Footprints: Progressive Steps | Romney on Teachers and Their Unions: Silence Them!

Today's edition (Sept. 27) of my daily online "paper" features an article from The Nation, in which John Nichols writes:

Mitt Romney has absolutely no problem with billionaires buying elections. In fact, had it not been for billionaires’ buying elections, he would not be the Republican nominee for president.

But Romney has a big, big problem with working people’s participating in the political process. Especially teachers.

Nichols continues:

Never in the history of American presidential elections has so weak and dysfunctional a candidate as Romney been able to hold his own as a presidential contender solely because of the money donated by very wealthy individuals and corporations to the agencies that seek to elect him.

Yet he now attacks teachers who are merely seeking to assure that—in the face of frequently ridiculous and consistently ill-informed media coverage, brutal attacks by so-called “think tanks” and neglect even by Democratic politicians—the voices of supporters of public education are heard when voters are considering the future of public education.

Fact: U.S. teachers have done a lot more to benefit everyone in the United States than Mitt Romney--and people of his ilk--have ever done.

Another fact: Without the work of U.S. teachers, NONE of us would be where we are today in our careers, in our lives.

To silence teachers in their efforts to improve education--as well as their own salaries, benefits and working conditions--is anti-American. Romney and people who support his philosophy on teachers should be ashamed of themselves.
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Direct link to Nichols' excellent article