Opinion piece:
Enfield’s Town Council responded hysterically and boorishly to complaints from a few local Republicans that a film series being planned by the public library should not include Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a polemic more or less supporting nationalization of the medical insurance system.
Yes, “Sicko” is political advocacy. But instead of thanking the Republicans for their comments and asking the town manager to look into the matter and report back or even inviting the librarian to the council’s next meeting so he might explain what was happening and what he meant to accomplish, a majority of the council members jumped to the conclusion that the librarian was trying to propagandize for the Communist International. The council members told the town manager to block the showing of “Sicko,” and the mayor went so far as to warn that the council could take out its displeasure on the library’s budget.
Do Librarians Repond to the Political Spoils System?
The spoils system of 19th century politics meant that when the Republicans came into office, they would fire all the Democrats and hire Republican supporters. Then, when the Democrats came in, they would fire all the Republican supporters and hire Democrats. This was called the spoils system, and is the main reason why teachers have tenure and many other jobs became professionalised.
The mayor is an ass and seems to think that the librarian is his personal employee, and should do everything he says to do. Stalin thought this way, except, of course, he wouldn’t fire people who disagreed with him, he shot them.
The mayor also thinks that because he was elected, everybody in the community thinks like he does. What an ego! He also thinks he can impose personal grudges by threatening the budget of a service if he doesn’t agree with an employee.
If nothing else, this type of incident shows, once again, that politicians should stay out of personnel and employee relations. Or does he know of a Republican librarian somewhere who needs this librarian’s job? Or perhaps he has an unemployed brother-in-law he wants to appoint instead?