Music to Drown By

Sometimes bad-tasting tea is just bad tea.

I just couldn't post a blog yesterday: I got lost watching Titanic on the television while thinking about other, more metaphorical, sinking ships.  There's a great line in this movie: "Music to drown by. Now I know I'm in first class."  I could relate: the first class corporations of our ship--not the Titanic, but the United States of America-- are responsible for this crash into the iceberg of economic catastrophe, and I fear that we are splitting in half, about to sink. I live in Ohio, but I'm from Wisconsin, and my heart is breaking in two over the woes in both states: two governors, two mid-western states, same state of mind: both sinking into a deep abyss of political and economic insanity.

Mopping Up Bad Tea

The Tea Party is turning our economic crisis into a witch-hunt: who is to blame for our economic woes? who gets paid too much right now (whatever that means)? who should be fired? One editorial states, "What union leaders aren't stating in announcements on their respective websites is the fact that employee lay off are quite possibly the only other option to stem unsustainable spending" (Tara Dodrill, "Is Senate Bill 5 Bad for Ohio?"). What Tea Party members aren't stating is the fact that employee lay-off is already happening, and has been happening for the past several years, in both the private and public work sectors--or haven't they been watching real news?  Oh yeah, I forgot: they only watch Fox Faux News.

Flying around Facebook has been the following little ditty:

This is great... Read this if you appreciate or even hate teachers.

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 peryear. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children
X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) 

--Anonymous (I've seen different authors listed with different Facebook posts.)

Most folks have seen what's been going on in Wisconsin in the national news. I do not agree that Wisconsin's crisis is comparable to that of Egypt's. However, it is clear that the agenda of Wisconsin's governor is suspiciously good-ol'-boy-ish, as we all know who and what is funding his current agenda.  Furthermore, according to one article, ‎"In a Sunday morning interview from Madison with Fox News, Walker said he did not believe union leaders were really interested in giving up their benefits and cities, school districts and counties will need weakened unions to cut spending for years to come. Walker said he would not compromise and predicted Wisconsin would pave the way for other states to follow suit, much like it did with welfare reform and school vouchers in the 1990s" ("Hundreds Protest Wisconsin Plan to Cut Worker Rights"). I also do not quite see a direct correlation between the Hitler's 1933 act to abolish unions in Germany and the Ohio and Wisconsin governors' movements to abolish unions today (see, for example, newjunkiepost's "May 1933: Hitler Abolishes Unions").

However, it is clear that public servants--with the exception of Republican (including tea-partying) politicos--are not appreciated (see, for example, "Governor Kasich on Labor Issues"). Nor is this lack of appreciation for the worker--public or private--unique to Ohio and Wisconsin. According to NPR, "At a news conference at the Capitol a couple of days later, Boehner was asked whether the spending reductions Republicans were seeking might end up putting even more people out of work. He acknowledged this was indeed possible" ("Threat of Shutdown Looms Large Over Budget Debate").

As one opinion article in Wisconsin stated, "I don't believe that I am overstating the facts when I say our political leaders are declaring war on working families" ("Letters: Mention of Wisconsin National Guard Doesn't Bode Well for Workers").  Northeastern Ohioans know the meaning of entanglements with the National Guard all too well.

Mary Ann Vecchio (14 years old), kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller,  who was just shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. (Photo by John Filo)  For more information, see: "The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy" (by Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley)

 

So,  if you feel that the people who teach and care for your children, and the people who prepare you for adult life (both inside and outside the workforce), and the people who protect you from crimes, and the people who save your homes and your lives from fires and other disasters, and the many other people who have just as much right to employment as you do (and who agree that you deserve employment and even fight for you when you lack it), and if you don't understand why women and members of the LGBTQ community are angry (or perhaps you just don't care), then go right ahead and think that way.  But if you can't understand why your children do not understand even the most basic of knowledge and are functionally illiterate, and if you can't understand that the reason teachers and professors have the protection of tenure has to do with the awful witch-hunts of the 1950s, including the Scopes Trial, and if you can't understand why you aren't prepared for adult life and career, and if you can't understand why the crime rate in your area has gone up, and you can't understand why your home has burned to the ground, and you can't understand why life has become WORSE, not better, please don't come crying to me because I --as a public employee who teaches at a university and supports the rights of everyone (regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or abilities) -- I will no longer be there for you.