Can I get a little solidarity please?

My heart is with my brothers and sisters in Wisconsin. The long struggle seems to be just starting, doesn't it? You fight hard to get the things we need, make a little headway, and what is your reward?

A bunch of union thugs try to roll back the will of the electorate.

That's right, my "brothers and sisters" are the majority of the people in Wisconsin. The ones who are stuck with the bills for running the government, the ones who really pay the wages and the benefits and fund the retirement for those teachers and "public" servants who are so dedicated to what they do that they call in sick (when they aren't) so they can march on Madison and demand to remain above the financial troubles the working people, the taxpayers, must endure.

"Let the taxpayer suffer!" seems to be the theme of the public employee's unions. I know they are claiming this is "union busting" but it doesn't have to be. Just make some concessions, pay something of what your private sector employees have to, and you will regain some of that status unions once had.

It's difficult to sympathize with people who make more than you do, who have better benefits than you do, who have better retirement plans than you do, while you are being told (not asked, told) to just be quiet and foot the bill.

So, in a spirit of reducing the rhetoric, of toning down the animosity, the unions gather in in Madison and hold signs up labeling the governor "Hitler", "Mussolini" and so on. They camp out in front of the governor's home and harass other Republicans while their Democratic legislators dash off to some resort in Illinois to avoid doing their job and to delay a vote that would help to balance the state budget... which the law requires.

I once was a union member. I joined in 1970. I quit in 2000. I was being prepped to become a steward in 1984 when I realized my local was corrupt and not working for the members nearly as hard as it was working for its executive board and walked away from that job. But I stayed a member. I had to pay dues anyway (agency shop... California) so I might as well try to have a voice. I finally quit the union when I got fed up with the way they were letting the company screw over the guys with lower seniority in favor of keeping the dead wood employed.

I am not anti-union. I am anti-union_bosses. They are as bad, if not worse, than the corporate bosses they rally the troops against.

Back in the Bush years, the Democrats complained that the administration was not calling on the people to make sacrifices and that was why the people supported the administration on the War on Terror. Well, now it appears they are opposed to the public sector employees having to make any sacrifices to fight the financial crisis the rest of us have to live with.

The very definition of elitism.