Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025
I'm heading over to 52 for my first drawing class at Sy Beagle classes. I have a drawing/painting class on Thursdays. I have no talent at all so expect scribbles. But one day I want to draw or paint parts of my garden.
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| Bennett Fischer and RTC banner |
The crowd on Saturday at the parade was mostly Unity with the non-Unity groups from various caucuses. Retirees had a nice group and I saw some people from MORE and Educators for Mamdani. Everyone is very friendly on this day - a sense of union unity (small u).
One thing I noticed later on when I watched other unions. Many had signs with elements of class struggle - against billionaires, bosses, etc. (see some pics I took below -- burly teamsters smoking stogies). I note that in the UFT you do not see those types of signs. We saw fight fascism signs but not fight billionaires. I think that stems from UFT historic anti-left ideology (I know, they endorsed Mamdani, but that is only because he looked like a clear winner -- like they endorsed Adams last time because he looked like a winner - and never forget the Mulgrew/Adams alliance to take away our Medicare.
Watching the fervor of many unions, the UFT crew looked passive.
I never saw Mamdani or Bernie, who both appeared at Brooklyn College that evening. I wanted to attend but the logistics of doing that were too complex. I marched with the UFT uptown and ran into a number of people I knew from throughout the union.
After we got past the viewing stand, I
walked back down and watched and took
photos of the later unions marching. So I missed the ones that left
before us. But I headed back to 48th St to hopefully march with Marianne
and the NYC Retirees on their amazing SI ferry float. (Note for Mamdani critics of his free buses - SI ferry is free)
A new feature in these bleak times -
Jokes of the day:
I had walked uptown with one of my faves over the years, great CL for years, Yelena S., who worked with our ICE-UFT crew since 2005, who was just fired by
the Mulgrew crowd.
Yelena
has worked as a part-timer for the union for over a decade back to
before she retired and always ran with us against Unity, including as
elementary VP. But until she ran with ABC they did not seem to have a
problem with her. By the way, Yelena wanted to run with both ABC and
ARISE but an RA's and ARISE steering committee member forced her to
choose and she chose ABC because she felt they had a better chance to
win with Amy running. She was right. We clearly had a better chance. For
months I had proposed that we run some joint candidates but that same
person told people the reason we wanted joint was because we could not fill our slate (ABC got 560 candidates, ARISE 490).
That was
what he kept selling the ARISE people - at one point saying ABC was only
7 people and would have to come back to ARISE. When people ask why ABC and ARISE did not work together, look no further.
Yelena and I had a great talk as we walked and found our views dovetailed on the type of group we feel ABC could be -- more open to all types of views even those we may not agree with. One of her daughters owns a book store in Brooklyn and I have to post the name as my memory is a bit faulty.
Political Point of the Day: I am a political junky and have these thoughts but never get to post them so I will use this space. Today on the potential Govt shutdown, which I hear people pushing Dems to do, as if Trump would actually follow the law. So here is my prediction. Dems show some guts and shut down the govt and Trump says fuck you and doesn't do it and the Supreme Court backs him. Fundamentally, Congress is dead -- we've had our virtual Reichstag fire as Congress has been burned down.
Here are some of my recent posts -- which have been getting some traction. I have to leave now to catch the ferry -- the best thing to happen to NYC transportation since the IRT. And for de Blasio blasters I cite the ferry and pre-k as significant.
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