By J.J. Jackson
Eventually liberalism turns on itself and starts eating its own. Evil always does.
If you want to see liberalism devouring itself, Chicago is a great petri dish to observe. There liberals are always pitted against other liberals as they vie for an ever shrinking piece of the pie. Those insisting on a bigger slice do not realize the fact that the pie keeps getting smaller because of liberalism in the first place.
Look at this past week for an example of why Chicago is a perfect case study in how liberalism consumes itself. You have Rohm Emanuel, Mayor and far leftist who used to be President Obama's left hand man. You have the Chicago school board, all liberals. Then you have, finally, the teacher's union whose leadership and membership act like perfect little soldiers of Karl Marx. And all three are in conflict.
All three are vying for power and money. Rahmbo and the school board are dealing with an unpleasant reality, a reality that none of them understand, but that is a reality nonetheless. There simply is not enough money to keep funneling into the black hole that is the failed Chicago school system. Nevertheless, the teacher's union and their members are clamoring for more and more money for themselves.
Point of note number one: Chicago 's teachers are already among the highest paid in the nation at $76,000 average salary [1].
Point of note number two: Chicago schools are some of the worst performing in the state of Illinois [2] with 7 of the bottom 10 schools residing in the city.
Conclusion: Simply dumping money into the system, paying teachers a boatload of cash, and keeping teachers who do not perform does not solve the problem.
Yet there are the teachers, who are failing to educate our children, striking and demanding more for not educating our children. They have turned down a 16% raise (something only government workers get these days) over 4 years. They are demanding raises, job security, and benefit guarantees. At the same time, they are fighting tooth and nail against an evaluation process designed to weed out teachers not earning their already hefty salaries. Only in a liberal haven like Chicago !
What is worse is that the teachers who are striking are mindless zombies jumping because they are being told to jump. Some of the signs the useful idiots are carrying are very illustrative of this point.
For example, one of the signs carried by the communist red clad strikers said: "Schools for PEOPLE not for profit."
Question for that useful idiot. How much "profit" did she make last year? Did she pocket anything? Oh, you know she did! You can be certain she did not donate her time. But then again, she's a liberal so don't expect her to understand her own hypocrisy. It's ok for her to "profit", just not anyone else.
One sign I have seen a lot reads: "I AM a teacher!"
Yes, but the question is are you a GOOD teacher and did you EARN your paycheck? See, that's the point of the testing program the school's wants to institute. But the bad teachers and the union leaders are so frightened that they might be found that they will not allow such things.
Another sign by the AFL-CIO Local #1 reads: "On strike for better schools"
Well, they certainly can't get much worse! I say stay on strike! Then the school district can hire new teachers to replace the incompetent, lazy teachers with a sense of entitlement who are currently teaching our children. That way schools might actually get better! Not what the unionistas mean, but the truth none-the-less.
Then there is the crazy woman hanging out of a school bus window with a sign: "Students before bankers."
Huh? That's just nonsensical. But ok, let's go with it!
The teacher's union, I am sure, has this moron's pension invested with a banker somewhere. Let's take that money away from the banker, and her, and write every student a check instead. Let them do with it as they please. If they opt to go and get an education, great! If they choose to sit around and smoke crack, so-be-it. But make them sign a waiver saying they understanding that there will be no future benefits if they adopt the later approach.
Then when this yummy brain decides she wants to retire, she'll no doubt rant and scream about where her money is. We will just point back to the photographic evidence of her philosophy and remind her that her money, once held by bankers, went to the students instead.
Oh, and by the way, considering that the strike she supports left 400,000 students out of school, the sign should actually read, if it were honest, "MYSELF before students."
Seriously, I have never seen as big a bunch of whiners! Or idiots for that matter. There is something seriously wrong with the mentality engrained in many of our teachers these days. Note I said "many". I did not say "all" or even "most". But there are many who feel they are entitled to be teachers if they simply want to be teachers. Yet the rest of us actually have to prove ourselves competent at our profession in order to keep our jobs. And we don't get guaranteed raises every year because of a contract. No, we have to prove ourselves worthy every year when evaluation time rolls around.
I feel sorry for those teachers who are actually good teachers. There are many of them. But the display in Chicagoland gives even those good teachers a bad reputation.
Personally I would let them keep striking and hire replacement teachers. We need people teaching our children who actually want to teach. We don't need people who look at the profession as a scheme to make nearly twice as much as the average Chicago resident paying their salary does.
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/contract-issues-chicago-teachers-strike-17224244
[2] http://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=bottom10&level=3
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J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.
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