joanna bujes wrote:
>
> When I was in "cop shop" in 76, learning to be a state park ranger, we had
> a whole host of teachers: Sheriffs, highway patrol, narcs, FBI, and fire
> fighters. The fire fighters were by far the best of the bunch: visibly
> intelligent and decent.
Fire fighters are "government" rather than "state" employees -- that is they belong to the working class rather than to that fuzzy group (including cops) whose reality is better captured with the old Chinese phrase, "lackeys and running dogs."
(Does anyone, incidentally, know what the cultural context in China was for the phrase "running dogs." It fits in a western context of the coach dogs accompanying aristocratic carriages, but I doubt that is also the Chinese source.)
Carrol