Right-wingers urge workers to abandon unions

Bill Knight column for 4-25, 26 or 27, 2019

Illinois pension funds and unions serving public employees have notified members that letters sent to them this spring contained lies and were tied to a national anti-labor campaign funded by Right-wing interests ranging from the Koch brothers to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Beth Spencer, Communications Manager of the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) in Champaign, said, “SURS was troubled to learn that many recently received a letter from the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) urging you to end your union dues or dues to retirement organizations.

“SURS does not support the IPI,” she added.

Audrey Edwards, president of the Retirees Chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), part of the American Federation of Teachers, warned, “You may receive a letter from the Illinois Policy Institute, an anti-union organization, that contains some serious falsehoods. It alleges that our dues are going to Mike Madigan and urges us to quit our union. The truth: Our UPI dues are never used for partisan political purposes.”

Indeed, IPI correspondence conflates routine union expenses for organizing, negotiating and enforcing contracts, etc. with unionists’ voluntary contributions toward political candidates or causes. Those funds are separate, and dues can’t mingle with political donations.

“I have belonged for many years to UPI,” Edwards continued. “I pay UPI dues, and I also choose to contribute separately to the Committee on Political Education (COPE), which backs candidates who support union causes. Some of our members pay UPI dues but don't contribute to COPE. That works, too.

“I attend statewide UPI meetings,” she added. “At these meetings, we do not discuss partisan politics. COPE contributors hold a separate meeting to plan political action, including campaign contributions from a completely isolated budget.

 “Please don't be fooled,” she said. “The Illinois Policy Institute, representing business interests, is attempting to weaken the power of unions. Threats loom. We need to stay strong.”

IPI runs operations that try to get people to leave their unions, based on 2018’s divisive U.S. Supreme Court “Janus v. AFSCME Council 31” decision. By a 5-4 vote, the Justices ruled that though unions are obligated to fairly represent all workers in a bargaining unit, workers who benefit from unions’ bargaining and representation work need not pay dues (or “fair-share” payments) to cover those costs.

Recent communications from the IPI have targeted American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Chicago Teachers Union members, Illinois Education Association members, and workers’ retirement-fund managers.

IPI is an ultra-conservative think tank with offices in Springfield and Chicago, and a member of the State Policy Network, according to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), an independent watchdog group based in Madison, Wis.

Funded by several Right-wing groups, including the Koch brothers – David and Charles, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, “IPI is listed as a ‘partner organization’ in the Charles Koch Institute's Liberty@Work program,” CMD reports. “IPI has also received $789,206 from DonorsTrust and $807,750 from Donors Capital Fund between 2010 and 2014, groups with ties to the Kochs.”

Another report, from the Center for Public Integrity, reveals DonorsTrust funders, which include the Knowledge and Progress Fund (a Charles Koch-run group), “one of the group's largest known contributors, having donated at least $8 million since 2005,” CMD added.

Other contributors known to have donated at least $1 million to DonorsTrust include the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation.

In 2011 DonorsTrust contributed a total of $86 million to Right-wing organizations, and many recipients had ties to that State Policy Network, CMD says.

Meanwhile, the IPI in recent years came under fire from across the political spectrum. IPI helped underwrite the Janus case, and weeks after it was decided, the plaintiff, Mark Janus, quit his job with the state of Illinois and IPI hired him. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times and Politico in an investigative story titled “As Conservative Group Grows in Influence, Financial Dealings Enrich Its Leaders,” journalists Mick Dumke and Tina Sfondeles reported IPI “attacked political insiders for profiting off the system, [but] IPI CEO John Tillman was able to increase his own bottom line, parlaying a small-government message into growing paychecks for himself and other top staff members.

“Through an often-dizzying series of transactions Tillman and his associates have moved millions of dollars around five interconnected nonprofits they run – while steering money to for-profit ventures they have a stake in and growing their paychecks,” they added. Tillman's “transactions raise ethical questions and could violate the federal tax code for nonprofits.”

Shortly afterward, Illinois’ Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner – who’d placed some IPI people in his administration – cut ties with the group and said he was “troubled by what I’ve learned, and I certainly would not give them any more money.”

Handful of Republicans want to dump Chicago

Bill Knight column for 4-22, 23 or 24, 2019

Crying “bailout” and “drowned out,” five Illinois Republican lawmakers want to force Chicago to become the nation’s 51^st state or empower downstate to “secede” from Illinois, exploiting the resentful belief that downstate is getting ripped off by Chicago.

The artificial rift stems from a Prairie State version of a national trend of acting on beliefs, however divorced they are from evidence. For example, many Americans believe scientists, journalists, etc. are wrong about many issues, instead preferring to trust those who deny facts, defraud people or dishonestly assert whatever benefits them, not the public.

The legislators’ suggestion isn’t new. For several years I worked for a likeable, bold, old-fashioned publisher who occasionally injected himself into the newsroom. Besides requiring the endorsement of a Libertarian for U.S. President and advocating the bombing of a country where a Peorian was held hostage, he sent me all over to write a series on space colonization and, yes, once had reporters check out the feasibility of separating downstate from Chicago.

Eventually journalists told him it wasn’t practical, sensible or justified, and he accepted their work, lighting another cigar and planning another terrific Christmas party for the staff.

But others such as Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) refuse to accept reality, and Halbrook introduced House Resolution 101 seeking a forced split-up, citing “the $221 million bailout for the CPS [Chicago Public Schools] pension system.” That echoes ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner’s debunked claim (which he ignored when he finally signed a delayed budget, never conceding that Illinois for years has subsidized teacher pensions everywhere except Chicago).

Last year, Halbrook co-sponsored a similar measure, and it died without a vote; now, he’s also stressing what he considers a schism on social issues such as guns and abortion.

Nonpartisan observers are criticizing his pandering proposal.

“The facts don’t come close to backing it up,” said Kiannah Sepeda-Miller of the Better Government Association (BGA). In fact, BGA’s PolitiFact/Illinois service spoke to various experts who called Halbrook’s claim that Chicago is “bailed out” by everyone else in Illinois “total nonsense” and a “myth.”

Elsewhere, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute (PSPPI), housed at SIU/Carbondale, offered proof.

“It’s clearly not true,” said John Jackson, a visiting professor at PSPPI, who in a report last year found that Cook County, home to 40 percent of the state’s population, gets 90 cents back for every dollar it sends to Springfield. Since downstate has more state institutions and more low-income households, central Illinois, for instance, receives $1.87 for every dollar sent to the state, and southern Illinois gets back $2.81 for each $1 it contributes to state coffers.

As to the influence of Chicago on Illinois policies, co-sponsoring Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer (R-Jacksonville) said downstate just doesn’t feel its voice matters. Of course, what Davidsmeyer ignores is that downstate doesn’t have the votes – the citizens. Yes, people create a pesky “problem” in political systems where majorities prevail, from New York City to Portland and their relationships to upstate New York and the rest of Oregon. Chicago and Cook County together have a population of 5,211,000 out of 12,740,000 statewide, and people vote, not acreage.

“The issues we face remain the same,” Halbrook conceded. “It’s just this ideology that continues to get driven from that corner of the state.”

Downstate Democrat Andy Manar from Bunker Hill didn’t disagree with Habrook’s first thought, but sees common ground and the public good, not competition.

“Lack of pharmacies, lack of doctors, lack of specialists, underfunded schools, vacant classrooms, unemployment, child-abuse rates going up. Those things are happening in rural communities and urban communities alike,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Too often, when policymakers get into this building, it’s very easy to use geography to explain deep challenges that our state faces. That’s an easy explanation that plays to the cheers of the crowd.”

Also, in Chicago Mayor-Elect Lori Lightfoot’s recent, two-day visit to Springfield weeks before her May 20 inauguration, she said she’d like to “eliminate the Chicago vs. the rest of the state mentality.

“I-80 is just a stretch of pavement,” she commented. “It is not a border. We are all one state, and Illinoisans, wherever they live, want the same things for themselves and their families.”

Besides Halbrook and Davidsmeyer, the proposal’s co-sponsors (all from rural or downstate districts) are Reps. Darren Bailey (R-Louisville), Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) and Chris Miller (R-Robinson). The current legislative session is scheduled to end May 31, but the Resolution was referred to the Rules Committee, where hopeless bills are euthanized.

‘Movies D’Arthur’

Bill Knight column for 4-18, 19 or 20, 2019

Thursday is not only National Columnists Day, according to the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. It’s also Holy Thursday, the day before Camelot’s last four knights (Bors, Ector, Blamor and Bleoberis) perished during Good Friday battles in the Holy Land, according to some tales: a good time for a column about King Arthur on video.

There are many stories within the Arthurian world, and many versions of each. All of them share elements, as do the lore’s ties to movies. The medieval romance dates to the 6th century and prevailed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, with courtly love and adventures, pseudo-historical narratives and Celtic folklore. Poets (Tennyson, Dryden, Swinburne, others) used Arthur, as have other writers (Green, Malory, Pyle, White...). Throughout are basics in time, tone and theme: Somewhere in the darkness between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of William the Conqueror, a British hero named Arthur arose to fight villains who threatened society and Christianity. Stories chronicled his birth and ascension to the throne, his kingdom and knights sitting as equals around a table with no head seat.

In films, Arthurian tales have universality and adaptability, with actors as varied as Clive Owens in 2004’s “King Arthur” and George Reeves in 1949’s “Adventures of Sir Galahad.” So both big, sweeping pictures and modest, moving movies have been used for different times, places, genres and reasons.

For your Arthurian video quest, here are 10 to seek:

“Camelot” (1967). Based on Broadway’s musical, this has been described as a “musical tragedy” instead of a musical comedy. Richard Harris is Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave Guinevere, and Franco Nero Lancelot in a plot loosely drawn from White’s “Once and Future King” and stressing the illicit lovers’ responsibility for the realm’s downfall, but character and plot are less important than memorable music and lyrics.

“A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” (1949). There’ve been three movies based on Mark Twain’s novel, here with Bing Crosby as the clever American and Cedric Hardwicke as the allergy-ridden king. Truer to Twain’s story than the 1921 or ’31 efforts, this suffers some from director Tay Garnett’s yielding to the temptation of featuring music. Rhonda Fleming and William Bendix co-star.

“Excalibur” (1981). John Boorman directed this lush version of the legend, from Arthur’s conception to his last battle, drawing on Malory. The main character is Merlin (Nicol Williamson), a magician who connects past and future and sees the passing of the Nature-based, Druid ways and the emergence of Christianity, but his power is fading. Opposing Merlin and Arthur (Nigel Terry) are Morgana (Helen Mirren) and her son Mordred.

“Gawain and the Green Knight” (1973). Using the classic 14th century poem plus stories of Percival and Yvain, director Stephen Weeks created a beautiful, sometimes-confusing drama: A mysterious Green Knight comes to Arthur’s castle and challenges Gawain, who beheads him only to witness the knight leave – his head beneath his arm. Gawain begins a quest to prove himself worthy, and Weeks provides a surprise ending.

“A Kid in King Arthur’s Court” (1995). Merlin (Art Mialik), imprisoned, transports a modern Little Leaguer to Camelot to restore glory to the kingdom in this retelling of Twain’s yarn. Thomas Ian Nicholson (“Rookie of The Year”) stars as an ordinary teen who tries to help. Kate Winslet and Joss Ackland co-star.

“Knightriders” (1981). Before filmmaker George Romero did “Night of The Living Dead,” he wrote and directed this modern variation of the Arthurian legend. A traveling stunt show performs on motorcycles, replacing horseback jousting with fighting from “steel steeds.” Ed Harris and Amy Ingersoll star.

“Knights of the Round Table” (1953). Mel Ferrer is Arthur, Ava Gardner Guinevere and Robert Taylor Lancelot in this costume-drama featuring Percival, Elaine, Gawain and others. The Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle is chaste, but the big-budget outing buckles some swash.

“Lancelot du Lac” (1974). Filmmaker Robert Bresson used the final section of the 13th century rendition of the legend called the Vulgate Cycle, focusing on chivalry’s doom and the ideal’s death. It won the International Critics’ Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

“The Sword in the Stone” (1965). The boy Arthur is taught life lessons by Merlin in this gem based on White’s “Once and Future King.” The first full-length animated version of some of Arthur’s legend, it follows “Wart” from a kid eager to be a squire for his oafish brother Kay, through experiences as animals, to a fight against the evil Mad Madam Mim, and the eventual acquisition of the sword proving his destiny. Sebastion Cabot and Ricky Sorenson star.

“The Sword of Lancelot” (1963). This Cornel Wilde vehicle (which he also produced and directed) is big on spectacle and action. Jean Wallace and Brian Aherne co-star.