Ed Notes Online: A Magnificent Day but for Faux Fox News: What Rallies?

Sunday, January 22, 2017

A Magnificent Day but for Faux Fox News: What Rallies?

I marched in New York. It was the most poorly organized march that I’ve ever been to – and I’ve been to many. At the same time it may have been the most inspiring. For some reason, thousands were made to stand almost immobile in penned areas for hours with no idea of what was happening. But so we did. And at last the march began. And then everywhere you looked you saw more people coming. And more and more and more. Hours later, more were marching. And you knew it was worth it. ..... Mass Revolt Against Trump in New York and Across America

Took part in the most magnificent march in NYC today. Since there were staggered times for people to arrive there is no easy way to make an accurate count. Word is that is was 400k. I saw Patrick at about 10:30 for about 30 seconds around the MORE banner but then we all were split up and stood still for hours in gridlock but who cared? We expected to end up at Trump Tower but when we finally began to move around 1PM is was a slow crawl. And no cell or internet service so at 45th st and 2nd ave I cut over to 3rd Ave to call my wife who was meeting a bunch of ladies over at our place. So I headed over there to march with them.

We periodically checked in on the coverage. Faux Fox news ignored the rallies or mocked them. Have fun boys trying to not cover what is about to happen.

175,000 in Chicago. Hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles. 125,000 in Boston. 500K in DC. World wide? Millions. And it is only the beginning.

With some MOREs before being separated

I was on 3rd Ave before 10 AM and people on every block were streaming east all morning.

We were with a MORE contingent which got separated on 2nd Ave and 47th Street.

The UFT was supposed to have something to gather around but no one I know saw anything. No sense of organizing at such an opportunity.
Every person on the street seemed to be involved in the march. I've never seen anything like it here.

So many women of all ages with men there too. People were happy but also pissed.

My wife, not an activist, was as gung-ho for this as anything I've seen in almost 50 years. I pity Trump.

I am not articulate enough to make sense of all this so I'll leave it to Patrick:

Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history: one day after the swearing in of a new president, a massive nation wide revolt and rejection.
No American president has ever inspired such a response, but then no American president has so repulsed and frightened and insulted the American people as deeply as does Trump. .....Mass Revolt Against Trump in New York and Across America

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: CNN and Fox covered it but CNN devoted most of its day and night attacking Trump's speech at the CIA headquarters. And engaged in some weird inaugural crowd size comparison battles with Trump's supporters. Apparently CNN thinks dissecting and attacking the Donald - CIA speech and crowd size battles - is more significant than the massive (and peaceful) women's marches in DC and beyond.
The media generally missed the groundbreaking story that pro-life women's groups were finally allowed to participate in the generally left-led marches.
Meanwhile President Trump is beginning the business of governing our nation.; Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 8:38:00 AM EST
ed notes online said...: I purposely watched fox which i never do and they were a joke. You trumpets are eating your hearts out because if you tried to have something like this no one would show.; Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 9:12:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: CNN is giving great coverage to Madonna's speech at the DC Women's March. I am not sure, given the awful and intolerant language she used, if that is a sly attempt by CNN to discredit the whole march.

I prefer CNN in its usual role: Picking petty fights with Trump's handlers. Now they are battling his press secretary.; Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 11:05:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: The riots, violence, and legislative absences the day of the inauguration only hurt the Democratic cause and reinforced the crybaby reputation.
The mass women's marches - provided they really were tolerant of dissent concerning abortion - might help to rebuild the Democrats' reputation.
One step backward and one step forward.; Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 12:17:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Woman have more rights and are treated better than any other time in the history of the world. The left like to complain about equality yet have all the money and take their ball and go home as soon as they don't like something. They talk about conservatives dividing a country, the left is dividing and doing nothing to help unite this country. Too much rioting just to riot...Kudos to NYC for always leading civil protest... that does deserve credit.; Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 12:18:00 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

Sunday, January 22, 2017

A Magnificent Day but for Faux Fox News: What Rallies?

5 comments: