Look for the union label — right there in the garbage can. Where it belongs.
The decision by the teachers union to sponsor Al Sharpton’s anti-police rally isn’t just another day in the rubber room. It is absolute proof that the union has severed its tenuous relationship with reality.
Boss Michael Mulgrew and some other labor leaders don’t see themselves as citizens of New York with a stake in its future. They’ve gone radical, bonding with the Occupy rabble in an anti-social binge that aims to kill the golden goose. Left unchecked, they’ll poison the well and salt the land to finish off Gotham for good.
Theirs is a race to the bottom, without rules or restraint. They denounce wealth, but their greed makes Wall Street look like a gathering of Mother Teresas.
Aren’t there any adults left in New York? Won’t somebody stand up and scream, STOP?
Apparently not. Like much of America, the city has lost confidence in its values and history. Spoiled by success, too many now threaten destruction if they don’t get what they claim to deserve.
They forget how New York got here, how close it came to absolute ruin. The brush with bankruptcy, the stampede for the exits, the crime wave that almost sunk the ship of state — these are recent events that must not be ignored.
Those who survived it know “The Rotten Apple” was real and the city was saved only because enough people and the right leadership refused to let it die. Yes, there were scum among us, and always will be. But they were marginalized by an establishment that had the courage to fight for its convictions.
The real change, the loss, is in the quality of that establishment.
The political class now only panders to the lowest common denominator, the leaders of the business community are too busy cutting deals for themselves, and advocates sell their souls for a government contract.
There is no center to hold, so the playing field is dominated by agitators from the margins, including hustlers and their elitist enablers, some of whom still think graffiti is art.
These are the types who once celebrated the Black Panthers, and who now believe Occupy Wall Street is a legitimate protest movement and that the arson, looting and gunfire in Ferguson, Mo., reflects grass-roots anger.
Grow up. Genuine protesters don’t smash a culture they care about or a city they want to improve. It’s the anarchists who loot and pillage and try to kill cops because they destroy, therefore they are.
They don’t want to fine-tune society. They want to burn it down.
The distressing part is that too many supposedly smart people can’t tell the protesters from the anarchists and honest people from criminals. So, against all good sense, New York is actually having a debate about whether crime is really crime and whether we should really enforce the law because doing so ends up snaring too many people of a certain race.
In the process, we’ve made the best and most professional police force in America bear the brunt of our lunacy.
Mayor de Blasio hasn’t figured out yet which side he’s on, so the city goes wobbly under a leader who looks to Sharpton for direction. His latest gee-whiz theory for preventing crime without cops involves paying people to hug a thug. Good luck with that.
It seems odd to say, but maybe the last, best hope for New York involves the rank and file of the unions. Their bosses are fat cats already, but the members’ collective future depends entirely on the city’s health. Their jobs, their children’s schools, their retirement depends on whether the city thrives or dies. As New York goes, so go the men and women who work for it.
In that context, The Post report that hundreds upon hundreds of teachers are rebelling against the Sharpton-Mulgrew axis is reason for hope.
But do these unionists of good will have the guts to lead? Can they tell the bosses that, hell, no, they won’t destroy the city that gave them and their families a foothold in America?
Heaven help us if they don’t.
Piddlin’ while home burns
Be very careful what you wish for.
After criticism that he was too disengaged from a burning world, President Obama took a break from his break on Martha’s Vineyard to rush to Washington, where he proved again that he’s constitutionally incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff.
The president’s foray into the Missouri mess was a moral muddle masquerading as thoughtful eloquence. “While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving in to that anger by looting or carrying guns and even attacking the police only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos,” he declared.
His warning against “giving in to that anger” presumes a pure motive of the roving psychos, an unwarranted presumption. And instead of moaning that attacking cops “serves to raise tensions and stir chaos,” he should have denounced it as reprehensible.
His solution, to send the attorney general to Missouri, is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Eric Holder is the most political AG in modern times, and proudly sees race first, second and last. He’s already tipped the scales of justice by demanding a third autopsy of Michael Brown, a clear sign he’s looking for evidence he doesn’t have yet. His “flooding the zone” with 40 FBI agents is a warning to local authorities that they’d better find criminal wrongdoing by the white police officer who did the shooting.
Why even bother with a trial? Let’s just hang the cop now, since that’s what Holder wants.
Besides, then Obama can go back to his vacation, where, hopefully, he’ll just play golf and leave the world alone.
Attention-leaker
Hell hath no fury like a forgotten fugitive. Wikileaks creep Julian Assange emerged from his hidey-hole in London to say he’s leaving the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he got political asylum two years ago.
But an aide later said he won’t leave now because the Brits still plan to extradite him to Sweden to face possible charges for sexual assault.
In other words, never mind. So why did Assange pipe up? Does he crave the spotlight and can’t handle being overshadowed by Edward Snowden’s more damaging disclosures?
Duh!
A vicious cycle
One bicyclist was killed and another was left in critical condition Monday after being hit by cars. That neither driver was held directly responsible tells you all you need to know about where blame belongs.
City Hall. The previous mayor and the current one encourage bike riders to risk life and limb by mixing it up with cars, trucks and buses. It’s a fool’s errand that inevitably leads to accidents, injury and death.
Bicycles don’t belong on busy city streets.
Period.