Camille Paglia takes on Jon Stewart, Trump, Sanders: “Liberals think of themselves as very open-minded, but that’s simply not true!” Interview with David Daley. Part 2. Salon, July 29, 2015.
“Ted Cruz gives me the willies”: Camille Paglia analyzes the GOP field — and takes on Hillary Clinton. Interview with David Daley. Part 3. Salon, July 30, 2015.
Camille Paglia Nails It on Clinton and Cosby. By Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh.com, July 28, 2015.
Paglia, Part 3:
I think that liberals are dangerously complacent about Scott Walker. They’ve tried to portray him as a madman, an uneducated rube, a tool of the Koch brothers. Right now, Walker seems to be the true GOP frontrunner, but I also feel he lacks gravitas. He’s not ready for his close-up. What is this oddity about so many of the GOP candidates–their excessive boyishness, as if their maturation stalled? But Walker is a very talented and combative politician, with far more substance than liberals are allowing for.
The
union issue is huge–because as governor of Wisconsin, Walker went to war with
unions and won. Liberals are caught in the past right now in their rosy view of
unions, which were heroically established during the progressive era that
reformed the abuses of the industrial revolution. But the union battle in
Wisconsin had nothing to do with exploited working-class miners or factory
workers. In his push to balance the state budget, Walker took action against
the middle-class public sector unions, whose negotiations with municipal and
state governments outside the arena of private competition have become an
enormous drain on local budgets as the economy has worsened. There has been a
history of rampant corruption in the public sector unions, coming from their
cozy quid pro quo relationships with politicians. Liberals need to wake up
about this! All they have to do is read the obituaries of the smaller
newspapers in metropolitan New York to see how the early retirement and lavish
pensions of the public sector unions have grotesquely drained taxpayer dollars.
Obituary after obituary–so-and-so, aged 75, worked for fifteen or twenty years
as a policeman or city sanitation worker, retired in his late 40s, and spent
the rest of his life on the taxpayer’s dime, pursuing his hobbies of fishing,
boating, and golfing. Great work if you can get it!
And
then the teachers’ unions! What a colossal tactical error American Federation
of Teachers President Randi Weingarten (a longtime Clinton friend and donor)
made several weeks ago in unilaterally declaring her union’s endorsement of
Hillary Clinton right in the middle of the Bernie Sanders surge. Probably for
the first time ever, American liberals woke up to the corrupt practices that
have become way too common in the political maneuverings of the big unions. The
point here is that Scott Walker, in his defeat of the public sector unions,
drew the roadmap for struggling municipal and state governments everywhere to
balance their budgets, as he did in Wisconsin. Because who ends up suffering
the most? It’s the kids. All that money outrageously pouring into inflated
pension plans has been gutting public education and community arts programs.
Exactly
how have the teachers unions improved the quality of education in our big
cities? Look at the dilapidated public schools in Philadelphia or in many other
cities run by Democrats. The rigid and antiquated seniority system imposed by
the teachers unions has been a disaster–“last hired, first fired.” So many
young and vital teachers have been terminated during budget cuts–the entire
future of the profession. The unions value seniority over quality, and it’s
inner-city children who have paid the price.
In my
opinion, Scott Walker still lacks seasoning, presidential temper, and a working
knowledge of international affairs. But if Democrats try to use the union issue
to take him down, they’re simply empowering him–and we’re going to end up with
President Walker.
