2019 -- Politico's Big Joke: MORE Wants to take over UFT - by not wanting to win Elections

What's left of MORE prides itself on being intolerant and insular. It does not wish to deal with viewpoints that vary one iota from theirs. As for what that viewpoint may be, I have no clue. I only know that whatever it is shuts me out as a "right-winger." .... If I'm a right-winger, so is a good 95-99% of UFT membership. What's left of MORE represents what's left of MORE, and little else.  .....NYC Educator:  Blithering Baloney from Politico on MORE {Updated Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019, 1:30 PM}

Oh, that's just great,  and makes the Gods of Irony laugh: unions in legitimate need of reform (if the UFT is at all representative) are to be shaken up by naive Democratic Socialists acting as cat's paws for the Trots[kyists] ..... Former MORE leftist member, a founder of purged ICEUFT.

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions screamed the headline from Politico.

Another target is the United Federation of Teachers, a nearly 200,000-member union representing teachers, social workers, secretaries and other school employees. “UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics,” the group wrote. “It is extremely internally undemocratic, but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.” MORE refers to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, whose website leads with a July post criticizing the union’s internal election process and calling for voting reforms. The union “fails to exercise the full potential of its power” and ends up backing centrist or conservative Democrats, the group added.

Did the authors check out the outcome of the last UFT election which was won by Unity with one of its highest vote totals in history while MORE's vote totals dropped by 75% and they finished behind a ghost caucus? Or read about the way MORE is no more democratic than Unity Caucus? Or that there are way more ex-MORE members than current MORE members?

The funniest quote in the article was a quote from a MORE statement on the election as if to blame the UFT election process instead of their own ineptness and poor judgement where they could claim, "at least we didn't finish last."

“With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union but it will likely take years to reform the UFT,” it concluded.

Note they say they want to reform the UFT which cannot be done without creating a credible threat to Unity which MORE killed in its divisiveness. They also lodged a protest over some of the procedures in the election with the UFT, some of which were out right funny.

One thing it does is reveal the MORE strategy, since the faction in control has not been able to make inroads into the rank and file even in their own schools, they have used an old tactic on the left and right: Seeding – Bring in activists to form a cadre - a woke vanguard who will lead the unwoke rank and file. There's more than a little arrogance in this concept.

Actually, the UFT was organized using similar tactics – remember, Shanker and other founders came out of the Socialist Party - the very anti-communist cold warrior wing. One of the founders who had been in a middle school which became the organizing center of the future UFT in the late 50s purposely left to go to a high school where he was able to organize inside the high school teachers association, the most militant segment of the union - he used the term "salting" when I spoke to him.

But they had no Unity Caucus to contend with - and it is that factor that is missing from all the training MORE does along with Labor Notes. In the future I'll get into why the current MORE strategy that took us away from the concept of a broad based opposition will fail and for every cadre MORE brings into the UFT and MORE, an equal number will leave or drift away.

The Democratic Socialists members approved zeroing in on six of those labor groups during a January meeting and have since begun pursuing the effort.... Politico

Funny how the MORE steering committee came out of the witness protection program in January 2019 to suspend me for 6 months for revealing the misinformation at the MORE election meetings to get people to run in the election not to win and alone in the fall.

James Eterno, another former MORE member (there are way more formers than currents) calls them out on the ICEUFT blog in his excellent piece on the same story: SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA TRYING TO PENETRATE NYC UNIONS

If the Democratic Socialists of America want to be taken seriously inside the UFT, they should work on having their people live up to that democratic part of their name. ... MORE voted against working with any other opposition group in 2019. It appears they are more interested in pushing their political views than in changing the UFT. It is impossible to defend MORE's indefensible lack of fairness. While I can still work with members of MORE on individual issues like opposing the contract, it is very difficult to support their candidates for union office under these circumstances. I don't want my union to be run like this caucus....

Here is another quote on the story from a former MORE member:

Honestly, I'd like to burn every single Bread and Roses flag I see. But from my vantage, this memo was a leak from DSA and, after reading the quotes from the union presidents, I think they may have angered the better part of all 151 of them. (The last time all the city's unions were on the same page, they pulled the rug out from under both Cynthia Nixon AND the entire WFP.) I don't think this is going to go unanswered by the union heads and I'm curious who to sympathize for here.... Former MORE  member.

Now to be clear - I joined DSA and like the work they are doing generally. The organization as whole is broad tent socialist unlike the MORE wing which is sectarian. DSAers who are teachers are wasting their time with MORE since DSA has so many other options for organizing and social justice work. Spending your time at meetings to "learn" how to organize your colleagues to do exactly what? When you could join one of the numerous DSA committees on housing, working for progressive candidates etc can actually lead to results?

Here is the full Politico story - tell Sally and Janaki to do some research.

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/08/14/democratic-socialists-look-to-take-over-new-yorks-powerful-labor-unions-1141206

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions

Sally GOLDENBERG and JANAKI CHADHA08/14/2019 05:01 AM EDT

NEW YORK — A left-leaning political organization that publicly backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her insurgent victory last year was also quietly plotting to penetrate another New York City power source — labor unions.

The New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America presented its members with a strategy last year to gain entry into some of the city’s most powerful labor organizations and ensure they are adhering to the “militant” principles that the group felt had been diluted over time. POLITICO obtained a previously unreported, 37-page memo laying out a follow-up plan that identified 10 unions to target.

School Scope: The Politics of Newsies

I have two columns in The WAVE this week, both related to Newsies.

[Memo From The RTC: The Oldies But Goodies]

School Scope 

The Politics of Newsies

The Wave  | on August 15, 2019 

By Norm Scott

OK - So it's an old photo

I was so excited to be part of the recent Newsies production at the Rockaway Theatre Company. Much of the play follows the real 1899 strike which inspired a 1992 Disney film which was turned into a 2012 Broadway musical. The story follows a citywide strike by newsboys who were the key distributors of newspapers in the streets of New York. The newsie strike is described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book Kids on Strike! This was before child labor laws.

The lead character, Jack Kelly, (played to perfection by Sam Kelley) is possibly based on a real character, 18- year old Louis “Kid Blink” Baletti. The play makes publisher Joseph Pulitzer into the main villain but in the real story his competitor William Randolph Hearst was also responsible. I played the part of the evil Snyder who ran a “refuge” – really prison – for boys. The Refuge reminded me of recent stories of the century old Florida state-run Dozier School for Boys in the Panhandle town of Marianna, where boys were abused in every way possible, including being murdered. The school was closed in 2011. Colsen Whitehead based his recent wellreceived novel, The Nickel Boys, on the school.

Snyder’s refuge is funded by the city and he clearly does Pultizer’s bidding, including leading a group of goons to beat up the newsies when they go on strike, fundamentally shutting down the entire city newspaper distribution system. A telling moment comes when a newsie, after being beaten, runs to a cop for help and he clubs the newsie. Police forces from their very origin have been instruments of controlling unions and workers and siding with the owner class.

The newsies are very poor and most are living on the streets or on rooftops. Exceptions are Davey and his little brother Les, who have parents (and are mocked by their fellow newsies – “where do I get myself a mudder?”), but have been forced to leave school and sell newspapers to support the family after their father suffers an on the job accident and can’t work. The charismatic vagabond and emotional firebrand leader, Jack Kelly, also a talented artist, has won the hearts and minds of the newsies (and Katherine, a rare female reporter).

But it is Davey who has an education and knows stuff Jack doesn’t, who provides the blueprint for forming a union and the strike. Yet when they are on the verge, the more conservative Davey, who has more to lose suggests holding back. Jack retorts: if your father was in a union he would have been protected when he got hurt on the job and you wouldn’t have to sell newspapers. That wins Davey over. Naturally, as in real life, the bosses hire scabs and pay them more. The majority of newsies want to use violence against scabs, but Davey says they lose unless they stand together and Jack and he convince the scabs to join them.

The fictionalized romance between street fighter Jack and the educated Katherine who turns out to be (spoiler alert) Pulitzer’s daughter adds the romantic element, but also a political one. Here’s where we enter fantasyland, but after all, this is a Disney production. When the newsies are demoralized after they are beat up by the goons led by Snyder (me) who smashed the cripple Crutchie with his own crutch and he is dragged off to the refuge, it is Katherine who rallies them, not Jack, (a lead in to the showstopper tap dancing “King of New York”). Jack’s spirit is revived but when he saunters into Pulitzer’s office and discovers who Katherine is, he is arrested and bitter and takes a bribe to sell out the strike, which has some basis since Kid Blink and Davey in real life also supposedly were bribed and had to step down as union leaders: a really important point about how some union leaders are sell-outs (as a UFT member, no comment).

I had been wondering why the historically anti-union Disney would create such a seemingly pro-union work of art. But the current corporate Disney does have some unions. But again it is Katherine who wins Jack and the boys over and her upper class friends (including the son of Hearst) help the newsies put out their own newspaper written by her which wins over the city.

Once again, the upper class kids come to the rescue. The final straw is the intervention of Governor Theodore Roosevelt on the side of the newsies. Wiki reports that in the actual strike, Theodore Roosevelt didn’t do anything. In real life the newsies won some victories due to their own efforts, but here, left on their own, would have failed. It took the intervention of powerful politicians and noble wealthy people to save them. Seemingly, Disney fantasyland, but touching on some truths. Like the goon character I play, Snyder, is the only one to take a fall while the politicians and corporate chiefs escape. And I might even have committed suicide while in jail. 

Norm is always in fantasyland when he blogs at ednotesonline.com. And see his Memo from the RTC column.

Memo From The RTC: The Oldies But Goodies

Memo From The RTC 
The Oldies But Goodies

The Wave  | on August 15, 2019 

By Norm Scott

[Read School Scope column – my analysis - School Scope: The Politics of Newsies].

https://www.rockawave.com/articles/memo-from-the-rtc-64/

John Gilleece and Community Board 14’s José Velez.

Over the past few weeks, I covered the remarkable 40-member cast of the Rockaway Theatre Company production ofNewsies (which closed August 4), working my way up in age from the youngest.

The teens were covered two weeks ago and last week the twenty-somethings. Now I’ve reached the final crew, the thirties to the seventies, or the alta cockers. With so many young people in the cast, Director Gabby Mangano balanced things out with a sprinkling of (mostly) mature gentlemen.

Fred Grieco (Nunzio/Roosevelt/_ policeman) has been an RTC mainstay for years and he was called upon to play three important roles. He schlepped in from Staten Island for months. The lure of the theater is strong and Fred always answers the call.

Founder/artistic director John Gilleece (Seitz) and soul of the RTC took on a small role which was a bit unusual for him. It was clear that John was so proud of Gabby, his protégée directing her first main stage production, and he wanted to be there for her all the way. Rumors are that John, despite being in his seventies, will be returning to directing next season, which promises to have some wonderful shows – but if I tell you I’d have to kill you.

Dana Mongelli, Fred Grieco and Brian Sadowski (l to r) from the Newsies cast.

Cliff Hesse (Bunsen) from Brighton Beach, also in his late seventies, a core member of the RTC and active on all fronts from stage construction crew to painting to scenery design. His knowledge of all aspects of the theater including historical is invaluable.

I, Snyder, was the third septuagenarian in the show – and I think the youngest. I still managed to find the energy to hit Crippie with his crutch, which elicited a comment from someone I met who sat in the first row: you missed him by a mile – thank goodness. I was supposed to be very evil in the show but I don’t think I scared anyone, though one lady on the way out hit me on the head and said, “Meanie!”

Brian Sadowski (Pulitzer) is a 40 something from Brooklyn is really the scary one. He’s made his mark in every RTC production he has been a part of over the past three years. A powerhouse performance as the evil Pultizer. Brian’s voice is amazing and I can imagine how he uses it when he is in the lunchroom of the elementary school where he is an Assistant Principal. 

Rockaway’s own José Velez (Goon) has been in numerous productions over the years and was a fellow card player with me as Murray the Cop in the Odd Couple, the first time I was ever on stage. It was a pleasure to work with him again even if he does manhandle me on the way to jail. Jose is also very active in Rockaway community affairs as a member of the Planning Board.

The youngest of this crew is thirty something Nicolas Baytler (Weisel/Jacobi/Mayor/Stage Manager), a Baltimore native who lives in Rockaway and was making his debut at the RTC, his first performance since high school. Nick attended Frank Caiati’s acting class last fall and got the acting bug. That Director Gabby Mangano trusted him with 4 small but crucial roles is a sign that the boy has talent. He will be appearing in the upcoming Great Gatsby opening September 21.

By 10 a.m. on August 5, the day after the play closed, Tony Homsey and his stage crew had the set down and were busy building the set for The Great Gatsby. They worked on Wednesday, Friday and this past Monday. When I last left them they were busy building a model car for the show, but were still trying to figure out how many miles to the gallon it will get.

Norm posts all his RTC and School Scope articles on his blog, ednotesonline.com. 

A Day At the Beach With DSA

There are now numerous elected officials from congress to school boards who classify themselves as socialists, something we hadn't seen in this nation since the late 40s.

I've been posting stories about the remarkable 10x growth of the Democratic Socialists (DSA) in the last three years due to Bernie and Trump. The local DSA groups certainly keep their people busy with a constant list of things to do, both political and social. Yesterday they had a beach party at Fort Tilden beach and since it is so close I decided to take a ride over in the afternoon to check it out.

This is possibly the most beautiful and somewhat secluded beach in the city - a federal beach with no lifeguards - and a place not known to many people despite being contiguous with Riis Park. The lack of food services (though there are porta potties) keeps the place quiet but no longer on weekends. It attracts mostly young people on blankets, not chairs - since most come by public transportation - and young and mostly white.

The beach was crowded yesterday but I found the DSA people under a banner that said "Refugees Welcome". I was there for about an hour engaging in some very interesting conversations with a few people, most of whom are recent converts to socialism of one flavor or another. I seemed to connect with people whose views were somewhat aligned with mine - the libertarian/anarchist crowd who eschew democratic centralism which binds everyone to the will of the majority no matter how slim that might be. One of the guys said he hoped to be a teacher and did I hear of MORE? Oy!

They like a big tent socialist group like DSA. I did talk to one woman who had the only chair and was somewhat within a decade or two of my age -- very nice and someone who also joined post Trump. Turns out her son is a teacher and in MORE and I know him - he came from the DSA crew. A second year high school teacher who I was glad to tell his mom I happened to like. I told her I was no longer interested in MORE and she asked me why. There is no way I could get into the whole story so I was brief.

It is exciting to see a renaissance on the left among that generation and will be interesting to see if they get ripped apart like the left tends to do to itself. The guys I spoke to didn't seem to be very worried about that.

Here is a story about a DSAer who has played a role in Denver.

Denver’s City Council, Led by Democratic Socialist, Stuns For-Profit Prison Operators by Nuking Contracts

The 2019 DSA Convention: Showdown at the Caucus Corral - Bread and Roses Caucus and MORE

It’s true that Bread & Roses doesn’t make any pretense about having more than a couple overarching goals for the organization, citing the limited capacity of DSA as a whole. These priorities include a commitment to a rank-and-file labor strategy, the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, and fostering mass political movements around large policy objectives, such as Medicare For All and the Green New Deal. But it would be a mischaracterization to say that Bread & Roses is opposed to political activity outside its stated, centralized priorities. Above all, above even its ideological convictions, Bread & Roses has a commitment to democracy. .... Current Affairs

I've been following and compiling stories on the Democratic Socialists (DSA), of which I am a fringe member. 
See my post the other day: Democratic Socialist Convention Update: If Not Bernie, What?

I view the rise of DSA which has grown 10x in two years is one of the most significant events as they have the potential to become an alternate space for the left in the Democratic Party and have begun to operate as a quasi caucus inside the Dem Party. But DSA is still a big tent socialist group and is threatened internally by some of the same sectarian politics that have so divided the left over the past century. Bread and Roses caucus has the potential to create a dividing line. 

This is what democracy means, to Bread and Roses: majority rule....

.... rather than bulldoze minority viewpoints, Build [caucus] prefers to work with them, incorporating those other viewpoints in a holistic way. “What ties us together is a commitment to working across our differences, so that we can come to something that works for everybody,”.....CA  

If that is what democracy means, then the suppression of the minority point of view to the point of purging is the opposite of democracy. Which is what happened inside MORE by some of the very people associated with the Bread and Roses caucus. I would say the ICE people in MORE would have been somewhat aligned with the Build caucus by trying to find consensus.

They say all politics are local and in the various factions of DSA I see echoes of the faction battles in MORE where the ISO faction recruited enough people out of DSA to be able to overturn the democratic structure of MORE and push people out who did not agree with them -- call it banishing the minority view, not uncommon among certain branches of socialism. So it is not an accident that many of the same MOREs are involved in the NYC DSA Labor contingent and have ties to the Bread and Roses caucus in DSA.

One of their key planks, which passed narrowly at the convention last week, was the boiler plate rank and file strategy advocated by Kim Moody/ Labor Notes and others associated with the Trotsky wing of socialism. The MOREs used this same issue to create a red line inside MORE - either go along or get out. It was not that many of us in ICE disagreed with the strategy but the sneaky undemocratic way the faction went about it and the hard line they took -- actually they had to suspend the steering committee and throw out the MORE by-laws in order to assure it got passed -- not a good ad for the "democratic" in democratic socialism.

In other words will be see the same type of actions by some of the same people who divided MORE, and in the supreme irony killed rank and file organizing inside the UFT where the biggest instrument of so-called "business unionism" resides, Unity Caucus - has been enormously strengthened - which means even greater control over the AFT which has collaborated with so much ed deform.

So this article from Current Affairs, a non-left wing view is interesting. In a follow-up tomorrow I will print a harder left view from New Politics, where a key editor has fundamentally supported the undemocratic actions within MORE. Expect more fawning from NP.

August 03, 2019

The 2019 DSA Convention: Showdown at the Caucus Corral

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/08/the-2019-dsa-convention-showdown-at-the-caucus-corral

Memo from the RTC: Newsies Ends Most Successful Run in RTC History - Norm Scott

https://www.rockawave.com/articles/memo-from-the-rtc-63/


Memo from the RTC: Newsies Ends Most Successful Run in RTC History
By Norm Scott

There was joy and sadness at Sunday’s final performance of Newsies at the Rockaway Theatre Company as the 50 cast members and crew celebrated the success of a perfect production led by the awesome director, Gabby Mangano who wowed not only the audiences but the entire RTC family with her masterly control of every aspect of the production. Word is it was the highest grossing show of all time.

Dana Mongelli (left), Jessica Helton (top), Ashley Chico (left), Dana Falzone (bottom)

George Raiola and Nick Baytler

Myles Rich and Jonathan Mitchell

Jessica Helton, Dana Mongelli, Ashley Chico

The cast celebrated with a party catered from Thai Rock and when I left at 8PM many were still performing on stage and showing off their individual singing talents The talent in that room was overwhelming.

Democratic Socialist Convention Update: If Not Bernie, What?

When a convention of the Democratic Socialists (DSA) breaks into the mainstream, like this ABC report, we are in new territory.

[UPDATE - NYT today with full page story which I will post and address later -- but note how the article also points to growth of DSA as due to Trump -- but doesn't go where I go -- that some DSA people who are Bernie or bust would rather see Trump win in 2020 than any Democrat because Trump not a wishy washy Dem helps build the movement -- a very dangerous idea when Trump turns us into a police state.]

They held their annual convention in Atlanta this past weekend. I've heard for months about possible fireworks as the former ISO and allies pile in and create issues at the contention. Former ISOers and allies are too weak at this point to overwhelm DSA whose leading lights eschew sectarianism. But there was at least one minor victory and since I have a bunch of things to report I will cover that in future blog posts.

Ideology repeatedly clashed with electoral pragmatism during this year's convention, which veered between a giddy celebration of the group's previously unfathomable successes, delegates' passage of Green New Deal and open borders initiatives, and painful deliberations over how to harness its new power. Two votes during the first 24 hours of the gathering put those questions on display. The first asked what to do in the event Sanders fails to win the Democratic nomination; the second considered imposing a litmus test on candidates seeking DSA's national endorsement.The results were, in effect, a split decision.
On Friday, delegates narrowly passed a proposal that will prevent DSA from backing anyone but Sanders in the next presidential race. The argument in favor was simple: DSA is a socialist organization and risked spoiling its authority on the left by publicly backing -- as Andrew Sernatinger, a delegate from Wisconsin, argued -- "a candidate that is a neoliberal that is not what we are for."

More remarkable than its growth, though, is DSA's increasing presence on the electoral stage. Nearly 100 democratic socialists now hold office at almost all levels of government, from local school boards to the US Congress... ABCNews 

Sectarianism is coming to DSA at the convention ... a knowledgeable and influential leftist in a conversation with me, November, 2018. 

DSA held its biannual convention this past weekend. My instinct is that a certain segment of socialists would rather Trump win than any Democrat, even Bernie based on the idea that all the candidates are reformers of capitalism and if they succeed they will actually strengthen  capitalism and deflect organizing efforts away from building socialism. Which is what happened with the New Deal. Hard core socialists disparage FDR as a light weight reformer. But they are a minority.

DSA is a big tent socialist organization which includes some people who have been associated with the UFT leadership, rankles some sectarians who with the demise of ISO have nowhere else to go.

Current Affairs has an article on DSA caucuses: THE 2019 DSA CONVENTION: SHOWDOWN AT THE CAUCUS CORRAL

Here's tbe New Politics pre-convention analysis:

DSA 2019 Convention Breakdown – New Politics

https://newpol.org/dsa-2019-convention-breakdown/

Note the Bread and Roses caucus which is where people like the ISO and DSA sectarians in MORE have piled in. Their Rank and file strategy is what they secretly discussed and then imposed within MORE and purged people who they felt did not fit into their strategy. I hear their proposal barely won which is a sign internally that half the DSA delegates pushed back and are on the alert. Wish I were there to share with them how well their strategy worked in the UFT election.

It's Bernie or bust
DSA has gone full bore for Bernie and voted this weekend not to commit to another candidate.

I am a DSA member though I don't support some of the DSA precepts about socialism but had a chance to vote for local delegates even though I didn't know most of them. So far from what I've seen DSA is very young, white and preponderantly male. But I'm only seeing a small slice. In one branch there is a requirement that one third of the elected delegates be woman and people of color, so there is an attempt to address the issue.

What tripled the membership in DSA since Trump from 8 thousand to almost 60,000 members? Hint: think orange man. Well, maybe Bernie too though he is not formally affiliated with DSA. Actually Bernie on the surface is a social democrat not a democratic socialist though I think he has been a  For the major differences I posted some articles - one from the mainstream: Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy - How they differ - NY Times.

And another from the socialist left: Democratic Socialism Isn’t Social Democracy - Jacobin

Here is the very interesting ABC news report on the convention. There's a lot to digest in this so read it twice.

https://www.abc17news.com/news/politics/democratic-socialist-revolution-comes-to-a-crossroads/1106086209

The WAVE: School Scope - Those SHSAT Tests, Part 1

https://www.rockawave.com/articles/school-scope-315/

School Scope:  Those SHSAT Tests, Part 1

By Norm Scott

When I was an 8^th grade student in the 1957-58 school year at George Gershwin JHS, a jewel of a school recently opened on Linden Blvd in East NY section of Brooklyn, male students were offered an opportunity to take an after school class in prepping for the test for Brooklyn Tech, at the time the only specialized high school that went from 9^th-12^th grade. The others, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science began in the 10^th grade and for those schools the test was taken in the 9^th grade. As a new school Gershwin wanted to make its bones by being able to boast about how many students were accepted to the specialty schools.

When the test came I joined hundred if not thousands of others in the massive auditorium at Tech. I was nervous but felt I was ready and I attacked the test with vigor but also worked my way through the questions carefully. Time was called when I still hadn’t completed about a third of the test. I didn’t even have time to randomly fill in the blanks which would have given me a chance based on chance to get about a fourth of them correct. I was stunned at my failure. Apparently I didn’t learn the most important factor in test taking – watch the time.

Naturally I was not accepted and it was clear to me that the 8 students from my test prep class who made it were much smarter than me. I was friendly with some but noticed their absence in the 9^th grade. I never saw them again.

When I entered my local high school, Thomas Jefferson, the next year, a few classmates who had taken the test in the 9^th grade and been accepted to Stuyvesant were gone. We never saw them again either. I don’t remember if test prep was offered that year, but even if it was I was too demoralized to subject myself to that test taking experience again. I should mention that none of the missing students on both occasions were some of the incredibly smart girls in our class since girls were not allowed into the elite schools.

Now I should point out that at Jefferson I was among an elite group of about 200 students who were in “honor school”, a sub-school of college bound, and over the next three years we received what I considered a college-level education. But Jefferson also wanted to compete for elite status and considered gaining a NY State scholarship a measure of success. Thus we were pulled from gym cycles over the next year and a half to prep us for that test.

The point is that schools were offering test prep as far back as the 50s but it was free to all students who were deemed as having potential.

I raise this story as an intro to a series of columns on the controversy over the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). State law now mandates that this test be the only determining factor for admission to some elite schools, counter to the position taken by Mayor De Blasio and school chancellor Carranza who argue for a wider admission policy that would make the schools more diverse. The Asian community is up in arms since Asian students have had the greatest success and would lose seats if changes were made. This has created splits with the Black and Latinx who have been fundamentally shut out of these schools. In the 80s and 90s the numbers of students coming out of these communities was much higher. So the test was not a barrier then. What happened?

The NYT attempted to answer the question in this June 3 article: How New York’s Elite Public Schools Lost Their Black and Hispanic Students: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/03/nyregion/nyc-public-schools-black-hispanic-students.html

Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History did a story on the LSAT test for law school titled: The Tortoise and the Hare that addresses the issue of why tests are timed and how that affects results. Are we testing knowledge and skills or speed? Do we want lawyers to be tortoises or hares? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/.

I went from a tortoise when I took the Tech test in 1958 to a hare when I received a NY State scholarship in 1962. But was I any smarter other than having figured out how to use limited time on tests to my advantage?

Norm, when he has the time, still blogs at ednotesonline.com.

Annals of Religion: Is Marxism the Opiate of Socialists?

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."... Karl Marx

I've generally agreed with Marx. Religion allows people to accept a lot of shit but also can motivate change in positive and negative ways.

One of the benefits of and rationale for most religions is the idea that things don't end when you die. That some higher force allows for a future in some manner. Or that the higher force makes life worth living. Things will be taken care of. The future even when you are gone has some guiding hand.

Religion seems to be part and parcel of humanity since it arose in every single society throughout history. I imagine religion began at the point of human consciousness where they began to look up at the sky and wonder what the hell it all means. There is a 100% chance you will die and belief in a higher order keeps you somewhat optimistic.

But where does that leave you if you are an atheist knowing full well that when you die, worms will be eating your brain?

Not all atheists are socialists and not all socialists are atheists.

Not all socialists are Marxists but all Marxists are socialists.

For the latter group, Marxism is a form of religion. Socialists are often the most optimistic people I know. Their belief that a better society will ensue is similar to evangelicals who are waiting for the rapture. Except socialists believe they will be the ones to make their rapture come true, not wait for a higher power to do so. But I also find that many have their own higher power by following some leader or ideologue.

The essence of Marxism is a dialetical/scientific analysis of the movements in society through history with the inevitable fall of capitalism and the rise of socialism/communism to replace it. What has so far gone wrong in the prediction is how the socialist states which replaced capitalism morphed into not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a dictatorship usually dominated by one strong voice (Stalin, Castro, Kim) or an oligarchy of sorts.

A good friend of mine and mentor, a lifelong independent socialist with a degree in Marxist economics has come to the conclusion that the Marxist assumed there was no such thing as human nature - the need of some to dominate and control. I tend to agree. Socialists believe that people can be molded into something better. They believe this with a religious fervor.

Trotskyists have an answer by fundamentally claiming that all these examples are failed socialist states and that the true revolution has not taken place yet. And besides, their version of socialism requires that it exist worldwide - thus they are internationalists. They believe the states that call themselves socialist have been forced to morph into some forms of capitalism due to the fact that most of the world is still capitalist but that one day that will end.

Can capitalism morph into socialism peacefully? Some socialists believe it can - democratic socialists for instance.

But the class that calls itself revolutionary socialists recognize that capitalism won't yield without a massive struggle and it will turn violent. I tend to agree even though I am not a revolutionary socialist. I tend to think that it is more likely that the masses that are expected to make a revolution will more likely be suppressed or manipulated into supporting fascism rather than socialism, as happened in Germany when the Nazis and socialists clashed.

Optimistic socialists believe it was errors on the part of the socialists not the forces of history that led to that outcome. I'm not an optimist. I see doom and believe the best we can do is rally enough people to win concessions to modify capitalism, like FDR - which is where the Bernie/AOC crowd comes from -- social democrats. The reality is that to get to that point took a massive depression.

Lenin's contribution was the idea of a vanguard party of people with advanced ideas to lead the masses into socialism. These parties are supposedly democratic and operate under democratic centralism where majority rules and everyone else goes along. But in reality, one or an oligarchy of voices exert major influence and end up dominating.

Thus many socialists who believe in the vanguard party call themselves Marxist-Leninists. There are Marxists who are not Leninists.

Membership in these vanguard parties is essentially akin to belonging to a church - a religious experience where the party is the most important thing and subsumes all else -- loyalty to and building the party. We saw this inside MORE with the ISO crowd. And look at the outcome.

My experience in MORE taught me a lot about socialists in vanguard parties like ISO and how they operate. One thing I always noted that nothing ever goes wrong for them - that no matter what you must put a happy face on it so as not to discourage people. As an example after 3 months of silence after the UFT election disaster, they finally figured out how to try to sell it as a positive which they posted on their web site. It was an LOL moment.

People like Mike and me who were critical of MORE internally came under attack for pointing out reality and calling for analysis that would lead to fixing things that weren't working. They didn't want to hear that - criticism was negativity. No analysis was needed. After all, they were operating under a higher power that existed outside the organization - they were the true enlightened and knew what was best. Thus you see organizations like MORE aim to convert the masses to their ideas rather than let the issues the masses are concerned with take precedence. An example is that no matter what is going on in the schools, MORE will push its agenda, not that of concern to UFT members. (Prediction for this year - the contract and Black Lives Matter week plus one other issue to keep people busy for the next school year. And then brag about how successful the work was.)

Of course ISO fell apart but even the ISO people I talked too said the same thing - what a great experience it was, no regrets and how the future still looked bright. They has been spending upwards of $5000 a year towards ISO - tithing of sorts - and it was all worth it. OK. That they all seem to use almost the exact same words is evidence of the religious aspect of these leftists - almost as if they were reading from the bible.

Now everyone piles into DSA which is holding a national convention in two weeks and some skirmishes and wars will break out in that big tent organization. But no matter what the word going out with religious fervor will be optimistic.

Maureen Dowd Slams Dem Progressives

The progressives’ cry that they don’t care about the political consequences because they have a higher cause is just a purity racket...

They eviscerate their natural allies for not being pure enough while placing all their hopes in a color-inside-the-lines lifelong Republican prosecutor appointed by Ronald Reagan.

The politics of purism makes people stupid. And nasty.

Maureen Dowd

I am so torn between arguments on the left and center. Dowd puts forth the Trump must go at all costs thesis. It's made me think about things. Like there are people who think the left/Bernie view is the best way to get rid of Trump while there is another group on the left that doesn't see a replacement of Trump with Biden as crucial as building a movement and actually seem to think that having Trump do his damage actually galvanizes people into building that movement. I mean, if capitalism is the problem and a Democratic Party is a slave to many captains of that system, then getting rid of Trump is not the real aim but building the idea that socialism is an alternative is the important thing.

I'm part of a progressive wing that agrees with Dowd that the Dems pursuit of Mueller and focus on Russia is totally wrongheaded.

Dowd's liberalism which morphs into neo-liberalism so often is on display. Real deep anger at the left and to me a sign of a Democratic Party whose existence will be questioned. But I think segments of the left still think the battle inside the party is worthwhile as a third party is never going to be feasible in this country for the forseeable future.

Maureen Dowd

Spare Me the Purity Racket

Democrats Paid a Huge Price for Letting Unions Die - NYMag

The GOP understands how important labor unions are to the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party, historically, has not. If you want a two-sentence explanation for why the Midwest is turning red (and thus, why Donald Trump is president), you could do worse than that. With its financial contributions and grassroots organizing, the labor movement helped give Democrats full control of the federal government three times in the last four decades. And all three of those times — under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama — Democrats failed to pass labor law reforms that would to bolster the union cause. In hindsight, it’s clear that the Democratic Party didn’t merely betray organized labor with these failures, but also, itself.... NY Mag

From an old article from a year and a half ago worth keeping in mind. We saw neo-lib Dems ignore unions. This point was made very clearly in a great book by Amy Goldstein:

Janesville: An American Story: Amy Goldstein:

From a massively strong union town it went downhill after the GM plant closed down and Goldstein chronicles years of the impact on everyone - how people dropped out of the middle class and in the process went toward Trump-type politics. Like Labor Day parades had been a massive event in town. Unions played a major role in the fabric of the community. Suddenly it was all gone.

Jan. 26, 2018: Democrats Paid a Huge Price for Letting Unions Die

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/democrats-paid-a-huge-price-for-letting-unions-die.html

SEIU’s Andy Stern Has a New Gig Fighting Teachers’ Unions - See Randi tepid response

As teachers mount the biggest wave of strikes in recent US history, SEIU’s President Emeritus Andy Stern has jumped onto the side of anti-union forces backed by billionaires.     Earlier this year, Stern became an official advisor to a “front group” that’s pushing for the privatization of public schools and is driven by “virulently anti-union elements,” according to an article by Maurice Cunningham. (Maurice Cunningham, “Keri Rodrigues Goes Coastal with Plans for National Parents Union,” MassPoliticsProfs, April 22, 2019.)

The front group -- called the “National Parents Union” -- is funded by the right-wing billionaire family that owns Wal-Mart......

Stern Burger with Fries

SEIU’s Andy Stern Has a New Gig Fighting Teachers’ Unions..... Friday, July 26, 2019

The Stern Burger With Fries blog on our blogroll has an interesting piece about a new front group called the National Parent Union to counter teacher unions and strikes, backed by the Walmart family.
Of interest to us is the tepid response from Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers.

“There must be some misunderstanding for a respected labor leader, who spent a good part of his life helping working people, to embrace a Walton-funded group dedicated to attacking them,” she told Splinter via a spokesman. “I urge Andy to take another look at what exactly he’s got himself into.”

 Gee, if one day we heard Randi doing something similar, would you be shocked?

The blog references some articles covering the story:

War in the Democratic Party, Republicans on Hind Legs, Some Jews are Tired of Being Used

This was my School Scope submission this week. It was turned down as not being about schools. Methinks it is the politics not that it isn't about schools.

I wrote it on Tuesday, before Mueller Time.

War in the Democratic Party, Republicans on Hind Legs, Some Jews are Tired of Being Used

By Norm Scott

“It’s an almost incalculable insult for Trump and his enablers to act as if he’s helping the Jews when he adopts the language of the pogrom.” Michelle Goldberg, NYT.

Before we get to that, let’s talk Dem and Rep Parties. Many of us on the sidelines of the Party wars have pretty much come to the conclusion that Trump will win again and the repercussions will be heavy for the Party and of course for the country. We can pretty much give up the fight against climate change and figure out ways to hunker down for the next century. Water taxis on 5^th Avenue, anyone? As for the future of Rockaway, fagetaboutit. Sorry to be such a bummer. Maybe Elon Musk has it right: Look to Mars where there is little chance for oceans rising unless you read the best science fiction from Kim Stanley Robinson, “Mars Trilogy.”

After Trump, the Republicans and the right wing media are finished count the democratic institutions left standing. Why should this country be different than all the others moving to the right? (See HBO chiller, Years and Years). Remember how Giuliani, another despot, tried to use 9/11 as an excuse to remain mayor for an illegal third term and was laughed at? Times have changed. Let’s be more like Trump’s hero Putin. Pass the presidency on to the first woman president, Ivanka, in 2024 – unless Trump wants a third term. Create an emergency and suspend the constitution. And watch strict constitutionalist Republicans get up on their hind legs and beg for more. Remember how they fought Obama on everything over the deficit? Pathetic.

For some insight into the internal mechanisms of the factionalism in the Dem Party see the left-leaning Nation which delves into the battle between Pelosi and the Squad.

https://www.thenation.com/article/house-democrats-twitter-pramila-jayapal.

Another article in the liberal New Yorker by investigative reporter Jane Meyer took the Dems to task for Al Franken’s forced resignation from the Senate over a #metoo incident that on further examination seemed to have elements of a right wing hit job but many Dems jumped on the issue in order to be politically correct. Is there such a thing as due process? Franken wanted a Senate committee on ethics to examine the facts but that idea was not supported by the Dems. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who led the charge has suffered a lot of blow back which has helped make her irrelevant in her presidential bid. Chuck Shumer, unsurprisingly, was one of the biggest betrayers. I’m so proud of our backstabbing NY senators. If you want some deep insight, long but worthwhile: https: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken.  

So there is more than a bit of disgust among Democrats in their own party.  Republicans don’t have to worry because even if video emerged of Trump engaging in certain acts with Jeffrey Epstein teens they would be fine with it. A video did emerge of the two of them smirking and joking over some models at a party at Mar-A-Lago. Remember, Trump barely knows him. What a joke most Republicans and Evangelicals are.

And how about them Jews who support Trump? If they are not chilled by “send her back” they need some history lessons. There are a couple of interesting articles about anti-semites on the right calling out the left as being anti-semitic. Like you can’t be critical of the right wing Israeli government. #freespeech1stamendment.

A friend, a Jew who was active in the Dem Party and until recently hadn’t been very conscious about his Jewishness for 50 years, wrote on FB: “after a fleet of Republicans and the president himself have utilized Jews as human shields for racist rhetoric, the Jews are tired, tired, tired of being used as defenses against naked racism, tired of being used to justify conditions at detention camps.” He was referring to an article in GQ by Talia Levin: When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield: In recent weeks, some Republicans have raised the specter of anti-Semitism as a convenient distraction from detention camps and racist tropes. And the Jews are tired of it. https://www.gq.com/story/anti-semitism-political-shield.

Michelle Goldberg in the NYT struck a similar theme, pointing to neo-Nazis like Simon Gorka daring to call people anti-semitic: Defenders of a Racist President Use Jews as Human Shields

https://www.nytimes.com/.../opinion/trump-ilhan-omar.html. She opens with: “Sebastian Gorka, a onetime adviser to Donald Trump, wore a medal from the Vitezi Rend, a Hungarian group historically aligned with Nazism, to one of Trump’s inaugural balls. Gorka was reportedly a member of the group, whose founder, the Hungarian autocrat Miklos Horthy, once said, ‘For all my life, I have been an anti-Semite’.”

On a lighter note, there was a joke going around that Trump’s “send her back” was referring to his wives. I’m looking forward to being sent back when they come for me because my mom came from Bellarus. I hear they have fine ocean beaches there despite being a land-locked country and a wonderful dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, for Trump to admire who’s been in office for 25 years.

Norm’s still blogs at ednotesonline.com, when he’s not busy packing.

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