Saturday coffee with the cheeseheads.

We’ll stop at Mike and Susan’s and then we do a family caravan up to Madison.

We won’t be alone. Not by a long shot.

In every capital city in every one of the 50 states.

Damn, it feels good!

So when some guy sitting next to me at Peet’s this morning started talking about how public service unions had to give up their pensions I was in no mood.

“I’m a taxpayer!” the schmuck told me.

“So am I,” I said. “I get probably taxed a larger percentage of my income than you.”

But, really, who cares? What is this? The Jim Crow South? People who pay taxes have opinions that are more important than those that don’t? A poll tax on democracy?

“There’s a big state debt,” said the putz.

“Then tax those that can afford to pay a tax. What sense does it make to tax people who don’t have any money? Tax those that have the money! Tax the rich.”

“Then you constrain job creation,” said the meshuggeneh.

“That’s bullshit. Wealth doesn’t create jobs. Money in the hands of the rich doesn’t create any jobs. The need for work creates jobs. The need for labor creates jobs. More money in the hands of the rich just creates more money in the hands of the rich. What do you do?”

“I own a corporation.”

“Oy.”

Well, of course.

All the news that fits the anti-union narrative.

The NY Times was forced to print this correction this morning.

A front-page article on Tuesday about reaction among private-sector workers in Wisconsin to Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to cut benefits and collective-bargaining rights for unionized public employees referred incorrectly to the work history of one person quoted, and also misspelled his surname. While the man, Rich Hahn (not Hahan) described himself to a reporter as a “union guy,” he now says that he has worked at unionized factories, but was not himself a union member. (The Times contacted Mr. Hahn again to review his background after a United Auto Workers official said the union had no record of his membership.)

Bob Herbert explains that this is more than just a fight for unions.

It would be a mistake to think that this fight is solely about the right of public employees to collectively bargain. As important as that issue is, it’s just one skirmish in what’s shaping up as a long, bitter campaign to keep ordinary workers, whether union members or not, from being completely overwhelmed by the forces of unrestrained greed in this society. 

The predators at the top, billionaires and millionaires, are pitting ordinary workers against one another. So we’re left with the bizarre situation of unionized workers with a pension being resented by nonunion workers without one. The swells are in the background, having a good laugh.

All *FIBS: Madison. Capitol. 3PM. Be there.

*The Cheeseheads call us fucking Illinois bastards.