School Brittania

Are the Brits showing us Yanks what needs to be done?

Protesting proposed cuts in pensions, about 600,000 public sector workers struck across Britain last week, according to union estimates.

Teachers in primary schools, universities, and adult education were joined by civil servants from employment centers, border agencies, police emergency call centers, and even some at the Prime Minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street.

The four unions representing these workers had voted to strike together for one day, June 30, in an unusual show of solidarity.

Rallies were held in about 80 towns and cities. The biggest was in central London, where 28,000 marched past the Houses of Parliament. The crowd was surprisingly young, with many striking for the first time and clearly feeling good about it.

The strike and rallies followed a massive national mobilization on March 26 that drew some 750,000 marchers in opposition to an entire package of government cuts.

Of course, I'm sure in the socialist-Marxist-Islamo-fascist country of England, pensions are wildly out of control...

The government calls public sector pensions excessive and cites a well-known report to the effect that pensions are unsustainable at current levels because the workforce now lives longer.

But the same report denies that they are “gold-plated” and shows that even at current levels their cost relative to the Gross Domestic Product would fall over the next 40 years. The median public employee pension is about $8,500 a year.

Greed is universal. Teachers are being denied decent pensions and the British Health System is being riven apart just so Rupert Murdoch and Richard Bramson can have more, more, MORE!

What's that line about "two nations divided by a common language"? Maybe we're really two nations united by the avarice of our overlords.