Randi Weingarten is the President of the American Federation of Teachers and perhaps the person who is most to blame for the horrific abuse our children have suffered in the public education system over the last two years.

She has wielded the power of her union and affiliates to wedge her way into federal COVID policies and CDC discussions about health, and the victims have been voters and taxpayers who have had absolutely no say in her representation or influence. Weingarten is a union representative who’s interests only lie with her organization, which is not exactly surprising. In fact, it’s expected; it’s right there in the name…TEACHERS. If her strong-arming only applied to the interests of teachers, that would be one thing. However, Weingarten cloaks her activism in the language of “justice” and the outcome of her activism is to disadvantage students and parents. That is a combative stance, and yet Weingarten recently had the nerve to say that pushback in the form of parental rights legislation and discussion is how “wars start.”

On a recent podcast, the AFT President suggested the current trend of parental interest and parental rights activism is “propaganda” and intimated that parents fighting for their liberties is akin to stoking warfare.

“This notion – we’ve been very lucky in America, and we in some ways live in a bubble for a long time…this is propaganda. This is misinformation. This is the way in which wars start. This is the way in which hatred starts.”

To recap, Weingarten believes that teachers and their union representatives colluding with government to override parental authority and set local and federal health policies is just fine, but parents opposing that collusion are warmongers.

In a statement to Fox News, the union head accused “vocal minorities” of harming gay children, teachers, and book banning.

“Educators welcome parent involvement in schools because our kids do best when teachers, parents and caregivers work together,” said AFT president Randi Weingarten in a statement to Fox News earlier this week. “We have a lot to do to help kids recover and thrive this year after two years of an unprecedented pandemic. So rather than help us help our kids socially, academically and emotionally, these vocal minorities want to marginalize LGBTQ kids, censor teachers and ban books.”

Now would be a good time to remind Weingarten that she fired the first shots. In fact, the chances are very high that if her union had just kept their grubby hands out of the whole pandemic response, their indoctrination efforts and classroom overreach might have gone on indefinitely. It’s her fault that schools across the nation stayed closed for as long as they did. Many districts followed the orders  recommendations of their local unions on openings and COVID mitigations, and those local unions followed the lead of giants like AFT. While we were at home, we had the opportunity to get an up-close and personal view of classroom teaching, and many parents were shocked.

It was an education, that’s for sure, and we know education is empowering. Weingarten has no one but herself to blame for empowering parents to finally stand up for themselves. What she calls “misinformation” is simply average Americans providing evidence that disagrees with her assumptions and political will. What she calls “marginalizing” is simply average parents asking that any discussion around sensitive topics like sex and sexuality be be left out of classroom instruction. What she calls “book banning” is liberal projection. Does Weingarten not know that liberals have been endeavoring to ban classics from Mark Twain and books like To Kill A Mockingbird for years now because they don’t want children to have to read about racism? Here’s a story from all the way back in 2012 about liberals seeking to ban the classics. This isn’t new, but Weingarten’s claims should put her in the realm of “misinformation”…if we’re playing by her rules.

Watching the comments, it seems likely that Weingarten was making a comparison to actual, physical war. She seems to believe that citizens standing up for their human rights is at least a declaration of the first steps toward murderous warfare.

The hyperbole of the progressive left has been the real misinformation campaign here, but I digress.

Madame President, if I may address you directly in this column for just a moment…

No good parents seeks war, certainly not a physical war in which people are murdered or displaced. A parent’s sole drive is to protect children. If you’re seeing a lot more angry parents lately, it’s because we love our children, not because we hate someone else’s children. If anyone is bringing us to the brink of physical violence, it is you. Your seeming approval of designating angry parents expressing their views to elected officials as “domestic terrorists,” your lies about the effectiveness of masking and the rates of school transmissions, your lies about the motives of parents…this is all propaganda. It is all misinformation, aimed at enriching your union. Parents don’t have a union. Our only motives are our children. If propaganda and misinformation are what lead to wars, look in the mirror. Congratulations, you’re a warmonger.

I can assure you that we do not seek violence, but if it’s a culture war that you want, you got. You could have simply sent the kids back to school and many of us would have gone back to accepting the status quo (I hate to say that, but it’s true). Instead you doubled down on the power grab. Don’t blame us for this war. You fired first.

Surrender will be the only way to end this.