Ed Notes Online: Marches Continue and Retro: Love me, I'm a liberal --- Phil Ochs

Friday, December 26, 2014

Marches Continue and Retro: Love me, I'm a liberal --- Phil Ochs

I'm inspired by the movie "Selma". I was thinking of my own ambivalence about the people who continue to march and protest despite the call for a moratorium.

In Selma, MLK was told by LBJ to take a moratorium of sorts and not hold that march. It struck a note in me that there is a broader movement out there to end the protests -- like let's get it settled behind closed doors with a few people and not masses of people in the streets pushing.

UPDATE: NY Times - After Killing of Police Officers, Protest Movement Is at a Crossroads

The movie deals with the conflicts between King and SNCC and Malcolm X. Having a radical wing never hurts - as Malcolm says in the movie shortly before he was killed.

I'm putting the Phil Ochs cutting song up for my own self-criticism and flip-flop on these issues - you know the drill - as I get older I move right- not that some of the actions of people I know on the left doesn't help push me in that direction.

But people I know and respect, like Josmar Trujillo, of New Yorkers Against Bratton, help me see the other side. Josmar is part of a coalition opposing the broken windows theory of policing. I filmed Josmar, a former Rockaway resident, in an anti stop and frisk march out here in July 2013. And I run into him in the local gym a few times a week. Josmar was on Brian Lehrer the other day. You can listen here.

We should never forget the work of Phil Ochs. We lost our albums in the hurricane. Thanks to Glenn Tepper for reminding us -

İ cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

- "Love Me I'm A Liberal (Live Version)" by Phil Ochs

4 comments:

Bronx ATR said...: So much anger everywhere. Mayors, union presidents and ministers should lead by example and not incite. There's an aura of NYC circa 1992 in the air and it stinks.; Friday, December 26, 2014 at 10:42:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: Calling for a moratorium was not wrong. It was just a call and not banned. We still have free speech. But it would have been nice if it was honored to show the world that the protests are not about all police, but those that defy civil rights. But that's just me and it has nothing to do with being Liberal or not. The gesture would have done more good in the end because it's all about "public relations" no matter what the cause. And sometimes Liberals, Conservatives etc. forget that hence the closing of the government.
There is a giant rift in this city and all sides need to be addressed. deBlasio made some huge errors in judgment IMHO, but I feel that way about his broken promises to educators during his campaign. It's his job to bring all sides together rather than enlarge the rift. I doubt he will be re-elected, and not just because of this. He has had an arrogance about him with the press, keeping appointments, and the new teachers' contract. But most of all turning his back on Teachout for Cuomo's sake. And we all know that Cuomo is going to take the NYC school system away and hand it over to Eva because deBlasio easily rolled over during the summer campaign against him and charters. What really stinks is that deBlasio is making it easy for another Republican to take over again. Liberals don't have a chance given the new political climate in NYC. NYC gave Cuomo the win. That says it all!! (And Central Park horses don't vote)
I for one wish the grand jury process was made available to the public while keeping the jurors identities protected. If so, it would be harder to for prosecutors to be one-sided. Thank you for giving me a chance to air my opinion whether you agree or not. Thankfully we all have the right to free speech and that goes for those who continue to protest. But as a "movement", or any movement, it still needs some sense of public relations and media/marketing savvy if it's going to succeed because the media can easily destroy the message.; Saturday, December 27, 2014 at 11:20:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: Btw, to his credit, LBJ did get the Civil Rights Bill passed and he did it behind doors. But even bad laws are getting passed the same way. Cuomo is a master using behind doors and under the table strategies. One only has to look at Weingarten to see how awful it is.; Saturday, December 27, 2014 at 11:25:00 AM EST
Josmar said...: I think it was Malcolm who used to say Martin couldn't have gotten that seat at the table without men like him agitating. One listen to a Malcolm speech made power much more open to dealing with Martin... or something like that.; Tuesday, December 30, 2014 at 10:43:00 PM EST

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Friday, December 26, 2014

Marches Continue and Retro: Love me, I'm a liberal --- Phil Ochs

4 comments: