Meanwhile, at the Liberal Media Anonymous Therapy
Counselor: Okay everyone, let’s get started. Once again, welcome to the Bonzo Memorial Institute for Right Wing Media. Today, we’d like to discuss your union tendencies. Let’s start with...you! Yes, you! Stand up and tell us your name.
Arteejee: Um, hi, I’m Todd and I...I am a product of collective bargaining.
Counselor, Liberal Media Members, and Bloggers United, Local 5117: Hi Todd!
Arteejee: I realized this while I’ve been reading about all these state governments trying to bust their public unions. At first, I was on the union’s side and their struggle to keep their basic right to negotiate wages, working conditions and benefits. Then I thought back on my life and I realized how I had been affected by unions. My father was a unionized meat cutter for Acme Markets. He had learned a good trade and his wages all came about due to collective bargaining. As soon as he could he transferred to another local in upstate Pennsylvania, and despite the fact that he had to take a pay cut, he was still able to raise my brother and I in an environment away from the city. He did this, and was able to help me get through college, all because of the money he made from the contracts his union negotiated for him. It felt great at the time, but now...now I feel so ashamed of myself...
Counselor: Keep going! You’re doing fine.
Arteejee: But then I realized something else about myself. All the time that I was enjoying a privileged middle-class lifestyle with all the food I could ever want, a roof over my head, Christmases with all the gifts I could ever imagine, and a college education, I forgot about some very special people. I forgot about the business leaders of this great nation, the wonderful industrialists and bankers and capitalists who made this country what it is today. All that time I thought of them as the archenemy of the working class, the oppressors of labor everywhere who would stop at nothing to keep people like my Dad in their place.
Now I know that they were really the oppressed. Burdened down with heavy taxes and crushing government regulations from above, then tortured by the bleeding-heart trivial complaints from their own workers below. These people were the true patriots of our free market system!
Did their employees appreciate their struggles? Could they know the heart-pounding pressure of waiting for a quarterly stock portfolio report while swilling gin and tonics in high leather-backed chairs like many executives have to do year in and year out? Do they feel the anxiety that their employers have to endure because they are forced to wait beyond their scheduled tee time because there’s a jam up on the back nine? Hell no, of course not!
But now I know about their hardships and I appreciate what they’ve done for this country. Meanwhile, the workers snivel and whine. God, they make me sick!
Did you see what the legislators in Maine are doing? They’re rolling back child labor regulations, and I say it’s about time! Why should young people under the age of 16 have it so good? Let them taste the bitterness of working long hours for less than minimum wage. It’ll be a great experience preparing them for decades upon decades of demeaning work for a barely livable rate per hour. I’d like to see them strike about that!
Liberal Media Members: Traitor!
Counselor: You hush! Go on, Todd.
Arteejee: All I can say is Thank you right wing media for allowing me to see the light. I can see that unions are truly distrustful, socialist organizations. I didn’t come to this conclusion on my own. I had help from people like...well, like Rick Santorum, who taught me that our abortion culture is having a negative effect on maintaining a good supply of labor that keeps our country prosperous. He convinced me that women shouldn’t be trusted to make decisions about their own lives. Honestly, it really is common sense to allow total strangers the right to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies.
Oh, then there’s Michele Bachmann! Isn’t she adorable? I just admire the way she confounds the lame stream media with her unique perspectives on American history. Claiming that the Revolutionary War started in New Hampshire, and then blaming Barack Obama for an incandescent light bulb regulation that was actually signed by George W. Bush caused the liberals to have apoplexy! She is absolutely a genius, a sheer genius!
Then there’s Sarah...the divine Sarah! Did you hear her criticism of the President’s speech on our military participation in Libya? She invented a new way to pronounce the word skirmish; she called it “squirmish”. No, I’m not making this up. The way she modifies the English language is breathtaking. She really is our very own William Shakespeare.
Oh, oh, oh, and how can I forget Newt Gingrich? I can’t believe how lucky we are to have such a giant intellect in our midst! He loves this country so much that he is warning us that we are heading towards a...oh, how did he put it, oh, yes...a secular atheist society ruled over by Islamist extremists! This man is brilliant...a prophet who can foresee the disastrous end result of our liberal ways!
Counselor: Well, Mr. Gunther, your testimony is very impressive. I see that our therapy here has had a positive affect on you. I believe you’re ready to give up your union tendencies.
Arteejee: Do you really think so? I’m glad you said that, but I haven’t told you the best part yet.
Counselor: What’s the best part?
Arteejee: APRIL FOOL!!!! Joe Hill lives! Joe Hill lives! Come on everybody!
Liberal Media Members and Bloggers United, Local 5117: (laughing and chanting) Joe Hill lives! Joe Hill lives!
Counselor: (sighs) Security! Please take Mr. Gunther back to his cubicle in the Glenn Beck wing.
Arteejee: Glenn Beck? I love Glenn Beck! (maniacal laughter) Hahahahahahahahahahaha...
(Thank you for reading. Seriously, I dreamt I saw Joe Hill last night...and he wasn’t in New Hampshire!)
Arteejee: Um, hi, I’m Todd and I...I am a product of collective bargaining.
Counselor, Liberal Media Members, and Bloggers United, Local 5117: Hi Todd!
Arteejee: I realized this while I’ve been reading about all these state governments trying to bust their public unions. At first, I was on the union’s side and their struggle to keep their basic right to negotiate wages, working conditions and benefits. Then I thought back on my life and I realized how I had been affected by unions. My father was a unionized meat cutter for Acme Markets. He had learned a good trade and his wages all came about due to collective bargaining. As soon as he could he transferred to another local in upstate Pennsylvania, and despite the fact that he had to take a pay cut, he was still able to raise my brother and I in an environment away from the city. He did this, and was able to help me get through college, all because of the money he made from the contracts his union negotiated for him. It felt great at the time, but now...now I feel so ashamed of myself...
Counselor: Keep going! You’re doing fine.
Arteejee: But then I realized something else about myself. All the time that I was enjoying a privileged middle-class lifestyle with all the food I could ever want, a roof over my head, Christmases with all the gifts I could ever imagine, and a college education, I forgot about some very special people. I forgot about the business leaders of this great nation, the wonderful industrialists and bankers and capitalists who made this country what it is today. All that time I thought of them as the archenemy of the working class, the oppressors of labor everywhere who would stop at nothing to keep people like my Dad in their place.
Now I know that they were really the oppressed. Burdened down with heavy taxes and crushing government regulations from above, then tortured by the bleeding-heart trivial complaints from their own workers below. These people were the true patriots of our free market system!
Did their employees appreciate their struggles? Could they know the heart-pounding pressure of waiting for a quarterly stock portfolio report while swilling gin and tonics in high leather-backed chairs like many executives have to do year in and year out? Do they feel the anxiety that their employers have to endure because they are forced to wait beyond their scheduled tee time because there’s a jam up on the back nine? Hell no, of course not!
But now I know about their hardships and I appreciate what they’ve done for this country. Meanwhile, the workers snivel and whine. God, they make me sick!
Did you see what the legislators in Maine are doing? They’re rolling back child labor regulations, and I say it’s about time! Why should young people under the age of 16 have it so good? Let them taste the bitterness of working long hours for less than minimum wage. It’ll be a great experience preparing them for decades upon decades of demeaning work for a barely livable rate per hour. I’d like to see them strike about that!
Liberal Media Members: Traitor!
Counselor: You hush! Go on, Todd.
Arteejee: All I can say is Thank you right wing media for allowing me to see the light. I can see that unions are truly distrustful, socialist organizations. I didn’t come to this conclusion on my own. I had help from people like...well, like Rick Santorum, who taught me that our abortion culture is having a negative effect on maintaining a good supply of labor that keeps our country prosperous. He convinced me that women shouldn’t be trusted to make decisions about their own lives. Honestly, it really is common sense to allow total strangers the right to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies.
Oh, then there’s Michele Bachmann! Isn’t she adorable? I just admire the way she confounds the lame stream media with her unique perspectives on American history. Claiming that the Revolutionary War started in New Hampshire, and then blaming Barack Obama for an incandescent light bulb regulation that was actually signed by George W. Bush caused the liberals to have apoplexy! She is absolutely a genius, a sheer genius!
Then there’s Sarah...the divine Sarah! Did you hear her criticism of the President’s speech on our military participation in Libya? She invented a new way to pronounce the word skirmish; she called it “squirmish”. No, I’m not making this up. The way she modifies the English language is breathtaking. She really is our very own William Shakespeare.
Oh, oh, oh, and how can I forget Newt Gingrich? I can’t believe how lucky we are to have such a giant intellect in our midst! He loves this country so much that he is warning us that we are heading towards a...oh, how did he put it, oh, yes...a secular atheist society ruled over by Islamist extremists! This man is brilliant...a prophet who can foresee the disastrous end result of our liberal ways!
Counselor: Well, Mr. Gunther, your testimony is very impressive. I see that our therapy here has had a positive affect on you. I believe you’re ready to give up your union tendencies.
Arteejee: Do you really think so? I’m glad you said that, but I haven’t told you the best part yet.
Counselor: What’s the best part?
Arteejee: APRIL FOOL!!!! Joe Hill lives! Joe Hill lives! Come on everybody!
Liberal Media Members and Bloggers United, Local 5117: (laughing and chanting) Joe Hill lives! Joe Hill lives!
Counselor: (sighs) Security! Please take Mr. Gunther back to his cubicle in the Glenn Beck wing.
Arteejee: Glenn Beck? I love Glenn Beck! (maniacal laughter) Hahahahahahahahahahaha...
(Thank you for reading. Seriously, I dreamt I saw Joe Hill last night...and he wasn’t in New Hampshire!)
posted by todd gunther | 7:16 AM
1 Comments:
And by happy coincidence, I am spending my weekend at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) National Conference being held in the birthplace of democracy, our home town of Philadelphia. I am staying in the Joan Baez wing of the Sheraton. Wicked jokes are being made about Sarah Palin in every speech. The last time I was in the company of so many free-spirited liberals when when I was at the Folk Festival! :-)
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