Forget cake: the City of Edina is now all about The Resistance. From mindless leftist propaganda forced fed students at Edina High School to City Council faux mandarins hurling politically correct pronunciamentos, the mundane but crucial matters of public safety, road repair and education have taken a backseat to the promulgation of far left political causes.
You may think cities just take care of city business but you’d be badly mistaken. Edina is a textbook example of how the Regressive Left has weaponized municipalities. While you go about your life, working, raising a family perhaps, paying property taxes, shoveling your walks in winter, Edina advances a far left program that has more in common with Venezuela than it does Minnesota.
Edina High School has become a laughing stock for an open letter signed by many teachers after the election. It contains some of the most cringe-inducing virtue signaling this side of the Hollywood A-listers who threatened to move before the election of Donald Trump. (Alas, they stayed.)
In broad strokes, these people, who should be nowhere near a classroom, pretended to courage and righteousness by labeling the election of Trump inherently racist and bigoted. They are against that, you see, and students who supported Trump were automatically such. These teachers are on the side of all kinds of minorities, which were set forth in hilarious detail. I was a bit put out they forgot black, lesbian, quadriplegics but they meant well.
In the painfully juvenile closing to their letter, these old and not so old hippies declared, “We will teach rebellion against a broken world.” Ah yes, the struggle is real in one of Minnesota’s most affluent suburbs and the collective hive mind of it’s high school teachers are at the ramparts. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.
The city, however, outdoes the wanna-be Antifas at the high school. With public money and–from what I’ve been able to gather–virtually no public input, the city creates commissions and programs that tilt exclusively left. Far left, in fact. I doubt the city’s political activities are widely known by residents.
For example, not only does Edina have a Human Rights and Resolutions Committee, there is, as of late November 2016, the Edina Citizens’ Human Rights Commission. The former takes positions on political issues (yes on gay marriage, no on voter ID) and promotes those views with money coming from many who don’t agree. The latter group claims to be grassroots but nothing is grassroots these days. It recently linked to an article about “teaching tolerance” on its Facebook page.
The author was Hanif Mohebi, executive director of CAIR, San Diego (Council on American Islamic Relations). CAIR is a terrorist linked organization attempting to pass itself off as just another civil rights group. It isn’t, but there was the Edina “human rights commission” promoting it. The ignorance of the Left is a constant source of amazement.
Last month these leftist citizens sponsored a program called “Sanctuary Movements and Sanctuary Congregations Today: Moral and Legal Considerations.” I’m confidant the name “Kate Steinle” didn’t come up in those considerations.
There is nothing from either of these groups that is not on the far left. There is no evidence that other views are considered or entertained, let alone sponsored or supported. They promote views antithetical to many who live there and with their own money.
Edina has been politicized in stealth. Its residents should demand that it stop advocating for every far left cause that comes along and instead deal with issues any city of its size encounters. All political viewpoints should be respected and only by ceasing to engage in promoting one of them can they be.
Keith Ellison has said everything in life is politics. Maybe in North Korea because this is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. Edina can be taken back, but only if residents care enough to put a stop to creeping authoritarianism.
Image credit: Edinamag.com
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In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor. He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter