Venezuela is a humanitarian and civil liberties disaster. The repressive regime of Nicolás Maduro has been condemned around the world for its campaign of killings, arrests, and torture with the help of hundreds of Cuban intelligence officers. The free press and any dissent has been brutally destroyed as the nation itself reduced to pre-industrial standards. Beyond Cuba, North Korea, and other authoritarian regimes, Venezuela has few friends . . . . except union teachers from Chicago. The delighted picture above shows the delegation of union teachers who flew to Venezuela in support of one of the most blood-soaked regimes in the world. The picture reportedly shows Richard Berg (Organizer), strike captains Sarah Chambers (Special Education Educator), Valeria Vargas (Math Educator) and Fabiana Casas (English Educator) on Twitter after crowdfunding their trip to Venezuela.
Other Chicago teachers and a great number of Venezuelans both inside and outside of the country have condemned the trip. Yet, the CTU members praised Maduro’s government while meeting with some of the officials who have stripped reporters, lawyers, journalists, and others of their basic human rights. It was a propaganda bonanza for the Maduro regime as the four heralded the progress and struggle of the government.
According to the the Chicago Tribune, the GoFundMe page featured a Chicago Teacher’s Union organizer, Richard Berg, with the title “Send CTU Strikers to Venezuela.” By the way, teachers are striking in Venezuela and have been arrested by the regime. Those teachers have stood up against repression and the denial of free speech and association. These Chicago Teacher’s Union members went to support the regime that is arresting and beating and torturing those teachers.
Notably, while saying that this was not a sponsored trip, CTU President Jesse Sharkey did not object to the crowdfunding effort based on being CTU members. Not only is Berg a CTU organizer but Sarah Chambers is reportedly on the CTU Executive Board. Chambers tied her trip directly to efforts by the local union.
The naiveté of the teachers was breathtaking and reminded many of the propaganda trips behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War by American communists. Chambers wrote “While staying in #Venezuela, we didn’t see a single homeless person. USA is the richest country in the world; yet, there are homeless people everywhere. Over 17k CPS students are homeless… This is why @CTULocal1 is fighting for fair housing #CTUAgainstVezIntervention.” Really? As we have discussed, Maduro has destroyed one of the strongest economies in South America and United Nations officials are now warning of widespread famine and malnutrition but Chambers did not see a homeless person.
Notably, the CTU has passed a resolution opposing the possible invasion of Venezuela but has not passed a resolution condemning the arrest and torture of teachers and others by the Maduro regime. Of course, it can now receive the first-hand report of Chambers that she did not see a single homeless person on her trip.
Where can I get a flight to see all of those Venezuelan Potemkin Villages. Quite an attraction!
Maduro has out-Cubaed Cuba. It takes perverse skill to turn a country floating on deposits of oil into a nation of impoverished scarecrows – and the Chicago Teachers Union to stand on the sidelines and applaud the process.
I know the Left isn’t monolithic, but when one has to turn to a law professor’s blog for reporting on this travesty, something’s badly broken with our national media.
Competition is over. We have a winner. loupgarous, please step up and claim your prize.
🙂
In a reflection of the first day here, CTU Area Vice President Sarah Chambers states:
“I’ve already learned so much just within a couple of hours of being in the country. I’m excited to learn more tomorrow about the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and how it has improved the lives of the Venezuelan people.”
– SARAH CHAMBERS, CTU AREA VICE PRESIDENT
https://radicaledcollective.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/introduction-to-ctu-delegation-to-venezuela/
It’s really very simple. If Venezuela is such a great country, move your butt there. I guarantee you, in one month you’ll be crying to return to our great nation. The sad part is that this moron is teaching young kids. I wouldn’t let her train a dog!
Some brains can not be washed enough.
Chicago teachers are well known for the depth of their ignorance and little else except perhaps for their bring incompetent and overpaid.
Are they known for honesty, integrity, introspection?
Typical Left Wing lying sacks of sheet: called out for their hypocrisy and blame the Right…..a morally bankrupt approach of Democrats today.
…..
Say no to the McCarthyite attack on Chicago teachers
As the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) find itself locked in tough contract negotiations and faces the possibility of a strike, corporate and right-wing media like the Chicago Tribune, Breitbart and others have launched a bizarre attack that seems like it is straight out of the 1950s red scare. Rather than addressing the real problems impacting teachers and students in Chicago schools, these reactionary pundits have decided the rant and rave about – of all things – a delegation of teachers that traveled to Venezuela earlier this summer.
https://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/8/20/say-no-mccarthyite-attack-chicago-teachers
Decades ago, we used to call Communist sympathizers DUPS. In other words, they were dupped into believing the the Communist line was the truth. Ah, those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
No wonder those teachers from Chicago Teachers Union are dupped. They too never learned about history of repression. What is it, some 10 million people in the world have been killed in the name of the ‘isms’ communism, socialism? Those teachers need to attend a Gulag for reeducation.
Sadly, overtly-directed deaths by Communist governments vastly exceeds the cited 10,000,000, by an upwards order of four at the very least.
Their comments remind me of Walter Duranty’s writings in the 1930’s praising Joseph Stalin and the USSR.
I am still amazed how leftists excuse or gloss over Marxist atrocities after 100 million victims in the last century. No system has caused more misery for more people and for a longer period than Communism.
But hey, they were trying to build a better world, right? You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. Or here’s a winner, “Real Communism hasn’t been tried yet”.
My family left the ‘worker’s paradise’ of Cuba in 1961.
antonio
Nope, we call ’em DUPES, Bob. Good grief. They weren’t ‘dupped into believing’ anything. They were DUPED into believing that stuff.
After 2 TU-160 Russian nuclear strategic bombers visit Caracas, Venezuela
Now Chicago Teacher’s Union wants to invite Russian TU-160 bombers to Chicago, O’Hare Airport, and give them a hero’s welcome.
Time for someone to discreetly flash the press which Venezuelans read a copy of our nuclear target list showing what will happen to countries which serve as advance bases for enemy nuclear bombers.
Does anyone think those idiots are qualified to teach kids anywhere other than in a dictatorship that they admire? Actually, I hope that they emigrate to Venezuela. Let them proudly support the regime. I hope, that in time, a Stalinist purge swallows them whole. May the horrors of the gulag or worse consume them!
So are these the same wonderful leeches who did not seem to notice all the students under their care failing horribly in the classroom? More likely they actively aided in that tragedy. Cause that is who they are…what they do best…and what their propaganda machine demands. Sheep lining up on the left please.
UNION TRIES TO DISTANCE ITSELF..
AS CONTROVERSY THREATENS UNION PRESIDENT
According to Chicago City Wire, the Teachers Union president claims said teachers were on their own vacation time. But his job is now threatened by furious union members.
https://chicagocitywire.com/stories/512808287-chicago-teachers-union-president-sharkey-in-hot-water-as-some-of-his-useful-idiots-visit-and-embrace-impoverished-socialist-venezuela
OH FOR THE GOOD OLD DAYS
WHEN MAFIA GOONS CONTROLLED UNIONS INSTEAD OF CRAZED LEFTISTS
Wow! This isn’t from the Washington Post. Is the Washington Post not covering this story?
Almost always Peter quotes the Washington Post but not this time. Do they agree with that Union President?
The left along with too many Democrats continuously repeat the same theme.
Stalin is great!
Pol Pot is great!
Castro is great!
Maduro is great!
(music)
This summer I hear them coming..
Their already on their way…
This summer their brains are churning..
They’re probably fat and gay!
Gotta get down to it…
Madura is cutting us down.
How can you run when you know?
Now we know how our public
School system is a disaster.
The blind leading the blind.
Ca. 1985, the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that the performance scores of Chicago’s schools placed the system in the bottom 1% of all school systems in the country. You’re seeing with this crew one of the reasons why.
I live in LA with many homeless. Now authorities are finding homeless on roofs. Did they look up? When they live on the roof you dont see them
Potemkin Village visit?
New math…sheesh!
I guess Jane Fonda was unavailable?
Did Jane Fonda make the trip?
Beat me by seconds with that thought, apparently!
Who is Jane Fonda? Does she drive a Honda?
I read the headline and looked at the picture and thought JT was linking to the Babylon Bee!
That was my thought as well.
Either Maduro and company have mastered the Jedi mind-trick (these are not the homeless people you’re looking for), or this CTU delegation are the new face of the willfully ignorant. Damn!