Teacher Unions

Teachers’ Unions Push Progressive Ideology | Armstrong & Getty

Published by Papa Giorgio

Armstrong and Getty read from the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON’S article titled “From Court Packing to Climate Change, Teachers’ Unions Push Progressive Priorities as Test Scores Plummet”

MUST WATCH:

The Machine: The Truth Behind Teachers Unions

NEA general counsel Bob Chanin explained it well in July 2009:

  • It is not because we care about children, and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues …”

This upload of mine will marry well wit my post found here:

Can You Quantify Our Form of Government Into Simple Equations?

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is an old video, but someone just posted it on a Facebook group — what follows is my Facebook response as well as additional thoughts. Here is the video that prompted the below:

On the surface I can understand how someone would FEEL this describes reality. But our body politic is more complex than the above video would like to prescribe as reality. In fact, the video sets up a straw man [something that does not exist], and then attacks it as if it were the case.

Here is my response on Facebook:

FACEBOOK RESPONSE

Hey, I know our system is corrupted… but the video notes at around the 30-second mark:

  • This axis represents the likelihood of Congress passing a law that reflects any of these ideas from 0% to a 100% chance on this graph, an ideal republic would look like this: if 50% of the public supports an idea, there’s a 50% chance of it becoming law. If 80% of US support something, there’s an 80% chance.

I am sorry. That idea is explaining an ideal Democracy, which our Founders wholeheartedly rejected.

It reminds me of a call of a young black man into the Larry Elder Show where Larry was getting clarification [if he had misheard the young man], or, confirmation [if he had heard the man correctly].

Larry mentioned that “Ferguson is 57% black. What percentage of the arrest should be black people?

The caller responded: “57.”

Larry goes on to make an analogy about the NBA being a majority black players and asks – rhetorically – why the NBA isn’t 70% white? He answers himself by saying that the NBA is based on merit…

Similarly, Larry notes, arrests are based on crime. Not race. Arrests are merit based. So the PERCENTAGES don’t always match population.

Just like in a Republic. You have three forms of “checks and balances” that are supposed to be based in the Constitutional limiting of federal government powers and metering out state control over what is not clearly enumerated for the federal government to act on.

THIS has become corrupted over time, granted, but the “exact percentage” of something “becoming law” [in this video] does not reflect at all – all the variabilities in the struggle to pass something. The Founders didn’t want it easy like 60% says “a” therefore “a” should happen or become law.

In a pure Democracy however, the percentages would match. This video is made during a time where the Dems were [and still believe] pushing for the Electoral College to be abolished. This would effectively be a main driver to getting us to a pure Democracy. Something no one should want:

James Madison (fourth President, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the “father” of the Constitution) – “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general; been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams (American political philosopher, first vice President and second President) – “Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration) – “A simple democracy… is one of the greatest of evils.”

Fisher Ames (American political thinker and leader of the federalists [he entered Harvard at twelve and graduated by sixteen], author of the House language for the First Amendment) – “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction.  These will provide an eruption and carry desolation in their way.´ /  “The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.”

Governor Morris(signer and penman of the Constitution) – “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate… as [it has]  everywhere terminated, in despotism….  Democracy!  Savage and wild.  Thou who wouldst bring down the virtous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.”

John Quincy Adams (sixth President, son of John Adams [see above]) – “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

Noah Webster (American educator and journalist as well as publishing the first dictionary) – “In democracy… there are commonly tumults and disorders…..  therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government.  It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”

John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence) – “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Zephaniah Swift (author of America’s first legal text) – “It may generally be remarked that the more a government [or state] resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.”

(MORE HERE)

Take note that as well Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution reads:

  • “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government…“

Not “republican,” as one “political party, the GOP,” but as a “form” of government. So what is an example of the corruption of the “Consent of the Governed”?

[….]

Having discussed issues FOR YEARS with those on the other side of the aisle, I knew the response would still be similar to the caller into the Larry Elder Show. There is a “disconnect” on the Left that just doesn’t pick up simple underlying ideas. Here is the response as well as me responding…

[….]

…END OF MY FB RESPONSE… adding more info for my reader.

An important phrase in my mind’s eye is the phrase, “Consent of the Governed.” That is found in the Declaration of Independence. Here is an excerpt of the idea/phrase via the Declaration of Independence:

  • We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

Here are two large excerpts about this from THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION that I wish to share so the reader understands that the topic isn’t as “neat and tidy, or, simple” as the OP video makes it out to be with simple percentages.

[CONSENT]

…Part of the reason for the Constitution’s enduring strength is that it is the complement of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for a government that exercises legitimate power by “the consent of the governed,” and it defined the conditions of a free people, whose rights and liberty are derived from their Creator. The Constitution delineated the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the creed of human liberty proclaimed in the Declaration.

Justice Joseph Story, in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution (1840), described our Founding document in these terms:

We shall treat [our Constitution], not as a mere compact, or league, or confederacy, existing at the mere will of any one or more of the States, during their good pleasure; but, (as it purports on its face to be) as a Constitution of Government, framed and adopted by the people of the United States, and obligatory upon all the States, until it is altered, amended, or abolished by the people, in the manner pointed out in the instrument itself.

By the diffusion of power–horizontally among the three separate branches of the federal government, and vertically in the allocation of power between the central government and the states–the Constitution’s Framers devised a structure of government strong enough to ensure the nation’s future strength and prosperity but without sufficient power to threaten the liberty of the people.

The Constitution and the government it establishes “has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect,” George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address (1796), because it is “the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment.”

The Constitution was born in crisis, when the very existence of the new United States was in jeopardy. The Framers understood the gravity of their task. As Alexander Hamilton noted in the general introduction to The Federalist,

[A]fter an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal govern­ment, [the people] are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.

Several important themes permeated the completed draft of the Constitution. The first, reflecting the mandate of the Declaration of Independence, was the recognition that the ultimate authority of a legitimate government depends on the consent of a free people. Thomas Jefferson had set forth the basic principle in his famous formulation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That “all men are created equal” means that they are equally endowed with unalienable rights. Nature does not single out who is to govern and who is to be governed; there is no divine right of kings. Nor are rights a matter of legal privilege or the benevolence of some ruling class. Fundamental rights exist by nature, prior to government and conventional laws. It is because these individual rights are left unsecured that governments are instituted among men.

Consent is the means by which equality is made politically operable and whereby arbitrary power is thwarted. The natural standard for judging if a government is legitimate is whether that government rests on the consent of the governed. Any political powers not derived from the consent of the governed are, by the laws of nature, illegitimate and hence unjust.

The “consent of the governed” stands in contrast to “the will of the majority,” a view more current in European democracies. The “consent of the governed” describes a situation where the people are self-governing in their communities, religions, and social institutions, and into which the government may intrude only with the people’s consent. There exists between the people and limited government a vast social space in which men and women, in their individual and corporate capacities, may exercise their self-governing liberty. In Europe, the “will of the majority” signals an idea that all decisions are ultimately political and are routed through the government. Thus, limited government is not just a desirable objective; it is the essential bedrock of the American polity.

[CHECKS AND BALANCES]

A second fundamental element of the Constitution is the concept of checks and balances. As James Madison famously wrote in The Federalist No. 51,

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind necessity of auxiliary precautions.

These “auxiliary precautions” constitute the improved science of politics offered by the Framers and form the basis of their “Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican Government” (The Federalist No. 10).

The “diseases most incident to Republican Government” were basically two: democratic tyranny and democratic ineptitude The first was the problem of majority faction, the abuse of minority or individual rights by an “interested and overbearing” majority. The second was the problem of making a democratic form of government efficient and effective. The goal was limited but energetic government. The constitutional object was, as the late constitutional scholar Herbert Storing said, “a design of government with the powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and responsibly.”

The particulars of the Framers’ political science were catalogued by Madison’s celebrated collaborator in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton. Those particulars included such devices as representation, bicameralism, independent courts of law, and the “regular distribution of powers into distinct departments;’ as Hamilton put it in The Federalist No. 9; these were “means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.”

Central to their institutional scheme was the principle of separation of powers. As Madison bluntly put it in The Federalist No. 47, the “preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct,” for, as he also wrote, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Madison described in The Federalist No. 51 how structure and human nature could be marshaled to protect liberty:

[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.

Thus, the separation of powers frustrates designs for power and at the same time creates an incentive to collaborate and cooperate, lessening conflict and concretizing a practical community of interest among political leaders.

Equally important to the constitutional design was the concept of federalism. At the Constitutional Convention there was great concern that an overreaction to the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation might produce a tendency toward a single centralized and all-powerful national government. The resolution to such fears was, as Madison described it in The Federalist, a government that was neither wholly federal nor wholly national but a composite of the two. A half-century later, Alexis de Tocqueville would celebrate democracy in America as precisely the result of the political vitality spawned by this “incomplete” national government.

The institutional design was to divide sovereignty between two different levels of political entities, the nation and the states. This would prevent an unhealthy concentration of power in a single government. It would provide, as Madison said in The Federalist No. 51, a “double security. .. to the rights of the people.” Federalism, along with separation of powers, the Framers thought, would be the basic principled matrix of American constitutional liberty. “The different governments;’ Madison concluded, “will controul each other; at the same time that each will be controulled by itself.”

But institutional restraints on power were not all that federalism was about. There was also a deeper understanding–in fact, a far richer understanding–of why federalism mattered. When the delegates at Philadelphia convened in May 1787 to revise the ineffective Articles of Confederation, it was a foregone conclusion that the basic debate would concern the proper role of the states. Those who favored a diminution of state power, the Nationalists, saw unfettered state sovereignty under the Articles as the problem; not only did it allow the states to undermine congressional efforts to govern, it also rendered individual rights insecure in the hands of “interested and overbearing majorities.” Indeed, Madison, defending the Nationalists’ constitutional handiwork, went so far as to suggest in The Federalist No. 51 that only by way of a “judicious modification” of the federal principle was the new Constitution able to remedy the defects of popular, republican government.

The view of those who doubted the political efficacy of the new Constitution was that good popular government depended quite as much on a political community that would promote civic or public virtue as on a set of institutional devices designed to check the selfish impulses of the majority As Herbert Storing has shown, this concern for community and civic virtue tempered and tamed somewhat the Nationalists’ tendency toward simply a large nation. Their reservations, as Storing put it, echo still through our political history.[1]

It is this understanding, that federalism can contribute to a sense of political community and hence to a kind of public spirit, that is too often ignored in our public discussions about federalism. But in a sense, it is this understanding that makes the American experiment in popular government truly the novel undertaking the Framers thought it to be.

At bottom, in the space left by a limited central government, the people could rule themselves by their own moral and social values, and call on local political institutions to assist them. Where the people, through the Constitution, did consent for the central government to have a role, that role would similarly be guided by the people’s sense of what was valuable and good as articulated through the political institutions of the central government. Thus, at its deepest level popular government means a structure of government that rests not only on the consent of the governed, but also on a structure of government wherein the views of the people and their civic associations can be expressed and translated into public law and public policy, subject, of course, to the limits established by the Constitution. Through deliberation, debate, and compromise, a public consensus is formed about what constitutes the public good. It is this consensus on fundamental principles that knits individuals into a community of citizens. And it is the liberty to determine the morality of a community that is an important part of our liberty protected by the Constitution.

The Constitution is our most fundamental law. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land.” Its translation into the legal rules under which we live occurs through the actions of all government entities, federal and state. The entity we know as “constitutional law” is the creation not only of the decisions of the Supreme Court, but also of the various Congresses and of the President.

Yet it is the court system, particularly the decisions of the Supreme Court, that most observers identify as providing the basic corpus of “constitutional law.” This body of law, this judicial handiwork, is, in a fundamental way, unique in our scheme, for the Court is charged routinely, day in and day out, with the awesome task of addressing some of the most basic and most enduring political questions that face our nation. The answers the Court gives are very important to the stability of the law so necessary for good government. But as constitutional historian Charles Warren once noted, what is most important to remember is that “however the Court may interpret the provisions of the Constitution, it is still the Constitution which is the law, not the decisions of the Court.”[2]

By this, of course, Warren did not mean that a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court lacks the character of binding law. He meant that the Constitution remains the Constitution and that observers of the Court may fairly consider whether a particular Supreme Court decision was right or wrong. There remains in the country a vibrant and healthy debate among the members of the Supreme Court, as articulated in its opinions, and between the Court and academics, politicians, columnists and commentators, and the people generally, on whether the Court has correctly understood and applied the fundamental law of the Constitution. We have seen throughout our history that when the Supreme Court greatly misconstrues the Constitution, generations of mischief may follow. The result is that, of its own accord or through the mechanism of the appointment process, the Supreme Court may come to revisit some of its doctrines and try, once again, to adjust its pronouncements to the commands of the Constitution.

This recognition of the distinction between constitutional law and the Constitution itself produces the conclusion that constitutional decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, need not be seen as the last words in constitutional construction. A correlative point is that constitutional interpretation is not the business of courts alone but is also, and properly, the business of all branches of government. Each of the three coordinate branches of government created and empowered by the Constitution–the executive and legislative no less than the judicial–has a duty to interpret the Constitution in the performance of its official functions. In fact, every official takes a solemn oath precisely to that effect. Chief Justice John Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), noted that the Constitution is a limitation on judicial power as well as on that of the executive and legislative branches. He reiterated that view in McCullough v. Maryland (1819) when he cautioned judges never to forget it is a constitution they are expounding.

The Constitution–the original document of 1787 plus its amendments–is and must be understood to be the standard against which all laws, policies, and interpretations should be measured. It is our fundamental law because it represents the settled and deliberate will of the people, against which the actions of government officials must be squared. In the end, the continued success and viability of our democratic Republic depends on our fidelity to, and the faithful exposition and interpretation of, this Constitution, our great charter of liberty.

[1] Herbert J. Storing, “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” in Joseph M. Bessette, ed., Toward a More Perfect Union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing (Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1995).

[2] Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1922-1924), 3 vols., 470-471.

ALL this plays a role in us getting laws.

As an example of how “judicial activism” changes an outcome of a vote that a stae has a right to vote on (BECUASE the enumerated powers in the Constitution were not clear and thus the states get to decide):

  • The meaning of marriage.

So a slight majority of California voters voted to say marriage is between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. One federal judge [Judge Vaughn Walker — himself a gay man] overturned the will of the California people. I think this judge was acting in an “activist” manner, but there is a way to overrule his decision legally… and the percentages to do so were not present, plus the Supreme Court wrongly interfered in this as well — like with Roe v. Wade.

The above is all arguable of course between out varying views of politics — that is not the point.

The POINT IS that this dynamic interferes with “simple math/percentages” idea of those that wish to have a pure democracy.

By way of another point showing the complexity of outcomes not being easily “mathematized,” take the 9th Circuit Upper Court. In 2012, The U.S Supreme Court reversed 86% of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that it reviewed. WOW. That is a clear sign of something going on — like Judicial activism. (And this was the time-period where the Supreme Court was more left leaning than now.)

Now however, the Court has moved less from a “the Constitution is a living and breathing document” idea (the progressives view); to a more originalist idea based in president and the authors intent (a conservative view).

  • “Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.

So the outcome of the judicial case regarding such cases like Proposition 8 may end up being much different when in front of the upper courts.

How do you quantify something like that into percentages or fractions?

HINT: You can’t.

So, I noted way up in my Facebook comment that I agree that our form of government is corrupt. I did give an example in my Facebook response that I did not include above — that I will here. And while this example deals with just one aspect, you can apply this to both sides of the aisle in their attempt to distort the will of the people in proper representation in order to aquire power and privilege.

More on this from around the time it was released at REASON.ORG’s post. Here is the video description:

America’s public education system is failing. We’re spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.

That’s because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn’t designed to produce better schools. It’s designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians.

For decades, teachers’ unions have been among our nation’s largest political donors. As Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has noted, the National Education Association (NEA) alone spent $40 million on the 2010 election cycle (source: http://reason.org/news/printer/big-ed…. As the country’s largest teachers union, the NEA is only one cog in the infernal machine that robs parents of their tax dollars and students of their futures.

Students, teachers, parents, and hardworking Americans are all victims of this political machine–a system that takes money out of taxpayers’ wallets and gives it to union bosses, who put it in the pockets of politicians.

Our kids deserve better.

(With all that in play in the above video… how does that make mathematical equations in outcomes of voting an easy course of action?)

An example of how the corruption in education distorts the will of the people. In a recent survey, 79% of Black parents supported vouchers, 74% supported charter schools, and 78% supported open enrollment. Roughly three in four Black parents (78%) support education savings accounts, which are becoming increasingly popular across the country. This percentage is much higher even than the national average of two-thirds (67%).

You would think that we would already have school choice, however, through the bedfellows of interest groups, unions, and Big-Government (Crony Capitalism, or, Crony Corporatism) — we have outcomes that stifle choice.

All that is debatable as well… but again:

  • How do you quantify that?

Most Racist Movement Since the Nazis

Published by Papa Giorgio

The below are some old posts combined circa:
January 2018 / March 2018 / August 2018 / January 2021 / March 2021/UPDATED Oct 2023

Hat-Tip to BREITBART:

…Following Schumer’s quota-based logic, Prager asked if the share of Jews within the judiciary should be reduced in pursuit of proportionate ethnic representation:

  • I wonder, if [Chuck Schumer] thinks [the judiciary] should look like America — I’m just curious, since I’m a Jew, I can ask this question, because if a non-Jew asked this he’d be accused of anti-Semitism — so I would like to know, I’ll bet you that the proportion of judges who are Jewish is greater than the proportion of Jews in the society. Would Chuck Schumer like to see fewer Jews in the judiciary so that the judiciary looked like the American population? Is that an unfair question? I’m serious, is it unfair? If he’s serious about what he said, does he think Asians overrepresent? Does he feel this way about sports?…

Rogan & Maher Discuss Today’s Woke Progressives — Bill Maher Just Leveled Woke Progressives With the Most Damning Comparison Ever: “They believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan.”

And we can’t forget Schumer’s explicit racist policies to help get him elected into government waaaay back when:

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s “Race-Card” Backfires!
 Jay Homnick Discusses Sen. Schumer’s Bigoted Past

Jay D. Homnick is interviewed about his 2006 American Spectator article on U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (NY), entitled, “RACE TO THE TOP“.

….What Schumer explained to these audiences was as follows. If they elected him to the State Assembly, he would put forth a bill that would create a set of provisions, ostensibly to “help” the underprivileged urban blacks. It would identify those apartment buildings on Ave. K as being in a state of some dilapidation, requiring an extensive facelift and revamping of the apartments. I don’t recollect with certainty if ownership would be assumed by the State itself or one of those “community rehabilitation organizations” that served as the instrument of choice for soaking up large sums of government money for the stated purpose of redeveloping slums.

The residents would then all be relocated into government or government-subsidized housing in other areas while the apartments were being renovated. At the end of the process, the individual apartments would be redefined as co-ops or condominiums to be sold to private owners. Although on paper the current tenants would be given priority for the right to purchase the newly upgraded condos, we could be sure that — ha, ha, ha — the blacks would not be able to raise the cash required, which would be not inconsiderable.

The presumption was that by then they would have grown comfortable in their new surroundings and they would not feel victimized by the process. The refurbished apartments would be purchased by white people and, shazzam, the neighborhood sore spot would be fixed. I am ashamed to say that the people bought into this mean-spirited and racist proposition. On top of its other faults the idea was also chimerical, with no real chance of working in the political reality of our time.

In the end, construction was done on those buildings through some sort of government project, but all the black people remained. Naturally no one could complain, because their original intent was not something that could be publicized. So there it is, the inside scoop on how Charles Schumer, the patron saint of anti-racism, rose to power in a Brooklyn neighborhood….

This is important because (a) it is noted that the media has not asked Sen. Schumer about this — whereas if he were a Republican I am sure everyone’s 12-year-old to the oldest infirmed member of the family would have heard about this “racism.” (Read here media bias.) And secondly (b), it brings into context all the “holier than thou” attitude Chuckie Boy has been spouting as of late. TO WIT… Senator Chuck Schumer tells Stephen Colbert that, yeah, of course Donald Trump’s a racist

Rich Weinstein (@phillyrich1) has many more at his TWEET — he says he is “old enough to remember when the Dems didn’t think ‘Monkey Around’ was racist.”

Firstly, at the very end of this upload, Maryam Qudrat, a parent who called out the teacher union’s almost fascistic obsession with race mentions they are trying to create a race war. Thomas Sowell as well mentions this in a 2013 National Review article: “Early Skirmishes in a Race War”

Larry Elder discusses the latest regarding Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), L.A.’s largest teachers union. This woman is a radical Marxist. She pushed the self-admitted Marxist organization Black Lives Matter onto teachers and children. She has close ties to Bernie Sanders, and is really a racist at heart.

(Remember, you can change the quality of the video in the settings icon)

THE BIG FINISHER!

Do you know what’s going on in your kid’s school? The three R’s – reading, writing, and arithmetic – have taken a back seat to a fourth R. Max Eden, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explains what that fourth R is, and why it’s so destructive.

Note my growing stories on IBRAM X. KENDI.

COUNTER NARRATIVE!

Renowned political science professor Carol Swain started out life with every possible disadvantage. She ended up teaching at two of the most prestigious universities in the country. How did she do it? She shares her story and her wisdom in this inspiring video.

FLASHBACK

I get “Whitesplained” to about white privilege by snowflakes!

(Posted late 2015)

I posted this earlier this morning as part of a LARGER POST… but it deserved to stand alone:

The above is somewhat — already — true:

This (the above and below) comes from EAG.org, here is part of the post by them, which can be linked to below:

…EAGnews has previously reported about the social justice math activists’ tricks in a book called “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers,” edited by Peterson.

The book includes “lessons and essays about racial profiling, environmental racism, unfair mortgage lending practices of Big Banks, the ‘overabundance of liquor stores’ in minority communities, and slave-owning U.S. presidents,” EAGnews’ Ben Velderman wrote.

“The book’s other major theme is that capitalism’s unequal distribution of wealth is the root cause of the world’s suffering. Students learn to despise free market economics in lessons about third-world sweatshops, ‘living wage’ laws, the earnings of fast food workers and restaurant CEOs, and the ‘hidden’ costs of meat production,” Velderman reported.

In the book, Peterson explains his rationale for attacking the American narrative:

“I figure that if kids start questioning the ‘official story’ early on, they will be more open to alternative viewpoints later on. While discovering which presidents were slave owners is not an in-depth analysis, it pokes an important hole in the godlike mystique that surrounds the ‘founding fathers.’”

Unionists now can’t even leave math alone and have hijacked it to push their own political agenda.

Thank goodness a growing number of parents have access to charter schools, cyberschools, voucher schools and homeschools – all of which provide an alternative to government schools, many of which have been infiltrated by left-wing activists like Lewis and Peterson.

(EAG NEWS)

Another example can be found in this story (there are too many to note here): Physics Teacher Develops Unit About Racism, White Privilege, Social Justice

See also:

During this interview, the “individual” came up. Why is this important? Because in totalitarian movements the individual is extinguished (which is opposite of our countries [the USA] documents). Below are some quotes from the socialist movement in Germany as an example. Here are the four parts mentioned in the above interview:

Why is the individual “being lambasted” (as mentioned above) important?

…Hitler noted that his task was to “convert the German Yolk to socialism  without simply killing off the old individualists.” Hitler informed Wagener that the task was to “find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution.” Hitler also admitted that Marx and Lenin had the right goal, but the wrong route.

[….]

Even the school textbooks were heavily peppered with opinions which exhibited a strong bias against free enterprise and capitalism. For example, a 1943 geography textbook stated: “Until the National Socialist takeover, the German economy followed the principles of economic liberalism, which held that a nation’s economy could develop irrespective of its natural economic foundations. If the National Socialist economic plan was to be successful in reviving the German economy, all participants in economic life had to be convinced of National Socialist economic thinking. In the economy too, the guiding principle had to be: The common good comes before the individual good.”…

Nevin Gussack, The NAZI War Against Capitalism (Self Published, can order on Amazon), 10, 26.

The reason I got the above book is because of some comments by Bernie Sanders, and the fact that Hillary’s voting record is as leftist as this self-avowed democrat-socialist (which the NAZI’s were). Democrats like Bernie, even having Ronda Rousey coming out in support of. I recalled this quote from a biography of Hitler I read:

  • “We are socialists, we are ene­mies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” — Hitler

One may wish to read my “SCANDINAVIAN SOCIALISM” post for more info on Nordic socialism’s failure.

(See also: 128 ‘Artists And Cultural Leaders’ Sign Open Letter Endorsing Bernie Sanders)

Objectivity Is Impossible And It Is Also Undesirable — Zinn

Published by Papa Giorgio

CALIFORNIA POLICY and AMERICAN GREATNESS has this quote that I wish to add to my Howard Zinn vault:

…..The irony here is that the planned protests were hosted by the Zinn Education Project, whose approach to history is based on Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States. Published in 1980, the book became extremely popular and still dominates our nation’s classrooms. Zinn maintained that teaching history “should serve society in some way” and that “Objectivity is impossible and it is also undesirable.” When called on the carpet for writing a history book that played very fast and loose with the facts, the author freely admitted it, saying that his hope in writing the book was to cause a revolution.

At least Zinn was honest enough to admit that he was a liar. There’s no indication that the union troofers will go that far. Or perhaps they really believe that their lies are the truth. Either way, the troofers’ actions are very much akin to those of the Big Bad Wolf, and the nation’s children are Little Red Riding Hoods. That story had a happy ending, but the current version has yet to reach its climax.

Racist and Bigoted Teacher Unions of Los Angeles

Published by Papa Giorgio

Firstly, at the very end of this upload, Maryam Qudrat, a parent who called out the teacher union’s almost fascistic obsession with race mentions they are trying to create a race war. Thomas Sowell as well mentions this in a 2013 National Review article: “Early Skirmishes in a Race War”

Larry Elder discusses the latest regarding Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), L.A.’s largest teachers union. This woman is a radical Marxist. She pushed the self-admitted Marxist organization Black Lives Matter onto teachers and children. She has close ties to Bernie Sanders, and is really a racist at heart.

(Remember, you can change the quality of the video in the settings icon)

This is really FASCISM proper. Dennis Prager explains:

More from BREITBART:

…Following Schumer’s quota-based logic, Prager asked if the share of Jews within the judiciary should be reduced in pursuit of proportionate ethnic representation:

I wonder, if [Chuck Schumer] thinks [the judiciary] should look like America — I’m just curious, since I’m a Jew, I can ask this question, because if a non-Jew asked this he’d be accused of anti-Semitism — so I would like to know, I’ll bet you that the proportion of judges who are Jewish is greater than the proportion of Jews in the society. Would Chuck Schumer like to see fewer Jews in the judiciary so that the judiciary looked like the American population? Is that an unfair question? I’m serious, is it unfair? If he’s serious about what he said, does he think Asians overrepresent? Does he feel this way about sports?

Having members of one’s race represented politically or within the government does not afford one tangible benefits, said Prager:

So what does that mean exactly? The judiciary is supposed to racially reflect the racial composition of American life? And why, exactly? Why is that a ideal that it looks like the American people? What benefit is there? [The left] speaks constantly of a racist society and the problems of the black underclass — which is a problem worth speaking about, incidentally. So I always ask, “Name me one benefit that having all the black mayors and all the black congressmen that we have has accrued to black life.” I would like to know one single tangible benefit.

There are virtually — I’ve always pointed this out — no Asian congressmen, Asian governors, Asia judges — well, maybe some Asian judges — and they are the most successful community in the United States of America. … There is zero correlation between having your race represented in Congress or the judiciary and benefits to your race. Zero. This is all a fraudulent appeal to pure racial thought in the United States. The left is the most racist movement since the Nazis. I’m not comparing the left to Nazis, they’re not opening up death camps, they’re not rounding up people to send to gas chambers, I’m totally aware of that, and nothing in imputed in what I just said to suggest that. I’m merely stating a fact. The most racist doctrine since Nazism is modern leftism. That’s it. This is how they think. They think in terms of race.

Prager regularly describes the left as subscribing to a political trinity of race, gender, and class.

Here is a good short noting of the above via FREEDOM WIRE:

…In Los Angeles, a radical socialist who spoke at a national socialist convention last year has taken over as the head of the teacher’s union in the nation’s second-largest school district.

Cecily Myart-Cruz is a major player in the Black Lives Matter Movement and intends on forcing LA schools to bend to the will of BLM.

The Daily Wire reported her statements as follows: “‘We need to have a set of demands that dovetail with Black Lives Matter,’ Myart-Cruz continued. ‘We have to have massive political education. People will say, ‘Not all police are bad,’ but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about racism as a social construct, systemic and institutional racism, and wrapped on top is white supremacist culture, which is the dominant culture. So as educators, how are we going to equip ourselves to become anti-racist, not for ourselves but for our students? We serve a school district with a 90% free-and-reduced lunch student population. We have to move the needle. It’s imperative to move the needle around racial and social justice.’

‘I see teaching as a revolutionary act, just the way I see organizing,” Cecily Myart-Cruz, who captured almost 69% of the vote, has said.”…

Other Resources used for this upload are as follows:

  • LA teachers’ union refuses to budge on school reopenings: ‘Structural racism’ (FOX NEWS)
  • Black Parents Plan School Reopening Rally After Teachers Union Claims White, Rich People Are Behind Push To Reopen (DAILY WIRE)
  • Afghan-American mom slams ‘racist’ LA teachers union for asking her ethnicity when she pushed to reopen schools – after they said only ‘white wealthy parents’ want children to return classrooms (DAILY MAIL)
  • South LA parents say they want schools to reopen, disagree with UTLA president’s remarks (FOX 11 LOS ANGELES | YOUTUBE VIDEO)
  • Mom accuses UTLA of conducting racial opposition research on parents pushing for in-person classes (FOX 11 LOS ANGELES VIDEO)
  • Black parents slam Los Angeles teachers’ union boss for blaming push to reopen on white, wealthy parents (POST MILLENNIAL)
  • ‘Propagating structural racism’: LA teachers union head blasts state’s school reopening plan — and ‘white, wealthy parents’ for rushing return (THE BLAZE)
  • Lee Ohanian: Inflation Is the Cruelest Tax (THE LARRY ELDER SHOW YOUTUBE)

Cali School Hypocrisy: Berkeley Federation of Teachers President

Published by Papa Giorgio

PJ-MEDIA:

A group of moms calling themselves “Guerilla Momz” have released a video of Matt Meyer, Berkeley Federation of Teachers President, taking his own child to in-person private school while public school kids in his district sit at home. Parents are fed up with teachers’ unions refusing to open schools and now they’re doing something about it.

A statement by the group calls for the end of the hypocrisy.

  • Matt Meyer Berkeley Federation of Teachers President blocks opening public schools in-person, yet has had his own child in in-person school since June 2020. Stop the hypocrisy. Our children are suffering. Open schools full-time Now…..

VIDEO DESCRIPTION

Matt Meyer Berkeley Federation of Teachers President blocks opening public schools in-person, yet has had his own child in in-person school since June 2020. Stop the hypocrisy. Our children are suffering. Open schools full-time Now.

Authorization to use: To all news organizations and other parties, you have my permission to copy, use, and replay this video, provided you do not use my name or otherwise reveal my identity.

Thank you.

If you wish to interview someone from our group, DM @GuerillaMomz on Twitter Background of video: This video was taken on February 18th 2021 by a single person. Extract of Matt Meyer speech from BUSD school board meeting on January 20th.

MORE AT:

Totalitarian [Total Thought]: “Hard Work Is Racist”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Armstrong and Getty play a video showing people trying to stop others from simply getting gas. Then they discuss how work environments are getting 1984’ish… with demand for an almost “Totalitarian” way of thinking (“total thought” – you are no longer an individual).

….These are the dirty dozen hallmarks of “white-supremacy culture” that school administrators are directed to avoid:

  1. Perfectionism
  2. Sense of Urgency
  3. Defensiveness
  4. Quantity over Quality
  5. Worship of the Written Word
  6. Only one right way
  7. Paternalism
  8. Either/or thinking
  9. Power Hoarding
  10. Fear of Open Conflict
  11. Individualism
  12. Progress is Bigger, More
  13. Objectivity
  14. Right to Comfort

Chancellor Carranza’s openly race-based perspective is explosive. His 14-point mandatory training program assumes “implicit bias” and “white privilege.” His directive creates reverse discrimination and a doctrine of “toxic whiteness.”…..

(BLACK REPUBLICAN)

Here are some links:

  • Do You Feel A Sense of Urgency? According to This Study, You Might Be A White Supremacist (TWITCHY)
  • Do You Strive For Perfection? You Too Might Be A White Supremacist (TWITCHY)
  • Cult Programming In Seattle: The City Is Training White Municipal Employees To Overcome Their “Internalized Racial Superiority” (CITY-JOURNAL)
  • The Characteristics Of White Supremacy Culture: From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001 (SJW-WEBSITE)
  • What Is White Supremacy? (POWERLINE)
  • College Director: “Every White Person in This Country Is Racist” (CAMPUS REFORM)
  • More Colleges Implement Mandatory Anti-Racism Courses (CAMPUS REFORM)

Charter Schools and Their Enemies | Thomas Sowell’s New Book

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder Interviews the Great Economist and thinker, Thomas Sowell. Larry asks Sowell about Biden, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Coronavirus Shutdown, baseball, and more… Sowell just released his new book on Charter Schools and the education system, “Charter Schools and Their Enemies” (Interview Date 7-1-2020)

The day before this show was recorded, Dr. Thomas Sowell began his 10th decade of life. Remarkably on one hand and yet completely expected on the other, he remains as engaged, analytical, and thoughtful as ever. In this interview (one of roughly a dozen or so we’ve conducted with Dr. Sowell over the years), we delve into his new book Charter Schools and Their Enemies, a sobering look at the academic success of charter schools in New York City, and the fierce battles waged by teachers unions and progressive politicians to curtail them. Dr. Sowell’s conclusion is equally thought provoking: If the opponents of charter schools succeed, the biggest losers will be poor minority children for whom a quality education is the best chance for a better life.

Dennis Prager had Thomas Sowell on his show to discuss Doc Sowell’s new book, “Charter Schools and Their Enemies”. The publisher mentions this about the book:

  • The black-white educational achievement gap — so much discussed for so many years — has already been closed by black students attending New York City’s charter schools. This might be expected to be welcome news. But it has been very unwelcome news in traditional public schools whose students are transferring to charter schools. A backlash against charter schools has been led by teachers unions, politicians and others — not only in New York but across the country. If those attacks succeed, the biggest losers will be minority youngsters for whom a quality education is their biggest chance for a better life. 

Professor John Eastman Discusses the SCOTUS Cases and More

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder interviews Professor John Eastman in regards to the recent Supreme Court decisions and the nomination process for Justice Kennedy’s replacement. Discussion about the Courts purpose and how States should have more say, and audio of Kennedy attacking Bork is added (the start of this whole politicization of the nomination process BTW). Enjoy.

School Choice (+The Machine)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Below video description) Poor students deserve just as good an education as rich students, right? So why are so many stuck in failing public schools? Denisha Merriweather, who benefited from school vouchers, explains the problem and the solution.

(Take the pledge for school choice! http://www.schoolchoicenow.com) 

(Below video description) Can every child receive a good education? With school choice and competition, yes. The problem? Powerful teachers unions oppose school choice. Rebecca Friedrichs, a public school teacher who took her case against the teachers union all the way to the Supreme Court, explains why school choice is the right choice.

(Below video description) America’s public education system is failing. We’re spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.

That’s because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn’t designed to produce better schools. It’s designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians.

For decades, teachers’ unions have been among our nation’s largest political donors. As Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has noted, the National Education Association (NEA) alone spent $40 million on the 2010 election cycle (source: http://reason.org/news/printer/big-ed…). As the country’s largest teachers union, the NEA is only one cog in the infernal machine that robs parents of their tax dollars and students of their futures.

Students, teachers, parents, and hardworking Americans are all victims of this political machine–a system that takes money out of taxpayers’ wallets and gives it to union bosses, who put it in the pockets of politicians.

Our kids deserve better.

New York’s Public School’s Spend $20,226 Per Below Average Pupil

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was feeling the steak salad at TILT THE KILT, so I grabbed my newest copy of THE CITY JOURNAL and a book I am reading “Contradict: They Can’t All Be True,” and headed over. I must look like a COMPLETE idiot as I have my faced buried in either of the two… just glancing up to see if there is a change of score in the Blackhawks game (the only thing good to come out of Chicago… that and it’s school of economics [back-in-the-day]). Some good articles in the City Journal this time around. One was so interesting that I scanned a bit of it for others to read.

But before you do — two things. 1) promise to watch “Waiting for Superman” in the future, as well as 2) watching the video directly below, now. The video below is one — even if already seen — will refresh the visuals of what the below article explains:

So you know, UFT stands for United Federation of Teachers, and is the largest teacher union in New York. Here is a portion of the article:

…The UFT has been especially effective because, unlike other interest groups in the city, it gets two bites at the apple—through collective bargaining and through politics. Three structural features of the collective bargaining process skew in the UFT’s favor. First, even in the best-case scenario, in which the city fights for the children’s interests and the union battles to protect its teachers, the result would be something in between—that is, an outcome not fully in the interest of students. Second, the city is a near-monopoly provider of education. Absence of competition reduces pressure on the city to drive a hard bargain with the UFT, while lessening incentives for the union to moderate its demands. Third, the UFT contributes cash and campaign assistance to the politicians with whom it negotiates. To the extent that the UFT backs winners, the union ends up on both sides of the bargaining table. Consequently, negotiated outcomes favor the UFT over time.The United Teachers Federation (UFT) represent most of New York’s public schools, so you understand the acronym below:

In the political arena, no group in New York City can rival the UFT’s manpower and money. Most of its 116,000 members hold college and graduate degrees, making them more likely to be politically active. The union also collects huge sums in dues, which are automatically deducted from members’ paychecks. Each UFT member pays, on average, approximately $600 a year in union dues, bringing the union’s annual revenues to about $70 million—much of it reserved for paying union officials’ salaries, contributions to state and national federations, rent for office space, and the costs of collective bargaining. The UFT also maintains a Committee on Political Education, sponsored by members who voluntarily donate anywhere from 50 cents to ten dollars out of their biweekly paycheck for explicitly political purposes. The fund hauls in more than $10 million a year, about $3 million of which goes for lobbying and protests.

Thanks to its massive war chest, the UFT has become the Democratic Party’s largest underwriter in New York City and State. (It is also a major donor to the left-wing Working Fam­ilies Party.) Over the last two years, the union has given $1.7 million to city council candidates—all Democrats. According to the National Institute for Money in State Politics, in 2012 (as in most years before and since), the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), largely a state-level extension of the UFT, was the Empire State’s big­gest contributor to candidates and parties in state politics. Seventy-nine percent of the NYSUT’s S1.2 million in contributions went to Democrats.

In his book Special Interest, Stanford University political scientist Terry Moe found that from 2000 to 2009, teachers’ unions’ cam­paign contributions exceeded those of all other business associations in New York State combined by a ratio of five to one. And most business groups don’t try to influence education policy so single-mindedly.

The UFT and the Democratic Party in New York are intertwined in other ways. For ex­ample, the union provides office space—next door to its headquarters at 50 Broadway in Manhattan—to the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. Then—UFT president Randi Weingarten served as cochair of Hillary Clinton’s 2000 senate campaign. Not surpris­ingly, during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Senator Clinton dismissed the idea of teacher-merit pay as disruptive. A revolving door of consultants, campaign operatives, and lobbyists connects the UFT and the campaign staffs of state legislators and city council mem­bers. Many liberal interest groups in the city—such as Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, 1199 SEIU Healthcare Workers East, and other public-employee unions—are, for the most part, UFT allies. The union also helps fund other ad­vocacy organizations, such as U.S. Action and the NAACP, and think tanks, such as Demos and the Economic Policy Institute, whose loy­alty it can rely on in a pinch.

The UFT’s membership constitutes the larg­est single voting bloc in mayoral elections. And because teachers and school paraprofessionals live in all parts of the city, they can be decisive in low-turnout city council races. The UFT’s get-­out-the-vote operation is rivaled only by its ally, SEIU 1199. In 2013, de Blasio was elected mayor with just 752,604 votes in a city of 8.4 million people. Fully 42 percent of voters said that they belonged to a union household.

The UFT also spends millions each year lob­bying city council members and state legisla‑tors. According to the New York State Ethics Commission, the union spent $1.86 million in Albany in 2012. And the New York Public Interest Research Group re­ports that the NYSUT, to which the UFT contributes substantial revenues, was the state’s second-biggest lobby­ing spender in 2010, plunking down $4.7 million. (The Healthcare Education Project, a vehicle of SEIU 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association, was first.)

The UFT’s extensive political activities en­sure that the school system continues to serve the needs of teachers first. The union’s enduring objectives—better pay, benefits, and job protec­tions for its members—are divorced from issues of student achievement, as New York’s declin­ing school performance since the unionization of teachers in the 1960s makes clear. By 1990, nearly 40 percent of freshmen entering high school had been held back in earlier grades, while 23 percent of students dropped out of school altogether. In 1994, only 44 percent of students graduated from high school in four years. Only one in three third-graders could read at or above grade level in 1997….

[….]

All this spending means that the New York City school system now lays out $20,226 per pupil — double the national average of $10,608 — based on census data released in May 2014.

Daniel DiSalvo, The Union That Devoured Education Reform, The City Journal (Autumn 2014), 12-13, 16.