Posted on 01/08/2013 10:45:29 AM PST by Kaslin
The Chicago Teachers Union is not just about looking out for its members’ interests. The union wants to fundamentally change America, too.
That shift occurred when the radical Karen Lewis was elected as its president two years ago. She’s best known for mocking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s lisp and for taking on - and defeating - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the district’s first teachers’ strike in a generation.
CTU leaders have been on a victory lap of sorts since the September strike, with union activists seeing themselves as protectors of union power during a time of membership decline and education reform at the state and local level.
They’ve also taken on the role of social activities, fighting for causes like the Occupy movement and gay marriage, which have nothing to do with education.
Some union leaders have called for violence and other radical tactics to achieve social goals.
When Lewis appeared at the Illinois Labor History Society’s “Salute to Labor’s Historic Heroes from the History Makers of Today,” she didn’t disappoint the crowd. She threw gasoline onto the fire of class warfare, and even mentioned mob killings of wealthy Americans.
“… Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them. Please understand that. However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages. The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just – off with their heads. They were seriously talking about that.”
Some in the audience laughed and clapped at her remark.
“I don’t think we’re at that point,” Lewis laughingly replied, without specifying when “that point” might arrive. “And that’s scary to most people. But the key is they think nothing of killing us. They think nothing of putting our people in harm’s way. They think nothing of lethal working conditions.”
She then used schools without air conditioning as an example of “lethal working conditions.”
The true labor leaders of the “robber baron” age would probably roll over in their graves and remind Ms. Lewis that she and her colleagues have it quite good.
Big salaries with an average income in the $70,000 range. Generous benefits and pensions. Limited work days and nine-month work years. What are these people complaining about?
Lewis also used the occasion to mock “job creators.”
“Which side are you going to be on? So are we going to be on the side of justice? Are we going to be on the side of a living wage for every person? Or are we going to be on the side of people whose entire mentality is based on a lie. ‘Job creators.’ Really? Then why have we lost so many jobs?”
With such a cynical, un-American attitude coming from their union president, does anyone really expect Chicago teachers to introduce students to the many virtues of the free market system, or the nobility of taking a risk to become an entrepreneur and therefore a “job creator”?
As domestic terrorist-turned-professor Bill Ayers acknowledged, leftists have the power in our schools and classrooms, and they’re taking full advantage.
The Chicago Teachers Union is the tip of the spear in terms of “social justice unionism.” It’s a union led by far-left radical activists who are determined to alter American society through our schools and children. Advocating for the interests of teachers is simply a means toward a larger and nastier goal.
“unions are just politicians giving money to themselves and overporked thugs like her feeding off of the serfs.”
One aspect of this issue that is overlooked by too many people is that many believe the Dems represent the teachers’ unions, while in fact it is the other way around. The Democratic Party is the political arm of the teachers’ unions (specifically teachers’ unions); that is why their token mouthpiece Obama, in dealing with this economic crisis, still has to give a shout-out for hundreds of thousands of new teachers. He and his party work directly for the teachers’ unions, and those public comments should have revealed this to any doubter.
One reason why Chris Christie is popular with taxpaying voters here in NJ is that he has clearly understood this for many years, he has publicly stated this, and he has taken action to protect taxpayers from the predatory teachers’ unions. EVERY OTHER ISSUE is secondary to the Dems; blacks and Hispanics are just cattle on which the unions base their demands for more money (despite the fact that large segments of both of these populations are functionally illiterate), and the unions will see that more of them are imported every year just to keep warm bodies in classrooms. Their actions are very destructive to other unions (the trade unions lose their work to illegals, and the cops and firemen lose their jobs when the larger teachers’ unions have to be paid first during fiscal tightening); but since they own the Dem Party it goes on and on.
This is the woman leading the walkout of 26,000 public school teachers in Chicago. Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union, is a loud-mouthed “social justice” radical whose Big Labor racket would rather abandon 350,000 children to the streets than accept merit-based pay,
teacher evaluations, and a 16 percent pay raise. The school board had already caved considerably on the union’s demands, but as the Chicago Sun-Times put it: “From the get-go, the union seemed intent on striking.”
Last night, Lewis mocked public charter schools that are defying the strike and doing their jobs as not “real” schools.
Derision is her specialty. Her tirades at teachers’ confabs are infamous. Don’t feel sorry for her when she moans about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bully tactics and trash mouth. Lewis has one of her own. Here she is bragging about smoking weed in college, cracking homophobic slurs about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s lisp, and whining about teachers being “demonized” at a “social justice” conference:
“’Continuing her pacing as she lectured about teaching for social justice, Lewis highlighted good differences, using herself as an example.
“I am the only black woman in the class of 1974 from Dartmouth College. Woo. People are impressed. Let me tell you, I spent those years smoking lots of weed, self-medicating. Self-medicating, thank you. Sounds like you all did to. Oh, I’m sorry there are kids here, I wasn’t suppose to say that right? Too late!””
Here’s Lewis chumming it up with former Communist Party leader Michael Klonsky, who praises her as a “fist-in-the-air, crowd-rousing, dynamic union leader.” Asked to explain increasing dissatisfaction with public education, Lewis blames lack of respect for government union teachers’ leaders on…”lower class students” and “students of color.” It’s always someone else’s fault:
” Karen Lewis” — in the youtube she looks, overfed....
Paging Captain Hyperbole....
I guess that I worked in a lot of lethal places, and never knew it.
Compared to other people in Chicago, teachers are rich.
Pity McCarthy didn't get to finish the job of clearing the S.O.B.s out.
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