Gord's Notebook : Racist Hate-Filled Officials In Selma Alabama Building Monument To Founder Of Domestic Terrorist KKK and Chicago Teachers On Strike Fighting Against the Obama/Democrats War on Teachers and Unions

Remembering 9/11 :On the tragic date of 9/11 3,000 American citizens were murdered since 9/11 over 1,500,000 non-Americans have been murdered in America's need for revenge and retaliation code named The Global War On Terror. Editor in chief Gord's Poetry Factory. See Notes at end of post.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The teachers' strike in Chicago is arguably one of the most important labor actions in probably decades... "If it does not prevail, you can be certain that the template for the attack on the union will be carried out across the country against other teachers' unions and against the last redoubt of union activity, which is in the public sector, of course — firemen and police." ... "It's always the ruling class that determines the parameters of rebellion and resistance. And the Chicago strike illustrates the bankruptcy of both traditional labor and the Democratic Party. And that's why the Occupy movement was so important."

Quote by Chris Hedges from Amy Goodmann interview of Hedges Sept. 11, 2012 at Democracy Now.

Many Americans including President Obama and His administration act as if racism in America only occurred in the distant past. Infact racism is part of the Republican Party's ideology and is still present in a more politically correct version or flavour among many Democrats and liberals who are reluctant to take on the issues of systemic racism in the American Media and in America's institutions such as its systenm of Justice and the Privatized Prison Industry.

Glenn Beck shows full support for Ted Nugents racist conspiracy hysteria regarding President Obama . Nugent is also a personal friend of Sean Hannity and other right-wing nuts and racists. Ted Nugent had threatened to kill Obama or possibly himself if Obama were re-elected-he refers to Obama at all of his performances as Unamerican, a commie/socialist and secret Muslim who wasn't born in America and other insane nonsense.

The below racist image is a screen shot from the current Ku Klux Klan website which of course preaches genocide of Black Americans and other minorities. This series of supposedly humorous bits whic are in fact offensive attacks on all African-Americans and have a few special episodes viciously attacking President Obama as being UnAmerican which is just part of his nature as a black man with power so these KKK racist argue .

Note in this picture from Klan Rally the prominent positioning of the Confederate Flag -and again Glenn Beck ,Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter,Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Dennis Miller etc. defend the use of the Confederate Flag on public buildings as a right even though most Americans see the Confederate Flag as a symbol of racism and as nostalga for what these characters whether Fox news or the KKK see as the "Good old Days" when African Americans were kept in their place.

Picture of KKK at rally circa 1920.

Picture below from screenshot

of KKK Website: KKK rally May 2012, NC.
website highlighting rally held in North carolina May 26, ~~1912~~2012.

Country singer Hank Williams Jr. accuses President Obama as being unAmerican and a secret Muslim. Fox News Channel and Hate-Talk Radio support him. He is also a favorite of Fox News, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck etc. See items at end of post on Hate Speech/Racism Fox News, Sean Hannity etc.

Today's stories we are following are:

firstly the unbelievable and disturbing story concerning the honoring by officials and politicians in Selma Alabama of the founder of the KKK and the public school teachers strike in Chicago which is part of a wider defense of the public school system in the USA.

Ku Klux Klan and their supporters defend placing a monument on public property in Selma Alabama of the founder of the KKK whom they consider an important heroic historical figure in the history of the South.

Most people think and quite rightly so that the KKK was not a positive force in the South but rather a violent brutal racist Dmesti Terrorists who terrorized Blacks leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent Black Americans mainly murdered and tortured and their bodies mutilated most notoriously at Public Lynchings attended by crowds of white citizens from a few hundred to thousands along with public figures and authorities such as business men , the local Sheriff and local politicians.

The actions and activities of the racist Klan should not be celebrated but rather condemned as a hate-filled Domestic Terrorist organization and its supporters then and now as the worst America has to offer. Unfortunately the reality in America is that there is still widespread systemic racism in the American system of Justice and its police forces and in the Prison industry alongwith Media personalities especially in Talk Radio and at Fox News Channel and even pop music stars such as Ted Nugent, Hank Williams Jr. and others who's views are supported by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and others.

Petitioning Selma City Council This petition will be delivered to: Selma City Council: No More Monuments to KKK Hate! by Malika Fortier with GrassrootsDemocracy.net at Change.org/petitions Sept. 10, 2012

People know Selma, Alabama as a city where Dr. King fought for civil rights. Selma was the launching point for pivotal protests that hurtled the voting rights movement into the national spotlight. It is also a city of tragedy: thousands of students, religious leaders, and families fighting for civil rights in Selma were arrested, injured, or brutally killed.

I grew up in Selma. Now, as a community organizer, I think often about the sacrifices of the people who lived here before me. I was outraged and ashamed to learn that Selma's city council is sitting idly by as a local neo-Confederate group expands a public monument to a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Monuments celebrating violent racism and intolerance have no place in this country, let alone in a city like Selma, where the families of those attacked by the Klan still live.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate military leader, a founding member of the KKK, and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. He wasn't even from Selma -- why should Selma be honoring his shameful legacy of racial segregation and terrorism?

If Selma wants be viewed by the rest of the country as forward-thinking, we cannot give in to those who pine for the "good ole days" of the 1860s. This monument has blighted our town for far too long. Please join me in calling on the Selma city council to remove the monument celebrating Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Meanwhile Obama and the Neoliberal war on teachers and public schools comes to a head in Chicago as the public school teachers go on stike . This strike is not merely about wages and benefits but about the survival of public education in Chicago and throughout the USA.

Education is a right not a privilege as the Neocons and neoliberals appear to believe. Education should not be the preserve of those who can afford to pay for an education at Schools for profit institutions but rather must be the right of all citizens.
Obama's opinions on education are no better than those of the neocons and the uberconsevative movement and the religious right who 's agenda is in the final analysis the underminining of the public schools in the USA to be replaced by privatized school system.

This could be a golden opportunity for president Obama to speak out in favor of the public school system and that it remain free for children across America . Whether or not Obama is ideologically tied to "schools for profit and privatization of the public schools or if he is merely trying to compromise with conservatives on this issue in the end Obama is not on the side of universal education across the board . The Right Wing both political and religious have been trying to undermine the public school system in the USA for some 30 years now and are getting closer to their goal even under the Obama administration.

So for all their speeches concerning the rights of all Americans the Democrats once again show they are on the side of the conservatives and the anti-public school forces .What has come to pass is that schools have become more like efficient factories in which the results are based upon test scores only rather than based upon educational and pedigogical principles. A liberal education is supposed to be more than being able to pass tests based on rote learning rather than understanding or increased intellectual abilities such as critical thinking and analysis thereby creating independent thinkers who can make better informed decisions as in the realm of politics and policy making.

Chicago Teachers Take Stand Against Corporate Education Reform - Common Dreams staff, Sept. 10, 2012

For the first time in a quarter century, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)—which represents educators, school clinicians, and support staff in the nation's third-largest school district—is on strike today after weekend negotiations with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) ended on Sunday without agreement on contract disputes that have been ongoing since June.

Karen Lewis, president of the CTU, speaking at a press conference late Sunday night, said: "We are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We will talk to the community. We will talk to anyone who will listen—we demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members accept, we will be on the [picket] line."

More than 29,000 employees are participating in the strike which impacts over 350,000 students citywide.

Embattled Democratic Mayor Rahm Emmanuel called the teachers' action "a strike of choice," but opponents of the mayor's corporate education reform agenda respond by saying that the policies proposed are simply destroying public education in the city and, because of Chicago's connection to President Obama, the impact of the resistance to such measures has national implications.

As Pauline Lipman, professor of education and policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago and member of Teachers for Social Justice, told Democracy Now! on Monday, "Chicago was the birthplace of this neoliberal corporate reform agenda of high-stakes testing. Paying teachers based on test scores—dis-investing in neighborhood schools and then closing them and turning them over to charter schools... [That was] really a model which was picked up by cities around the country and then made a national agenda when Arne Duncan, who had been the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, became Obama’s secretary of education."

Now, says Lipman, the Chicago Teachers Union, backed by union leaders like Lewis, have made Chicago the "epicenter of the pushback" against such measures.