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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0552,schanberg,71325,6.html

Striking differences

New York City used to think of
itself as a union town that had
some empathy for working people.

Now,

we seem to be in a
more Darwinian mood.

In the transit strike that
lasted only three days,
the city's newspapers showed
little good feeling for the
grievances of the struggling workers.

The tabloids tended to bare
their flesh-eating teeth,
particularly the New York Post,
which labeled the strikers as

dregs of society
and greedy rodents-using
the kind of venom the paper
usually reserves for rapist "fiends."

One Post banner headline was, simply:

"You Rats."

All those years ago,
the Post used to care
about working people.

Now it's a Murdoch paper.

On local television, more often than not,
the cameras brought us scenes of raging
subway riders and commuters.

That's known in TV land as
giving the viewers "red meat."

I mention this sociological sea
change not to take sides or suggest
that the hardships for subway and
bus riders weren't severe.

I merely note that some of us
carry memories from earlier times,
when Mike Quill of the Transit
Workers Union and Mayor John Lindsay
traded theatrical insults

(Quill called him "Mayor Lindsley" to annoy him).

It was a time when the public
seemed to roll better with the
punches and to accept a short
strike partly as urban theater.

This time, when Mayor Bloomberg
called the union "selfish" and
"thuggish," he seemed to mean it.