Will the Real Terrorist Please Raise Your Hand

by Michael Arvey

OpEdNews.com

The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, put both feet in his mouth by remarking in a speech recently to the nation's governors that the National Education Association (NEA) is a terrorist organization. Apparently the secretary's rationale for the assertion goes something like this: The NEA, a 2.7 million member teachers' union that supports the Democratic Party,  has voiced disgruntled views regarding what they believe is President Bush's underfunded and inadequate No Child Left Behind Act; therefore, as the logic unfolds, they are perceived as "obstructionists" and hence are dangerous terrorists. 

Even though Paige apologized and claimed he had spoken in jest and was referring to local members in the D.C. area, his comment can only be construed as inflammatory, propagandistic hate speech. In response, let's throw one right down the middle: Paige's charge has much to do with the fact the NEA is unionized and sides with the Democratic Party, and nothing to do
with the ambitions of would-be terrorists. This ludicrous, phony smear is simply another notch in the right's larger strategy of pursuing a controlled
demolition of teacher unions infused with democratic, political prowess, and of privatizing public education with a transparent ruse, the voucher system. As a recent editorial at www.blackcommentator.com  informs, "The Bush men are determined to convert the U.S. Department of Education into the incubation of a private school system, funded by the public." Who says
the right hates socialism?

Even so, the right's rising crescendo of histrionic attacks on democracy, labor and liberties is ubiquitous in design and application. When a secretary
of education, for example,  labels 2.7 million educators as terrorists, he displays a tactic that's increasingly prevalent in Bush's America: promulgate a
negative perception of anyone opposing the administration's policies of greed, plundering and an accumulation of power spanning from the NEA, AFL-CIO, Teamsters, UAW, UMWA and IBEW to student and worker
protesters and the ACLU.

In the minds of cheap labor barons and the secretary of education, labor and teacher unions endanger and obstruct their throwback, 19th-century agenda of squeezing all the hard-earned benefits, rights and livable wages out of American employees until they are mere desiderata.

Michael Arvey marvey@email.com  is a writer and teacher living in Boulder, Colorado.