Teachers Sue CTU

Suit: Chicago Teachers Union violates members' rights, forces them to keep paying dues, despite leaving union

By Dan Churney

Cook County Record

A pair of teachers is suing the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education for allegedly trampling teachers' freedom of speech by deducting union dues to subsidize the union's political positions without members' consent.

The putative class action was filed May 4 in Chicago federal court by Joanne Troesch and Ifeoma Nkemdi. They alleged the union and board violated their First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Troesch and Nkemdi demand damages for the more than 24,000 teachers and other school personnel who belong to the union. They are represented by the Chicago firm of Morris & De La Rosa, as well as by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, of Springfield, Va.

Plaintiffs said the board deducts dues from their pay, passing the money on to the union. Every August, but at no other time of year, union members can stop dues deductions by giving written notice. The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act governs the deduction of such dues.

Plaintiffs said they learned in fall 2019 of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from June 2018, which said public employees have the First Amendment right to refrain from subsidizing a union's political positions through their dues or fees. 

That case was brought by Mark Janus, a non-union Illinois state employee, who argued state rules requiring him to pay fees to a union for the costs of collective bargaining, contravened his constitutional rights. The union sued by Janus was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

In accordance with the Janus ruling, Troesch and Nkemdi told the union in October 2019 they were resigning from the union and told the board to no longer deduct dues or fees.

The board did not respond, but the union replied dues would continue to be taken until Sept. 1, 2020 because of  the "August escape period." As a consequence, dues are still being deducted, according to plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs said neither the union nor the board told school employees after the Janus ruling that employees have a "constitutional right not to financially support" the union. Further, the deduction forms, which employees sign, do not state an employee may waive their right or agree to waive their right by signing the form.

"Defendants’ maintenance and enforcement of their August escape period is against public policy because it significantly abridges employees’ First Amendment rights by compelling employees who do not want to subsidize CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) and its speech to subsidize CTU and its speech as a condition of their employment for up to a year," plaintiffs contended.

They want the August opt-out clause declared unconstitutional and for union members to be able to halt deductions at any time. In addition, plaintiffs want members to retroactively recover dues and fees already deducted.

Mark Janus sued to retrieve fees collected from him and other non-union state workers, but was stymied, with judges finding the fees, though now unconstitutional, were collected in "good faith." Those decisions followed other court decisions blocking Illinois home care assistants and child care workers, who were not employees of the state, from recovering millions of dollars in fees collected by the Service Employees International Union under a state law invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014. In the decisions denying that class action, judges also found the union could keep the fees because they had been collected in "good faith" in reliance on state law.

The Troesch-Nkemdi suit is assigned to District Judge John Z. Lee. Neither the union nor the board have yet responded, and no hearing is yet slated. 

Book Review

HOW HORRIBLE HAS HISTORY TO BE?

By Stephen Wilson 

A look at the Horrible History Series.{ published by scholastic,London, from 1993}

 

 

            Henry Ford said 'History was bunk', Napoleon stated 'History was a fable told by others', and the English actor who is the author behind the 'Horrible History' series of books claims that history, as taught at schools, 'gets horribly boring'. For instance, in the introduction to one of the earliest books 'Awesome Egyptians, written in 1993, he writes: 'History is horrible! Horrible dates to remember, horrible kings fighting

horrible battles against horrible people. Sometimes it gets horribly boring!

            Sometimes it can be horribly confusing! But this book is about really horrible history.

            The sort of thing that teachers never tell you! Teachers don't always tell you the whole truth! Honestly!

 

            Teachers think you're too young to learn about gruesome things ... like the way Egyptians took the brains out of their mummies! So they don't tell you... then you leave school, and you may never ever learn this vital information.

            And sometimes teachers don't tell you things because they don't know the facts themselves ... by the time you 're finished you will be able to teach your teacher'.

            The tirade goes on and on. In a word, teachers are hopeless.

 

            For anyone who does not know, the Horrible History series represents an illustrated series of books, with fascinating facts, narrated in an amusing and arresting way

which was specifically aimed at children from 8 to 11, but appeals also to adults who also get absorbed in them. The books have proved to be bestsellers selling in as as many as 40 countries with at least 25 million being sold by 2012. They have even made a television series based on the books. Some of the books in the series are 'Awesome Egyptians', 'Smashing Saxons', and 'Rotten Romans' to name but a few.

            Part of the appeal of this series lies in the ability of the author to dramatize history by selectively choosing the most interesting facts, a dark sense of humor, skillful

storytelling and superb illustrated cartoons to accompany the facts. The books claim to tell you the facts which school teachers are alleged to conceal from their school students. There's an anti-school and anti-teacher tone which resonates with many past as well as present pupils. Those books are even available in Moscow. They also, ironically appeal to some teachers. Maria Koroleva, a teacher of English and Gaelic, told me, "We ought to use those books in the classroom. They are so interesting and people would love them here". Svetlana Wilson, who was teaching English told me, "I used the book 'Awesome Egyptians' to teach English to children. They liked the book. While Polina was interesting in the chapter of cosmetics, my pupil Kirill liked the chapter on the Mummies. It is full of all kinds of interesting facts".  

 

            The author himself Terry Deary is at pains to explain he is not a historian. He claims, 'I don't want to write history, I am not a historian. I want to change the World, attack the elite, overturning the hierarchy, Look at my stories and you'll notice that the villains are always those in power'. Wait a minute. Are teachers part of an elite?

            Are they part of the establishment? A union representative told me he felt that in Russia teachers are treated as slaves who have no rights. They are in many ways

becoming more powerless. Which raises the question how in touch is this author with the real world of teaching? We learn at the back of those books that Terry Deary was born in 1946 and that, 'At school he was a horrible child only interested in playing football and giving teachers a hard time. His history lessons were so boring and so badly taught, that he learned to loathe the subject. Horrible Histories is his revenge'.

            It sounded like the bullied becoming the bully through  anecdotes about dull teachers.

            It seems as if this pupil is still fighting old battles against teachers. But even some professional historians can do this. Niall Ferguson's 'The Pity of War', was a rebuke to

former teachers of English literature who made him learn by heart 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen. Ferguson claimed that some soldiers who served at the front got some enjoyment from the war, so Wilfred Owen got it partly wrong! Yet the work is still a great read!

 

            In a way, the Horrible History series is a continuation of teacher bashing by other means. The British government and the media echo the claims of Deary that teachers can't teach well, are inept and too powerful. They claim teachers are boring, dull and don't know their subject well. Compared to other professions, teachers have an easy job because they enjoy free Summer months and finish their job at 3 p.m. The fact that teachers are exhausted from overwork, supervising tests and doing a lot of paperwork never occurs to those critics. Terry Deary was taught in a school during the 1950's. His view of teachers is based on the limited experience of growing up in a school over 60 years ago. I mean are history teachers all boring? I adored listening to my primary school teachers narrate brilliantly about how the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. The teacher used her body to superbly describe this and we had great discussions with another teacher on who was to blame for the English Civil War. I

recall how a history teacher provoked us into thinking by questioning the official version of how President Kennedy was assassinated. Our history lessons at school were very interesting. There was no great conspiracy to conceal facts. But who are the bullied and bullies: teachers or pupils? Life is gray. It is often a bit of both.

 

            Let me tell you one story I can never forget. My history teacher at secondary school was once late for the classroom. The class of 12-year-old kids hung over the banister of a staircase waiting for the teacher. As the teacher was walking up the stairs some pupil spat on his head. The saliva hit him. When he arrived in the classroom he was

furious. He shouted, "I want to know who spat on me. Unless this pupil owns up I will belt every pupil in this classroom." The teacher turned to me and asked, "Stephen, could you tell me who did it ?" I remained silent. An eerie silence echoed through the classroom. Then finally the boy who did this owned up and said, "I did this". The teacher took out his belt and hit him very hard on the hands. His hands were very

painful. But this history teacher was no monster. He could joke with students and I even played a war game with him at the school club. You can hardly blame this teacher for being angry after being spat on. I tell this story just to demonstrate how the relationship between teacher and pupil is not black or white where teachers are all servants of the state intent on brainwashing or oppressing pupils.

 

            The teaching of history has changed a lot since Deary's time. At present school students learn about Tudor times, Stalin, Hitler and the Second World War. They can grow up knowing a lot about the repression in Russia, but little about the injustice of the British Empire. The reason that people are taught about this bloody period of history is to make the lessons more interesting and capture the attention of children.

            This is similar to what Deary set out to do and some do reveal gruesome facts.

            Terry Deary was shocked to learn his books had become textbooks in some school classrooms. That is not what he intended. This is a case where school teachers are

teaching pupils what their own government don't want them to hear: the exploitation of the working class as well as the legacy of how the British Empire was responsible for so much famine in India and Ireland. How ironic! The teachers might be taking their revenge on Deary rather than vice versa.

 

            The British historian Michael Wood claims that history is one of the most popular pastimes in Britain. He states that there is a huge appetite for learning history in Britain. This is indicated by many museum visits, the attendance at his lectures where maybe 300 to 500 will come to attend. Just look at the popularity of so many reenactment societies in Britain. And this popularity is not confined to Britain, but

extends to Russia and China. In China, people are attempting to rediscover their own history as well as old rituals which were formally repressed during the Cultural Revolution when the Red Guards attempted to destroy all old artifacts. The aim

was to destroy all memories of past customs and ways. But the people secretly hid some of their own past possessions and relics before the Red Guard visited their homes. They concealed them in roofs, or buried them in back gardens. Without a sense of history or the memory of our past we become cut off from our roots. We become disorientated and dislocated from our surroundings. We feel like aliens.

            But in this rediscovery of history school teachers are not the enemy, but deserve dialogue. Many adore their subject and make a great effort to interest students.

            They can play a significant part in reawakening interest in our history. They are not all horrible. Boring or not, they are still human!

Shock Education Doctrine

IS THERE A COVID -19 SHOCK DOCTRINE?

By Stephen Wilson

 

           'Humans are biohazards, machines are not. '

 

            Anuja Sonalker, GEO of Steertech.

 

            'We should also accelerate the trend towards remote learning, which is being tested today as never before. Online, there is no requirement of proximity, which allows students to get instruction from the best teachers, no matter what school district they reside in'.

 

            Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google

 

            It is strange that as a person rushes around a bustling city, he often views another person as an inconvenient obstacle. Other people get in the way, distract or annoy him. An old person who walks slowly will be pushed or told " to get out the way" or "Hurry up ". A person can be viewed by others just as a primary obstacle. The person might be in such a hurry to get to their destination or are wholly absorbed in their gadget and get annoyed when someone bumps into them by accident or rather, they don't get out of the way on time. Some people regard a teacher as a primary obstacle who should have the decency to get out of the way. There is even a notion that a machine would be able to teach a student better because a machine, in contrast to a teacher, has no complexes or becomes stressed out! He or she is a hazard, not a help!  

This is the distinct impression you obtain from hearing some comments by Eric Schmidt, of Google, or Bill Gates, who are seeking to exploit the impact of the Covid- 19 crisis on the education system. They are arguing that the switch to the emergency online education in schools should not be a provisional but permanent matter. The Mayor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced that Bill Gates, as well as Eric Schmidt, would lead a new panel planning a complete overhaul of the education system in New York. Schmidt declared with gusto that, "The need for fast experimentation

will also accelerate the biotech revolution. Finally, the country is long overdue a real digital infrastructure if we are to build a future economy and education on tele-everything'. For most people this Covid -19 is a dreadful crisis, but for those

businessmen it represents a welcome but bizarre experiment to attain new lucrative markets through 'restructuring'. As Naomi Klein states: 'The Pandemic Shock doctrine that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up, treats our past weeks as physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives but as a living laboratory for a highly permanent - no touch future". She describes the vision of such businessmen as being 'A new screen deal ' and 'no touch

future'.  

The view that capitalists can use a deep crisis as a spur to introducing massive restructuring that intensifies the exploitation of the poor that might otherwise not be introduced in stable times is not new. About 13 years ago Klein wrote an intriguing book called 'The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism'. The major idea is that, 'Believers in the shock doctrine are convinced that only a great rupture, a flood, a war, a terrorist attack can generate the kind of vast, clean canvases they crave. It is in these malleable moments, when we are psychologically unmoored and physically uprooted, that these artists of the real plunge in their hands and begin their work of remaking the world.' For example, following the disaster in New Orleans, the guru Milton Friedman wrote 'Most New Orleans schools are in ruins, as are the homes of the children who who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity to radically reform the education system'. The disaster was used as a pretext to introduce a new voucher system and more charter schools. As many as 4700 teachers who belonged to a strong union were fired. Other kinds of crisis cited are September 11, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and at present, the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

            But will people who are shocked and disorientated allow such a nightmare vision to be implemented?  The facts are that Bill Gates has a bad track record concerning reforms in education. The attempt to wholly impose charter schools proved to be a flawed and failed experiment. And the so-called experiment of moving to online has proven many of the limitations of online technology rather than the benefits. How

do you organize a physical education lesson online? Doing exercises at home is hardly sufficient compensation for playing active team sports. It is likely that the more intelligent strategists of capital would oppose the extreme proposals of Bill Gates and Schmidt on the grounds that it would even harm the children from middle-class backgrounds, never mind poor and could lead to a backlash which even they could not contain or control. Already the Covid 19 crisis has inspired all kinds of outlandish and far fetched conspiracy theories. One of the those ideas is that Bill Gates created this Covid 19 virus as a means of increasing his profitability. The fact that Bill Gates is pushing such a radical vision will only reinforce the suspicion of such people who you encounter in both America and Russia.

 

            Russia also has such proponents of applying a 'no touch vision' into schools. If this has been an experiment, it has turned out to be flawed. Not all school children were awed by the screen, many complained of the adverse impact on their physical and mental health and many parents have especially found it overwhelming. For school teachers it is a time of increased anxiety where they worry about whether they might lose their income as well as jobs. The Ministry of Education and Science has made statements attempting to reassure school teachers they have no plans to switch to a full online model as it proved too counter productive. 'The Ministry of Education don't plan to cut teachers and move to an all out on-line distance learning system. This is very expensive for the government since we have more than 700,000 children, there is no technological possibility for full scale lessons in distance learning since not all families have computers, smartphones or I- pads '. 

     So proposals to radically restructure the education system straightaway following this crisis have been spurned because they simply don't work and alienate too many people. Much more attractive and alluring proposals would be to more than double the number of school teachers, employ more librarians, psychologists and encourage people to either do more sport, dance or sing songs. There is no reason why we can't create a more caring and improved education system if we fight for it.

Victory Day

DAY OF VICTORY

PLANES ABOVE BUT NO HUGE PARADES

By Stephen Wilson 

 

           

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

            

Requiem For a Nun, William Faulkner.

 

"It was like a day in paradise."

 

           Alexander Dmitrivitch Levin, a war veteran on how he felt during the Day of Victory when the fighting against the Germans ceased in 1945.

 

           "We ended the war while staying in one of Goebbel's castles in the Austrian Alps.

            I recall how beautiful everything was. The fruit trees were all white and blooming.

            Then we heard what was a horrible explosion or eruption of thunder as if a bomb was going off. We thought we were being attacked by partisans. We jumped out of the windows and took up positions ready to shoot. But there were no partisans.

            Then we saw that people were throwing up their hats in the air and some saying:

           "It is our Victory Day and we are alive." I can never forget the sky. It was clear, crisp, and transparent. Everything looked beautiful. It was as if we were with God in paradise," stated the war veteran Alexander Levin. {The full interview can be read in the Second City Teachers issue dated August 5, 2018, by Oksana Chebotareva }  Ludmilla Kirova, at 16, vividly recalls this time when she was living in a small town near Kaluga when someone came and knocked on her window shouting,

            "It is a Victory". Everyone in her town were so elated and bursting with joy. She had never in her life witnessed such beaming faces. The event left an indelible impression on her soul. "It is my favorite celebration of the year". Seventy five years may have passed, but people still recall this strikingly profound and moving event. No wonder people felt relief if not complete joy. The most horrific and bloodiest wars in history which cost the lives of almost 60 million people not to mention untold suffering had come to the end or rather, almost. The war with Japan was still going on and Oksana Chebotareva told me of how her grandfather was sent to fight against Japan.

 

            For some people the war has never ended. Even now it continues in their dreams.

            I always wondered why so many people who had been through the war were always worried whether I was hungry or not. I learnt that due to the destruction of war, many

families in Eastern Europe experienced famine. Oksana's mother had a brother who died from starvation during this period. I recall being bemused by my grandmother warning my aunt again and again, "Make sure you have filled the bath with enough water in case there is an air raid". This was forty years after the war was over yet in old age a past habit became reactivated. During the war everyone in Scotland was

advised to fill up their baths with cold water so they could help rush to put out the fire caused by a falling German bomb. Yulia Zhukova, who fought as a sniper during the Great Patriotic War, wrote the following sad words in her memoirs on how she once attempted to forget her role in the war by burning all wartime photos, poems and letters connected with her time at the front. It was all in vain! "However, the war

would not leave me. I constantly dreamed of it, most of all I saw myself fleeing, in the surroundings and in a prison of war camp. They were very difficult dreams, and they tortured me for over thirty years."{Girl with a Sniper Rifle, Yulia Zhukova, 2006 Z.A.O. Centropoligraph, Moscow}

 

            It seems that while some people are trying to escape the painful present by living in an imaginary past, others would like to make a complete break with a painful past by living in a pleasant present. So for many people the Day of Victory could be a day to be dreaded rather than greeted with joy. As the song 'Day of Victory' goes, 'We celebrate it with joy and tears in our eyes'.

 

            This Day of Victory had no great grandiose parade or huge march through the cities of Russia. Instead, the government cancelled all parades as a precaution to contain the spread of the Covid 19 virus which has rapidly engulfed Russia. The event seemed more solemn and anxious than on previous occasions. Nevertheless, the celebrations went ahead as I again witnessed an aerial display above my house

where helicopters and fight jet planes thundered above our apartments. The pilots were flying so low you could see them and residents were welcoming and waving at them from their balconies.

 

            For some curious reason, I get the distinct impression that Western Journalists are gloating at the cancellation of events for political reasons. What they forget is that the vast majority of people commemorate this event not for ideological or political reasons, but to genuinely mourn losses practically every family felt. This is not just a time of joy, but deep mourning. It is true that governments and some people always attempt to manipulate this event for political gain or as a means to promote ugly nationalism. However, when I meet and talk to most Russians they feel mainly saddened by the war. And the war veterans are almost always reticent when it comes to talking about the war. They prefer to be silent.

            Some can't even watch war films at all. Some don't like the sound of fireworks as it brings back so many memories. This is ironic given the fact that the events of the 9th May end with a grandiose firework display. Has it occurred to anyone that a firework display might be unwelcome to some war veterans?

 

            I befriended two war veterans who were women who had served at the front.

            I met an old woman in the park who warmly greeted me and invited me to her apartment to tell me her life story. She told me how she was almost arrested for reading a poem by Robert Burns {Honest Poverty} to an injured soldier recovering from his wounds in hospital. A general overheard her and thought the lyrics showed contempt for generals. Lybov told me that, "I joined up because all my young friends

had been killed at the front. I felt I had lost a whole family". Then later I met an old woman called Nadia, who was the grandmother of a friend called Pavel. I learnt that she had served on an artillery battery at the Battle of the Kursk and just missed by a second being shot at by a Tiger tank. I found this woman was very warm, friendly and adored children. She was a little bit eccentric. I recall how she would always give me some sweets to take back to my daughter. Unfortunately she died.

            I really regret not playing dominoes with her. But thankfully, she lived to see Pavel's wedding. That was where I last saw her and she told me about how she had been strongly driven by her love for Russia to serve in the war.

 

            It is important to remember that the Day of Victory has not always been officially supported or backed by the Russian government. For almost twenty years, under

Khrushchev, this event was not commemorated. This fact embittered many war veterans. Yulia Zhukova wrote: 'He cancelled the most important and favorite celebration of the people - The Day of Victory as an official state celebration. The motive for this was primitive: you must not offend, hurt or humiliate other people by constantly reminding them about their wounds from our victory. He never grasped that such a decision humiliated his own people, who had suffered immense losses from this war and by attaining victory not only saved Russia, but the whole of Europe from slavery. Under Khrushchev the 9th of May became just a typical working day, without any further official ceremonies or events ... It was painful and offended people.'

 

            In fact, the continued celebration of 9th May is largely due to people at a grassroots level commemorating it unofficially. Even the largely successful movement known as 'The Immortal Regiment' which was founded in Tomsk 8 years ago sprang from the initiative of just ordinary Russians who did not want the deaths of their loved ones just to remain 'a statistic' or another pretext for boosting the prestige of a

government or politician such as Brezhnev. It is a tremendous sight just to see an endless crowd of people carrying placards with photos of their loved ones who fought in the war. The eyes from all those photos seem to be staring back at you

from another age. We begin to understand that each of those persons who died were priceless icons. Aleksei Chadov stated: "The main point is not to forget the feats of our grandparents, and pass it down from generation to generation. Therefore, I like how the activity of the immortal Regiment which was born 8 years ago in Tomsk; and afterwards: seized the imagination of the whole country. This is the most successful flash mob, if you want to express it in latter day language."  

 

The Plague

BOOK REVIEW

THE PLAGUE BY ALBERT CAMUS

By Stephen Wilson

 

            Penguin classics, 2002, London, New York. Originally published 1947

 

           'More than one person walking at night along the pavement would experience the feeling of the elastic bulk of a still fresh corpse under his feet. It was as though the very soil on which our houses were built was purging itself of an excess of bile, that it was letting boils and abscesses rise to the surface, which up to then had been devouring it inside. Just imagine the amazement of our little town which had been so quiet until then, ravaged in a few days, like a healthy man whose thick blood had suddenly rebelled against him!' stated the author in his brilliant novel 'The Plague' when he superbly describes how hordes of rats inexplicably run out of the ground, to die and carry plague to the luckless inhabitants of a tranquil city of Oran in Algiers.

           Such evocative passages make Camus ' novel The Plague compelling reading.

 

           Although over the past two months sales of his novel have skyrocketed all around the world as people struggle to make sense of the current Covid 19 crisis, the first and foremost reason for reading this novel is because Camus is a great storyteller. His vivid descriptions of a rapidly changing atmosphere in a city taken by surprise from the onslaught of the plague, how his convincing characters respond to the plague as well as the well constructed narrative make his novel a must.

           But I have to make a confession. I did not want to reread this novel because I was sick and tired of being bombarded by the news of the pandemic. I wanted to forget

about this crisis. So instead I decided to retreat into ancient history by reading about the archaeologists who had been searching for Troy. May be this would help me forget about this. Alas, it was all in vain! When I began to read Homer's The Iliad, I came across a passage where the Greeks were struck down by plague sent by the wrath of Apollo. So much for escapism. There is no light literature. So I again picked up The Plague, by Camus.

 

           The novel is amazingly short, concise and articulate. What I like about Camus is he does not waffle or indulge in long descriptions you read in Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

           He gets to the point. There is something remarkably honest about Camus. He is never pretentious or preachy, but just gets on with telling the story. His characters are sympathetically drawn and in this sense he reminds me of Andrei Platonov's works.

 

           This novel can be understood on many levels. It is partly but not wholly about an allegory of the Nazis occupation of France. But may be it should just be read as how ordinary people, finding themselves devastated by an unexpected

catastrophe and respond in different ways to an epidemic. And how they react reminds you of how people are currently reacting to the crisis we face now.

           People feel the deepest emotions brought on by the anguish of being separated from their family, friends and loved ones not to mention the fear of being struck down dead by this infection. Some of the stories of how the children die from the fever are harrowing. At first many people deny that a plague has broken out and hope the deaths are a minor exception. People at first joke about the rats and the infection to conceal their anxiety which then turns to real feelings of

terror. What seems so accurate about this book is how it uncannily describes the prelude to the crisis so many countries are in now. As in the novel, the cities round the world appear unprepared and taken aback. As I heard so many people in Moscow tell me, "This is not Italy. It won't happen here." or "We will manage to bring the situation under control". In one unforgettable passage you read:

           'Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends upon us. There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally

unprepared. Dr. Rieux was unprepared, as were the rest of the townspeople, and this is how one should understand the reluctance to believe. One should also understand that he was divided between anxiety and confidence. When war breaks out people say: it won't last, it is too stupid.' And war is certainly too stupid, but that does not prevent it from lasting.{page 30}

           In the novel, Camus describes how the greatest burden of the plague falls on the poor and how they organize protests against poverty, how some people attempt to defy the rules of quarantine and how people seek to make a profit from the crisis by selling stuff on the black market. In Moscow, the price of buckwheat in supermarkets has doubled and renting dachas has shot up by five times as people seek to flee to the countryside.

 

           The main character of the book, who is also the narrator, Dr Rieux, organizes special health teams to fight the plague where patients are isolated in special hospitals and people are urged to observe strict measures of hygiene such as wearing masks, washing hands and staying at home. Just as people are convinced the plague is over, it makes a come back. What defeats the plague are just ordinary people who feel that fighting the plague is the normal and natural thing for anyone to do. There is nothing 'heroic' or 'saintly' about this.

           This is a deeply philosophical novel where the characters are constantly asking themselves what is the nature of good and evil and why on earth should an innocent child die? When the plague is gradually defeated, most of the town forget the immensity of the tragedy. They don't look back. Only, those people who have lost loved ones are scarred by the plague and won't forget.

 

           Camus had a sense of humor. For example, when all the rats come out you read, 'Now they saw that there was something threatening in this phenomenon, the extent and origin of which was not clear to them. Only the asthmatic old Spaniard kept rubbing his hands and repeating, with senile delight: 'They're coming out, they're coming out!' And when you see Cottard feeling dismay and disappointment when hearing the plague is coming to an end there is something sad as well as amusing about this.

           But it is the poignant scenes where the worn out members of the health team, Dr Rieux and Tarrou take a break by going for a swim on the beach which haunt you. You can readily identify with the relief and special joy those characters experience.

 

           Camus writes not only about the suffering of life but the pleasant joys which make life worthwhile, such as friendship, going for a stroll, helping someone out or simply going for a swim. One of his characters state that most people are inclined to be good and just need the opportunity to show this. For example, the priest Paneloux joins the health teams despite previously giving a cruel sermon where he tells his congregation that the plague is punishment for their sins. On hearing the priest has joined them, Dr Rieux remarks, 'I'm glad ' said the doctor.'I'm glad to find out that he is better than his sermon'.

           'Everyone is like that', said Tarrou 'You just need to give them the opportunity'.

           It is a very generous notion. People behave better than their words! Those words may well be the voice of Camus himself who was a very non-judgmental person who liked to give people the benefit of the doubt.

           It is the ending of the novel which sounds so prophetically real and relevant.

           Camus writes:

           'In deed, as he listened to the cries of joy that arose above the town, Rieux recalled that the joy was under threat. He knew that this happy crowd was unaware of something that one can read in books, which is the plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely, that it can remain dormant for dozens of years in furniture or clothing, that it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and that perhaps the day will come when for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city'.  

RIP Betty Resnikoff

Chicago Peace & Justice Activist Dies from Coronavirus

By Neal Resnikoff

Neal and Betty Resnikoff

*Editor's Note:  Betty Resnikoff was one of Chicago's most beloved anti-war and social justice activists. She and her husband Neal Resnikoff founded The Albany Park Neighbors for Peace and Justice where activists gather each Saturday at noon at the corner of Lawrence and Kimball to protest US government wars. They then gather across the street for enlightening political discussions at Subway. Betty died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 83 from the corona virus while she was having leg problems. This moving story about her life of activism is a story of hope at a time of darkness.

There are all kinds of stories I can tell about my life with Betty, but I’m going to focus on what was central to her—the fight for justice in this world. This was shown even on her last morning on Tuesday, April 28, which we did not know would be her last morning.  In my phone call to her in the hospital, even when she was having trouble breathing and talking, she expressed joy at hearing about the latest protest of workers, the nurses at Cook County Hospital who are demanding proper protective gear for working with victims of the covid-19 virus and others. 

Betty was a devoted friend and comrade of mine for over 60 years. On a daily basis she was a regular and devoted political analyst and organizer and fighter. She always made it her aim to make me and others think and strive to unite maximum people to make a better world. She would always ask, “What is the political aim of this or that proposal or action?” “What is our plan?” “When can we go out with this leaflet among the people and have discussion with them about opposing the oppression of the ruling class and working to build a new society?”

Betty did many kind-hearted and generous things for people, including me, over the years. This was part of her outlook on the world, which always expressed itself in discussing what was going on around her and in the wider world, and wheeling into action.

I would like to suggest that Betty is a model for what each of us could be doing more of in the world.  

Betty was a life-long fighter against injustice. 

In her young adulthood Betty became a fighting and militant supporter of changing the system of the rich ruling class in the U.S. She saw that it exploits and oppresses the working class and other people at home, and interferes illegally and unjustly in countries around the world. Betty was very much for having a system of, by, and for the people, socialism, and eventually communism.  

Betty vigorously took up various immediate issue struggles and organizing to mobilize people in such a way as to open the path in this country to socialism and communism. Betty devoted much time and energy to opening the door to building a U.S. Marxist-Leninist Party that would encourage and organize people for the needed revolutionary struggle. 

Betty’s life-long fight against injustice began when she was still a child. 

One of Betty’s early struggles against injustice was at age 4 or so against her mother, who often laid down arbitrary rules in a strict way with a lot of verbal abuse. 

One night, when her mother reached out from their apartment door to drop a bag in the shoot to the incinerator, her foot holding the door open slipped, and the door slammed shut. She then called on Betty to open the door. But Betty said, “No. My mommy told me not to open the door for anyone.” And Betty did not relent, no matter how much her mother pleaded. Her mother had to spend the night at a neighbor’s until her husband came home from work to unlock the door. Is this not a pure case of passive-aggression against a purveyor of injustice? 

Betty lived in a public housing project, which she enjoyed immensely because of all the kids and other people who were around. She fought for equality for girls. She insisted on being a member of an all boys “gang,” and, of course, they had to let her in. 

Betty was always an anti-materialist, pro-people person. When her parents asked her to make a choice between having a bicycle or a new baby brother or sister, without hesitation Betty chose to have the new baby. 

This turned out to be her brother Jim. Both Jim and the next brother, Chuck, who were also abused psychologically by her mother. She would yell at them for not doing various chores in the absolutely exact way she wanted them done. Betty always offered both of them her support and friendship. 

Betty always wanted to unite with other people, not just be someone who wanted to show off in front of others, or express superiority.

In junior high school, for example, where Betty and her girl friends were honor roll students, she was concerned with the fact that students not on the honor roll thought they were stuck up nerds who were above them. And so she organized her friends not to be on the honor roll for one semester and to focus on playing basketball well so as to show they were ordinary people who were not above the others. 

Betty’s contempt for the system showed up in high school after she won a first prize for her essay in the fire prevention contest. The next year she submitted the same essay, just to be “smart.” (Ironically, she won again. She kept her medals for many years, and laughed at the story.  (Maybe I will find them in cleaning up.)

Betty grew up in a household that was Italian Methodist. She was a part of the chorus and other activities, and was thinking about going to a Methodist college in the Midwest. But her parents objected to her leaving home in Yonkers, New York, for a distant college. Luckily a high school teacher informed Betty how she could apply for a scholarship at the New York University School of Education. She got the scholarship, and so was able to live at home and commute to college classes, the first in her family to go to college. 

At the NYU School of Education, one of the first things Betty did was to apply to become a reporter for the Education Sun, hoping to be a Brenda Starr, the glamorous and adventurous reporter in the comic strip “Brenda Starr.” It happened that the editor was sophomore Neal Resnikoff, and he welcomed anyone who was willing to be on the staff. 

Betty was quickly given an assignment to cover a political debate by a couple of local politicians. Betty reported on the political meeting well, and ended her article by heaping sharp disdain on the Republican candidate for not showing up for the debate. It was printed. The Dean was very upset, and called Neal into his office. Neal defended the article, and Betty, and she continued writing other articles for the paper. 

Betty would come to the newspaper office regularly, and she would talk with Neal. One topic of repeated conversation was her wrestling with whether she could really continue to follow her religion, both with questions about the tenets of the religion and what she perceived as hypocrisy between preaching and practice that she observed.

Neal, with no knowledge about Christianity, really had no idea what she was talking about half of the time, but always showed interest and support by repeatedly saying, “Uh huh” and “Mmmm.” Betty was really impressed by Neal’s interest and support, and considered him a good and understanding person and friend. 

That friendship continued for the next 4-5 years, initially with Betty sharing with Neal her experiences and thoughts, including about being at the university. Betty decided, for example, to switch from being an art education major to becoming a sociology major. She was very interested in learning more about how people were part of society, and what made everything tick, and what stand we should take in the world. 

One class Betty took was with Sydney Hook, the charismatic and famous polemical professor of philosophy at NYU, an activist and debater about politics, who, at the time we were at NYU was pretty reactionary, politically. During Hook’s lectures, Betty would often raise her hand to question and challenge some point he was making. He decided to not call on her anymore. Betty often chided Neal that he had not been as active as she was in challenging Hook. 

Betty was interested in going to plays and concerts when she could. But this is mainly a story about her fighting spirit, and not about the plays, though she favored ones that focused on important social issues and relationships. 

Betty took up Neal’s invitation to drive with him a few hours north to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the outside Tanglewood Music Shed. The agreement was, since they were both short on money, that they would sneak in using a method Neal had used many times, climbing under a fence at a certain spot. But, when they tried it, security was there and blocked the way. Security had discovered the entry way under the fence.

Betty, undeterred and showing what a good sport she was, agreed to follow Neal to another spot, where they would climb over the fence, a fence that had barbed wire at the top. Neal boosted Betty up, and she did well, throwing her leg over the barbed wire. But she got her pants caught on the barbed wire as she went down. She let er rip, and landed inside the concert venue. Neal then followed. It began to rain. They huddled under a blanket and with gusto ate the cherry pie they had brought. Then Neal drove Betty back home, as she was not allowed by her parents to stay anywhere away from home over night.

When Neal picked up Betty to drive to the concert, the pick-up was at Betty’s place. She introduced Neal to her mother, and they had a little chit chat before heading out. Betty was very upset with her mother the next day when she found out that her mother had a very negative view of Neal because he had not been wearing socks. Betty told her mother that Neal was very nice and she should not get stuck about the matter of socks.  But her mother would not relent. Betty did not insist that Neal start wearing socks, except maybe when he was going to see her mother.

Neal and Betty went to a number of cultural events and sites. One was Shakespeare outdoors in Central Park. Betty found that a very memorable occasion because it turned out that the full moon hit her eye like a big pizza pie, and it was amore. She always referred to that as the time she fell in love with Neal.

Neal invited Betty to drive with him to Southern New Jersey to visit a farm there called Koininea. This was an interracial farm that was a rest home for people who had been working against racial segregation in the heart of Ku Klux Klan territory in Georgia. Betty took the train out from New York City to Neal’s Central Jersey town of Plainfield, and then they drove the few hours down to Koininea. It was a very informative and inspiring visit at the farm.

They could not stay all that long as Betty would have to get back to Yonkers, New York before it got too late. She had not told her parents where she was going. As luck would have it, when they got in the car to return to Plainfield, the car would not start, right in the middle of nowhere but cornfields. And there was the issue of Betty having to get home that night.

Neal called his home to ask his father for advice. His father generously offered to drive down and see what the story was. He ended up pushing Neal’s car with his own car back to Plainfield. Betty was faced with a difficult situation, since Neal’s parents were against this nice Jewish boy having anything to do with non-Jewish girls. But she decided to be very diplomatic and just be friendly. When Neal and Betty arrived at the house, Neal’s brothers and mother rushed out to meet Betty. They asked what her name was, and Neal told them Betty. Mother wanted to know her last name. Rather than give away that she had the Italian name of Alfini, Neal said her last name was Wetty. And she remained Betty Wetty until, upon leaving the next morning, after getting permission from her mother to stay over, Neal’s father said arriva derci. Neal’s mother said, arriva what? And blew a gasket, insisting on talking to Betty’s mother. Neal’s mother told Betty’s mother that Neal and Betty should have nothing more to do with each other, and Betty’s mother agreed.

Anyway, neither Betty nor Neal gave in to this injustice, and they continued to see each as often as they could.

At the end of the summer of 1953 Neal went off to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, and they both wrote to each other regularly. Then Betty finally got permission from her family to leave home, and the next year she went to the University of California in Berkeley for graduate work.

 Betty was very upset at the emphasis in the sociology graduate program. It was mainly compiling and analyzing statistics. She was more interested in meeting and talking with people and then analyzing from there. She decided to make a change. This was based on stories Neal told her about his experiences teaching in a junior high school in the Mission District of San Francisco. (After two years of graduate school, he was running out of money and took a teaching job in San Francisco, just across the Bay from where Betty was located, in Berkeley.)

Betty went into a teacher-training program for students who had a liberal arts degree. That was the beginning of a teaching career of some 50 years or so, from junior high school to college, always encouraging students to become aware of issues of the day involving injustice, and to take up critical thinking. And she was active in organizations of teachers which addressed issues of injustice.

Betty married Neal on June 11, 1960, with both saying they would give marriage a try. They agreed they would discuss any differences of opinion that came up in and about the marriage, and try to find a reconciliation that both could live with.

That year Neal came home from school saying there was a notice in the Superintendent’s bulletin announcing applications were being taken for a program called Teachers for East Africa, a program run by Teachers College Columbia University in New York under the auspices of the U.S. government’s Agency for International Development. Neal asked Betty if they should apply. Betty immediately said yes.

They agreed they would not be mouthpieces for the injustices and racism and imperialism of the U.S. government. In their joint application they said, “ We both have a keen interest in world affairs and curiosity about the people and problems of Africa… We feel that the East African program would allow us to teach and learn in an intense and meaningful way.”

Betty quickly learned in Zanzibar, where we were assigned, that this was a program that was aimed at giving a positive picture of the U.S. government. Betty and Neal did their best to counteract the notion of American equality and justice through discussion with students, fellow teachers, and others. Betty and Neal also learned this program often inserted teachers at the expense of trained local teachers who really should have had those jobs. They united with those teachers in their denunciation of the U.S. government for this.

Betty taught at the secondary school for girls in Zanzibar. She encouraged the students, who all wore head to floor black coverings called bui buis, to express their views and apply critical thinking. The students responded with great enthusiasm, and felt liberated from the non-content method the British teachers taught in this British protectorate.

Betty and Neal united with their hired household help, Issa, in his political activism in a party dedicated to independence from the British protectorate and the local ruling Sultan of Oman. (The Zanzibar revolution was eventually squelched by efforts of the U.S. government and the Tanganyikan government, which forced Zanzibar to become part of Tanganyika and  renamed the country Tanzania).

From the heat of the Equator, Betty and Neal applied for teaching positions at Eau Claire State College in Wisconsin, where wind chills could reach 50 degrees below zero. And they were accepted. Betty and Neal were active in the teachers’ union and in opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam. They were both fired after three years because of this, and nothing else, as their teaching of critical thinking skills was judged excellent by everyone who knew of their work. Students rose up in large numbers to protest in the freezing weather, refusing hot chocolate offered by the wife of the President of the College. Students also appealed to the governor of the state, and nominated Betty and Neal to be Queen and King of the College prom.

Betty and Neal during their graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, mostly during the summer breaks from teaching at Eau Claire,  joined with a number of other graduate students concerned about the problems of the U.S. society and the role of the U.S. government who decided to have a Study Group to read and discuss Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. They were convinced one cannot make the changes needed in society just by attacking one problem at a time, though that was also important to do.

 They took this broader view with them when they took up teaching jobs in Providence, Rhode Island, with Betty at Rhode Island College. At Rhode Island College Betty was lucky enough to have as colleagues a few people who focused on the class basis of each work of literature or art and published articles based on this. They raised the question, Whose class interests does this work serve? And they analyzed various works studying the class role it played at the time it was written, and the class role it plays today, if it was being studied in courses today.

As well, Betty experienced an exhilarating mass turnout of students and faculty in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam, and discussion during this gathering on how this was an unjust and illegal expression of U.S. imperialism, and the demand for All U.S. Troops Out Now!

Betty made friends with and followed up for years with these colleagues and worked to apply their outlook.

It turned out they were inspired and educated to take this stand by the application of Marxism-Leninism in Canada, by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). This in turn inspired efforts in the U.S. to form a Marxist-Leninist party. Betty was very active in taking this up as a way of defeating exploitation and oppression in the U.S. and U.S. imperialism, and replacing it with socialism and eventually communism.

Betty took this up as she was active in organizing at Boston University, where she participated in a strike of the faculty.  And she taught at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and assisted in a political study group there. One of the good stories about Betty in Boston that shows her fighting spirit happened when she was participating in a team pasting up posters advertising an upcoming political meeting. After she pasted up a poster on a wall along the stairs at a rapid transit stop, she saw a woman in a fur coat begin to tear down the poster she had just put up. Betty yelled at the woman and told her to stop or else. When the woman didn’t stop Betty went back down the stairs and dumped the bucket of paste over the woman’s head and fur coat. Betty then ran.

 Then Betty was active in Philadelphia. She volunteered to go there because the party building organization she was with saw the importance of building a local unit in that working class city.  Betty was instrumental in organizing part-time teachers, of which there were many, into a union at Philadelphia Community College, where she taught. This was one of the first efforts to organize part-timers in the country. It was successful, after a bold and militant strike and picket line.

After working in Philadelphia, Betty moved to Chicago, also to work on building political organization there. She taught at DePaul and Devry and then the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). Betty kept working on the methods and content of her teaching. Rather than be the teacher, she became the coach. She urged the students to keep on working on papers and skills until they mastered them, with grades based on their final products, not on the weak efforts they may have made along the way.

Betty hit the headlines in the school newspaper at UIC and support from many students when, during political discussion at a table in the cafeteria the university administration demanded that she stop. Betty said that she and the students had every right to continue the political discussion they were having. The administration then sent the campus police to handcuff Betty and take her away. While they were doing this, Betty shouted out to all the students in the cafeteria that their rights to have political discussion were being violated.

On the way to the campus police station and inside the station, Betty kept explaining to the police how the arrest was a violation of basic rights. And they listened. Because the administration initially decided not to press charges—of trespassing on her own campus!—the police said they would release her. But she indicated she needed a ride back to the Student Center. While they were making the arrangements for the ride, the administration called to say to keep on holding Betty because they were seriously considering putting on charges. But the police told the person on the phone that Betty had already left!

Another good story that shows Betty’s militant spirit came when she went up to Northwestern University in Evanston to support a protest there against the CIA coming on campus to interview students for jobs with the CIA. In the midst of the protest and its circular picket, one of the students from the Conservative Club broke through the line, carrying a U.S. flag. Betty just moved forward and grabbed the flag from the fellow and threw it on the ground. Some people who were at the protest remember to this day this action by Betty.

Betty has been active with starting and building a neighborhood peace and justice organization in Chicago, and the Chicago Anti-War Committee. She was an active writer of draft leaflets and proposals for action, and was a speaker at rallies and forums. Even when Betty was having trouble with increasingly painful legs, she would go out for distribution of leaflets or for holding up a placard at a demonstration, in the coldest weather, sitting on her rollator.

Even in the deepest days of pain and woe since last September while at home, and then in and out of the hospital, and in and out of the care center, and then when she had increasing trouble speaking (perhaps because of the corona virus), she would bring up political issues and state how important it is to oppose the U.S. government interfering in other countries, and the importance of workers’ unity and action.

Betty has been and is a model for all of us to follow. We need to be active to change the world, knowing from history that it can be done. That is an important way to influence others and win the battle of public opinion. Even people she knew from years ago when she was in Boston stay in touch and are active based at least partly on Betty’s influence.

As I said at the beginning of this piece, Betty was a life-long fighter against injustice. And how about each of us doing more on this front to make a similar contribution to making a better world for us, our children, and the working class and people throughout the U.S. and in countries across the world?

On the last days of her life, including in the morning of her death, we would talk on the phone, even with her trouble breathing. I would tell her stories about how the workers were protesting, and she would always say something like “That is very good.” On one of her last days she said, “The workers must be united.”


You can pay your respects at https://www.obituare.com/betty-resnikoff-obituary-75950/