobs were cut as the public put the unions for police, fire fighters and teachers squarely in their rifle sights. But it wasn't enough, not nearly enough.
"Everybody must get stoned."
Benefits are the big issue. For years politicians gave them away lavishly, to garner the votes of these always dependable voters. Now, however, the dependable voters are the taxpayers who are screaming for blood. Since no man, and hardly any woman, can serve two masters, what a revolting development this is!
In due course, taxpayer anger, always undependable and inconstant, will wane. The economy, anaemic now, will improve. The jury-rigged benefit and pension system with many tweaks, some painful, others long overdue, will muddle through. Unions will demand that heads be lopped off those too giddy for give backs. And some will fall, but not many.
As for the rest of us?
"Everybody must get stoned."
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is alos the author of 18 best-selling business books and numerous syndicated articles. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Copy Paste Traffic -> http://silver45b.wincore.hop.clickbank.net
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