I want to know what happened.

In the not so distant past, when a teacher's salary was brought up and the speaker always commented how little they are paid for such a hard job the audience rose with raucous applause and whistles. Yeah! Pay those teachers what they're worth! Now it seems teachers have become the villains. They want what? More retirement benefits? Better pay? The right to Collective Bargaining? How dare they! I don't get it. Are they not teaching as well now as they did last year? Is their retirement more exorbitant than say, Congress's is? How did teachers become the villains in all this?

The same goes for unions. In the past, unions represented nearly 1/3 of all workers in America. Now it would be hard put to find 10% union workers. What happened? I know most Americans are too young to have witnessed the strong arm tactics of business in the 1920's and beyond when they hired thugs with baseball bats and had the police in their back pockets when workers tried to organize for a fair wage and better working conditions. Many were injured, maimed and killed so that the American worker could earn a living wage. They paved the way to fair wages and benefits for all.

What happened? Why is the working class now looked down upon as the greedy villain, draining America's resources? Has the media gone so far to the Right that these stories have become the norm now? Are the Wall Street occupiers and others now becoming villains for wanting business to pay back their bailouts before giving their CEO's and other higher ranking businessmen sickeningly exorbitant bonuses, raises and "golden parachutes" all the while taking our tax money to bail them out of their own illegal financial messes?

And what of the banks and lenders foreclosing on homes rather than renegotiating for a fair market interest rate? It's a sad commentary on America that we, the working class are now the villains and the elite and corporate moguls are the good guys. Maybe when the Supreme Court made it law that "Corporations are people" we fell for it. Like one pundit said, "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."

I don't get it. What happened?

Bob Boevingloh

Sullivan, Mo.