DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF RADICAL CHIC AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Chicago Teachers Union Is Exactly Who You Thought They Were.
If you spend any time on social media, you have likely heard about the latest outrage from my city’s Cthulhu-like public sector behemoth, the Chicago Teachers Union: On Friday afternoon, to note the death of radical left-wing Sixties terrorist Assata Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) in Cuba, the CTU’s X account issued the following statement:
Rest in Power, Rest in Peace, Assata Shakur.
Today we honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a fierce writer, a revered elder of Black liberation, and a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle.
Assata refused to be silenced. She taught us that “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Keep in mind, as Noah Rothman eloquently explained yesterday afternoon, that Shakur was a cop-killer who escaped from prison to live the rest of her days in a totalitarian country. My readers tend to be a fairly savvy bunch, so I suspect many of you are asking yourselves why a teachers’ union would have felt the need to celebrate the passing of an infamous American terrorist murderer. (For those wondering — because it occurred to me to check — Shakur was never a teacher herself, unless her job was to instruct people in criminal undertakings.)
But while this question may puzzle out-of-towners, it makes all the sense in the world to us locals. The Chicago Teachers Union is (as I have explained many times in these pages) arguably the single most radical major union in America, a throbbing, graft-bloated parasite attached to Chicago city government the way a tick burrows deep into a pig. And much like a tick, the CTU isn’t content merely to suck money out of the city’s taxpayers. It gives back as well — in the form of Mayor Brandon Johnson, former CTU lobbyist and current laughingstock of America.
Sure, but they’re just crazy radical chic-obsessed Chicago teachers. It’s not like America would ever have a president who palled around the Chicago area with an unrepentant former terrorist who eventually went into education himself…