VERMONT – NEA THE UNION OF VERMONT EDUCATORS SHOWS THEIR TRUE COLORS, A PURE EXAMPLE, ON THEIR PART, OF CYBER BULLYING, BY GUESS WHO? THE VERMONT – NEA !
HOW SHOULD SCHOOLS ADDRESS CYBER BULLYING? BY QUITING THE VERMONT – NEA
The Vermont – NEA, the union of Vermont educators, has displayed a gross and horrendous act of cyber bullying and dis-information by telling their taxpayer paid teachers and other educators who to vote for, and who NOT to vote for!
Their website implies that all candidates were sent a questionairre, but this implication is blatantly false. I certainly was not sent one.
They give a list of candidates, and make it perfectly clear who teachers and other educators should vote for, and who they should NOT vote for!
I call this cyber-bullying at its worst.
I encourage all teachers and Vermont educators to visit my
website: http://crisericson.com
I’m on the ballot and I’m a victim of Vermont – NEA cyberbullying!
http://vtnea.org/statewide2014
This website does one thing, it discourages voters from thinking
for themselves, and it implies that Vermont teachers are so un-informed and ignorant that they are
incapable of thinking for themselves.
Furthermore, by telling people specifically which candidates
to vote for, the ones with a mark after their name,
and clearly indicating that the teachers and other educators
should NOT vote for any candidate who does NOT have the
mark after their name,
the Vermont – NEA, the union of Vermont educators,
is clearly acting as a political action committee, a PAC,
and there is no indication on this page that they have
filed as a political action committee which promotes
some candidates while discouraging voters from
voting for others.
Legal action should be taken against them,
and they should be banned from Vermont entirely
and forever for cyber-bullying, which is what this is,
because they did not file as a political action committee,
they present themselves on this page as a UNION.
This is disgusting: http://vtnea.org/statewide2014
2014 Political candidate, Cris Ericson, http://crisericson.com
Victim of Vermont – NEA cyberbullying.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME ON THE VERMONT -NEA!
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME FOR TEACHING CHILDREN TO BE
BULLIES, BY BEING BULLIES YOURSELVES!!!
Is it bullying?
As usual, Chris Ericson is raising important issues which otherwise might not be mentioned. She has challenged the NEA for endorsing candidates in apparent violation of election laws, and she has exposed the NEA’s inaccurate claim that all candidates were given the opportunity to have their survey answers on the NEA website.
Unfortunately, Ms. Ericson has harmed her own credibility with over-the-top rhetoric, blasting the NEA for “cyber bullying.” I checked a number of definitions, and found that cyberbullying involves the use of electronic means to torment, threaten, harass, humiliate, embarrass.
http://stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html
At worst, NEA’s presentation of candidates is garden-variety election bias, but it is not bullying.
Spot on
Thank you for your spot on sensible and informative analysis SK-B.
unfortunate post
There are real examples of cyber-bullying in our culture and it is a problem not to be taking lightly. It can have a real harmful effect, especially with our youth and our students, although anyone can be bullied in this manner.
This vanity candidate is simply trying to get attention before the election – and doesn’t seem to care how she gets it. Shame on her – to use a problem that affects mostly our children to try to get votes.
This is a disgusting,
This is a disgusting, misrepresented post. Ms. Erickson, you complain bitterly and often about not being respected as a candidate. About not being taken seriously. How can you expect to get any respect when you continue to spew these ridiculously self centered posts? Do you even know anything about cyber bullying? Do you know, for instance, that since 2005 there have been approximately 13 million people who have been victims of actual cyber bullying? Do you know that 2/3rds of those victims have been children between the ages of 9 and 18? Do you know that 8 percent of them have committed suicide because of the relentless bullying? How dare you have the audacity, the selfishness, the lack of compassion and understanding to put yourself in the same category. You think your irritation at the NEA qualifies as being bullied? Why don’t you stop posting your warped observations and try talking to the parents of a child who ended their life because the torment of being cyber bullied was more than they could bear? You wouldn’t even have to look far. This tragedy has happened right in the area that you profess to care so much about; that you feel worthy to represent. You should be ashamed.
In response to SK-B and KAlden:
In response to SK-B and KAlden:
I am complaining about more than myself, I am stating that
all candidates
who did not get THE MARK after their name are being
cyber-bullied
by your definition:
cyber-bullying includes being threatened,
and obviously the candidates without THE MARK after
their name are being threatened with loss of votes!
I have been contacted by another candidate for U.S. Congress,
Matthew Andrews, and he was not sent a questionaire either.
If this had been a PAC presentation, on a PAC website,
it would have been legal;
but it is presented by the UNION, so it is not legal.
Only a legally registered political action committee or Super PAC can
promote some candidates and discourage voters from
voting for others. The NEA Union takes its dues from teachers who are paid with TAXPAYER DOLLARS, and so when the Union takes the dues from the teachers who are paid with taxpayer dollars, and puts that money into a website to discourage voters from voting for many candidates while encouraging voters to vote for one particular candidate for each office, then
that might be considered, in a court of law, a form of campaign finance money laundering because you can clearly see the trail of taxpayer dollars going from the taxpayers to the teachers to the union to the website promoting one particular candidate for each office that the Union is hoping to get votes for.
http://www.fec.gov
http://www.leg.state.vt.us
KAlden, you are in error to disregard my feelings and scoff
at them.
I am publicly expressing my anger in a legal way.
I have built up an on-going anger for 12 years now
because I have been on the ballot every two years,
2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014
for Governor and I have never
been invited to a general election candidate debate by
VPR Vermont Public Radio,
and I have never been invited
to a general election candidate debate by the
Burlington Free Press,
and I have never been invited to a general
election candidate debate by the
League of Women Voters,
and I have never been invited to a general election
candidate debate by the
Vermont League of Cities and Towns,
and I have never been invited to a general election candidate
debate by the
University of Vermont, and I have never been
invited to a general election candidate debate by
WCAX,
and the list goes on.
I’m angy, I feel anger, and I’m
expressing my fury in a legal way, in writing.
For you to
totally disregard my absolute disgust with the total and
complete lack of inclusiveness in the election process in
Vermont is just one more insult to me.
I am not self-centered in expressing my own feelings,
that is an honest act of sharing.
There are other ways
people have shared their anger over political situations:
they start WARS.
Rosa Parks, a Black woman, refused to sit at the back of a bus one day.
Sometimes it just takes ONE WOMAN to stand up and
state that she’s being bullied and excluded wrongfully.
I hope other candidates will be encouraged to stand up
and state that they have been bullied by being threatened
with the loss of votes due to wrongful exclusion.
There was once a Vermont Governor candidate named Hardy Marcia.
He made a website list of all the debates he was excluded from.
Then he got cancer and died, he was quite young.
I refuse to let this go to my stomach,
I’m belching it out for the world to read!
I’m angry, I’m threatened with loss of votes, I’m humiliated at being
excluded from the process, I’m publicly embarrassed by the
Vermont NEA.
What don’t you understand about that?
I feel bullied.
I have felt bullied for 12 years.
I have put myself on the line, live on television,
speaking up for marijuana legalization starting in 2002
when no one else would. I was the first candidate
for Governor in 2002 to speak out in favor of legalizing
marijuana on Vermont Public Television.
I have spoken up live on
television against fracking, natural gas pipelines,
and I have spoken out against basing F-35 strike fighter jets
in Chittenden County, Vermont.
I do this for all of the people, not just for myself.
When is the last time you put yourself on the line,
live on television,
to speak up for controversial issues
when no one else would do it?
I perform a necessary function, as a perennial political candidate,
I always look for issues of importance to the public that the
major party candidates are afraid to discuss because all they
care about is playing it safe and winning.
Cris Ericson http://crisericson.com
Sometimes Perennial
Sometimes Perennial candidates actually interfere and can muddy the waters of the election process rather than complimenting or adding to it. You may think you are speaking out for me when you speak out on issues but personally I think your “speaking out” has a negative rather than positive effect. The question is when does a perennial candidacy become a vanity candidacy. I suspect we will have different opinions about that but you can take me off the list of those you are speaking for, lighten your load by one. And please don’t compare yourself to Rosa Parks. That’s a prime example of where you start skidding off the road…again.
First let me make it very
First let me make it very clear that, in no way are you speaking for me. I am more than able to speak for myself and I can assure you that nothing you “speak out” about has anything to do with the things I believe in or find important.
I notice that not once in your exceedingly long and self pitying post did you mention the facts about actual cyber bullying that I presented to you. Because you don’t really like to deal with facts, do you? You like to deal with fantasy, exaggerations, misrepresentation and only how those half truths might affect you. I think we are all aware that you are angry. But, it seems that you are angry about things that somehow apply to your constant candidacy and not the very real tragedies that are happening in the world. You not getting a check Mark after your name is not a tragedy. It may be annoying but it certainly isn’t bullying. Who would want to support a candidate who has SUCH a self inflated and misrepresented view?
And just for the record: You, Ms Ericsson, are no Rosa Parks. Nor will you ever have the impact on the world that she had.
Pachyderm
I thought I was critical of Cris (and Emily) but I have been beautifully eclipsed.
Reading these comments, one almost has to feel sorry for Cris, although, I suspect Cris is more of a pachyderm than Emily.
It was similarly aggressive, yet constructive comment responses that stopped Emily from ever coming back to iBrattleboro. Her over-the-top rhetoric didn’t sit well with readership either. Both Cris and Emily are woefully bad writers. At least, this last time around Emily has taken my advice during her early days to find herself a ghostwriter.
Without thick-skin, one should probably not run for office. Candidate’s are of course sitting targets and must be prepared for the bull’s eye syndrome. (This is true for opinion/philosophy writers as well 🙂
Cris does try to give it back as good as she gets, but Emily wilted under fire.
Emily has intimated this is likely her last campaign and is certain to move into the hemp cash crop business or some other earthly saving venture, if that is true.
I imagine we’ll see our perennial ‘over-the-top’ Cris next time around.
I see nothing aggressive in
I see nothing aggressive in my comments. I see a lot of aggression in Cris’s posts. To crib from Harry Truman, “I do’t give them hell, I tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” Personally I commend Emily for moving on with her life. But I doubt very much that comments in response to her posts here on ibrattleboro had much to do with her numbers at the polls, anymore than the NEA’s statements about candidates will have any huge effect on Cris’s numbers.
It goes without saying…
Rosa, I did mean aggressive in more of a general sense, not a personal one, and over a much longer time than just this newest post.
For a directed comment I would have popped in under a particular person’s comment here to comment (like now).
On the flip, others and me have noted Cris’ aggression before (it is also easy to see in the extensive use of her CAPS).
I wrote to Emily just after my ‘Laughingstock’ post to wish her well.
Naturally, I don’t think either that comments on iBrattleboro all have vote swinging potential. (NEA comments may be a different matter.)
union endorsement of candidates is legal
To set the record straight, union endorsement of candidates is legal. I cannot think of a union that does not make endorsements. Just because a union endorses a slate of candidates does not mean they have coerced their membership to vote only for those candidates. I am a member of the union that Chris is going after. Quite frankly, I have never even looked at the VT-NEA endorsements. I did see you, Chris, wearing a very fashionable hat during one of the primary debates on VT public television.
I pay my union dues with my earnings. I also contribute some of my earnings to other organizations that take a variety of stands on issues and endorse candidates. I look at the whole big picture and vote my conscience. I am open to considering any legal candidate. If you know of a case where an organization threatens it members to vote a certain way then you should report that as election tampering – which is illegal.
Yes, there are many things broken with our democracy, but unions making recommendations about which candidates are most inclined to support issues of importance to their members is not one of them.
Oligarchy
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is in the news in California speaking out
against Oligarchy.
Definition: Oligarchy: A form of government in which the ruling pwer
belongs to a few persons.
A state governed in this way.
The persons ruling such a state.
Digital Journal
By Karen Graham Nov 1, 2014 in Politics
…The fire in 2012 was the third such fire at the refinery in Richmond, Ca. since 1989.
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, a Green Party official, ..accusing Chevron
of total disregard for the safety of her city’s residents,
and the oil company’s lax safety measures…
… to quell the negative public opinion still circulating through the city of 107,000 people,
Chevron decided to buy the election on Tuesday…
… the multinational oil giant has spent over $3.0 million to buy pro-Chevron candidates
for mayor and city council…
… What Chevron did was to contribute the $3.0 million
to three local political action committees….
… Viewers on television and the Internet have been assaulted with ads
favorable to Chevron’s chosen candidates….
… ad claims that “Gayle McLaughlin and fellow council candidate Eduardo Martinez
were part of a group of radicals out of touch with Richmond voters…
…US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont,
visited Richmond, Ca. two weeks ago,
and he was appalled
at the obvious attempts
at buying the election.
Sanders said, “We are not living in a democracy
when giant corporation
like Chevron can buy local governments.
That’s called oligarchy,
not democracy.
We have got to fight back.”
…describing Chevron’s underhanded tactics,
…used young school children.
Second graders at a local school were…
passed out iPads and other Apple products worth about $1,000
to the kids. The donations came through Chevron’s Fuel Your School program.
…