It will come as a surprise to precisely zero of those paying any attention at all that the nation's largest teacher's union, the National Educators Association, is decidedly liberal.
By making regular contributions to left-wing front groups such as People for the American Way and MediaMatters, it's not as though they are trying at all to hide their affiliation, and, quite frankly, union bosses are free to spend donated money as they see fit.
When conservative teachers, unfortunately a small minority among America's educators, arrived at a recent convention, though, they reported an overwhelming Obama love-fest impossible to ignore. From a huge banner on which teachers were encouraged to write glowing endorsements of the president's failed record, to free t-shirts prominently displaying Obama's name, GOP-supporting teachers could scarcely escape the Democrat onslaught.
That is, of course, unless they ventured into the basement of the convention hall, where the Republican Educators Caucus had a small table adjacent to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Teachers Caucus. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I have a feeling someone planned that arrangement to get a rise out of morally traditional (or as liberals would say, intolerant and out of touch) Republican teachers.
Understandably, one teacher complained that conservative teachers often feel like "stepchildren," both of the NEA and GOP, since both groups effectively write them off as unimportant to their greater cause.
The NEA president himself was forced to defend a Republican teacher being booed for going off the plantation with her views.
A union that has never endorsed a GOP presidential hopeful and only supports the most moderate (or liberal) Republicans in any race is obviously not shy about its political views. Completely disregarding a segment of its due-paying members, though, shows a complete lack of respect for anyone espousing a difference of opinion.
The only way liberals have secured their position of power in education, and other institutions, is through this process of intimidation of those they can control and disdain for those they cannot.
Photo credit: Jeffrey Beall (Creative Commons)
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