“I’m by trade an educator, so listen up: you’ve got it wrong. It’s not trillions for misbegotten wars. It’s not tax cuts for business. It’s not subsidies for real estate speculators. It’s not gambling on Wall St. It’s not the privatizing of public services. No. I’m the 75-year-old son-of-a-bitch responsible for all your problems. I put in 43 years at the City University trying to improve educational opportunity for working people in this city. I put in 43 years at the City University and earned enough to raise a family. I put in 43 years at the City University and got my medical bills covered. I put in 43 years at the City University and I’ve got what I hope is a secure retirement. An over-compensated and over-privileged public sector worker, that’s what I am. Get the likes of me under control, and we’ll have heaven on earth. Thank the Lord, Walker and Cuomo and Bloomberg have opened our eyes. Pity the downtrodden landlord and the poor, barefoot Wall St. banker. There’s no sacrifice too great to ask of working people if we’re to preserve the inequality, the lack of jobs, the lack of prospects faced by the majority of us. But okay. Irony and $2.50 gets you on the F train. Let’s hope that Wisconsin is the spark that starts the prairie fire. We need jobs. We need the public sector. We need the labor movement. We need them in Wisconsin. We need them in New York. We need them nationwide. We’re ready to fight for them. This is what democracy looks like. It’s this fight that makes democracy real. ”

Speech by Jim Perlstein, co-chair of the Professional Staff Congress, the union representing 22,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York.

Jim, my Dad’s best friend, spoke at a rally at New York’s City Hall in solidarity of the Wisconsin workers. I love this.