My rant to a Beck-ite Facebook friend who was whining about the evil teacher's union

[LuckyTheDog]

Personally, I think I have a lot more in common with a teacher who makes, maybe, $60,000 a year than with a CEO who makes $30 million. I don't get why it helps me to divide myself from other middle-class people who share my interests in order to benefit the interests of those who, frankly, don't need my help.

Rich folks can and do protect their own interests very well. It's about time the middle class hung together to protect ours. Ginning up resentment over teachers, cops, firefighters and nurses is a great strategy if you want to keep people divided and angry. It's not a great strategy for re-building the middle class in America.

I have no problem at all with teachers and other public workers being in unions and making good incomes. Teachers are not over-paid. Cops are not over-paid. The bureaucrats at the DMV are not over-paid. They just aren't. And tenure? It's not the lifetime job guarantee that you think it is.

The conservatives will tell you that all the country's problems would be solved if only working people would accept a lower standard of living. Strip away all the rhetoric and theory and that's what their arguments really come down to. I say that is BS. The country's problems will be solved with higher wages, more worker's rights, more dignity for working people and a distribution of wealth and income that is more fair.

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

[xchrom]

2. Well said. Nt

[TuxedoKat]

3. Bravo

if I had any more hearts to give out I'd give you one. Catch you next year.

[KG]

4. funny how these fucker are always ready for someone else to take a cut in pay...

actually it's not...

[Kali]

5. you have my admiration

calm, and well written

I can't even talk to most of them any more.

[GCP]

6. Excellent rant

Recc'd and hearted!

[Octafish]

7. That's no rant.

That's a fact.

[LuckyTheDog]

8. Thanks for the hearts!

:hi: :blush:

[greendog]

9. k&r

[Lorien]

10. Where is this "60k" meme coming from?? Most teachers make 35k or less

I teach at the graduate level and I only make 38k. So where is the number coming from?

[Pacifist Patriot]

11. I'm not sure. Possibly adding the value of the benefits package to base salary?

I've been wondering where the numbers are coming from as well. Then again, according to everyone and his know it all brother, I have a job that is supposed to pay in the hundreds of thousands and dollars and I'm having a good year if I break 30K. I think a lot of people are speaking out of their hind quarters half the time when it comes to estimating compensation.

[LuckyTheDog]

15. In Michigan (where I live)...

The average teacher's salary is $54,739. The average starting salary is $35,557.

Source: http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state

[Lorien]

16. In Florida it's 35k and classes are packed. nt

[Mojorabbit]

19. This is an attempt like what was done with the auto workers

to stir up divisions with reports of huge salaries. My sister who reads the drudge report sent me an article asserting that with benefits teachers are making over a hundred grand. I went to the site and read it and it is a supposdedly nonpartisan think tank but on further investigation it is a rightwing group. I bet their study gets huge airplay nonetheless.

[AlecBGreen]

24. it all depends on the district

I am a 5th year teacher getting $35,000. The district next door pays $50,000 to first year teachers.

[PeaceNikki]

26. Here in WI, the RW lie machine is quoting Milwaukee teachers as averaging $100k

[Patiod]

31. My dad know ONE teacher that made >$100K

And that was in his last years of teaching. He had super-seniority and was president of the local union. So now I'm hearing "teachers make too much, and their pensions are too high". I told him that Fox News was NOT the place to be getting his information on the Wisconsin fight.

So if it's not $100K, what IS the average salary in our ultra-rich Northeastern district? $57,000. What do you think teachers SHOULD make?

Considering all the continuing education, certification, night/weekend hours required. Plus the materials teachers purchase out of their own salaries (I used to do research for Simon & Schuster, and the average teacher purchases well >$1000 out of their own pockets for classroom materials.

[YvonneCa]

34. Pat Buchanan parroted that lie on MSNBC this...

...morning. I've heard it on Fox, too (Ugh!).

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. Nail meet head.

"all the country's problems would be solved if only working people would accept a lower standard of living"

Haven't seen it put any more clearly than that.

[Sherman A1]

Precisely

:toast:

[Sherman A1]

43. Precisely

:toast:

[Martin Eden]

13. Tools and Fools

These RWers who want to tear down unions are mere tools for the true elites of wealth and power who don't give a shit about them. These fools are foot soldiers in a war against their own economic interests.

[Dawson Leery]

14. Millions of working and middle class are under the delusion

that they too will be multi-millionaires someday and feel that they are preparing the ground for that future by voting for Republicans. They have been indoctrinated with this delusion from the massive right wing propaganda networks, which also influence the msm.
This is from my time in a white flight suburb (as they exist in New England too). The strange thing is that these same mostly white working/middle class people loved the strong regulations and high marginal tax rates when only they benefited. Once the minorities and women were given equal rights, the white working/middle class fled the Democrats an were taken in by the GOP who played upon their fears. The nation has been suffering ever since.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

17. Slam Dunk, My Friend

If I ever get into a similar argument (and the chances are good that I will), I'm going to blatantly steal your response.

[rufus dog]

18. My BIL has been going on and on about teachers for about a year

Spends his time on Drudge, absolute fucking moron. Anyway he comes over a couple of weeks ago and claims the teachers in his district make 80k salary on average, when he saw them striking he said he was so pissed that he wanted to run his car into them. Unfortunately my daughter who is close to finishing High School is having to listen to his crap and she thinks she want to be a teacher. Finally I asked him why he cared so much about teachers salaries, he stumbled a bit so I asked "why the frick do you care?" Then he went off on the taxes we pay for them to live high on the hog. Now we live in OC so even if they made 80k they wouldn't be living high on the hog, so I asked how much should they make? and added I couldn't do there job and told him he couldn't either, they have at least equal education background to both of us so what should they make?

The kicker, according to the dick head, only sales people should make anywhere near 100k because they create profits.

My take away, these people are worse than we could ever imagine.

[Enthusiast]

23. Your BIL has

spent decades being voluntarily indoctrinated.

[xxqqqzme]

36. You are in the reddest of OC.

My sympathies. My entire family (mother, brother, sisters) is your BIL. It is tough after you realize they don't want to hear anything you have to say.

[rufus dog]

46. My immediate neighborhood is fine

Had three different neighbors ask me for an Obama sign in '08, only had one guy get pissed off. The in law lives in Coto and fits in well, basically a whole bunch of failed mortgage brokers moving on to the next money scam. As for not wanting what I have to say, it is actually the opposite. I have made it very clear that I could give a shit about any of his opinions, although the wife chastised me for the "you have been wrong about everything since your College Repubs for Reagan days"

[MadMaddie]

50. Go to your State website there should some kind of salary

table is there and send him the website and tell him they are not making anymore than he is. Also ask him how would he like to teach in a classroom of 30 kids? If he has kids "dare" him to get sit in his kids classes all day long to see what the teachers deal with.


The key for us is to erase that supposed "US vs Them" line that Reagan,Carl Rove, Faux and the Koch brothers have been poisening the public with. When it comes down to it we are them and they are us. There really is no divide when it comes to salary, jobs etc. Maybe we differ on social issues and always will but these people are turning on the wrong people and don't get once they destroy the Unions they are next.

[Imagevision]

20. Conservatives; "if only working people would accept a lower standard of living" (FU)!

[quaker bill]

21. They have been selling this for years

under the title "competitiveness". Apparently we will become "competitive" when all make minimum wage (if it still exists) and have no employer funded benefits.

What they don't address is exactly what is the point of being "competitive" if society has to decline to underdeveloped third world status to do it? We will have lots of "jobs" but most folks will need to have 2 of them just to get money to eat. Not a brilliant plan.

[xxqqqzme]

30. Oh, but they want to

abolish minimum wage as well. Then it becomes very competitive.

[EC]

49. That's what I asked a tea type person

Did they want us all to make $1.35 and hour like in China to be "competitive"? I told him that the reason businesses don't come here is because the infrastructure is too old and crumbling and the intelligence of our workers is too low. He walked away...

[quaker bill]

53. Businesses do not create or innovate

when profits are high. Why? Because with few exceptions, if you are making good money, you don't risk it by changing things. Businesses may seem impersonal, but they are run by real people. Think of a time in your life, if you have ever had one, where everyone seems to like what you are doing and you are rolling in cash. Were you tempted to change anything?

Now think of another time in your life when eveerything was poor and trending downward. Were you not tempted to change everything?

This is why arranging the tax code to give these folks a larger share of the pie has taken us precisely nowhere. They now have all the pie they can eat, why would they rock the boat by taking on the risk of a new or expanded venture?

When GM profits were through the roof, they produced lousy cars and were slow to market with any changes. They only became nimble and started producing cars that people actually want when they were all but out of business.

[Enthusiast]

22. K&R

Needless to say your opponent will just return to Fox news to reinforce the stupid.

[vssmith]

25. Well written--problem is some people cannot be influenced by facts.

[barbtries]

27. excellent response.

makes sense.

[Lifelong Protester]

28. Thank you, LuckytheDog

thinking people are being pushed more and more towards socialism every day. I know I am.

[tnlurker]

29. K&R

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[pasto76]

32. this time last year, I was loafing out of work

my wifes job is secure, so we can still get by. But we have to cut out any and all non essential spending. If I wanted to buy some soda or something, I had to come up with the money. Period.

Then this fall I got called out to a stimulus job. Im scheduled to go to another one next month; hopefully i can make a full year of work this year. I like to spend money in my local economy, and when I work I can do so. Also stuff like having a car, a mtn bike, a small boat and other hobbies makes me spend more money locally.

Too bad for the conservatives, looks like we get back almost 100% of the taxes they took out of our checks last year. I would gladly trade this giant tax return for steady work!

[drokhole]

33. They're eating the cake while we fight over the crumbs.

It's fucking ridiculous.

[YvonneCa]

35. Perfect. And, thank you. n/t

[guruoo]

37. Their keepers believe that economic opression will weaken their opposition...

just like...

'U.S. diplomats have said in newly leaked memos that Mr. Gadhafi's regime seems to neglect the east intentionally,
letting unemployment and poverty rise to weaken opponents there.'

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/libyan-snipers-open-fire-on-mourners/article1914168/

[neverforget]

38. Do you mind if I borrow this?

I have a Facebook friend who is the same way.

[LuckyTheDog]

42. There is no copyright (nt)

[KittyWampus]

39. That's a really good response

[Iris]

40. well-done! I especially admire people who take on stupidity on Facebook.

It's an endless, thankless task.

:toast:

[Chorophyll]

41. Pretty reasonable for a rant.

:kick:

[nahant]

44. Tax the 1%'ers

We could solve all our fiscal problems by making the Rich pay their fair share of taxes. Not like George Soros(who is a good guy) who pays only 16% rate for his taxes, he admits this is just crazy. Lets face it if the Rich and Corporations only paid their fair share we would not be in this pickle. It is outright "CLASS WARFARE" period!! We should go back to the tax rates of the 50's with 90% for the top rate.. they are already swimming in money why do they need more at our country's expense??

[BanzaiBonnie]

45. It's called demonization

If only...

The Jews

The Italians

The Blacks

The Chinese

The Vietnamese

The Mexicans

The Gays

The Atheists

The Muslims

The Teachers

The Public Workers

The Police

The Firefighters


If only it weren't for Those People, who are not quite even human, we would be fine.

[EC]

47. Any reply? n/t

[indimuse]

48. KNR! n/t

[Zoeisright]

51. All tenure means is if they want to fire you, they need a reason.

They can't just fire you, like in at-will employment states.

That sounds like simple justice to me, not some "guarantee" of a job. But the simpletons on the right will never understand that.

[Populist_Prole]

52. K & R Gotta remember this. Can I quote you?