Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
I've become addicted to political podcasts that allow me to wade through the mainstream media bullshit coverage that leaves us in the dark as to what's really going on. This morning I listened to the latest Intercept aptly named "Deconstructed" podcast which provides context to US/China relations and takes into account the repression of liberty in China, while also referring to our own transgressions which make our attacks on lack of democracy in China (true dat) hypocritical. There have got to be other reasons for the switch in attitudes toward China over the past 6 years.
Two leading progressive foreign policy voices discuss the Housespeaker’s decision to visit Taiwan.
As usual, examining major corporate interests over time vis a vis China offers some insights. I support independent journalism like The Intercept.
As open market neo-liberalist unfettered capitalism captured the world starting in roughly 1980, which includes an oft neglected analysis of the attack on unions for "restraining" the market -- the decline in unions can be traced to this attack since 1980 when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers.
So let's look at how China was viewed by corporations anxious to see China opened up for two main reasons: access to it's massive populations as a market and access to cheap labor. Thus the corporate lobbyists were set in motion to get both parties to go along -- the classic Clinton/Obama free market neo-liberals. The result? Massive movement of manufacturing out of this country -- that great sucking sound echoed by Ross Perot - a profit before his time - in the 1992 election.
Remember the days when North Carolina was the heart of American furniture making? It didn't take long to see China become the economic engine of manufacturing (and jobs) lost here. BTW - globalism is also an attack on labor unions - look at the UAW concessions when automakers started going abroad - with the avid support of both political parties who refused to put penalties on them in the name of free market neo-liberalism.
Not only Perot, but the left pro-labor movements in this country also pushed back with the riots in Seattle.
https://en.wikipedia.org› wiki › 1999_Seattle_WTO_p...
The1999 SeattleWTOprotests, sometimes referred to as the Battle ofSeattle, were a series ofprotestssurrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of1999, ...
To many in North American anarchist and radical circles, the Seattle WTO riots, protests, and demonstrations were viewed as a success.[34]Prior to the "Battle of Seattle", almost no mention was made of "antiglobalization" in the US media, while the protests were seen as having forced the media to report on 'why' anybody would oppose the WTO.[35]
Previous mass demonstrations had taken place in Australia in December 1997, in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne,Perth, Sydney, andDarwincity centers.[36]
Bernie was probably the only elected who supported these protests.
The podcast does discuss the elements on the left that back China (and Russia) and blame American imperialism -- true on the latter but they seem to absolve current and former communist states of all blame. Nationalism on our part and their part is discussed in the context of attacking foreigners.
There's a lot of material embedded in this roughly 45 minutes.
What happened over our policies toward China over two decades goes a long way to understanding the rise of Trump and Bernie. Both attacked globalism from different angle of course. The Republican party is not only under the control of Trump but an increasingly nationalistic anti-globalist - and anti-immigrant policy.
BTW -- did you see that surprising jobs report? Guess what? The anti-immigrant policies result in labor shortages -- the contradiction for the anti-labor right wing. So let's raise interest rates and cause a recession to raise the unemployment rate and make workers hunger for any job at any wages. Think "late stage capitalism." But back to the main theme:
How did we go from "China good" to "China bad" so relatively quickly? The podcast connected a bunch of strands related to corporate interests. Is the real cause the increasing repression or aggressive nationalism? Focus on aggressive economic nationalism to get to the real change in how corporations (the real driving force in our politics) have been affected as China outsmarted them.
They forced them to give up so much to gain access to the markets and cheap labor - then they created competing industries using the technology they forced them to share. And of course, Chinese workers as they prospered began to earn more money and raise costs of production - so that the corps began to drift to Vietnam and cheaper labor.
Thus corporate lobbying began to shift from pro to anti-China. They want confrontations with China to curb their economic ability to compete -- remember -- China has heavy industrial policy of support for their companies - which is anathema to globalism and Neo-liberal free markets.
Note the recent bi-partisan support for the chips bill which is a tepid version of industrial policy - with lots of perks and giveaways to corporations in the process.
Do you think Nancy Pelosi just went to Taiwan for the food? She is an instrument of a corporate wing of the Dem party that wanted this confrontation.
Don't forget - It's Corporate Interests which run our politics. There are competing corp interests and their lobbyists do battle it out with politicians, with some lining up with one party or the other -- but most place bets on both parties.
Witness they turned down the insulin price caps this morning. Let 'em eat sugar.
Stop hiring activists - Bernie Sanders - During the 2020 presidential campaign, as entry-level staffers for
[Bernie] Sanders repeatedly agitated over internal dynamics, despite
having already formed a staff union, the senator issued a directive to
his campaign leadership: ‘Stop hiring activists.’ Instead, Sanders
implored, according to multiple campaign sources, the campaign should
focus on bringing on people interested first and foremost in doing the
job they’re hired to do.”
If you don’t have a coalition, you don’t have power...these groups being in Overton mode,
when there are actual wins on the table to possibly be had, his
argument, and I heard this from a lot of people as well, is that there’s
something about the left, and its hostility or its skepticism of
coercion, that just makes it allergic to power, that it just doesn’t
want to be in power. As one person said: If you’re not uncomfortable all
of the time, then you’re not in a coalition. Because being in a coalition means
that you are in coalition with people who disagree with you on some
things, because if they didn’t disagree with you on some things — NR: They would be in the same group. RG: [Laughs.] They would be in
your group! Right! And so if you’re never feeling discomfort, you don’t
have a coalition. ... The Intercept
These comments are so apt considering the recent United for Change coalition, where various stands from the center left to the far left came together for UFT elections. [Note stories from France where the always divided left - Socialists, Communists and Green - came together.] Has "the left" learned a lesson? Note the UFT election debacle of 2019 with three groups running and losing badly as a key lesson. But Bernie's comment, explained in detail below, about activists, recalls some stories I was told during the election about "activists" and the different concepts of activism - some unresolved issues in many groups.
“Progressive organizations are run like shit,” said one of Grim’s sources, and it’s a sentiment I’ve heard before.
But teachers unions have an asset that most progressive organizations
don’t: a huge, automatic cash flow. It’s used to placate the staff while
keeping control of the agenda in the hands of management. So while there may be similar schisms within NEA and AFT, they will
not rise to a level of outright rebellion… at least, as long as the
money holds out.
“Favoritism is rampant. Office politics are sometimes terrible.” “The headquarters has an often toxic culture of petty jealousies and long-simmering grievances.”
Ya think?
But -
The seizing of a trifecta in Washington by Democrats has
coincided with a mass social movement demobilization. Those activated by
Trump have stepped back. Democratic leaders spent more energy attacking
the phrase “defund the police” than they invested in police reform,
Many progressive groups seem to be suffering from internal crises.
....at the height of the negotiations last
summer over Build Back Better, that the Sierra Club vanished from the
private and public conversation, because they were so caught up in
turmoil that the entire institution’s energy was all being directed
inward. And this is at a time where the climate movement is saying we
have 10 years left to turn this thing around. And we might have just a
couple months left on a Democratic trifecta. And they’re all just
utterly consumed by these internal debates....
after 1968, after Richard Nixon was
elected president, you had this kind of collapse and demobilization of
the left. There was still a war to protest. But the demonstrations
against the war never reached their peak, which they hit around 1965 or
so.
The Intercept
For me this article is not an abstract concept. I've been involved in various versions of left politics for over 50 years and have seen some of the issues raised up close and personal. I was once called out - by a white guy - for using the expression about some clueless people as "just off the boat," which he said was an attack on immigrants. He practically leaped across the table in anger. Who knew? So this article and podcast resonated with me. Here is an interesting excerpt:
An anecdote from the
2020 Bernie Sanders campaign:
Ahead of the Iowa caucus...
there was a kind of staff uprising there over all sorts of different
issuese. And the uprising ended up being
squashed by other workers. And partly because the workers had a union.
The people leading the uprising had to get a majority vote; they didn’t
have a majority. The majority of the workers in Iowa said: No, our
purpose here is to win the Iowa caucuses. Like, the future of the world
depends on this. What are you doing? And, also, by the way, this job
ends — we know when this job ends. After the caucus. And so why are you
going to throw away the chance to change the future of the world over
the next several weeks of working conditions?
And so when Bernie Sanders got wind of
this uprising, which was not the first of the uprisings, he relayed to
his leadership staff, he said, “Stop hiring activists.”
NR: It’s so funny.
RG: And that’s from Bernie
Sanders. And he said: Just hire people that want to do the job. We pay
well. We treat people well. It’s a good cause. Get people who want to do
the job. Stop hiring activists.
Here is the podcast followed by Grim's long article.
In
the Biden era, progressive groups in Washington have increasingly found
themselves paralyzed by internal tumult at the very moment when their
efforts are needed to push the more ambitious elements of the
president’s agenda through Congress. Behind the scenes, the leaders of
these groups express frustration with the organizational culture wrought
by their younger employees and fear of becoming embroiled in a
“callout” scandal. Ryan Grim talks with The Intercept’s Nausicaa Renner
about his new story on the subject.
An interesting story on The Sunrise movement and I get the point about lobbying for what is the possible - but also don't see a point when the possible is severly limited to moving deck chairs on the Titanic - ie - witness the glorious new gun legislation.
a progressive congressional staffer,
who said: “I’ve noticed a real erosion of the number of groups who are
effective at leveraging progressive power in Congress. Some of that is
these groups have these organizational culture things that are affecting
them. Because of the organizational culture of some of the real
movement groups that have lots of chapters, what they’re lobbying on
isn’t relevant to the actual fights in Congress. Some of these groups
are in Overton mode when we have a trifecta.” And then they go on to pull out
Sunrise, which is doing a Green New Deal pledge. And the aid says: The
climate bill is still on the table. What are you doing? You should be
lobbying around that, basically.
Ryan Grim of The Intercept takes a deep dive into issues that have arisen as a result of covid and the George Floyd protests, which occurred concurrently. It's the kind of journalism, even if you don't agree, that we should support: https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now
WARNING! WARNING!! NORM ABOUT TO ENTER CANCELLATION TERRITORY
Claims by Scott Stringer Accuser Unravel as Progressives Flee New York Mayoral Candidate. New
details about Jean Kim’s role on Stringer’s 2001 campaign and her
relationship to the candidate paint a very different portrait of the
power dynamic at play....Wiley at the time recommended “assessing the accused’s credibility
and response to the allegation in comparison to the credibility of the
accuser and supporting evidence.” .... https://theintercept.com/2021/05/04/nyc-mayor-scott-stringer-jean-kim/
Video: D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept, Ryan Grim, digs into sexual harassment allegations against NYC mayoral candidates, Scott Stringer and finde major discrepancies in Jean Kim's story - Rising, The Hill https://youtu.be/qSy2d6Nq4EI
As former prosecutors and attorneys deeply concerned about respecting
the survivors of sexual assault and protecting the rights of the
accused, we believe that justice requires a more nuanced approach than
we are seeing in the current debate. We approach this, as we would any
the report of any crime, through the neutral lens of investigation.... Maya Wiley, May, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/joe-biden-tara-reade-steps-can-provide-full-accounting-metoo-ncna1203006 {MUST READ}
5 days ago — Stringer denies the accusations claiming he and Kim had a consensual relationship for a brief period of time.
May 5, 2021, Report from a white privileged {old} male
Don't you love so-called "progressives?"
I'm so glad I've never had any power - especially in my own home.
The Intercept report and great reporter Ryan Grim's appearance on Rising yesterday might be too late to save Stringer, but I never gave him much of a chance of winning anyway. White males are not kosher this year. The way Yang is courting the Hassids, he may be the kosher one in the race.
UFT Endorsement holds
Don't get me wrong. I liked Stringer at times over the years but even he has links to Bloomberg though Micah, Lasher, his campaign manager, who many of us fighting ed deform have found to be despicable. Stringer wasn't my first choice - but actually none of them are. Much loved by the left Diane Morales once took a job in the Joel Klein anti-union pro-charter administration. But the left can conveniently forget when it needs to - except if you made a dumb tweet when you were in the womb - then cancellation for life.
The UFT endorsement with Stringer the only choice looked like another failure in UFT mayoral races. At the very least, given some high level UFT officials' support for Wiley, I figured her as second choice and viewed not doing so as a mistake.
Now with the Intercept report Mulgrew is not looking as bad - imagine if Wiley was second choice and screaming for Stringer to drop out practically before Kim got the words out of her mouth. I'm sure teachers could rely on Wiley for support for due process if they are accused of something. Anything.
Were the charges against Stringer an outcome of the UFT endorsement which gave him legs? Do I suspect the Yang camp? Maybe not him but never forget Bloomberg fave Bradley Tusk, a major POS, is Yang's handler. If Stringer had been in single figures in the poles we would have been spared this drama.
But the UFT reaffirmed its commitment to the Stringer endorsement while MORE
Caucus called for the UFT to rescind. Naturally. Some people find it funny when
unionists want to throw away due process, but having been denied the
same when I was drummed out of MORE, I'm not surprised that the idea of
due process is forgotten when politically inconvenient.
Fuck due process:
MORE-UFT Stands with Survivors and Calls on the UFT to Rescind the Endorsement of Scott Stringer Immediately
-
In light of recent allegations made against Mayoral candidate and New York
City Comptroller Scott Stringer, we call on the UFT to immediately rescind
their..The UFT Endorsement process was undemocratic to begin with. Rank and
file members had very little decision-making power nor understanding of
the process....... LOL when MORE talks about democracy in the UFT
MORE clearly is pushing Morales but have they actually taken a democratic vote of all MORE members like they are asking of the UFT? They won't officially endorse Morales but are trying to shame the UFT into doing it. The left in the UFT is voting Morales and maybe some will be for Wiley. Stringer threatened to take some left votes.
I don't often love Mike Mulgrew but not backing down from the UFT choice of Stringer is gutsy in a way. I wonder if Stringer didn't give Mulgrew a heads up on the Intercept story. I'd put a few bob on that.
I may make Stringer one of my votes and will give no votes
to amy candidate that called on him to leave the race. Actually, that condition may leave Stringer as the only candidate left for me. I stand for due
process for teachers - and everyone else. I'm pretty sure Morales, whom I was considering, also asked for Stringer to drop out -- hooray for due process.
The Stringer case has bugged me from the start. Compare to the Cuomo story - I believed all the people charging him. The use and abuse of power accumulates over time. Have we heard of much Stringer stuff over the past 20 years? And don't forget, he stopped Eva Moskowitz' political career -- believe me if there was dirt the Moskowitz machine would have thrown it -- which actually leads my conspiracy laden mind to think how bad for Eva it would be if Stringer became mayor ----- Hmmmm. Did the charter ed industrial complex have a role in the exposure of Stringer? Does the PR firm Kim works for have any connections? This stuff hit just after the UFT endorsement gave Stringer campaign legs. Put The Intercept on that case. And by the way - here is this little tidbit about her firm from their story:
Since 2015, TLM has
represented the American Petroleum Institute, Bank of America, and a
slew of other corporate, nonprofit, and developer clients. Stringer, as
comptroller, led the largest divestment from fossil fuels in the world.
I had some issues with Tara Reade's Biden story due to no other women coming forth -- I assume if Biden did what he did to Reade a man with power would do it to more women. So that counts. But there is still an element of truth in her story. In some ways her story holds up better than Jean Kim's.
But the same conditions apply to Stringer. I don't see women coming out of the woodwork making charges like we hear about Cuomo. Maybe more women will emerge but they better have their ducks in a row given the holes in Kim's story. The Intercept story in full below catches her in lie after lie - I mean real lies with written records.
It's still going to be touch and go. If no one else emerges to say he groped or propositioned them, even if Stringer loses, Mulgrew looks good for standing by him. On the process they used for mayoral endorsement - not so much. Unity claims they sent out 10 billion emails and millions of UFT members, including the ghosts of dead members, took part in the process.
I smelled a rat with Jean Kim's account from the moment I heard it based on the exquisite timing. Wait 20 years until weeks before the election, when there would be little time to vet her. It looked like a hit. And it looked like it worked. I see Stringer as dead in the water and would bet on Adams being next mayor, based on rise in crime. A black ex-cop will have leeway to do certain things that will rile the left. A black Giuliani?
Stringer has been attacked for jumping on the story that Kim had petitioned for her friend Esther Yang using a petition with Andrew Yang on the same page and when the Stringer camp brought it up they were attacked. The Stringer campaign went too far in accusing Kim of working for Andrew Yang but her claims ring false about having no connection to Andrew Yang and she was just petitioning for her friend Esther and Andrew "just happened" to be on the same petition. Not that her friend Esther had anything to do with Andrew Yang, especially when his campaign put out this call for volunteers:
Join us in Door to Door knocking for Andrew
Yang and Esther Yang! Canvassing is the best way to spread the word
about Andrew, Esther and their policies and ...
I guess Jean Kim had no idea her good friend Esther was aligned with Andrew. Note to Esther - Jean Kim was once Scott Stringer's friend. Watch your back.
One of my favorite reporters is Ryan Grim at the left-leaning Intercept and he appears often on Rising. Yesterday he was on the Jean Kim case as he explained to Krystal and Saagar in some detail about his investigation. (See video below).
Intern is the magic word
Stringer and Kim were part of the same social circle and they all volunteered for his campaign. She was 30 and had a job but initially claimed she was an intern - a bald-faced lie - and her explanation he told her it was an intern-like environment was bullshit as they actually had real interns. The Intercept talked to people who knew them and reported their relationship fell into the "friends with benefits" category.
In today's climate we're automatically expected to believe a female accuser, and often they are proven right. But sometimes with vetting, there are doubts. Witness the Biden accuser, Tara Reade, whose credibility was doubted over months of vetting her past. Some people still believe her and in some ways her story is much worse than that of Stringer's accuser.
Wiley Hypocrisy on Biden and Stringer: Fuck Due Process II
Note how Wiley gave Stringer less
than 24 hours before calling for him to resign from the race.
Progressives. People calling for Stringer to quit should also demand
Biden resign. That's a joke - but hypocrisy, rear thy ugly head. I had
considered listing Wiley on my ballot but she now joins Andrew Yang in
Norm's "ballot hell." I give Wiley the Norm Scott POS seal for standing
up for her principles of "protecting the rights of the
accused.
But Maya Wiley was quick to hold off judgement on Biden in an essay she co-wrote in May 2020.
That means that step one after accepting Reade’s allegation is to
investigate it. Because her allegations occurred long enough ago that
the statute of limitations bars any possibility of prosecution, law
enforcement agencies don't have jurisdiction to investigate, and
investigation funded by either Reade or Biden would likely be viewed as
lacking objectivity. But there is a vehicle for investigation — the
independent press, where investigative journalists are highly motivated
to seek out details and witnesses and where competing views will be
aired.
Now watch how Wiley and crew cast shade on Reade for showing support for Biden many years after the incident:
Reade has praised Biden for protecting women from sexual assault. As recently as 2016 or 2017, Reade, under the name Tara McCabe, tweeted praise
for Biden’s efforts to address sexual assault and retweeted the
accolades of others for his efforts. In one tweet, Reade said, “My old
boss speaks truth. Listen."Reade has also changed her story about the reason she left her job at Biden’s office,
Scott Stringer was on Brian Lehrer and he was really grilled by Bryan, and not in a totally fair way. Like even if they were dating, what about the power relationship - holy fuck, we must assess our power relationships before dating. Maybe we need an online form to fill out before getting permission or else expect 30 years later to be charged with something. Or male teachers -- Did you ever tell a female student she looked pretty?
Here's the Rising video
D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept, Ryan Grim, digs into sexual
harassment allegations against NYC mayoral candidates, Scott Stringer.
