Will the ALA Oppose Economic Terrorism? Stephen Lerner of the SEIU Spells Out Battle Plans Against America, a Perfect Non-Library Issue for the ALA to Sink Its Teeth Into

Click to watch:
"UNCUT TAPE: Former SEIU
Official Reveals Secret
Plan To Destroy
JP Morgan"

The American Library Association [ALA] takes on many non-library issues, often with the excuse that library patrons or librarians are affected by the non-library issues.  Patrons, librarians, and libraries themselves will certainly be directly and negatively affected by the economic terrorism about to be unleashed on the United States, allegedly.

Will the ALA take a position against this?  Here are media reports of the words of people planning to bring an end to the American way of life as we know it:

• "Caught On Tape: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America," by Henry Blodget, Business Insider, 22 March 2011.

• "Revealed — The Left's Economic Terrorism Playbook: The Chase Campaign by a Coalition of Unions, Community Groups, Lawmakers and Students to Take Down US Capitalism and Redistribute Wealth & Power", by Naked Emperor News, The Blaze, 22 March 2011.  (Contains cut and uncut recordings of the alleged economic terrorists themselves, including allegedly Stephen Lerner of the SEIU, describing how to "bring down" America and "create moments like Madison."  What a coincidence!  The ALA supports moments like Madison!)

• "What to Make of SEIU Official's Supposed Socialist Fantasy Plan," by John Hudson, National Journal, 22 March 2011.

MMfA Agrees:  Economic Terrorism

Even George Soros-supported Media Matters for America admits "[c]alling for strikes and civil disobedience is tantamount to 'economic terrorism'...."

Will the George Soros-supported ALA speak out against this economic terrorism to protect patrons, librarians, and libraries?  Let's look at other non-library issues the ALA addresses.  The ALA:

• Opposes parents seeking to protect children, even mocks those who protect children.
• Opposes the radicalization hearings.
• Opposes airport security.
• Opposes more accurate school books about America.
• Supports less accurate school books about Cuba.
• Supports privacy rights of terrorists.
• Supports the Fairness Doctrine.
• Supports the Red-Green alliance.
• Supports unions seeking to overturn elections.
• Supports the "healthcare public option."
• Supports keeping books about ex-gays out of libraries.
  
• Supports anonymously astroturfing for George Soros-supported Free Press and net neutrality.
• Supports animal cruelty depictions.
• Supports "gay marriage."

All this from a "library" association that, in reality, changed over 40 years ago with the influence of the ACLU—even ALA members can't stand the ALA's political tilt.  Anyone see a pattern?

I thought this would be a perfect non-library issue for the ALA to sink its teeth into, precisely because there will be no more libraries, no more ALA, if the economic terrorism succeeds as planned.  Anyone think the ALA will oppose economic terrorism?


NOTE ADDED 23 MARCH 2011:

See also: "Steve Lerner's Plan," by Ezra Klein, The Washington Post, 23 March 2011.


NOTE ADDED 24 MARCH 2011:

See also: "Glenn Beck, Economic Terrorist; The Fox Bully's Crusade Against Progressives Who Want to Fix the Economy is Getting Ridiculous," by Joan Walsh, Salon, 23 March 2011.

This Salon article is remarkable as it supports the economic destruction of the United States, "I certainly endorse Lerner's analysis," and does so in part by using personal attack on those reporting on the imminent economic terrorism, among other techniques used to get people to look the other way.

The personal attack path is not unremarkable.  Indeed here's a story pointing out how Media Matters "resort[ed] to an ad hominen [sic] attack on Beck": "The Sound of Silence: Media Ignores Stephen Lerner's Revolutionary Plan to Bring Down US Economy," by Emily Esfahani Smith, The Blaze, 23 March 2011. (I note this Blaze article, in my opinion, indirectly refers to this SafeLibraries blog post as part of a "handful of opinion blogs" that discussed the Stephen Lerner speech.)

How does his relate to the ALA?  The ALA uses personal attack to smear people as well so as to distract others from the real issues.  For just one example, consider how the ALA labeled every single person who complied with ALA directives to file material reconsideration complaints as censors.

Birds of a feather....

NOTE ADDED 7 OCTOBER 2011:

Now that plans to try to destroy the United States as being united under the US Constitution are coming to fruition, the Progressive Librarians Guild has decided to join in:

From: Mark C. Rosenzweig [mailto:iskra@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 1:58 AM
To: plgnet; Council srrt; mem; biblio-progresistas
Subject: [member-forum] Progressive Librarians Guild Supports "Occupy Wall Street"

PLG statement on Occupy Wall Street -  10/06/11

The Progressive Librarians Guild supports the initiative of the Occupy Wall Street protest and the movement it has sparked, with manifestations all across the U.S.

We applaud the commitment and creativity being shown in providing a space for the articulation of opposition to the whole apparatus of the one-sided class war against workers, unions, the poor, immigrants, minorities, people of color, women, students and other sectors which make up the vast majority of Americans. We applaud the movement's resistance to the greed,,injustice and inequality which is corroding the fabric of American society  and its desire to imagine and help build a better future ,starting right now , for all Americans, by freeing ourselves from the destructive grip of unaccountable elites , insatiable profiteers and ruthless and cynical corporate plunderers.

We note that the Occupy Wall Street community has seen the need to create a "library" as part of its essential infrastructure even under the very difficult conditions under which the occupation has to operate in the streets. We call upon members of the Progressive Librarians Guild and all librarians of conscience to assist the movement with resources and technical aid. Please support the Occupation movement, document its development and report back to the library community to encourage greater understanding and wider support among our colleagues and in our communities.

PLG Coordinating Committee

Here is a better picture of what these librarians actively support that supposedly Occupy Wall Street "sparked":

• "Video Exposing How 'Occupy Wall Street' was Organized from Day One by SEIU/ACORN Front – The Working Family Party, and How They All Tie to the Obama Administration, DNC, Democratic Socialists of America, Tides and George Soros," by Naked Emperor News, The Blaze, 7 October 2011.

Now the ALA can no longer remain silent as the Progressive Librarians Guild has dragged it into the frey with all its violence, hatred, anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, queer kids kill your parents, etc.  Will the ALA speak out?  I'll wager it will join in.

Oh look, there's AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka visiting the Occupy Wall Street library the Progressive Librarians Guild supports.

If the USA becomes Marxist as a result of what is happening now and everyone suffers as a result or are murdered by the millions as happens in such societies and has already been planned for the USA, the ALA will happily change its name to the MLA and won't mind missing a few million library patrons.

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Past ALA Prez Defames Scott Walker As a Murderer

American Library Association [ALA] Past-President Michael Gorman has labeled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker a murderer.  Isn't that defamation per se?  (The ALA officially supports union rights: "Look For the Union Label at the ALA.")

The graphic at right shows others who have made false claims of murder and had to answer for them, like Jack Murtha.  How is what Michael Gorman said about Scott Walker any different from a defamation perspective?

See if you agree with my opinion based on the following Library Journal article, hyperlinks mine:

"Wisconsin Librarians' March Merges with Tractorcade," by Sharon McQueen, Library Journal, 14 March 2011:

In a show of support to the librarians' march, as well as in tribute to the Wisconsin labor rights struggle in general, American Library Association past president Michael Gorman drafted new lyrics (see below) for "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night," entitled "Scott Walker's Nightmare."

....

SCOTT WALKER'S NIGHTMARE

(A long way after "Joe Hill")

I dreamed I saw some unionists
Striding down our way.
"Guys," said I, "You're ten days dead."
"We never died" said they,
"We never died," said they.

"But Scott Walker killed you guys,
He smashed you up," said I.
"Takes more than jerks to kill us off,"
Said they "We didn't die,"
Said they "We didn't die."

They were standing there as big as life
And smiling with their eyes.
Said they "What they can never kill,
Go on to organize,
Go on to organize!"

From Eau Claire down to Fond du Lac
In every working hall
Where unionists defend their rights
It's there you'll find us all,
It's there you'll find us all!

I dreamed I saw some unionists
Striding down our way.
"Guys," said I, "You're ten days dead."
"We never died" said they,
"We never died," said they.

Michael Gorman

Maybe "Scott Walker's Nightmare" will rightfully become Michael Gorman's nightmare, only 7x24x365.


NOTE ADDED 9 JUNE 2012:

• "'Kill Scott Walker': Angry Libs Flood Twitter with Death Threats After Wisconsin Recall Defeat," by Twitchy Staff, Twitchy, 6 June 2012.

Teachers Need Collective Bargaining to Override Courts and Local Boards So School Children May Access Material Otherwise Unfit For School Curricula, Says NYU Professor Jonathan Zimmerman

NYU Professor Jonathan Zimmerman

Collective bargaining by public teacher unions is now being recommended by New York University Professor Jonathan Zimmerman as the means to override courts and local school boards so school children may access material unfit for school curricula.

Let that sink in.  In the midst of the current public union power grab, that the American Library Association [ALA] supports, by the way, some professor is actually suggesting teachers unions should have the power to use collective bargaining as the means to remove the power of school boards and school superintendents or even the courts to set course curricula.  Local control?  Wiped out.  Safe libraries?  Gone.  You will do as the public unions say and you will submit your children to their control.  David Horowitz is right.

The court case the professor specifies as needing to be overcome with collective bargaining is discussed in my previous post entitled, "Court Backs Local School Control in Evans-Marshall v Board of Education; ALA Loses Another Means to Propagandize Local Communities."

Zimmerman, a former public school teacher, derides the judicial system as a means to promote collective bargaining:

• "'The right to free speech ... does not extend to the in-class curricular speech of teachers in primary and secondary schools,' the court declared.  That's why teachers still need collective bargaining, which lies at the heart of this winter's bitter battles over public-employee unions."  
• "Alas, our courts have lost sight of the difference."  
• "Now that the courts have gutted teachers' academic freedom, however, the only way they can retain it will be via collective bargaining."

With teachers like Dee Venuto, imagine what would happen if public teachers unions began dictating what will be taught in public schools:  "School Media Specialist Passes Sexual Content Review to Students; Dee Venuto Says It Is Discrimination to Keep Children From Material Including Lengthy, Vivid Descriptions of a Ménage a Trois."

See that graphic saying "boy to man" showing people having anal sex and two Boy Scouts looking on?  Dee Venuto cried to her students when the book containing that graphic was removed from the Rancocas Valley Regional High School despite her calls to the ALA for support.

What, Professor Zimmerman, does that graphic have to do with "teaching democracy"?  How will that help children to "reason, criticize, and debate"?  Why is Dee Venuto still making over $85K per year, not including benefits, when she stated in a New Jersey Education Association magazine that she cannot perform the job for which she was hired, instead leaving book selection to students, thereby exposing them to inappropriate material?  Better yet, why will public teacher unions be better at deciding what's best for children than school boards, school superintendents, and the courts that back them up? 

Professor Zimmerman is essentially arguing that school children should access material that a court or a school board or superintendent would preclude or remove for being unfit for any class curriculum, and that the means to force this on local communities is with public union collective bargaining agreements.

That aligns with the ALA policy of unlimited access for children despite numerous court cases saying otherwise.  No wonder the anything-goes ALA sent a link to Zimmerman's article to hundreds of its members.  By the way, the ALA is using George Soros funding to produce and distribute a "privacy" curriculum for school grades K-12.

Read this for yourself to see why I have reached the opinion I have.  It's unbelievable:

"In Fight for Workers, Free Speech is At Stake; Teachers Must Not Give Away Fundamental Freedoms," by Jonathan Zimmerman, The Inquirer, 1 March 2011:

The ProFessors, by
David Horowitz

In 2001, high school English teacher Shirley Evans-Marshall gave her class a copy of the American Library Association's "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books."  She asked her students to choose a book on the list and explain why it was controversial.

But the assignment itself was too controversial for Evans-Marshall's Ohio school district, which declined to renew her contract.

Evans-Marshall sued, claiming a violation of her First Amendment rights.  And last year, a federal appeals court ruled that she didn't have any - at least not in her own classroom.

"The right to free speech ... does not extend to the in-class curricular speech of teachers in primary and secondary schools," the court declared.

That's why teachers still need collective bargaining, which lies at the heart of this winter's bitter battles over public-employee unions.

But the plight of Evans-Marshall also speaks to the unique role of school teachers in a democracy.

Unlike the other workers that you see protesting outside of state capitols, teachers are charged with instructing young Americans about their responsibilities and rights as citizens.  That won't happen if we hamstring teachers' own rights, by lumping them together with everybody else.

Yet that's precisely what our courts have done.  The ruling in Shirley Evans-Marshall's case relied on the 2006 Supreme Court decision Garcetti v. Ceballos, which said that public workers have no First Amendment rights when they are speaking as part of their "official duties."  The state hires the worker to deliver a message, the court said, so the state can also discipline employees who deviate from it.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

That might be an appropriate rule for, say, a clerk at the motor vehicles administration.  Not so for a teacher, who is enjoined to help young people learn how to reason, criticize, and debate.  Teachers do not simply work for a democracy; they're supposed to teach it.  And that requires a much greater degree of freedom than other public employees receive.

Alas, our courts have lost sight of the difference.  So when Indiana teacher Jane Mayer told her class that she had honked her car horn in support of a rally against going to war in Iraq, her school district refused to rehire her.  Invoking Garcetti, a federal appeals court ruled in 2007 that Mayer had no right to deviate from the school-approved curriculum.

"A teacher hired to lead a social-studies class can't use it as a platform for a revisionist perspective that Benedict Arnold wasn't really a traitor, when the approved program calls him one," the court declared.

But we should want our teachers to question whether Arnold was a traitor, and whether the war in Iraq is a good idea.  And if the courts won't defend this freedom, then teachers will have to do it themselves.

That's where collective bargaining agreements come in.  Historically, these agreements have protected teachers' salaries, benefits, and pensions.  Now that the courts have gutted teachers' academic freedom, however, the only way they can retain it will be via collective bargaining.

But here, too, we're moving in the opposite direction.  In Jane Mayer's native Indiana, the state Senate passed a measure last Tuesday that would limit teachers' negotiating rights to wages and benefits.  In Shirley Evans-Marshall's Ohio, meanwhile, Republicans put forth a bill to end teachers' collective-bargaining rights altogether.  Last Wednesday, they agreed to a revised proposal that would restrict teachers' bargaining to wages.

The fiercest battleground is still Wisconsin, where all the tumult began.  Early Friday morning, its Assembly passed a bill that would bar collective bargaining by public workers on everything except - you guessed it - their wages.  Now the focus shifts to the Senate, where Democrats have staged a walkout in order to avoid a vote on the measure.

One objective of these bills is to get workers to contribute more to their health and pension plans, by taking these plans off the negotiating table.  The broader goal is to rein in the breadth and power of public-employee unions, which Republicans charge with putting too great a strain on state coffers.

They might be right.  And like other public workers, teachers could reasonably decide to make some bread-and-butter concessions in these difficult economic times.  But I hope they will never sign away their freedom in the classroom, or their right to bargain for it.  A teacher cannot live by bread - or butter - alone.  And neither can a democracy.

---

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth.  He is the author most recently of "Small Wonder:  The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).  He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com. [© Copyright 2011 Philadelphia Media Network Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinting under Copyright Fair Use.]


NOTE ADDED 5 MARCH 2011:

If teachers unions take control of public schools as Jonathan Zimmerman is suggesting, then, in addition to the specific Dee Venuto example above, here is a broader story that is directly relevant:

• "NEA to UN: 'Oral Sex, Masturbation, and Orgasms Need To Be Taught in Education," by Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs, 3 March 2011.

Let me add that this is the very same National Education Association that recommends members read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.  For more on that, see, "NEA Recommends Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals," by A Conservative Teacher, A Conservative Teacher, 12 November 2009.

And this is funny but true:

Hat tip:  "Teachers Unions Explained," by West Bend Citizen Advocate, WISSUP = Wisconsin Speaks Up, 5 March 2011.


NOTE ADDED 7 MARCH 2011:

"Milwaukee Teachers Drop Viagra Suit," by AP, Madison.com, 7 March 2011.  "The Milwaukee teachers union has dropped a lawsuit seeking to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.  ....  Attorneys for the union and school board didn't immediately return messages."

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