Thursday, March 28, 2013

Where is CTU Mastermind Jesse Sharkey in Chicago Media Coverage of CTU Outrage? The Reds are Denouncing Jesse and Karen Lewis



"Let's not pretend that when you close schools on the South and West sides, the children affected aren't black," Lewis said. "Let's not pretend that's not racist." Chicago Tribune

Amid growing opposition to planned school closures and consolidations in Chicago, Illinois, a March 4 Socialistworker.org article entitled “Rahm's scorched-earth assault on our schools” crudely attempts to re-write the history of events surrounding the assault on public education in the city.Socialist Worker, the publication of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), seeks to whitewash the role of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), in which it has a leadership position. ISO member Jesse Sharkey is the current vice president of the CTU. Far from opposing the closure of schools, the CTU and the ISO have collaborated in implementing the Obama administration's school “reforms” with Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel. WSWS

Wow, hard to get happy after that one, Jesse. Who's the racists?  You? Karen? Rahm? Arne "Demosthenes" Duncan? President Obama? Whom to believe?

Here is the Chicago Media coverage of yesterdays Occupy the Loop with Karen & Jesse & CTU & SEIU lalapalooza singing like Joan Baez with VISA commercial contract and then there is the World Socialist Web Site going all Stalin on ISO member and CTU VP Jesse Sharkey the Karl Rove of the XXX Red Shirts.

The difference is that Jesse Sharkey is invisible in the Chicago Media coverage, while Jesse Sharley is universally denounced as a running dog counter-revolutionary Obama/Rahm stooge in the authenticist Lefty organs.

Denunciation is as Lefty as a Saul Alinsky Hoe-Down on WTTW, or a Studs Terkel Fashion Retrospective.
The Chicago news organs dedicated to whomever they take their daily meme rations has some old-timey Public Radio-worthy copy - let's begin with this pearl from the Medill sausage -

Among those who were sitting on LaSalle Street in front of City Hall hoping to be arrested in an act of civil disobedience was Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1. He said he was demonstrating to show that massive school closings are "not the right direction. This is not the way to really solve the problem in education."
Balanoff said he had been arrested in acts of civil disobedience "many times over the years."
"It's as American as apple pie," he said.
Sing me some Joe Hill, there Union Maid!

Then we have the Sun Times which not only trotted out compelling "it's about the children" laments from real folks, but also this bit of nonsense news -

Elementary education expert and professor Bill Ayers — whose ties to President Obama sparked controversy because of Ayers 1960s radicalism — was in the crowd in support of teachers and kids like his granddaughters who attend CPS schools.
“The assault on public education and abandonment of these communities has to be resisted,” Ayers said. “How can we abandon public education at this point in history and move away from the one thing that’s going to give people hope for the future, and that is a solid powerful education.”

Makes you want to bomb something, don't it?

There is the obligatory accounts of Chicago's Ed.- Zeppelin CTU President Karen Lewis tossing race-cards at Rahm like so many Frisbees and third person narratives about Dr. Bennet-Byrd and Mayor Rahm and the mention of Aldermen who really, really, really care - Ricardo Munoz, Bob Fiorreti and. of course America's favorite family guy Rev. Jesse Jackson -unquoted.

No Jesse Sharkey*?

Salon, a clearing house for smug Progressive shouting, quotes Jesse Sharkey ISO/CTU with this fiery hammer and sickle that somehow went unmentioned in Chicago's reportage:

“The only thing that’s like it( Rahm's Murder of Schools) is Hurricane Katrina,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey of the potential devastation, “except this is being done on purpose.” ( parenthetical my own)


The WSWS goes on to really give Karen and Jesse a comeuppance -


The ISO closes its article with the claim, “As the CTU rightly argues, we should oppose all school closings and stand up against Rahm's scorched-earth war on public education...”
This too is a lie. Lewis made it clear on the second day of the strike that CTU accepted the mayor’s plan to shut down schools. The main concern of the CTU leadership was to ensure that school shutdowns be carried out with the collaboration of the union and not unilaterally by CPS.
Lewis told the Chicago Tribune September 12, “We understand the whole movement of closing schools and doing it aggressively... we either do this together in some reasonable way or we will always be fighting, and I think the key is that the people that are making these decisions want to make them unilaterally.”
In the aftermath of the strike, during a November episode of Chicago Tonight, CTU Vice President Sharkey said nothing to oppose what he termed the “unpopular policy” of school shutdowns, and instead advised that it need be carried out in an orderly fashion. “There’s no point in closing schools until there is a plan in place.”
Speaking at a union organized rally earlier that month, Sharkey said, “What the school board should do is take a year off. Have a moratorium on school closings and have a real process where there is a study of plans and the people who are part of the coalition here, the parents, the community and the teachers of Chicago have real input into what happens to our schools.”
This “real input” has been a series of sham hearings on the school closures and consolidations, where thousands of parents, teachers and students have voiced their opposition to the closures.
On February 11, CTU president Karen Lewis released a video announcing CTU would be sending organizers to assist those displaced by school closures. She admonished teachers—many who will be losing their jobs, and many more whose teaching conditions will become much more difficult after the closures—to support the CTU's efforts to do so.

Which side are you on, Bill Ayers, you elementary education plutocrat?

Why is Chicago's media taking the side of capitalists?

HOW much longer will Americans be satisfied with the endless Progressive Banquet of Bullshit?




                    Here's a good start - send you kids to a Catholic School.


* 24 hour Jesse Sharkey News:


  

1 comment:

Jim Bowman said...

Media? Start with today's Progressive Sun-Times, splashed all over with pro-protest pix and stories. Couple news story lines for Rahm and fiscal troubles, plus please-teachers-stop-it editorial, and rest is Go CTU!

Page one splashed with Rahm pic and fiscal-trouble argument, paired with street-theater performers? Something to show dilemma? Nope.