Last week, in anticipation of the city’s current school closing battle, the Chicago Teachers Union sponsored civil disobedience training for its members by none other than the professional manufacturer of crisis and radical self-proclaimed “anarchist” Lisa Fithian.

Fithian first became known for her role in organizing massive demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1998. Her demonstrations led to the shutdown of the summit, given its widespread violence and civil unrest.

Fithian also played a major role in organizing the anti-NATO protests in Chicago in May of 2012. There, in an interview with Hating Breitbart director Andrew Marcus, Fithian admitted that she is, in fact, an anarchist:

Last week’s training wasn’t the first time Fithian has worked hand-in-hand with Chicago teachers. She was also in Chicago working with the Teachers Union in the fall of 2011 during the massive Occupy marches that took place since early on in the movement. EAG News documented Fithian’s role organizing the staged arrests of Chicago teachers during the October 2011 Occupy protests:

Thus, news of her presence with teachers as they face a round of school closures, announced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel last Thursday, is unsurprising, despite her extremist views.

Progress Illinois reported last week:

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) hosted the first of two “Citywide Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Trainings” aimed to prepare education activists for upcoming protests and coach them through non-violent protest techniques, such as disruptions, occupations and demonstrations.

Preparing for the worst, CTU is educating parents and activists on the proper practices of non-violent protests.

“It’s the willingness to engage in radical acts that are challenging the core of what’s going on,” said Lisa Fithian, a political activist and scholar, who, for decades, has worked as a community organizer on a range of issues. “We need to create conditions that allow for the transformation for us to be more liberated.”

Sponsored by CTU and the Grassroots Education Movement, Fithian was brought in to tutor and inspire Chicago’s activists at St. Agatha Church, 3151 West Douglas Blvd.

“The entire system that we live in is designed to keep us from accessing the power that we need,” she said. “If we had all the power we wouldn’t be in this situation right now … These guys do a lot of things to keep us from getting the power we need to get better schools and better education.”

Progress Illinois also reports that Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey was on hand at the training session.

“People who work in the schools and rely on public schools will oppose the mass closings by any and all peaceful means — this will be a bombshell, these closings, to our schools and our communities,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey at the training.

“(School closings are) not something we’re prepared to accept without a fight,” Sharkey said. “Tonight is about us training our people in the methods of non-violent civil disobedience because we’re going to take this fight as far as we have to, to defend our community schools.”

Sharkey is no stranger to the radical-revolutionary scene. Last fall, Breitbart News covered Sharkey’s participation in the Midwest Marxism Conference, held at Northwestern University. The conference’s dominant theme was the collaboration between the International Socialist Organization and the Chicago Teachers Union, in successfully organizing the massive Chicago teachers’ strike.

You can’t say we didn’t warn you. The relationship between teachers and radical Marxist/Anarchist extremists is not only a fact, but they also are becoming emboldened. When a teachers union brings Lisa Fithian in, they are sending one signal: war.

School closings coupled with a massive city budget crisis are part of a series of very complex issues requiring robust debate and sound strategies. What is very clear, however, is that one element of this equation, the Chicago Teachers Union’s embrace of a radical anarchist, Lisa Fithian, to plot their moves, indicates the value they place in the struggle versus the solution.

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Photo Credit: Progress Illinois