The Left Column

Dude is your
friend?
     
   Dude told me he didn't like my stories.
    He told other dude that I wasn't that good a writer.
  I've known these people for years.
    Will they even give me a chance?
  That is what I get for bragging.


hot topic of the month: 
"affordability of public sector pensions"
 According to Mail Online
  Unions in Britain vow to go on a rampage
if things are done in a way that enrages them.
Temper tantrums will just make these people
look foolish.  what they need to do is realize
that they ought to ask for a minimum acceptible
pension for public sector employees.
The fact of the anecdotal huge public pension
is an anomally that makes everyone look bad.
Unions should admit that these gold-plated 
pensions were never their intention in the first
place.  That unions are about equality and that
the folks who monger for these ginormous pensions
do a disservice to everyone.  Offer these up,
union folk.  Do you think that politicians will
like it?  It's there pension too.
At least here in Massachusetts we always hear
about these outrageous pensions.  The thousands
of ex-governmental workers who don't get large 
pensions never gets reported.  Only the anecdotal
politically connected get that kind of pension.
And that gets press.  So and so ex what-ever he was
padded his pension.
It isn't the pension that people are angry about.
Even a political hack who was dutiful at showing up
and carried water for Mistta-Speakka deserves 
something for his/her time.  But the one who went and
got a boondoggle do-nothing job at the age of 65
to sit around and then have a huge bump up in
the pension, that is the one that needs the
pension capped.

So, unions, don't have a temper tantrum.  Offer
up some concessions.  Fiscal reality is the real
deal of why things are coming to a-head.  And we can
make up conspiracy theories if we want to, blame
'conservatives' or 'reactionaries' or just those
'damn blighters' whatever pejorative you want to.
Or storm through the windows of a government 
building like they did last night in Wisconson.
But what does that really serve to do?  The public
watches from the sidelines and we are not amused by
such behaviors.  This is our government too.  And we
understand that you aren't bad guys (gals).  It's
'just a job.' and 'we would do the same if
we were given the opportunity.'

Hey, I know that gov workers for the most part
are just as hard working as anybody else.  And there
are good reasons why there is an us-verse-them
mentality.  But as far as public service workers
go: you work for the voters.  So we don't have 
a choice but to have you.  And you aren't showing
us any love by hurting us because you can't get
your way politically.  Compromise.

There are many many reasons why things have come
to where they are today.  Yes, there has been 
greed.  But there has also been indolance.  You
who are on the inside the worker's paradise of
having a unionized government job:  don't you
realize that you live in a favored fish-bowl of
gold-plated benefits that the rest of us will
most likely never see?  And I'm not talking about
folks who are wealthy.  I'm saying that the mass
of us out here who are expected to pay for your
largesse are not amused when you disregard the public
good for the benifit of contract negotiations.
Just like when someone lets a house burn down
because someone didn't pay a firefighter fee.  Ya,
you can do this.  But it doesn't impress anyone.

So don't do those things.  Yes, it is seen as
good in your circles to shout down the evil power.
But the government of Wisconson is not the
evil power.  You can't say that you want 
democracy on one side for when you get what you want
but that democracy shoudl be subverted if you
dont' get what you want.  That kind of cry-baby
behavior is not impressing anyone.

Ya, we all know that the managment of many
corporations have stompped all over workers for
generations.  It is just a fact of history.  But at
what point does the thing that solved the problem
be the thing that is now the problem.  And union
members:  do you knwo the salaries of the lawyers
who you hire?  Why should they be getting so much
more than you?  Do you look at the money that you
give to them and how that makes them very wealthy?
And do you compare their salaries with those who
work for the managment with which your lawyers
negotiate?  So who is being the rediculous ones now?
You for wanting a fair wage or those lawyers who
demand a much higher wage just to think to consider
to start to treat you fairly.
And fact of who it is that gets political donations
shows the rest  of us that in many cases public
sector unions are partisan.  Doesn't it seem
that they ought not to be as such?

The whole system is broken.  It becomes like this
because we have too many people expecting everything
just for being in the favored job.  They sit at
a desk and then demand a huge bump in their pension.
It ought not to happen.  Ever.

So, union people, what is the solution?  What are your
answers?  Are you just doing what your over-paid
lawyers tell you to do?  
And union people:  don't shout down those who
want to engage you with the concepts of 
affordability of public sector pensions.
It is obvious to me that the solution involves
everyone still getting a minimum pension
based upon years of experience.  So, what is
the solution to do this?  A concession to end
the gold-plated pensions of hte highest paid
is a good one to start with.  That way the people
who are at the lower end are better protected.
And people at the higher end, who are better
able to take care of their own needs anyway and
already have a pretty good pension in the first 
place, will not be manufacturing do-nothing
end-of-career jobs that allow them to kick their
pension into the stratosphere.  That is a form
of parasitism.  The kind of person who does such
a thing makes all public sector employees look bad.
But the people in the lower end fear to say anything
about it.  Maybe they fear for their job if they
speak truth to evil-power (evil is such a hard word).
If they speak truth to corpulant-power the
lower paid worker may fear for his/her job.  And
thus they do not take a stand on such issues.
Public Sector unions should adress these issues.
The money is not all gone.  We all know this.
What is gone is the sense that it is not OK to
loot the public treasury.  Get a sense of outrage
against the corpulance of the few within  your own
ranks, union-members, or you will not have any
fiscally solid ground on which to stand.
There needs to be, and there will be, a claw-back
of public pension monies.  I am not saying that
this is what I want to have happen to small pensions.
I argue that it should not.  I merely state that
the fiscal reality of the situation is that such
a clawback will happen.  And public sector unions
should realize that this is the way that the current
is going.  Get those within their own ranks to
do an heroic give-back of bloated pensions and
then see how many people vote for your candidates
next election.  
If you all seem like bloated pigs swimming against
the current who will want to save you from your
folly?  So don't be those piggish parodies of people.
Be humans.  Compromise, don't demonize.

People are strapped.  We can't 



Stuck Truck
There is a story for every hanging wire
or burned place on a wall that speaks of a fire
or charded logs in a pit
or over abundant wit
of the restless
and wondering bard.

The wires have been
pulled out of the box
and left hanging.
How many stories does this hanging
wire tell?
How did this short length of
sheilded wire come to be dangling from
the high beam of this roof building
without walls?
It could be a writing assignment.


Jeep from Autumn 2011.  Jeep was sold for off-road, back-country use.
Note the famous stickers on the Jeep.  This was a Central Vermont rig, suitable for 
mud-running if you want to wreak it
or just for a slow ride up a mountainside.