Take that, taxpayers! Photo Associated Press. Click on image to view at full size.
The privileged are revolting in Wisconsin.
James Taranto
The Wall Street Journal
2/22/2011
…to talk of America in terms of “class” is to speak a foreign language. Outside of university faculties and Marxist fringe groups (but we repeat our self), Americans do not divide ourselves up by class; rather, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .”
When Americans describe themselves as “middle class,” the term is a synonym for “ordinary” or “respectable,” not part of a taxonomy of division. Actual middle-class Americans don’t feel put upon by “corporate power” or “the business community,” because by and large, they own the means of production: They run businesses; they hold shares in corporations through their investment and retirement accounts. Some belong to unions, but the vast majority do not: “In 2010, the union membership rate–the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union–was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In any case, it seems to have escaped Krugman’s and Drum’s notice that the Wisconsin dispute has nothing to do with corporations. The unions’ antagonist is the state government. “Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership,” writes Time’s Joe Klein, a liberal who understands the crucial distinction. “Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed . . . of the public?”…[Emphasis CAJ]
…It’s quite striking the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters:
• Extreme rhetoric. The Wisconsin Republican Party has produced what Mediaite.org calls an “incredibly effective” video juxtaposing liberal complaints about allegedly extremist Tea Party rhetoric with unionist signs likening Gov. Walker to Hitler and other dictators. Left-wing journalists are making similar invidious comparisons: “Workers Toppled a Dictator in Egypt, but Might Be Silenced in Wisconsin” read the headline of a Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson last week. The other day on CNN we saw scenes of a Madison crowd chanting, “Kill the bill”–which was said to be violent and invidious a year ago, when “the bill” was ObamaCare.
• Violence. Blogress Ann Althouse, a state employee based in Madison, posted a video of municipal salt trucks blowing their horns in support of the unionists. A YouTube commenter responded (quoting verbatim), “whoever video taped this has no life and should be shot in the head.” Unlike Frances Fox Piven, Althouse has never advocated violence, but don’t expect the Times to give this the kind of coverage it gave Piven’s claims that she had received threatening emails…
This excellent article can be read in full, and includes video, at The Wall Street Journal.
H/T Althouse
Update: Related articles via Instapundit:
ANN ALTHOUSE GETS A DEATH THREAT for exposing misbehavior by Madison city employees.
Related: Peter Wehner: Civility And Double Standards. (Bumped).
