But, wait! Fox News is suddenly “standing up for teachers!”
That's right—Gretchen Carlson and Megan Kelly and Sean Hannity will soon be boo-hoo-hooing the fate of poor public school teachers.
According to a recent Fox News story, teachers are getting absolutely hosed. It’s tragic, they want their viewers to know. Just terrible—and unfair—and un-American too. The average teacher is making a mere $44,000 a year.
It’s tough going, says Tracie Happel, a teacher in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. And here’s where the story gets interesting.
Whose fault is this? You’re thinking, maybe, that ass, Governor Scott Walker, who wants to take away all bargaining rights from teachers? Maybe the infamous Koch brothers, who donate tens of millions to all the big right-wing-nut causes, and who dream about crushing the last glimmer of life out of the U. S. labor movement?
Nope. Fox News found the one teacher in America who would agree that the real problem was fat cat union bosses. Says Happel:
It’s always about the union. It’s never about the teachers or students. When you’re a teacher, you know you will not always be able to have the money for renovations on a house or go away on vacation, but it’s a tough pill to swallow when you can’t do those things when the people who are supposed to represent us get paid more and more every year.
That pill might be even tougher to swallow if you’re one of the tens of thousands of teachers who have been laid off by Tea Party- loving, tax-slashing, union-busting governors in the last couple of years.
But no one at Fox News bothered to talk to any of those teachers.
Not a snowball’s chance on a Fourth of July grill! What Fox really wants to see is the smashing of unions. It’s simple. No one at Fox News actually cares about teachers. The key to this “awful” story isn’t teachers’ pay. It’s those evil union leaders, and by extension their diabolical Democratic political friends. According to Fox sources, the evil leaders of the evil teachers’ unions are pulling down salaries and benefits of almost half-a-million annually.
That’s the real takeaway from the tale. Don’t stop to remember that Wall Street types crashed damn near the entire U. S. economy in 2008, while hedge fund CEO’s raked in $100 million salaries. Don’t look at stories in newspaper about banks rigging basic interest rates—affecting what every teacher (and every poor sucker who watches Fox News) pays on mortgages and car loans. Pay no attention to the pharmaceutical companies that have paid huge fines for illegal marketing tactics. Ignore companies, including Bain Capital, that ship good American jobs overseas to India, China and Bangladesh.
Biggest economic problem in America today?
Overpaid union leaders.
YOU MIGHT THINK THE DUMB CLUCKS who let themselves be gulled nightly by the Fox crew would have the tiniest clue. Then again, you’d think public school teachers wouldn’t be watching a channel that vilifies them. But if you think fans of Fox News didn’t get the real point of this recent story, all you have to do is read a few typical posted comments.
“Well,” Warren Reichle noted, “the Average teacher is a know nothing Slug! End the unionization of our educators, end the tenures, increase quality of our educators, increase their pay with results!”
Clearly that man felt bad for all the “know-nothing slugs” (to polish up his grammar) who make only $44,000 a year.
Estella Bunny Howe added: “Hey, the teachers have the right to opt out of the unions. Stupid if they don’t. And, just remember these are the same teachers who are teaching math, etc. to our kids. And, you wonder why our society is so screwed up?????”
Yeah, don’t you hate it, Bunny, when teachers screw up the world? Starting the War in Iraq, for example, making American adults fat, causing health care costs to skyrocket.
Yeah, damn teachers.
Diana Lynn Friemann certainly caught the point of the story. She picked up the football and ran with it down the field and spiked the ball in the end zone. “We need to have a law outlawing these unions. They are full of thugs, liars and thieves. All they are good for anymore is raising money for the Democrat candidates. That is NOT what they are supposed to be for! They are supposed to be a voice for workers, but that ended years ago. Thugs!”
The sympathy (cough, cough) for teachers that Fox News, in its heart, hoped to elicit was everywhere in view:
Theresa Victorino Stevens: “Public education system is RIDICULOUS!!”
Joe Armato: “This is why the children do not get an education. The teachers are so dumb that they allow this to happen.”
“There’s probably no more overpaid profession than teacher,” Tom Van Riper grumbled. Apparently, he didn't care if Tracie Happel (or any other teacher in America) made $44,000 per year or if she had to get by on minimum wage.
John Hammack was equally sympathetic, noting, “around here they make on the average $90K. I’d love to make $44k, get three months off during the summer, and leave the job at 3:30 with no accountability.”
Marc Mathews pretty agreed with Mr. Hammack: “44G with a pension, summers off and very good benefits and what is basically a job for life. Doesn’t excuse the 500g salaries but I'm playing the worlds smallest violin for the whiners.”
GregandAngie Jones—which could be a couple sharing a Facebook page—or maybe a posting by co-joined twins, responded:
Charles Donaldson looked under his bed, couldn’t see President Obama’s birth
certificate anywhere, but caught a glimpse of the Red Menace boogie man: “schools,
public education, is destroying america…kids don’t have an idea what work is
cause they spend their whole life in school socialism.”
Jeff Runyan touched on a common sentiment, damning to America’s teachers in general, when he grumbled: “The US doesn’t even rank in the Top 10 in the world for education yet we spend the most on it. Wonder why that is.”
John Bravo backed him up, especially after a more liberal individual noted that maybe the matter was more complex than a simple list that showed the United States wasn’t in the Top 10 in terms of education. He lambasted Azhar Din, who dared to disagree, then made it crystal clear where the problems in education began: “[We] rank low because liberals have been in charge of our schools for the past 50+ years wake up troll.”
I did what I could. I posted a few comments of my own, including one in response to Mr. Runyan, noting that the U. S. doesn’t rank in the Top 10. True. We stood 25th in the most recent international math comparison. Unions, right, fans of Fox News? I explained that if he cared to do a snippet of research he might discover that the U. S. was 24th in life expectancy, using the same 30 countries in the international math survey. We’re 1st in health care spending, too.
It must be our terrible doctors. Are they union members, too?
UNFORTUNATELY, LOGIC ISN’T A STRONG SUIT for fans of Fox News. So let’s leave the last word to Lowell Smith, a Tea Party philosopher. Says Mr. Smith: “For all you history majors here, on the upside, when the communist finally do get total control the first thing they do is shoot all the intellectuals and teachers.”
Of course, Mr. Smith, won’t it be great when they shoot all the intellectuals and teachers! That’s the upside.
Something tells me, sir, you’re going to be perfectly safe.
Diana Lynn Friemann certainly caught the point of the story. She picked up the football and ran with it down the field and spiked the ball in the end zone. “We need to have a law outlawing these unions. They are full of thugs, liars and thieves. All they are good for anymore is raising money for the Democrat candidates. That is NOT what they are supposed to be for! They are supposed to be a voice for workers, but that ended years ago. Thugs!”
The sympathy (cough, cough) for teachers that Fox News, in its heart, hoped to elicit was everywhere in view:
Theresa Victorino Stevens: “Public education system is RIDICULOUS!!”
Joe Armato: “This is why the children do not get an education. The teachers are so dumb that they allow this to happen.”
“There’s probably no more overpaid profession than teacher,” Tom Van Riper grumbled. Apparently, he didn't care if Tracie Happel (or any other teacher in America) made $44,000 per year or if she had to get by on minimum wage.
John Hammack was equally sympathetic, noting, “around here they make on the average $90K. I’d love to make $44k, get three months off during the summer, and leave the job at 3:30 with no accountability.”
Marc Mathews pretty agreed with Mr. Hammack: “44G with a pension, summers off and very good benefits and what is basically a job for life. Doesn’t excuse the 500g salaries but I'm playing the worlds smallest violin for the whiners.”
GregandAngie Jones—which could be a couple sharing a Facebook page—or maybe a posting by co-joined twins, responded:
Good teachers are the exception, not the norm. Many teachers are there to put in their 180 school days per year. Take their winter break, spring break, and summer vacations; collect their pay and retire on the taxpayer. The level and standard of public education in the US is a good indication that it is failing.
Jeff Runyan touched on a common sentiment, damning to America’s teachers in general, when he grumbled: “The US doesn’t even rank in the Top 10 in the world for education yet we spend the most on it. Wonder why that is.”
John Bravo backed him up, especially after a more liberal individual noted that maybe the matter was more complex than a simple list that showed the United States wasn’t in the Top 10 in terms of education. He lambasted Azhar Din, who dared to disagree, then made it crystal clear where the problems in education began: “[We] rank low because liberals have been in charge of our schools for the past 50+ years wake up troll.”
I did what I could. I posted a few comments of my own, including one in response to Mr. Runyan, noting that the U. S. doesn’t rank in the Top 10. True. We stood 25th in the most recent international math comparison. Unions, right, fans of Fox News? I explained that if he cared to do a snippet of research he might discover that the U. S. was 24th in life expectancy, using the same 30 countries in the international math survey. We’re 1st in health care spending, too.
It must be our terrible doctors. Are they union members, too?
UNFORTUNATELY, LOGIC ISN’T A STRONG SUIT for fans of Fox News. So let’s leave the last word to Lowell Smith, a Tea Party philosopher. Says Mr. Smith: “For all you history majors here, on the upside, when the communist finally do get total control the first thing they do is shoot all the intellectuals and teachers.”
Of course, Mr. Smith, won’t it be great when they shoot all the intellectuals and teachers! That’s the upside.
Something tells me, sir, you’re going to be perfectly safe.
Your Fox News Channel picture is funny. But I think Obama is the one always saying everyone is lying to us.
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