The Chicago Teachers Union’s Venezuela solidarity trip: Salute to our tipster and certain teachers.

By: Mark Glennon*

It’s fascinating to see how a story can be overlooked, ignored, but then propagate quickly, even across the national media. So it was with a story we broke thanks to a reader here.

The story is now spreading across national news sites and blogs — about a trip to show solidarity with Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela by a Chicago Teachers Union delegation, as they described themselves. The union is being ridiculed, appropriately, for either tacitly or knowingly sponsoring the delegation’s fawning reports on Maduro’s socialism, which in fact is among the worst human rights violators on the planet.

The story probably never would have been known, except to some Chicago teachers and a few others, but for an attentive reader.

The CTU delegation in Venezuela with some local workers

Last month he sent us a link to an obscure, leftist, Minnesota blog that had an entry about the trip, which seemed to us like a parody. But with a little digging we found that delegation members had posted their reports on another blog, validating the story. There had been no media coverage other than a few obscure mentions in several blogs.

So, we wrote our article, “Viva Maduro! The CTU’s solidarity trip to Venezuela.” It took off immediately with tens of thousands of pageviews within a week. ZeroHedge republished it and Breitbart did their own story on it. It then slowed down except for a few local articles.

But now the story is off and running again, with an article and a commentary piece in the Chicago Tribune, a New York Post article, a link in the Wall Street Journal and others.

We’re glad we launched the story, but the reader who sent the tip who deserves the shout-out.

There’s another salute to be made. Some Chicago teachers apparently complained bitterly to the CTU about the trip. That landed CTU’s socialist president, Jesse Sharkey, in hot water, according to Chicago City Wire, and no doubt helped spread the story. That took guts because teachers’ unions are notorious for retribution. Dissenters pay a price.

We don’t like how Illinois teachers unions behave, but we sure like teachers who know the difference between right and wrong and are willing to stand up for it.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

 

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joe blow
4 years ago

hahaha good, teach these idiots that socialism, especially Maduro’s version is NOT A GOOD THING

BLS
4 years ago

Very happy the CTU and Venezuelan/US socialists are getting thrown under the bus. Nice work. Our stupid, immoral foreign policy should be railed against as well (yes I understand this is going off topic for Illinois): https://original.antiwar.com/dave_decamp/2019/07/25/us-sanctions-are-still-strangling-venezuela/

Willowglen
4 years ago
Reply to  BLS

BLS – I couldn’t disagree more, and you don’t need to even go to Trump’s policies to see that Venezuela’s problems are almost entirely self inflicted. When the state forces producers of all kinds, including agriculture concerns, to sell well below the cost of production, people starve. And it is so eminently predictable it makes no sense to blame problems on outside actors. Get realistic about what the Chavistas have done.

No name
4 years ago

And these are the people teaching our kids to be critical thinkers?? “We didn’t see a single homeless person in Caracas.” ??? They clearly lack in the critical thinking area themselves.

4 years ago
Reply to  No name

Un no, they aren’t teaching them to critically think. That’s not the point. When Bill Ayers can be a Prof of Education at UIC, there isn’t a lot of critical thinking being taught

joe blow
4 years ago
Reply to  No name

those that can’t, teach

MikeH
4 years ago
Reply to  No name

I’ve read comments from teachers who actually believe that critical thinking is overrated. Granted, these were also teachers who were defending common core, but you see the problem. Education has laegely been supplanted by indoctrination, and here we see the result.

Shirley Miller
4 years ago
Reply to  No name

Someone should tell them a person can’t tell who is homeless by looking at them. Some of their students or coworkers might be homeless, live in a car, shower at the Y and show up to work. It’s not like people like to brag about being homeless.

NB-Chicago
4 years ago

We salute you masked wp’er who ever you are!!! And just read this from the crazy socIalistas!! Fight Back! Newspaper: Say no to the McCarthyite attack on Chicago teachers.
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/8/20/say-no-mccarthyite-attack-chicago-teachers

nixit
4 years ago
Reply to  NB-Chicago

The Fight Back News rebuttal is amusing. Reminds me of Dirk Diggler’s commentary from “Boogie Nights”: “To all the critics out there…I know they’re going to be reviewing this…and I know they’re going to try to knock me. I just want them to know…I only am who I am because I was born that way. I have a gift, and I am trying to not be selfish about it…but to use it, OK? If you want to knock me for that, it’s your own problem. Jealousy will get you nowhere.” “It’s jealousy. It’s deceitfulness. It’s vindictiveness. It’s all of that… Read more »

Bross
4 years ago

The press used to do just what you say regardless of political affiliation.

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