-By Frank Salvato
I was driving into Annapolis the other day when it struck me. I now understand why the Progressive Left is adamant about pushing the artificial inflation of our children’s self-esteem. To paraphrase Col. Kurtz, a character from the film Apocalypse Now, “It struck me like a diamond bullet right between the eyes. I thought ‘The brilliance!’” And then I thought, “The horror!…The horror.” It was at that exact moment that my steadfast confidence that our Republic would endure was rocked. It was at that split second that any question about our nation being under siege from an ideological movement, so well planned; so potent and so destructive, disappeared forever. So, what does the artificial elevation of self-esteem have to do with the destruction of the nation? Everything.
When we falsely elevate the self-esteem of a child, of a group of children; when we teach them that “everyone’s a winner” and “there are no losers,” we are teaching them a lie. Any honest person must have the courage to admit that in life, no one ever gets everything that they want, ergo, it is impossible for someone to always win and to never lose.
Imagine the bitter dose of reality experienced by a little leaguer who has been allowed to play the game where no score is kept and everyone was deemed “a winner” when he played in his first organized league where the score did matter. It is happening today.
Imagine the student, socially promoted so as not to diminish the installation of an artificially elevated self-esteem, a student cheated out of the experience of self-achievement, reaching graduation, devoid of critical thinking tools and unable to perform in what is most certainly the most competitive place anyone could possibly imagine: the real world. It is happening today.
Is it any wonder these people would possess a certain amount of anger for what they have been cheated out of: ability and time?
So, why is the Progressive Left insisting on this avenue for our children? It is for this diabolical reason. If one can create an illusion that there is a world where there are no losers (a utopian vision and, consequently, a vision held by the great Marxist thinkers) then, when that inevitable disappointment is realized, it is easier to rationalize a manipulation of the rules, be they of Natural Law or man-made law. And by allowing for exceptions to the rule of law, by allowing the baseline for how our society is engaged and/or how our government is executed, the Progressive Left achieves the goal of division, creating the catalyst for class struggle and chaos.
We are seeing a bending of the rules and the benefits of such ill-conceived actions in the disenfranchisement of minorities by their elected officials in Wisconsin and Indiana where Democrat Senators have abandoned their constituencies by leaving their states, usurping the democratic process used in our Republican form of government to execute loyalty to unions over loyalty to their constituents.
Progressives need to have class struggle to achieve their goals. Creating a division among a common people feeds off one of the seven deadly sins, envy. By inciting a faction of the people to believe they are owed anything but opportunity and a society devoid of coercion, aggression and violence in which to exploit that opportunity, Progressives succeed in creating the divide that allows for the formation of factious class struggle. The more ginned-up with hatred they can make this faction the closer to chaos they advance. When chaos is achieved, historically, revolution follows and the most organized faction ultimately attains the most power. We have seen it in the Russian revolution of 1917 and we are witnessing it today across the Middle East and in select countries in Europe, specifically Greece and to a lesser extent France and Britain.
We are also seeing the genesis of Progressive inspired discontent here in the United States. It has been fomenting ever since the turn of the 20th Century with the arrival of the “great thinkers” of the Frankfort School of Marxist thought to the United States at Columbia University in New York and Berkeley in California. Today, this discontent is manifesting in the current confrontation in Wisconsin over what is perceived to be an attempt at “union busting.”
For the record, and let me state this unequivocally, I am not anti-union worker. In fact, I was a member of the Teamsters, having been a member when I worked at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago as a fire safety officer, subsequent to my tenure as a firefighter and paramedic for a full-time fire department. Union workers are my neighbors, my friends and, truth be told, we all want essentially the same things: a secure life and the promise of opportunity for ourselves and our children. But I am vehemently anti-union leadership. This is for the fact that, whether the rank and file union member wants to admit it or not, their organizations have been co-opted by the Progressive Movement.
In Wisconsin, newly elected governor, Scott Walker, and his newly elected Republican majority in Wisconsin’s legislature, in trying to rectify decades of kicking the fiscal can down the road, are attempting not to “union bust,” which would require a complete evisceration of the union’s ability to operate in the state, but to limit an unreasonable expectation by union management that regardless of the revenue taken in by the state, government sector union employees must – must – be given an elevation in their salaries annually.
In a letter to each and every Wisconsin state employee, Gov. Walker explains it thusly:
“While some of these financial challenges may be attributed to the slowing of our economy, the reality is that these problems were exacerbated by poor budgeting decisions approved and promoted by past elected leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike. By relying on the use of one-time money, segregated fund raids, and increases in taxes and fees, past leaders have focused on short term solutions without looking toward the future…
“Today, I am introducing a Budget Repair Bill to address our current fiscal year deficit of $136.7 million. Later this month, I will introduce my 2011-2013 Biennial Budget proposal to address the pending $3.6 billion deficit.
“The Budget Repair Bill will include a number of reform measures focused on bringing government employee benefits closer to the private sector, including:
“Pension Contributions – Currently, state, school district and municipal employees who are members of the Wisconsin Retirement System contribute very little toward their pensions. The bill requires that WRS employees, including myself and my cabinet officers, as well as employees of the City and County of Milwaukee, contribute 50 percent of their monthly pension contributions. This amount is estimated to be 5.8 percent of salary for 2011, which is about the national average for private sector employees.
“Health Insurance Contributions – Currently, state employees pay approximately 6 percent of annual health insurance premiums. This bill requires that state employees, again including myself and my cabinet officers, pay at least 12 percent of monthly premiums, which is still less than half of what the private sector pays. In addition, the bill directs the Group Insurance Board to implement changes to health insurance plan designs to further reduce premiums by 5 percent and will implement health risk assessments for all state employees beginning on January 1, 2012. Local employers participating in the Public Employers Group Health insurance program operated by the state will be prohibited from paying more than 88 percent of the lowest cost plan.
“Collective Bargaining – Given the above changes, the bill also makes various changes to limit collective bargaining to the base pay rate. Total increases cannot exceed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) unless approved by a referendum. Contracts will be limited to one year and wages will be frozen until the new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units will have to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers will be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units will not be required to pay dues. These changes take effect upon the expiration of existing contracts. Local police and fire employees and State Patrol Troopers and Inspectors are exempted from these changes.”
Gov. Walker continues:
“The Budget Repair Bill and my 2011-2013 Biennial Budget proposal will not include any provisions to alter or modify the main tenets of Wisconsin’s Civil Service System, one of the strongest in the nation. The grievance and dispute resolution systems currently in place, as well as all employee protections, will remain.”
It is incredulous, given the fact that: a) only government sector employees are affected, and, b) government sector employees – by virtue of the reforms themselves – are afforded a choice to join a union rather than to be compelled to join a union; it is incredulously disingenuous for union leaders to mislead their rank and file into thinking that what is being proposed is “union busting.”
When we look at what is happening in Wisconsin – and what is spreading, for better or for worse – to Indiana and Ohio, it is abundantly clear that what is taking place is a vicious attempt by union leaders to prevent a disruption of the money flow to their organizations; a money flow that is almost exclusively used to advance a Progressive agenda. Without a secure money flow union leaders and the ideologues who commiserate with them in the advancement of the Progressive agenda, would lose influence with the money-hungry within the Democrat Party and, thus, experience diminished power on the national, state, county and municipal stages.
Let’s take a look at that money flow. In its current form, union wealth (and any organization that can afford to pay its president over $400K and expenses in salary is a wealthy organization) is derived not only from union dues but also through taxpayers monies. Taxpayers are dragged into supporting unions because the federal government allocates taxpayer dollars to the states for education, infrastructure, first responder services and almost every aspect of government at the state level and sometimes at the county and local levels as well. When a union contract provision calls for raises – again, regardless of what the level of annual tax revenue achieved by any and all government bodies is, because of – as Gov. Walkers explains – “poor budgeting decisions approved and promoted by past elected leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike,” taxes must go up and that means more borrowing, more debt and a spiral into the financial abyss that is insolvency.
You would have had to have failed elementary mathematics not to understand that if you consistently pay out more than you take in – and increase that disparity each year – that there is no possible way to ever remain on the positive side of “zero.”
Now, the argument is being made that the government-sector employees of Wisconsin are willing to acquiesce to the financial aspects of Gov. Walker’s proposal but they draw the line at consenting to the limitation being proposed on collective bargaining. This leaves in place the very mechanism that delivered Wisconsin to insolvency in the first place; an unyielding conglomerate of organizations and factions that will never, ever take no for an answer, both because their very existence is to secure a better wage for their members and because the leadership cannot and will not tolerate a diminished level of money flow for their special interests.
Again, and this cannot be stressed enough for the fact that the union leaders – enabled by a corrupt mainstream media in their omission of facts and honest definition – are employing a powerful propaganda machine that feeds off of the ignorance achieved by the artificial inflation of a generation’s self-esteem, collective bargaining is not being eliminated, it is being limited to “base pay rate.” In fact, when Wisconsin’s government-sector union workers are freed from the health insurance plan set-up by the unions, they can even save money; money that they can spend on bills, savings, vacations, home improvements etc.; money that would have otherwise gone to union leadership and their Progressive agendas.
Why is this subject so troubling to me? Simple…it is dividing the nation to a point not seen since the Great US Civil War. Family members are viciously arguing with family members, in some cases to the point of permanent disrepair. As in the US Civil War, where brothers fought against brothers with rifle, sword and bayonet, the lines are being drawn and, if allowed to go further, if allowed to go as far as the turmoil currently affected by unions in Greece, France and Britain, blood will soon be drawn as well.
While I hold out a great deal of hope that the American people will finally awaken to put an end to this Progressive tyranny, for today, Progressives giggle with glee at the chaos in Madison, Indianapolis, Columbus and any town USA. It means they are winning…”The horror!…the horror.”
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Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal . He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, and is a regular guest on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network, as well as an occasional guest on numerous radio shows coast to coast. He recently partnered in producing the first-ever symposium on the threat of radical Islamist terrorism in Washington, DC. His pieces have been recognized by the House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict. He can be contacted at oped@newmediajournal.us