‘Everybody must get stoned.’ Public employees now Public Enemy Number 1 as strapped taxpayers erupt!

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.”