{"id":24105,"date":"2011-10-31T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=24105"},"modified":"2011-10-30T22:10:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T03:10:34","slug":"that-dare-not-speak-their-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=24105","title":{"rendered":"That Dare Not Speak Their Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Von Sternberg’s piece on the weekend’s festivities<\/a>, entitled “Union marchers swell ranks of OccupyMN protesters, join in march on banks”, fills you with a lot of things – like the urge to sing “The Internationale” (or at least “Look For The Union Label”).<\/p>\n

Whatever it does, though, it doesn’t do – or at least it doesn’t explain – one thing.<\/p>\n

See if you can figure out what it is:<\/p>\n

Union leaders headlined a day of OccupyMN street theater Saturday, capped when about 300 protesters marched peacefully across downtown Minneapolis, denouncing the region’s three biggest banks.<\/p>\n

“Banks got bailed out — we got sold out!” was one of several chants delivered during the march.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, I’m upset about that, too. \u00a0Banks getting bailed out, while me – part of the private sector – had to suck it up and tough it out.<\/p>\n

And those union guys – well, they surely took it in the shorts. \u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

“We’ll be in the streets until the one percent give up some of their wealth to the 99 percent,” said Elliot Seide, who heads the union representing 40,000 state, county and municipal workers. “This protest is going to change this country. It ought to be all the people who share the wealth of this great nation.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, those private sector unions suffered mightily…<\/p>\n

…er, wait! \u00a0Elliot Seide? \u00a0What union is he from?<\/p>\n

Why, he’s from AFSCME<\/a> – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees! \u00a0And they, up there with the banks, were among<\/a> the “winners” that Obama picked with its bailouts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why would Bob Von Sternberg leave that out?<\/p>\n

It’s just an oversight, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

Onward:<\/p>\n

Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of the union that represents 5,000 janitors, security guards and commercial housekeepers, told the crowd, “This movement will change this country,” adding that its overarching goal is to have “the richest 1 percent pay their fair share.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hold it – Javier\u00a0Morillo-Alicea? \u00a0President of “the union”? \u00a0Which one?<\/p>\n

SEIU Local 26<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But…why would Von Sternberg not mention this in his account of the event?<\/p>\n

“We need to stand up and yell and be the 99 percent,” said Michelle Sommers, president of the union that represents Metro Transit bus drivers. “We need to get off our couches and start acting like the 99 percent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, Ms. Sommers is with the Amalgamated Transit Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And all three of these representatives of public employees unions – who were among the biggest beneficiaries of Obama’s bailouts – referred to themsevles as “part of the 99%”. \u00a0It’s inaccurate, of course; they’re the 36.2<\/a>% of the 18% – that’s about 7% of the whole population – that works for government employee unions and can expect better pay and vastly <\/em>better benefits and pensions than most of us, entirely at taxpayer expense, without regard to their own performance or the taxpayers’ fiscal health.<\/p>\n

And they’re demonstrating at an even endorsed by President Obama to, well, support President Obama. \u00a0To keep that gravy train all gravied up.<\/p>\n

Now – why do <\/em>you suppose Von Sternberg couldn’t mention even the names of the unions involved?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Von Sternberg’s piece on the weekend’s festivities, entitled “Union marchers swell ranks of OccupyMN protesters, join in march on banks”, fills you with a lot of things – like the urge to sing “The Internationale” (or at least “Look For The Union Label”). Whatever it does, though, it doesn’t do – or at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-real-eighties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24107,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24105\/revisions\/24107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}