Unions stress over racism in the ranks

DENVER — Racial prejudice is being cited among senior union leaders to explain Sen. Barack Obama’s difficulty in winning over support from white rank-and-file members.

The Hill

Still Campaign '08

Maybe I was wrong. It is not campaign '12 but still campaign '08.

I am on the mailing list for some reason of a North Carolina Democratic party organization in which the entire newsletter focuses on atacking Obama and pushing Clinton with the hope that they can get enough delegates to switch votes in Denver.

Read this and see if you think Obama has a chance.

Do I think the Clinton machine has drummed up much of this? Hell yes. They never give up.

I posted links to one blog - with comments to give you a flavor at Norms Notes.

Fred over at Prea Prez also has some interesting thoughts.

Hillary Clinton is caught on video telling supporters she wouldn’t oppose her name being placed in nomination in Denver.

Her key adviser Howard Wolfson suggests that if the creepy (”my wife’s cancer was in remission”) philandering John Edwards had not been in the race in Iowa, Clinton would have won the nomination.

Billary appears to have bullied their way into speaking two nights at the convention. Will you be watching? I’m hoping the Cubbies are on at the same time.

Does Hillary Clinton still have dreams of grabbing the nomination? Or is she working to sabotage Obama’s campaign, hoping he loses so she can run in four years?

And Then There's THIS

If you doubt the post below this on Hill in '12, check out the Huffington Post reports on Clinton campaign internal memos to be printed in Atlantic Monthly.

Leaked Clinton Camp Memos: Paint Obama As Foreign

A Shill for Hill in '12

To Hillaryites, the Democratic Convention is all about the 2012 presidency

With the death of Bernie Mac yesterday, the dearth in comedy is made up by Michelle Cottle, a senior editor at The New Republic, in today's NY Times. Her op ed urges the Democrats to enter Hillary Clinton's name for presidential nomination which would precipitate a roll-call that would prove embarrassing for Obama and result in damaging his already fragile campaign against John McCain.

The roll-call campaign caused an incredulous Matt Lauer took a few minutes from the Olympics the other day to say, "What are they doing?" Not many are willing to say it, but this is not about so-called respect or closure for Hillary's supporters. It is about running Hillary for president against John McCain or whoever in 2012. The more Obama is damaged, the better the chance for a hoped for 1972 McGovern like disaster, thus executing the prime directive – getting Hillary elected as president.

Even Cottle admits that,

"Nearly everyone in the Democratic Party seems to think that officially entering Hillary Clinton’s name into a roll-call vote for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention would be a dangerous show of disunity.

It’s true that having America watch as some portion of Mrs. Clinton’s 1,640 pledged delegates thumb their noses at BarackObama would disrupt the party’s vision of a carefully scripted Denver love-in." [Emphasis mine]

Ya think?

Cottle needs to come up with some rationale to cover up the real intention.

But finding a constructive way for Mrs. Clinton’s seriously aggrieved loyalists to channel their anger and disappointment could wind up being the path of less destruction for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.

OMG. The ole "right thing to do" ploy, words that have often been found missing from the vocabulary of the Clintons. Think maybe the right thing to do is to do everything possible to get Democrat elected?

But Cottle continues, "More than a few of Mrs. Clinton’s devotees, including plenty headed to Denver this month, are in need of catharsis and a bit of closure."

Ahh! the old C&C - Catharsis and Closure. So what if the venting leads to Bush 3. Well, actually, that is the point, isn't it?

More. "She was a victim of sexism, that the historic nature of her candidacy was callously dismissed in all the hullabaloo over the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s, and on and on and on. Some of these allegations ring truer than others."

Hey Michelle, exactly which allegations ring truer than others?

But many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters believe them intensely enough to want to make trouble for Mr. Obama. Discouraging Mrs. Clinton’s name from being entered into a roll-call vote would give her legions yet one more opportunity to feel that their candidate had been snubbed. Giving them the chance to see their beloved candidate honored in a highly public forum could, just maybe, help release a little steam from the pressure cooker. Beyond that, there could be other, more direct benefits for Mr. Obama’s candidacy. A roll-call vote for Mrs. Clinton could help Mr. Obama look magnanimous instead of messianic.

Fair or not, the man has earned himself a reputation as arrogant.

Arrogant and messianic. What's worse? A&M or Catharsis and Closure?
Let's make sure to get in a shot at Obama that could have come right from the McCain campaign. Or Karl Rove.

Yes, we would all be reminded of how close the Democratic race for president was when, on the convention floor, delegation after delegation rose to cast its votes. (A few die-hards for Mrs. Clinton might even get mouthy.)

Bet they will. The more mouthy, the better to start the Hill in '12 campaign.

In February I wrote:

[Randi's] plan being to use a national forum [as AFT President] to help Hillary get elected. Ooops! Actually, if Obama is the candidate and loses to McCain, Hillary becomes very viable in 2012, so think long-term. Who do you think the Weingarten/Clinton forces will really be rooting for?) An Obama loss and AFT HQ becomes Hillary Central.

We've been chronicling the ties that bind the UFT/AFT to the Clintons. Is there any doubt that, Randi Weingarten, our leader who is a super delegate, will support this roll call move, though look for carefully parsed language (probably written by Hillary/Randi common advisor Howard Wolfson) that will enable Randi to wiggle out of the mess when the shit hits the fan and McCain wins.

But of course they will paint the reasons as not due to the actions of Clinton supporters but to Obama's failures as a candidate.


In March I posted this:

Is Clinton Strategy Designed to Undermine Obama Chances to Win?

If Obama gets the nomination and loses to McCain, Hillary gets to say "I told you so" and becomes the instant candidate for 2012. At the time, I read the piece to my wife, upon which she, basically a Hillary supporter at the time, said "WHY? HOW COULD THEY WANT McCAIN?" I responded because for the Clintons and their supporters it is about them, not the party. I told her we would be watching the true level of enthusiasm Randi Weingarten and the AFT/UFT have for Obama – oh, there will be lots of surface stuff, but with Randi's star so hitched to Hillary, an Obama win, leaving Hillary in Siberia, would not be part of the plan.

Maureen Dowd ("Hillary or Nobody") raised this same point in March:

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?

Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?

Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.

(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)

I'm not the only one out there on this. The other day I came across this:

Hillary Plots, Eyes 2012 Bid

From Inside Cover
August 1, 2008

by Rick Pedraza

With hopes of being chosen as Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate dashed, Hillary Clinton has begun the process of carving out her political future.

The New York Post reports Clinton met earlier this week at a secret ladies-only dinner in Washington to discuss where she can go from here.

After learning she would address the Democratic National Convention on its second night – traditionally not the night the vice presidential nominee would speak – Clinton reportedly gathered her female posse together to discuss a possible White House run in 2012.

The entire piece is here.

Oh, and it you doubt the above and want to point to the Hillary/Obama unity event or the fact that Hillary will campaign for Obama, think:

...pay campaign debt so campaign '12 can begin.
...make it look like you really want Obama to win even though the Clinton campaign said time and again that he can't.

And if you believed this all along, then you wouldn't want to touch the VP with a 10 foot pole, so I see any of that talk as part of the distraction - see, he dissed us again?


Other sources:

Clinton Backers Plan Rules and Bylaws Protest

The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Hillary's $6.4 Million is a Wise Investment, for 2012

Huffington Post

This is not really a case, as some have suggested, of throwing good money after bad.
Hillary Clinton's decision to dump another $6.4 million into her lifeless campaign actually makes an odd and devious kind of sense. Because for her the end game is no longer November, it's 2012.

Next: Why I think Obama won't win. Not because of narcissism (oh, that was Edwards.) Or messianic tendencies. Or arrogance. Can you guess the reason? Triple DUH if you can't.

Postscript: I do not write this as an Obama supporter and am still 50-50 about voting 3rd party. But for true Democratic party people to support the roll call vote, it is shameful.

Fassella and Prisco

It all could have been avoided back in 2000.
If the UFT had endorsed then teacher, and subsequently one of the founders of ICE, Gene Prisco when he ran for Congress against Vito Fassella.
But NO! You see, the Unity machine would rather sit on its hands and help put a right winger into office than support a critic of Unity even though his policies would be better for the union and workers everywhere.

Even the NY Times saw fit to endorse Gene and he received a respectable 37% of the vote in a Republican district, where he was outspent probably 100-1. Gene sure could have used some of those UFT Phone banks.

Gene, Paul Baizerman (another ICE co-founder) and myself through Education Notes raised hell about it all at the Delegate Assembly.
The entire affair - oops, maybe I shouldn't use that word – was such an embarrassment for Randi Weingarten, she took action. She apologized profusely. Acted like it was up to the Staten Island UFT and she had little role in it. (She did the same thing in absolving herself off responsibility for the red-baiting of Kit Wainer, her 2007 opponent.)
She even formed a committee (standard operating procedure in deflecting issues). Even put Paul on it.

At that time, we still had hopes Randi would take the union in a new direction.
Shame on us.
But we learned from this incident how she operates and didn't get fooled again.
(The affair - oops - was one of the ideas that led to ICE 3 years later.)
The committee even came up with some kind of resolution (lost to history) calling for reform of the way he UFT supports candidates. Good show, old girl.

Now, Gene, a grandfather, is off on some cruise with his wife Loretta, another ICE co-founder, and may not even be aware of the Fossella fiasco. When he comes home I'm sure he will be relieved. The very idea of a love child emerging out of the evils of Washington would scare even the most pristine candidates. Maybe it's the Potomac waters.

Thank you, Randi for saving Gene from temptation. It's been worth having an anti-labor, support-Bush-on-anything member of Congress like Fossella.
If Fossella runs again and if Gene were to oppose him in 2008, guess what? Unity would do like it did in 2000.

The Unity motto: Better lice than ICE.

Uppity.... With Malice Toward None

I was talking to some supposedly liberal teachers not long ago and was surprised at their animosity to Obama. "Distant. Arrogant. Slick. Thinks he's better than regular people." For a second I thought the next word to be uttered would be the dreaded "Uppity." Well, we haven't gone that far. (Well, maybe we have - look upper left.)

Now these are people active in the UFT. Has the Clinton machine been aided in the onslaught on Obama in more subtle ways by UFT underground propaganda? (ie. Randi Weingarten's hint at the April DA that they tried to reach out to him but have been ignored. It was more the way she said it than the actual words that made me take notice.)

I headed home with the intention to write about this but it seemed best to stay away from such a volatile topic. But I now feel free to put my toe in the water after Maureen Dowd used the word today in her column in the NY Times. Quoting Bill Clinton, she wrote:

“The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules,” the former president said. “In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it.”

Oh, well, at least Bill didn’t use the word uppity. And don’t you love this paean to rules coming from a man so tethered and humbled by rules that he invented an entirely new sexual etiquette to suit his needs in the Oval Office?

Why does Obama, the one with the bumpy background and mixed racial heritage, the one raised by a single mother who was on food stamps, seem so forced when he mingles with the common folk?

Karl Rove and other Republicans say he comes across as the snooty product of a Hawaiian prep school, Cambridge, Columbia and Hyde Park, and that is what led to the damaging anthropological “bitter” disquisition. Yet George H. W. Bush’s attempts to paint over his patrician style with a cowboy veneer was a silly sort of masquerade, obviously engineered by Lee Atwater, who brought the props of pork rinds and country music.

Voters also don’t seem to mind Hillary, with her $109 million bank account, selling herself as the champion of the little people. The blue-collar queen shared her thoughts about the “outrageous” Rev. Wright with the blue-collar king, Bill O’Reilly, last week. In reality, as first lady, Hillary was renowned for her upstairs-downstairs tussles in the White House, and her high-handed treatment of the little people in the travel office, on the switchboard and on the residence staff. The reports were legend about the Clintons’ problems with the Secret Service, and I once saw Bill dress down an agent in a humiliating way over a couple of autograph seekers who got past a rope line in Orange County, Calif.

Obama, on the other hand, may seem esoteric, and sometimes looks haughty or put-upon when he should merely offer that ensorcelling smile. But he is very well liked by his Secret Service agents, and shoots hoops with them. And I watched him take the time one night after a long day of campaigning to stand and take individual pictures with a squadron of Dallas motorcycle police officers on the tarmac.

It must be hard for Obama, having applied all his energy over the years to rising above the rough spots in his background, making whites comfortable with him, striving to become the sophisticated, silky political star who looks supremely comfortable in a tux. Now he must go into reverse and stoop to conquer with cornball photo ops.

“I do think that one of the ironies of the last two or three weeks was this idea that somehow Michelle and I are elitist, pointy-headed intellectual types,” he said, adding sincerely, “I filled up my own gas tanks.”

It’s hard not to be who you are, but it’s doubly hard to be who you’ve strived not to be. Obama not only has to figure out how to unwind with a Bud. He has to rewind his life.

If people think the love of the white male working class for Hillary, so many of whom despised her not too long ago, has nothing to do with racism, they are ignoring something endemic to American society. That the Clintons have chosen to exacerbate it all will cost them dearly in the short and long run.

Dowd touches on points of personal relationships in comparing Obama and Clinton. I remember a friend almost not marrying a guy because, though he treated her very well, he demeaned waiters and other help on a regular basis. There are lessons about character in the way people treat others at all levels. Abraham Lincoln was the master (Dorris Kearns Goodwin is a MUST read.) When some people compare Obama to Lincoln, that is part of what they are talking about. (Check out George Schmidt's personal reflections of Obama that we posted on norms notes.)

But there are other areas of comparison. Obama is painted as weak when he doesn't hammer Hillary in a negative manner and he has been forced to respond because he is branded as a wimp if he doesn't.

If Lincoln were out there today, he would be attacked for being weak and indecisive. No matter how badly he was attacked he never struck back. It used to drive his advisors crazy. (But Lincoln had the strength to put every single opponent in his cabinet.) Obama has tried to take a similar tack and has been pushed to show how "tough" he is.

Some more quotes from Maureen Dowd's column illustrate this point:

Paul Gipson, president of a steelworkers local in Portage, Ind., hailed her “testicular fortitude,” before ripping into “Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle.”

James Carville helpfully told Eleanor Clift of Newsweek that if Hillary gave Obama one of her vehicles of testicular fortitude, “they’d both have two.”

"With malice toward none, with charity for all" were not just words Lincoln used in a speech, but words he lived.

Can't you just imagine the workup Bill Clinton and James Carville would be doing on him?

Lincoln is proof that toughness can take many forms. I have a sneaky suspicion there's a whole lotta more Lincoln in Obama than he is given credit for.

And did Thomas Friedman in essence endorse Obama in his column today (Who Will Tell the People) when he touched on a similar theme:

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

While you're perusing the Week in Review section, check out Frank Rich's "The All-White Elephant in the Room" which compared how McCain's preacher supporters get a free pass even when they attack the Catholic church.

Founding Fathers

A Short Guide to the WTO, the Millennial Round, and the Rumble in Seattle

With NAFTA becoming a major part of the political campaign between Clinton and Obama, I remembered Ed Notes re-printing an article about free trade. It was shortly before the WTO meeting in Seattle and cleared up a number of misconceptions I had and forced me to confront my basic instinct to be a supporter of unfettered free trade. After all, we were taught in high school and college economics that a major reason for the Great Worldwide Depression of the 1930's was the restriction of free trade (the Hoot-Smalley tariff bill was a major villain we were told.) Then came the riots that disrupted the conference and shook downtown Seattle like no earthquake could. I guess the powers that be never read Elaine Bernard's article.

While not stated, applications of market-based and corporate agendas to education systems can be implied.

Ed Notes reprint from the Jan. 2000 edition


A Short Guide to the WTO, the Millennial Round, and the Rumble in Seattle
By Elaine Bernard
November 24, 1999

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is coming to Seattle at the end of November and tens of thousands of labor, environmental, and progressive activists are organizing to give them a hot reception. There are thousands and thousands of pages out there - on the net, in progressive journals, articles, even books, on the WTO. But rather like trade agreements themselves, sometimes the very volume of materials available on the topic overwhelms the uninitiated reader. So, I thought I would put together a quick guide to the WTO, to the Seattle meeting, and to the various debates within the progressive community on the WTO.

What is the WTO?
It’s an international organization of 134 member countries which is both a forum for negotiating international trade agreements and the monitoring and regulating body for enforcing the agreements. The WTO was created in 1995, by the passage of the provisions of “Uruguay Round” of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Prior to the Uruguay Round, GATT focused on promoting world trade by pressuring countries to reduce tariffs. But with the creation of the WTO, this corporate inspired agenda was significantly ratchet up by targeting so-called “non-tariff barriers to trade” - essentially any national or local protective legislation which might be construed as impacting trade.

So, Aren’t we in favor of regulation?
Sure, but not the type of regulation proposed by the WTO, a powerful body of un-elected bureaucrats, who deliberate in secret with an aim to turning the entire world into one big market. Officially, the WTO has two main objectives: to promote and extend trade liberalization (by breaking down national “barriers” to trade), and to establish a mechanism for trade dispute settlement.

In practice, the WTO is seeking to deregulate international commerce and break open domestic markets for foreign investors. Its rule making seeks to free corporations from government regulation which would constitute a barrier to trade. It permits relatively unrestricted movement of money, capital, goods and services, while at the same time providing investors and corporations with extensive protection of their property rights. It even extends corporate property rights through the so called “intellectual properties” provisions. Intellectual property as defined by trade agreements is not about the creative powers of intellectuals. Rather, it is about protecting corporate ownership and monopoly over the patenting of plants, processes, seed varieties, drugs, and software. The intellectual property provisions are just one example of how there is extensive protectionism in this so-called “free trade” regime - but protection for corporations and punitive market discipline for workers, consumers and small farmers.

Freedom for Capital, Market Discipline for Labor
Here’s an example of WTO thinking. The WTO says that they can not deal with social issues, only “trade” forgetting that once you start to deal with trade in services, you are indeed dealing with many social issues. It says that it can only regulate “product” not “process.” With labor and environmental standards, what we normally regulate is process. It’s been an important acquisition of the labor, consumer, and environmental movements in recent years to move beyond the simple regulation of end product and regulate process - how things are made. It is in the very production methods that we can improve safety, eliminate hazards and develop cleaner processes. The difference between a shirt produced by sweated labor under near slave like conditions and a shirt produced by union labor under decent conditions isn’t readily obvious in the packaging (the end product) but rather its observed in the monitoring of the “process” of how the shirt is produced.

By contrast, when the WTO sees the interest of investors and capital threatened - it can spring into action and be quite powerful in its enforcement. So, for example, when workers are being forced to work with flagrant violation of labor law and safety codes, the WTO says there is nothing it can do. But let these same workers illegally produce “pirate” videos, or CDs (challenging a corporations copyright) and the WTO can spring into action sanctioning all sorts of actions against the offending country - in order to protect a corporations “intellectual property.”

Ok, back to Seattle, what is the millennium round?
The WTO wants to continue its campaign of trade liberalization and in particular it wants to increase the trade in services - including public services. Unfortunately, this means further turning over services such as health care, education, water and utilities to markets and international competition and undermining and destroying local control and protection of communities.

What’s the problem with markets?
Markets are fine, in their place, but they must not be permitted to replace social decision-making. Markets should not be confused with democratic institutions. Markets, for example, might be useful in determining price of goods, but they should not be mechanisms for determining our values as a community. Markets are oblivious to morals and promote only the value of profit.

So, what do we want to do about the WTO?
Resistance to the free trade agenda and the continual drive to undermine social decision-making and democracy is the basis of unity for all the groups protesting the WTO. Beyond that profound and important agreement, there are wider differences about what to do about the WTO.

Resisters want to abolish the WTO
Some of the groups coming to Seattle are supporters of the resistance movement - arguing that the trade liberalization program of the WTO is fundamentally flawed and we would be better simply abolishing this dangerous organization. They argue for building the global resistance and constructing global solidarity from below.

Reformers believe they can transform the WTO
Others, in particular much of organized labor argue that while the WTO trade liberalization program is deeply flawed, it’s now well established as a powerful organization and that the concept of negotiated trade regulation is vital to the health and welfare of the world community. They argue that if core labor rights, environmental protections, and what the Europeans refer to as a “social clause” was inserted into the WTO’s mandate and practice that it could be transformed.

Resisters, reformers and rebels from around the globe will be gathering in Seattle later this month in a remarkable international solidarity action challenging the WTO’s corporate agenda. While there are important tactical differences in approaches to the WTO, there is also a fair degree of unity in action and in identifying the WTO as an important global institution promoting policies which are contributing to the growth of inequality and the undermining of democracy. The protest in Seattle maybe be both the last major, international demonstration of the century and the beginning of a new powerful global solidarity movement.

Elaine Bernard is Executive Director, Harvard Trade Union Program. Copyright (c) 1999 Elaine Bernard.

Politics Are Us: Follow the Money

A recent comment by a reader on the NYC Education News listserve after I posted a link to George Schmidt's comments on Obama's education record in Chicago:

From what we've seen being played out in NYC public education, I've wondered if Barack's primary votes and money have been coming just from Democrats. After all, Republicans skewed the 2006 senate race in CT by crossing party lines so they could vote for Lieberman, and thus block his Democratic opponent. They were able to cross lines in Fro, independents could vote on either side in several of the early states, plus anyone can e-mail money to a candidate.

My suspicions are sadly confirmed by the ednotes article you sent. We already know that the GOP is incredibly active in privatizing the public school system, and, from Schmidt's perspective, Barack evidently supports that movement, along with its chief instrument, No Child Left Behind. Perhaps Ted Kennedy is supporting Barack as a way to preserve NCLB, which he co-sponsored. However, does that mean Kennedy is also inside the privatization loop, or is he too oblivious to see the uses for which NCLB has been co-opted?

That prompted this response:

Sorry, but this is absurd. Anyone who thinks that Obama's support is "Republicans crossing over" hasn't been paying attention, to what he says, to who is supporting him, to what is happening in our country.

I heard him speak a few weeks ago and he said, "we have to support our teachers, and pay them more. They should not have to only teach to the test. Children should have art, and music, and gym, and languages...,

Obama is running against the right, against Bush's policies, all down the line. Because he has excited and activated so many people, including young people, independents and those who are turned off by politics as usual, he actually could beat the Republican, in a landslide. And a landslide is what we'll need to turn the country around, including away from the attack on public education.

Which prompted this response from me:


I am pretty cynical about most politicians and subscribe to the belief expressed by that great political theorist Pete Townshend of The Who: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss/ I'll get on my knees and pray we don't get fooled again.

It is oh so easy for Obama to say teachers should get paid more.
Bloomberg said that too - as long as they put more time in and gave up chuncks of their contract.

And he thinks teachers shouldn't teach to the test?

Where did he ever take such a stand in Chicago his home base where that's what they do?
Chicago, where the BloomKlein style of reform began in 1995.

Has he played any role at all in diverting the attack on public education in Chicago?

The writer says to pay attention to who is supporting him. I say: "Follow the money."

George Schmidt, who clearly liked Obama as a man, squarley put him in the same camp as Daley/Bloomberg/Joel Klein camp. If you didn't get to his piece yet you can read it here.

Pray we don't get fooled again.

And if you admire Clinton, do not forget where Joel Klein came from. It is so easy to use rhetoric but always examine what politicians have done.

Trying to compare anyone to Bush makes them look good.

My wife works in the health field and she read Paul Krugman today and said she likes Clinton's universal health care plan better than Obama's and will vote for her on that basis.
I disagree. So what if Clinton says all the right things. I will bet a chunk of her money comes from the pharmecuticals and health care industry which will have to make a big buck out of any plan. Will Clinton/Obama be more loyal to the voters or to the people funding their campaigns? Any plan will be what the people who can profit from it says it will be. Follow the money.

But there are some differences if you believe the rhetoric. Take Cuba for instance, a place I got to visit legally in the late 70's when Jimmy Carter opened a brief window of liberalization.

John McAuliff, Executive Director. Fund for Reconciliation and Development writes:
Barack Obama has pledged unrestricted family travel and remittances, not just "easing" Bush restrictions of one visit every three years. He also has called for negotiations with Raul Castro without preconditions.
Hillary Clinton is Bush light on Cuba, seeming to take her cue from Sen. Bob Menendez and her Miami based Cuban American sister in law.Both candidates would do well to listen to the 2/3 of Americans who support normalization of relations and the right to travel to Cuba.

McAuliff's entire piece is here.


Two articles in the NY Times this past week on Bill Clinton and Obama were illuminating.

One delves into the actions of Obama when it came to a nuclear leak.

An excerpt:

"The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money. Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns.

The complete article is here.

The other one is about Bill Clinton and a uranium deal in Kazakhstan that led to praise for a dictator, a big deal for a Canadian who contrubuted millions to Clinton's foundation in exchange for lending his prestige to the arrangement. I think Borat may have been at the same meeeting.

The article is here:

While the Obama piece is not as bad as the Clinton article, rereading both of them side by side makes me want to take a shower. Despite all this, there's a good chance I'll vote for Obama because no matter what he said or Clinton said, as someone who was 15 when Kennedy was elected and turned my generation onto politics, there is something in what Elena said about activating and inspiring young people. It probably won't last, but I'll get on my knees and pray they won't get fooled again.

The UFT has NOT endorsed Clinton...

...but that doesn't stop the people using the UFT phone banks from telling people they have.

I told the caller it was a lie and that just becaue Randi Weingarten endorsed Clinton, the UFT still has rules and no body – the Exec. Bd or the Delegate Assembly – endorsed her. Only the AFT and NYSUT have endorsed.

The caller said she was reading from a script. "The script is telling you to lie to people," I said. She insisted there was an endorsement. I asked for specifics – a date of endorsement. She went to ask someone and came back and said it was in the last issue of the NY Teacher. WOW! That makes true, I guess. "I know it's hard to imagine, but they lie too," I said. She told me she would get the exact date of the endorsement and call me back. I'm keeping the line open.

The UFT Says " Support Hillary Clinton this Weekend!"

I want to invite you to please join our UFT team and Hillary Clinton supporters at the following locations this Saturday, February 2:

Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!

I look forward to seeing you this weekend!

Marvin Reiskin
Director of Legislation/Political Action

Q: from someone receiving a call from the UFT phone bank:
Why are you calling for Hillary when the Clintons made those attacks against Obama?

A: You're right. I'm doing it because I have to.

Translation: I'm in Unity caucus and I have to follow the party line.

How do they get away with using UFT resources, mailing lists, the building, phone banks, personnel (think Randi does her Hillary work on her own time) etc. when they have not given the members any opportunity at all to discuss who they want to support? Not at the Delegate Assembly. Not even at the rubber stamp Executive Board where the New Action rubber stamps (most of whom probably support Obama) would just sit there and go along.

The leadership says that the AFT and NYSUT have endorsed Hillary. The UFT doesn't have to.

Do you think there aren't a number of UFT members who support Obama, particularly African-Americans? And what of the Black members of Unity Caucus who just might have a bit of pride in Obama's achievements and would love to share their thoughts? Not allowed.

Will the Clinton endorsement without allowing for open discussion one day come back to haunt Unity Caucus? More importantly, will Obama supporters among the membership call for a recount?

Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss...

...or why I have disdain for most politicians

It looks like NY Gov, Elliot Spitzer, who I did not vote for (I ignore the screeching charges of being a lousy citizen for not voting for what seems to be the better of poor choices), has made a deal with Sheldon Silver, who rules the NY State Assembly, one of the most corrupt political bodies in the world. (And so many are friends of our UFT, which I bet will be in favor of the deal.)

With a looming $4.4 billion deficit, the state legislators, who are the 3rd highest paid in the US, could possibly get a 21% raise if Silver gets his way. But, hey, there are only 212 of them, so it ought to be a drop in the bucket. The NY Times article says, "Mr. Spitzer’s move underscores the degree to which the once reform-focused governor is taking a more accommodating approach this year after spending much of last year mired in controversy."

I recently wrote about the Spitzer/Mark Green deal to transfer money between their families to circumvent campaign finance laws.

And that's right after Spitzer cut back on educational promises. (See Leonie Haimson's "Four things to hate about Spitzer's education proposal" on the NYC Education News listserve.)

The actions of politicians always leads me back to these words from those political geniuses, The WHO:

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

We might as well do the entire lyric which all of you should recite as you read the daily comings and goings of our candidates. (Make sure to include the screams. It will make you feel better.)

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Hillary, Phone Home

The ICE blog had a report on last week's Delegate Assembly.

"Hillary Clinton called Randi on her cell-phone and addressed the delegates from Nevada. The Union is clearly making a strong pitch for their endorsed candidate: Hillary. Comptroller Bill Thompson [who has been the UFT choice for Mayor for about 10 years - part of the support for mayoral control by the UFT] also spoke live to the Delegates in favor of Hillary."

I'm surprised Giuliani spouse Judy Nathan didn't call next. But Chicago Teacher Union President Marilyn Stewart did chip in.

Both Thompson and Stewart are Black.

The calls from Black leaders are part of the campaign to keep Blacks in the UFT from deserting Hillary for Obama.

Unity Caucus discipline will take care of Black members of the UFT Executive Board and Delegate Assembly. Watch the vote when the Hillary endorsement comes up at both bodies. It is hard to believe that not even one Unity Caucus Black member would not be for Obama, with polling numbers around the nation showing a massive drift of Black voters moving from Hillary to Obama since Iowa. Some numbers show 5 to 1.

But in the "democracy" in Unity Caucus, democratic centralism will suppress any sense of support for Obama. That doesn't mean an attempt won't be made to make a stand at the DA by both Black and White non-Unity Obama supporters. And it would be fun to watch some of the Unity faithful squirm around that one. Undercover Unity Obama supporters have got to be feeling some level of discomfort, especially Blacks who understand the historical significance of Obama's popularity across the board. Suppressing racial pride cannot be a good thing for Unity over the long-term.

Which just goes to show that there are some inherent contradictions within Unity and what looks monolithic, can develop cracks when Weingarten is no longer around to keep her hand on the trigger.

Which leads us to a discussion of last week's fascinating piece by Elizabeth Green on Randi's successor. Look for our comments later this week.

Some more tidbits from the ICE DA report:

Tidbit #1
ICE has not taken a position on the Democratic Primaries so further comment is not called for here.

Let me guarantee here that knowing the people in ICE, there is no way in hell ICE will take a position on the primaries but will point out how the UFT leadership will manipulate the members into an all out Hillary endorsement. Don't be shocked at a visit from Hillary to the DA at some point (as she did in 2000.)

Tidbit #2
Finally, the Union announced its Principals in Need of Improvement program. This was introduced by new Staff Director Leroy Barr. He called up to the podium multiple members from three schools who told horror stories about principals from hell. The schools were Acorn High School for Social Justice...

Is this the same Acorn that has an alliance with the UFT? I may be wrong and the school with Acorn's name on it might have little to do with the UFT buddy Acorn.

Apparently not. See comment #1 for clarification from a reader.

Spitzer and Green Families: You Scratch My Back...

Why do people trust ANY of these guys?

Today's NY Times has one of those delicious little articles that expose the depth of corruption in the political world. "Spitzer and Family Help Pay Supporter’s [Mark Green] Debts"

The Spitzer family gave Green $50,000 to retire his debt.

The article says:

The contributions were the latest exchange of political largess between the Green and Spitzer families. Mr. Green’s older brother and pre-eminent political backer, the Manhattan real estate developer Stephen L. Green, donated $135,000 to the governor’s election campaign in 2006.

Why didn’t Stephen Green bail out his brother?

“He can’t help retire the debt because he was so generous before,” Mark Green said. Indeed, the elder Green and his wife donated $270,000 to his brother’s campaign, either directly or through businesses they control. Mark Green received an additional $200,000 from other family members.

“It’s a family matter, but trust me on this, Steve was so generous, as a matter of law, he cannot help retire the final debt.” Asked whether his brother had reached the legal contribution limits for his businesses, Mr. Green would not elaborate further.

During the 2006 campaign, the business donations were criticized by government watchdog groups, which said the contributions were a symptom of the loopholes in state campaign finance laws that allow wealthy businesspeople to exceed spending limits by donating through limited liability companies they control — a tactic used particularly by real estate developers.

So, the political shell game is on. Stephen Green gives Spitzer $135,000 and Spitzer gives his brother Mark $50,000 back so no one exceeds any limits. Think Spitzer will do anything that might in any way harm Green's real estate interests?

Now, here comes the funniest line in the entire piece by Mark Green:

“This is now a relationship among friends. “I am not a registered lobbyist and I have no interest before the state.”

Almost as funny as corporate job cutting down-sizer Mitt Romney telling people in economically depressed Michigan he is committed to fight for every job.

Oh, yes. The UFT has supported both Spitzer and (not too enthusiastically) Green in the past.