My sister has a small pillow in her bedroom that’s embroidered with the words “She who dies with the most shoes wins.” I’m sure Lloyd Blankfein’s daughter has one just like it. And you’d think that the patchouli-scented Occupy Wall Street crowd might not like such a pillow, but you’d be wrong, as Ray Nothstine pointed out in this week’s Acton Commentary. The anger at Zuccotti Park isn’t sparked by greed on Wall Street, it’s sparked by greed in Zuccotti Park.
Unions that have joined the Occupy Wall Street protests are signing on to these demands for government-facilitated greed. The local Transport Workers Union spokesman told CNN,
Their goals are our goals. They brought a spotlight on issues that we’ve believed in for quite some time now. … Wall Street caused the implosion in the first place and is getting away scot-free while workers, transit workers, everybody, is forced to pay for their excesses.
So in return, the Transport Workers Union demands free art school for everyone. How that is in the best interest of the members of Local 100 is beyond me, because in the end, their union is parroting Gordon Gecko’s “Greed is good” speech from Wall Street.
The Transport Workers, the SEIU, and other labor groups pretend to align themselves with a groundswell of moral outrage directed at thieving, manipulative fat cats, but the outrage isn’t moral at all. It’s appetitive, and that’s not the political urge of a free society.
Author’s Note: My sister, an extremely smart and capable young lady, complains that I make her sound “like a complete airhead.” That is not at all the case, so if this post gave you that impression, know that she is very poor-in-spirit.
