Billionaire declares that government workers are a "privileged new ruling class" that must be fought

[Better Believe It]

Public sector workers are a ‘privileged new class,’ says billionaire
January 17, 2011

In the ideological assault being directed today at public sector workers no one has outdone Mortimer Zuckerman — billionaire real estate and publishing mogul, owner of the New York Daily News and chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report — who declared in September that public sector workers are a “privileged new class” dominating U.S. society. Populists, Zuckerman (the 182nd wealthiest American in 2010) pronounced, have long gotten away with their insidious “class warfare speeches” emphasizing “the gulf between the rich and the poor.” The aim has been to divert attention from society’s real ruling class: public sector workers. Forget the corporate rich, forget Wall Street, forget the bank bailouts, corporate bonuses and high-income tax breaks, forget the private jets and mansions. It is the millions of “public servants” with their outrageous five-digit salaries and their galling health insurance and retirement pensions, Zuckerman insisted, who have now become “the public’s masters,” seizing a disproportionate share of society’s rewards and bringing on the failures of the U.S. economy.

Such views might be grimly amusing, if it weren’t for the fact that similar opinions are now widely disseminated in the corporate media and voiced daily by politicians. What we are witnessing is a concerted attack on government at all levels, extending to public sector workers and their unions. It is out of control government spending, we are told, that is at the root of all our economic woes. Public sector workers, it is claimed, enjoy higher salaries, greater job security, and more ample benefits than their private sector counterparts, while continually demanding and getting more. It is time that they shared in the crisis of the rest of the society.

It doesn’t seem to matter to those making such charges that all of this is false — as long as they have the power to spread such misinformation and people are sufficiently gullible.

What then are we to make of the ridiculous claims by Zuckerman and his whole class of billionaires and cento-millionaires (and their hangers-on), incessantly disseminated in the media, that public sector workers constitute a “privileged new class,” the “public’s masters”? This is nothing but the age-old strategy of divide and conquer adopted by ruling classes throughout history, particularly in times of crisis when their own position is most shaky. The answer is to turn worker against worker, under the mantra that “the people divided will always be defeated.” What the moneyed interests fear most is the united political struggle of the vast majority (private and public sector workers alike) in the interest of a more democratic, more egalitarian society — a world of common humanity. But is there any goal more worthy?

Read the full article at:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/voices/public-sector-workers-are-a-privileged-new-class-says-billionaire/6442/#