Retired Teacher Chapter Leader Tom Murphy Calls for Decorum - After screaming at people for posting signs in back of UFT meeting hall and calling security

You use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable. All you are doing is using decorum as a means of oppression..... Montana House of Representatives Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr on being banned for voicing opposition to transgender legislation

Decorum, it seems, is honored lately more as an ideal than a practice. Outbursts at our December RTC membership meeting come to mind.... Tom Murphy, UFT Retired Teacher Chapter Chair

Give us liberty or give us decorum

You hear calls for civility - assume best intentions - even when there are no best intentions. Shutting out voices is itself uncivil. I've known the feeling over the decades of being a minority voice in many organizations. 

But oppression can lead to greater activism against the voices of oppression. Mulgrew and crew try to brand all dissidents as fear mongerers and liers, which is itself fear mongering and lying.

• Rosa Parks was not civil
  

Just like in Tennessee and Montana, the outcome at the April Retired Teacher meeting, where few even noticed the signs, was that Murphy's outburst called attention to them - I was outside the room and rushed in when I heard the ruckus - and have some audio of Murphy screaming but am too inept technology wise to share it. 

• Teacher unions in LA and Chicago have not been civil and have won big victories
• The latest news has been big losses for the UFT on charters and school budgets and an upcoming contract that the union will try to put lipstick on the pig. Maybe it's time for the UFT/Unity cowering hordes to be uncivil. But wait -- they are uncivil to those who stand up to them in the opposition.
• ICEUFT Blog
  UFT SETBACK ON ZOMBIE CHARTER SCHOOL REVIVAL -
  
• UFT Loses Big on Budget - New Action blog
   
  • Diane Ravitch's blog

  New York: Governor Hochul Caves to Billionaire Charter Lobby  
   
  

The late, great George Schmidt of Chicago, told me back when the caucus he helped found tried to purge him, partly over his gruffness framed as lack of civility. (It didn't work and the vote was heavily in his favor). I and a few others know the feeling as we faced similar attacks here in NYC. I'm not uncivil - just a loud-mouthed Jew from Brooklyn. Some Jews learned a long time ago about the consequences of being civil in the face of oppression. Not all unfortunately. In Israel, they are doing bad shit unto others as was done unto them and that can lead to uncivil reactions, which leads to further oppression because authoritarians have no other mechanisms to use.

So, it was an LOL moment to see Mr. Civility and Decorum, Tom Murphy, screaming "Put down those signs" at the bold, energetic retirees who use the pronouns she/her standing proudly in the back of the room and not only calling security, but threatening to close down the meeting if the signs were not removed. Watching the video of Zooey Zephyr being censured by right wing anti-democracy forces, along with the Tennessee banning of black legislators over a faux decorum issue, is beautifully ironic. (Murphy once accused me of antisemitism because my Ed Notes cartoonist made Randi's nose look too big.)

By the way, where does it say in by-laws or constitution that there are  no signs allowed?