God speed you to a special ring in Hell

My wife is a teacher in California and, thus, forced to be a member of the California Teachers Association (CTA). This morning Dean E. Vogel, president of the CTA sent a letter to all CTA members celebrating the CTA's "victories" in California yesterday. Some excerpts from the letter are:

Last night, we achieved a monumental victory for our students, our union and our State. Because of the outreach done by our members, California voters demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges [the CTA's characterization of Prop 30, which raises taxes] and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions [the CTA's characterization of Prop 32, which proposed to do away with mandatory union dues].

Thanks to you, our schools and colleges will avoid $6 billion in trigger cuts, our local communities will receive funding to keep police on the street and our state can begin to pay down the wall of debt it's amassed during the recession.

And, with the defeat of Proposition 32, we sent a message that Californians believe in the rights of unions to speak out on behalf of the middle class. We sent a message that you can't buy California because we're not for sale. This hard-fought victory for democracy exposed the real agenda of the corporate special interests behind Proposition 32. Those millionaires and billionaires never cared about the checks and balances of our democracy, only the checks they could write to buy even more political influence in Sacramento and Washington.

My wife showed me the email and I was moved to send the following reply back to Mr Vogel:

Dear Mr Vogel,

You write: "Those millionaires and billionaires [only cared about] the checks they could write to buy even more political influence in Sacramento and Washington." This is a description not of the Kochs, or of Karl Rove, but of the modus operandi of the teachers union: use dues from teachers to line the pockets of politicians so that they, in return, fatten up the already fat pensions of teachers. The reason, Mr Vogel, why the State of California has amassed a “wall of debt” is because it has been governed for decades by profligate, union-coddling Democrats, bought and paid for by the CTA. And the truly disgusting part is that, as you enrich public union employees at the expense of the general taxpayer, you claim to be acting “on behalf of the children.” A tear rolls down my cheek as I think about your dedication and selflessness.

As for our wonderful public servants, the police and firemen, Chuck Reed, the Democratic mayor of San Jose, has this to say about them:

"Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working. ... When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There's a corruption here. It's not just a financial corruption. It's a corruption of the attitude of public service."

Michael Lewis, Boomerang, Travels in the New Third World

A corruption of public service, yes, the same thing can be said about you. You are not a selfless public servant, acting on behalf of “schools, kids, and communities.” Far from it. Rather, you are just a corrupt union thug, stealing from the general taxpayer all you can so that you can pay it out to your own special interest group, the teachers, and pay off Democratic politicians to keep the money laundering scheme going. Corrupt public unions are transforming California into The New Third World, effectively bankrupt, but nevertheless rushing headlong to spend ever more and more and more on benefits for public employees. We don’t need to look at faraway Greece; it’s happening right here in California!

A special ring in Hell is reserved for political hacks like you who speak falsehoods so shamelessly. I wish you: God speed there! You may have won a victory this time by spending millions of dollars to deceive a gullible California electorate. But your time is coming to an end. The house of debt will soon collapse. And your new Democratic supermajority in Sacramento and your newly reelected, trillion-dollar-deficit President in Washington will only hasten the coming debacle. And, when the end finally comes, the citizens of California and the United States will take a pitchfork to the Democrats and union thugs who brought them low and chase them out of town.