The Maine GOP has been in the news more than usual lately. Maine is generally known for its progressive politics and moderate Republicans but no longer. GOP activists managed to replace the Maine GOP platform with a fringe platform that outlawed atheism and one-world government. They also redecorated a middle school classroom because they didn’t like the things they saw in there (h/t Jason330):
But some Knox Republicans who gathered at King Middle School that Friday apparently were less than enthusiastic about the political overtones of some posters — some created by eighth-graders — and other materials they saw in the social studies classroom.
When the teacher, Paul Clifford, returned to his classroom Monday morning, he discovered that a collage depicting the history of the labor movement was missing. In its place, someone had left a bumper sticker reading: “Working People Vote Republican.” Caucus members also apparently looked inside a closed cardboard box near Clifford’s desk that contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated by the American Civil Liberties Union. Clifford later discovered a note left behind reading, “A Republican was here. What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?” according to an account in the Portland Press Herald.
On Wednesday, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally apologized to faculty and students at the school.
So, now the Constitution is “progaganda?” The silly Republicans probably read the Constitution and noticed that it didn’t actually say anything about God, so figured it had been altered. (Remember their new platform says “freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion.)
Here’s the ironic thing:
Clifford and the school’s principal, Mike McCarthy, pointed out in media accounts that the posters were part of projects on freedom and free expression.
The Knox County GOP is obviously against free expression. How dare the history of the labor movement be taught?
Don’t ya love it when great minds think alike? Unstable Isotope and I (pandora) wrote about the same thing, with slightly different angles. So… rather than adding another post (although I do think this subject deserves many posts) we decided to attach mine to her’s.
MAINE TEA PARTY STEALS* IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY
by pandora
Last week Maine ‘s Republican State Convention adopted a new platform, heavily influenced by the Knox County delegation. Before we go into what happened let’s take a look at the players involved.
The insurgent Knox County conservatives, heavily steeped in the Tea Party Movement, would manage by the time the convention was over to replace a run-of-the-mill party platform with a new set of planks imported from, well, another political planet.
It’s a place where all of the borders are sealed, global warming is a myth (and a potentially illegal one at that), health care is by no means a right, Austrian economics rule and you will never, ever witness the creation of “a one world government.”
It’s also a place where, according to Section V, item k, “It is immoral to steal property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits.” [emphasis mine]
What happened next is simply jaw-dropping.
When he went home for the weekend on Friday, one of Clifford’s most prized teaching tools – a collage-type poster depicting the history of the U.S. labor movement – was affixed to his classroom door. Clifford uses it each year to teach his students how to incorporate collages into their annual project on Norman Rockwell’s historic “Four Freedoms” illustrations.
The poster includes this quote from the labor organizer and one-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs: “Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”
“It’s one of my favorite posters,” said Clifford. “I’ve had it sitting there for seven years.”
Enter the Knox County Republicans, whose weekend convention coup has attracted national attention as a harbinger of a movement that knows a thing or two about agitation.
Details are sketchy – as they often can be when political passion gives way to apparent criminal activity. But this much we know: When Clifford returned to school Monday morning, his cherished labor poster was gone.
In its place, taped to the same door, was a red-white-and-blue bumper sticker that read, “Working People Vote Republican.”
Working People Vote Republican? Guess they also steal.
The sad thing is, when I read this article, I wasn’t surprised. I’m beginning to think that’s just how Tea Partiers roll – that they are above the law because their cause is just and they are Real Americans. And save your “fringe group” arguments. These people are the Republican Party in Maine, evidenced by the adoption of their platform. Even worse, they see nothing wrong in their behavior.
McCarthy, who happens to be this year’s Maine Middle Level Principal of the Year (for the second time), tried to reason with the one of the anonymous callers.
“What you saw was a snapshot after school of what was up in the room on that day,” he noted. “You haven’t been privy to all of the different ideas that have been talked about in that classroom.”
The caller’s reaction?
“She just got more and more agitated,” McCarthy said.
That’s when McCarthy reminded the caller that a teacher’s poster actually had been stolen. Her response, he recalled, was, “Well, it should have been because it shouldn’t be in that classroom!”
“Well, that’s not how we do business around here,” replied McCarthy, by now somewhere between simmer and full boil. “We’re more than willing to discuss ideas, but we don’t steal.”
Didn’t I read something about stealing in the new platform? Hmmm… I’ll have to look at the original document, perhaps there’s an asterisk next to that rule that reads: It is immoral to steal property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits*
*unless you’re a Real American, then please feel free to steal whatever you feel necessary.
The reply “Well, it should have been because it shouldn’t be in that classroom” should be the Tea Party’s motto since they use it so often. After all, Dr. Tiller would still be alive if he hadn’t provided abortions. That guy wouldn’t have flown his plane into the IRS building if taxes were lower. Tea Partiers wouldn’t have yelled racist and homophobic slurs if Democrats hadn’t passed Health Care Reform. On and on it goes.
Enter a grown-up…
Christie-Lee McNally, executive director of the Maine Republican Party, struck a more apologetic note. While she has no idea who took Clifford’s poster, she said, she’ll do everything she can to have it returned or replaced.
“That’s not something we condone,” McNally said. “I apologize for the bad behavior of a few people. It’s unfortunate that it happened. It does give us a black eye.”
Nicely done, but, given that Maine Republicans just adopted the Knox County conservatives platform, is Ms. McNally really in charge anymore? Let’s face it, the grown-ups in the GOP have either been driven out or abdicated all responsiblity – in the fear of being driven out. This is just more bad behavior wrapped in the American Flag; behavior I fully expect Tea Partiers here in Delaware and across the country to justify. Or maybe they’ll take the path of denying responsibility and claiming that a liberal snuck into the school after they left, stole the poster, and framed them.
I’d say they’re behaving like children, but that’s an insult to children.
Speaking of the children, they got into the act Tuesday after a note from “a Republican” was found in Clifford’s classroom. “A Republican was here,” it read. “What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?”
Responded eighth-grader Lilly O’Leary, one of several students who sent e-mails to this newspaper decrying the behavior of their weekend guests, “I am not being brainwashed in his class under any circumstances. I am being told that I have the right to my own opinion.”
She added, “These people were adults and they were acting very immaturely.”
Ya think, Lilly? Lilly is only a child (and probably, given this experience, a future Democrat. Children are so impressionable, after all) and, yet, she demonstartes more maturity and class than the “adults” who visited her classroom… But I’m sure, in the eyes of the Knox County conservatives, she isn’t a Real American with real values, like: Thou shall not steal*
Anyone else getting the impression that the Tea Party lives by the asterisk?