Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Ron Dellums, the son of a longshoreman who became one of America’s
best-known black congressmen, a California Democrat with a left-wing
agenda that put civil rights and programs for people ahead of weapons
systems and warfare, died early Monday at his home in Washington. -- NY Times, July 30, 2018
I didn't know all that much about Ron Dellums until I read the NY Times Obit and was impressed in every way with him as a politician.
Michael Fiorillo also tapped into the Dellums story with this link:
Robert Scheer, a great radical journalist, reflects on the the legacy of the great Ron Dellums (whose uncle was a legendary West Coast leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), who died on Monday.
Usually I post a bunch of excerpts but I want to get outside and breathe some non-air conditioned air and smoke some pipe bowls. So maybe some additions later. We need more Dellums.
It’s remarkably difficult to do left-wing politics in cities. The
economic growth we’ve seen over the previous several decades has largely
been concentrated in them.... When the left goes after the Clintonites in blue cities, it is going
after them in the places where they are strongest. The story is
different in the red states. In the 2016 primaries, Bernie Sanders won
22 states. The bulk of these are very white, very red, and have small
urban populations. In many of them, the Democrats have a negligible
presence in statehouses:.. By contrast, if you go into a primary in a state where the Democratic
Party has a negligible presence and where the demographics already
favour Sanders-style campaigns, the chance of successful entry is much
higher. Clintonite Democratic opponents in these primaries are likely to
be less professional. They will be less politically skilled, less
well-connected, and possess inferior resources. These are the places
where the left can easily begin to displace Clintonites from the
Democratic Party ballot line. --- Benjamin Studebaker
Another interesting find from Michael Fiorillo who says:
If you think about it, his thesis may correlate/ be supported by the red state teacher strikes...
Studebaker offers some ideas -- that there are possibilities in red states with a progressive program ---I'm not so sure but why not? He says with the Dem Party so weak in these states they are ripe for a takeover by the left. I wonder whether the Democratic Socialists (DSA) are active in these states. I did hear of some action in the teacher movement.
A wing of the left absolutely rejects moves to work within the Dem party or reform it, holding out the everlasting wish for a labor party. by posting Studebaker articles it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with them but am offering them up for further review. My basic tenet at this point is that looking at the landscape it is hard to go along with the claim that there is little difference between the parties unless you come from the position that both of them support capitalism. Maybe long-term capitalism is coming down but right now I'm interested in the short term, ie. Can NYCHA be fixed and how? We can't wait for the end of capitalism - an active base in the Democratic Party might be able to force changes. I don't see any other option that make an attempt to reform the party.
And with a recent activation of a left wing in the Dem Party and groups like DSA supporting some candidates (as opposed to the Greens which runs its own candidates -- and has failed to build enough of a base - compare them to the organizational work being done by DSA.)
There is a part of the left which believes the Democratic Party is
beyond hope. They think it’s too corrupt, too beholden to rich people
and corporations, and that it’s a waste of time and energy to try to
change it. Even in articles which express support for running
progressive and democratic socialist candidates on the Democratic Party
ballot line, concessions are routinely made to this faction. Jacobin recently ran an interview
with Seth Ackerman, in which Ackerman advises the left to run
candidates as Democrats, provided those candidates are beholden to
outside activist groups. But even this piece is far too pessimistic
about the prospects for penetrating the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party can be captured and transformed through the
primary system, and it’s time more people explicitly and
unapologetically say so. The left has underutilised the 2018 election
cycle because too many people don’t yet understand this. We could have
Sanders-style primary challengers in many more races in 2020 if, you
know, folks would actually try. We don’t need to reform the electoral
system, we don’t need an American Labour Party, we don’t even need
campaign finance reform (though of course it would be nice)–we just need
people to run for stuff and support those who do.....
Progressives and democratic socialists have embraced pessimism about capturing the Democratic Party as a shibboleth–you aren’t really
left-wing unless you don’t believe in it. Many of them refuse to even
try to do it. This is why it’s taken two years since Bernie Sanders’ run
for president (and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in New York) for
many people on the left to even begin debating the point.
I'm not sure how apt this analogy is and I'm not sure I agree with him and will be exploring this issue in the upcoming series of posts but Studebaker, has some interesting blogs focusing on reforming the Dem Party sent out by Michael Fiorillo and I will be posting some other pieces from him. Here is another interesting piece arguing against proportional rep - which I have been in favor of: The American Two Party System is Actually Pretty Great -
I want to debate strategies for reforming the Party not necessarily into a social democratic party but at the very least take us back to the New Deal.
Then there is this from a wing of socialism - there are many wings.
How on Earth do you have so many Democrat/Green opportunists on your contacts --- A response to my raising questions on a FB thread of a certain brand of socialist (there are too many brands to count.)
Yes Virginia, if you are not in on this particular little socialist bubble you are an opportunist. I've seen a hell of a lot of socialists be as opportunistic as could be. And then there are the purists who toe the same line their entire lives. I asked these people if as I social democrat like Bernie I was in the club and received no response. I guess not.
I consider myself a leftist but am so annoyed at so much of the left - I made the mistake of commenting on that thread and most of what I said was ignored while I received lectures. If you don't agree you are shunned. A lot of the left lives in a bubble which prevents them from being able to really be able to talk to the majority of people they supposedly would be working to bring the ideas of socialism to light (I think I come from a place that these people should be working to win over). If I challenge socialists who are teachers about the failure of the left to really organize in NYC schools, I get excuses. Most of them don't seem to have any real relationships outside their political world. I should invite them to Thanksgiving or Passover.
Since I consider myself on the cusp of being some form of socialist, but also since the 2016 election, I feel we have to take a shot at turning the Democratic Party into something viable enough to take us to at the very least an FDR/New Deal type of reform. Not far enough and we need to keep fighting for more but finding a path to that is murky. Bubble socialists don't have any murk. They have the answers and they do not include the Democratic or Green Party. I'll get into where these factions of socialist are coming from as I sort more of it out in future articles.
So, I've been engaged in inner political conflict over the direction of the Democratic Party - hope for reform or hope for extinction. I was leaning toward the latter. At least until the 2016 election. I often vote for left-leaning 3rd parties in presidential elections -- locally we don't have much choice for a 3rd party. I was very disappointed in Democratic presidents like Carter, Clinton and Obama - all fundamentally anti-unions and worker. But Republicans have been a horror story.
So where do we go? There are always calls for a 3rd party. The Greens? They have had a very hard time building infrastructure and basically and up siphoning votes from Democrats, though they claim they get them from both parties. Will Democratic Socialists (DSA) turn into a wished for 3rd party on the left instead of the Greens?
We particularly would like to urge NYSUT to endorse: Jessica Biaggi, Robert Jackson, John Liu, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, and Jasmine Robinson in their respective New York State Senate primary races. Especially since the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, there has been heightened interest and a groundswell of support for progressive challengers to the status quo. Each of these candidates is running on a progressive platform..... Excerpt from Letter to UFT
The 7 opposition voices on the UFT Ex Bd have spoken out with a letter to the UFT leadership as described by Arthur Goldstein, an Ex Bd member, at NYC Educator blog where he has an apt description of what the IDC is. (UFT High School Reps Letter to Leadership on Opposing IDC
You've probably heard of the IDC, or the Independent Democratic Conference in the NY State Senate. They were elected as Democrats but caucused with the Republicans. There are a whole lot of bills that have been passed by the Assembly but withered and died in the Senate, not the least of which was one proposing universal health care for New Yorkers. We support candidates who oppose those who allowed this to happen.
The letter specifically talks about Robert Jackson:
We
would like to highlight the career and contributions of Robert Jackson
in particular. Jackson is an activist who has dedicated his career as a
public servant to public education and children. In 1991, as CSB6
President, Robert Jackson co-founded the Campaign for Fiscal Equity
(CFE). Jackson was lead plaintiff as CFE sued the State of New York for
failing to properly fund NYC's public schools. The trial court agreed.
Jackson walked 150 miles from New York City to Albany to dramatize the
case. Jackson served in the NY City Council for a decade, where he
earned our respect as Chair of the Education Committee. Jackson was
honored with the UFT’s John Dewey Award in 2012.
For the UFT not to endorse Robert Jackson would be a crime in not showing loyalty to people who have delivered in the past. I usually don't give money to politicians but Jackson is one I do. Donate here.
Would anyone be shocked to see the UFT endorse an IDC candidate even if they take charter school blood money that is destroying public education and teacher unions? Not me.
Are IDC candidates and charters proud to be associated with guys like Paul Tudor Jones who supports sexual predator Harvey Weinstein? Student First Jennie Sedlis, say something.
Leonie Haimson reports:
Paul Tudor Jones, billionaire hedge funder and so far the the sole donor to ParentsVote PAC, (which is contributing to Alcantara and Jesse Hamilton campaigns and administered by Students First NY, started by Michelle Rhee and now headed by Jenny Sedlis, who calls herself co-founder of Success Academy charter schools ) also heads the pro-charter and extremely well-funded Robin Hood Foundation.
Jones was also on Harvey Weinstein’s board, , and supported Weinstein staying in power nearly to the bitter end, discouraging the board from firing him even after the NYT article came out.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Taeka Haraguchi<info@actionnetwork.org>
Date: Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 12:32 PM
Subject: Hedge Funds, Charter Schools, and the IDC
Politico's Bill Mahoney reveals that "The first super PAC spending in this fall's elections comes in the form of charter school supporters backing the IDC."
AFT’s membership numbers require a lot more scrutiny and interpretation than do those of the National Education Association. NEA has affiliates in all 50 states. Its smallest state affiliate, in Mississippi, has almost 4,800 working members. It does have some members in the private sector and in other professions, but even its non-teachers mostly work in the field of public education. AFT has affiliates in only 34 states. Only 21 have memberships larger than that of NEA’s Mississippi affiliate. Counting the AFT’s branch in the District of Columbia, a total of 22 affiliates are home to the overwhelming bulk of AFT members. Fifteen of those are in former agency fee states, making AFT a lot more vulnerable to the effects of Janus. AFT has maintained membership growth because it has no presence in most of the states where NEA has lost members over the past 10 years. In fact, more than one-third of AFT’s membership works in one state, New York. One of every six AFT members works in New York City. Six percent of AFT members are state and municipal government employees in fields unrelated to education. Seven percent are nurses and health professionals. Fifteen percent work in higher education. That leaves 72 percent who work in K-12 public education. Since, on average, there is one education support employee for every teacher in the U.S. public school system, it is very likely that K-12 public school teachers are a minority in AFT. By contrast, about 70 percent of NEA members are certified K-12 public school teachers.
Despite being published at the horrid ed deform faux journalist site, The 74, this is an important read as Mike A. delves into the differences in the nature of the membership in the NEA and the AFT and why the AFT is so much more vulnerable due to its lack of presence in so many states. Mike raises the idea of whether a full merger with the NEA makes sense.
The differences in culture are so deep I find that hard to believe.
The NEA has term limits for officers though there is a top down structure there too but no one state or city dominates like Unity Caucus does in the AFT. The AFT has had 4 presidents since 1974, three of them former UFT presidents. How can this Unity power structure work within the NEA? No way I say despite the logic of a merger.
Submitted for print publication August 3, 2018 at www.rockawave.com
School Scope: When Political Labels Don’t Quite Fit By Norm Scott
I’ve been called a leftist, a socialist, a pro-capitalist, a commie, a liberal, libertarian, a progressive, a Democrat and a general nuisance. About the only label I have not worn is that of a Republican or a right winger. Right now the overall term being used for the left is “progressive” as opposed to more centrist people. But there are so many nuances to these terms which I don’t have room for this week. That de Blasio, not exactly one of my faves, and I would be viewed as fellow “progressives” makes me squeamish.
It is funny, but I often find it easier to talk to people on the right than some of my fellow progressives. Like I don’t think I could have a conversation with the mayor or even Obama that would make me comfortable. But really, what do people mean when they use the term “left” when the NY Times gets that label from the right while being mocked as centrist and a tool of capitalists by many on the left? Confusion reigns.
This column recently has been addressing the various divides in the Democratic Party between so-called progressives and centrists while also using this space to try to sort out the many facets of the “left.”
On the surface, people view liberals as being the left when in fact the anti-capitalist left is as critical of liberals as is the right.
Since socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for his congressional seat the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have been getting a lot of notice. Her victory has gotten enormous nation-wide attention as the shock of someone declaring themselves a socialist and winning is reverberating around the political world. In the 1930s and 40s there were actually people getting elected who were socialists. Then came the Red Scare of the late 40s and 50s and even changes in election rules to more firmly entrench the two-party system which has left so many of us having to hold our noses when we have such limited options. Fundamental political reform is needed.
Take the election for governor. I despise Cuomo who is leading by 30 points over Cynthia Nixon. Do I love her? No, though she is one of the few people running for anything who has been a firm supporter of real education reform, while so many others run for the hills when faced with exposing the scams of education reform. Nixon was one of the few to support Ocasio-Cortez and since she won has also declared herself a member of DSA. DSA/NYC has endorsed her and her running mate for Lt. Governor, Jumaane Williams, city councilman representing East Flatbush, Flatbush, Flatlands, Marine Park and Midwood. Recently he was caught up in a campaign donation snafu where Glenwood Masonry gave him donations exceeding the legal limit. Duhhhh! I’m shocked. I don’t hold that against him since I pretty much expect all politicians to engage in fuzzy fund-raising. From what I’ve seen he lands on the side I favor most of the time. And my friends in his district like him.
Neither of them will beat Cuomo and Nixon’s recent praise for Bloomberg, who ran public housing into the ground and helped set up the homeless crisis while undermining public education, is disconcerting, I’m voting for Nixon/Williams because the higher vote totals they get the better the chance to keep the god-awful Cuomo tacking left, even if it’s phony.
Unknown Zephyr Teachout’s 37% the last time Cuomo ran was a shock, so even if you know you can’t win, so getting a decent opposition vote can be worthwhile. Norm has so much to say about politics and education (and other stuff) he is going to ask editor Mark Healey for an entire edition of The WAVE to spew his venom. While Mark is mulling this over Norm can be found spewing at https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com.
Party members and fundraisers gathered for an invitation-only event to figure out how to counteract the rising progressive movement..... Where progressives see a rare opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to win over Republicans turned off by Trump.The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, co-cohosted the event and addressed attendees twice underscored that this group is not interested in the class warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.... NBC, Alex Seitz-Wald /
I have been a mega-trasher of the Democratic Party over the years -- the New Democrats - let by the Clintons - departure from New Deal politics and its partnership with corporate elite. That gave us George Bush and new Dem and neo-liberal Obama, followed by Trump. I don't want to go back to New Dem politics but also don't want to get so far out there we keep Republicans in power forever. The hot buzz about socialism is certainly a new kid on the block.
And that scares the hell out of New Dems -- note how they are branded by the press as "moderates" in this piece from NBC, part of the corporate media elite.
Make no mistake about this -- our own UFT/AFT/NYSUT wing will line up with this group over the Bernie wing --- our union was founded on the basis of anti-left ideology. Discount Randi's rhetoric. Which, given that most Dems from all wings of the party support ed deform, shows the hollowness of our union policy over the decades going back to Shanker.
Diane Ravitch just posted this as an indication of what I mean -- and she goes where Randi et al fear to tread:
Somehow I missed this article when it was published in January 2017. It is well worth reading because it explains how the mainstream of the Democratic Party paved the way for the radical rightwing DeVos agenda.
Unless the Democrats regain their pro-public education values, they will cede a significant part of their base. They cheered striking teachers in the spring of 2018, but they long ago abandoned them and their schools.
It is time for Democrats to once again be the party that fights for the common good, the party that supports public schools, not school choice, which is a mighty hoax....
While a certain segment of the left eschews the Dems and argues for a third party, that concept is not just feasible, at least at this point. I'll get into the Green party 2% solution to running for governor while attacking Cynthia Nixon and Jumanee Williams in follow-ups. No Virginia, the only solution is to throw down on the Dems at the local level and challenge them. I'm even thinking of going to local Dem club meetings.
As an often third party supporter, I had pretty much given up on reforming the Democratic Party. But the third parties like the Green, which I had voted for in the past, just seem so pathetic in their ability to make any headway. And no matter her faults, their attempts to undermine Nixon and her running mate Jumanea Williams who an take the best shot at Cuomo are, well, not going to help them with a lot of people.
So this Dem Party meeting is organized by billionaires -- imagine how nervous they are over rise of the near-dead left and brought to life by Bernie.
Look what they have to offer as their own "big ideas" which caused me to laugh out loud.
"Opportunity Agenda" unveiled here tries to equip moderates with their own big ideas. Some of the key initiatives are a massive apprenticeship program to train workers, a privatized employer-funded universal pension that would supplement Social Security and an overhaul of unemployment insurance to include skills training. Other proposals included a "small business bill of rights" and the creation of a "BoomerCorps" — like the volunteer AmericaCorps for seniors.
And they trash the New Deal which may have save capitalism:
...they say the progressive agenda is out of date. They dismiss, for instance, a federal jobs guarantee as a rehash of the New Deal. "Our ideas must be bold, but they must also fit the age we are in," Cowan said. "Big isn't enough. If it's bold and old — it’s simply old."
OK folks, this piece may be even more confusing than usual, as I try to sort out where my own confusion between left, right and center lies --- yes Virginia, I do have some libertarian - leftarian positions. I try to see as many sides of an issue as I can -- which is why I am flipping around.
The guy who taught next to me for 20 years
turned highly religious and right wing in the 1980s -- a real working class guy who
grew up in Little Italy - an Italian Catholic who came to school with ashes on his forehead at Lent. When I met him in the early 70s there was no more union oriented guy who taught me a lot about union consciousness. Then he turned evangelical.
I saw first hand how religion can operate as he first stopped doing COPE and then resented paying a union that supported abortion and so many other issues. He tried repeatedly to get out of the union and stop paying dues. He articulated the very type of views we hear from the Janus crowd. I don't abandon people like him by calling him a scab or free-loader. I try to understand.
We know there are union people who want the unions to stay out of politics but how does a union do that when the right is on the attack on every institution we value, including health care? Does the union keep hands off? On the other hand we see our union supporting even anti-union candidates, so they take attacks from all sides.
Last week I was with former colleagues -- very pro-union former chapter leaders who castigated people for not paying dues. Yet, they are center and even right leaning. I think one may have voted for Trump. One of them said that she was not left-wing but pro-union and if the union was a left wing union even she might not want to pay dues to support politics she does not agree with. That made me think more deeply than usual -- my scalp is hurting -- as I try to take a variety of views into account.
Here is the problem. Our top-down union leadership is exclusive of
member opinions when making policy. I know it sounds somewhat trite but a vibrant democratic union would be inclusive, even to the views of people on the right -- by having open debates on many issues, even if you don't agree, you might be able to find middle grounds. Some reports are that 30% of UFT members didn't vote for Hillary. Here's what I know -- Randi is choosing the next candidate we will support for President and then will manufacture some phony process. So look for the same kind of results.
In this spirit, check out these 2 articles from the left and the right.
Republicans had successfully inverted their historical brand-image as the party of the highborn, remaking themselves as plain-talking pals of the forgotten people who had so spurned them during the Great Depression. Republicanism’s payload, however, was the same as it had been in 1932. And just look at what conservatism proceeded to do to those average people once they welcomed it into their lives.
Instead of doing what the moment required, Democrats chose to help the banks get back on their feet and to stand by as inequality soared; they scolded their base for wanting too much and they extended their hand instead to Silicon Valley and big pharma. The task of capturing public anger was one they regarded with distaste; they left that to Tea Party demagogues and to Donald Trump.
From Michael Fiorillo:
The photo [in the article] shows a Trump demo in West Allis (as in Allis-Chalmers, a legacy industrial giant at one time) Wisconsin, which back in the day was home to some of the most most militant, Left-led unions in the country and was a reliable Democratic base until the 80's... As Frank says, if Wisconsin is a battleground state, we're in deep shit... Trump will be gone, sooner or later, but not Trumpismo... If the Democratic Party can't be revived, a more competent, less legally-challenged Trump will come along, and then we'd better really look out !
Some have suggested that unions might temper their left-wing politics in response to the decision, in the hopes of wooing potential members put off by union politics.... Frederick Hess, National Review. --- view from the right.
Frank writes from the left, indicating that the Dem Party needs to abandon its ties to the corporate interests, which is where the center of the party hangs out. Some of the links I've posted on ed notes with cries from the center to marginalize Ocasio-Cortez are indications. I think the use of the term "liberals" is problematic since liberals are also often free marketeers and verge on neo-liberals. It was the liberals who attacked and bashed teachers and their unions.
I imagine a certain class of the left may condemn Frank since there is an assumption he means the white working class - which I don't assume, as the working class is multi-cultural.
It is also worth reading the view from the right - the National Review-
Teachers’ Unions Plan to Become ‘More Political, Not Less Political’
This article led to some laughs on FB about Randi. Let's see what that means in practice. "The NEA adopted 122 total New Business Items, including commitments to promote the Black Lives Matter Week of Action."
How interesting when the UFT refused to endorse the BLM week of action back in January.
Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, warns that surveys show “many [teachers] see dues as too high” and “political activity as too leftist”; she also notes that “only half of all teachers voted for Hillary Clinton.” Internal documents from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, anticipate that the union will lose a whopping 300,000 members. Things look even bleaker for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s other major teachers’ union, which has 15 of its 22 largest state affiliates in former agency-fee states — and already had fewer than half its members paying full dues.
Well, Kate Walsh from an ed deform group is not credible but the danger to the AFT is real, even more-so than the NEA. (I have a piece coming up based on Mike Antounucci reporting on this very issue.) While Thomas Frank says the Dem party need to tack left, naturally right wingers Hess and Addison feel left politics for the AFT is a minefield.
Somehow, the AFT’s new policies leaned further left than the NEA’s. The AFT unanimously endorsed a “public investment strategy for health care and education infrastructure,” which includes: universal health care, “whether single-payer health care or MediCare for All”; free tuition at all public colleges and universities, as well as “funding for wage justice for adjuncts”; universal, full-day, free child care; doubled per-pupil spending for low-income K–12 districts; and “taxation of the rich to fully fund” a raft of education programs. AFT further resolved that they would “call on our endorsed candidates to support these priorities, and toward that end we will embed these aspirations in our questionnaires to potential candidates seeking our support.” Swing-state Democrats, beware.
For those who didn’t get quite get the message, AFT president Randi Weingarten told reporters, “We’re becoming more political, not less political.” Let educators, would-be members, and public officials be forewarned.
=======
We had the perfect opportunity to reverse course in 2008, after a deregulatory catastrophe sent the billionaires shrieking for handouts and ruined middle America as collateral damage. That was the perfect moment for liberals to reclaim their Rooseveltian heritage by governing forcefully on behalf of ordinary people, by warring against over-powerful corporations, by demonstrating the power of the state to build a just and humane society. But they didn’t do it.
I know the excuses: those Republicans were so clever, they wouldn’t vote for Obama’s proposals, etc. But from the long-term perspective, what really mattered was the absence of Democratic will. Instead of doing what the moment required, Democrats chose to help the banks get back on their feet and to stand by as inequality soared; they scolded their base for wanting too much and they extended their hand instead to Silicon Valley and big pharma. The task of capturing public anger was one they regarded with distaste; they left that to Tea Party demagogues and to Donald Trump.
We are going to pay for that failure for a long time. The GOP should have been ruined by the financial crisis; instead the culture wars are raging all over again, with dog whistles and fights over the flag and the persecution mania of the populist right blaring from the TV screen. We’re right back where we started. The crisis went completely to waste.
For all their cunning, Republicans are a known quantity. Their motives are simple: they will do anything, say anything, profess faith in anything to get tax cuts, deregulation and a little help keeping workers in line. Nothing else is sacred to them. Rules, norms, traditions, deficits, the Bible, the constitution, whatever. They don’t care, and in this they have proven utterly predictable.
The Democrats, however, remain a mystery. We watch them hesitate at crucial moments, betray the movements that support them, and even try to suppress the leaders and ideas that generate any kind of populist electricity. Not only do they seem uninterested in doing their duty toward the middle class, but sometimes we suspect they don’t even want to win.
(This is more than just a suspicion, by the way. As none other than Tony Blair has said, “I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.”)
Still, as we are reminded at every turn, this flawed organization is the only weapon we have against the party of Trump. And as the president’s blunders take a turn for the monumental and public alarm grows, the imperative of delivering a Democratic wave this fall grows ever more urgent.
Make no mistake: it has got to happen. Democrats simply have to take one of the houses of Congress this fall and commence holding Trump accountable. Failure at this baseline mission is unthinkable; it will mean the Democratic party has no reason for being, even on its own compromised terms.
What concerns me as I begin my leave, though, is the larger picture. Trump may be an oaf, but the vicious strain of rightwing populism he introduced is not going away. Trumpism is the future for the Republican party – it delivered Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Iowa too. Wisconsin, of all places, is now a battleground state. In the hands of a real politician, Trumpism has the potential to romp even farther.
Beating the right cannot simply be a matter of waiting for a dolt in the Oval Office to screw things up. There has to be a plan for actively challenging and reversing it, for turning around the fraction of working class voters who have been abandoning the Democratic party for decades. The time is up for happy fantasies of office-park centrism and professional-class competence.
As for me, I am off to write a few books. I’ll be back in this space in a few years and we will see how things have gone.
Thomas Frank is an American political analyst and historian. His books include What’s the Matter With Kansas?. His latest is Listen, Liberal: or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
FOX News screenshot from July 2nd, 2018, "The consequences of millennials embracing socialism" ( FOX News/screenshot) ---- NPR On The Media
With socialism such a buzz word with even mainstream media addressing it I've been using my WAVE column to try to sort things out for the poor right wingers who might come across my column --- 75% of my neighborhood voted for Trump.
As I write this I'm waiting for a national news segment on NPR's Weekend Edition on Ocasio-Cortez. I know she's striking while the iron is hot but I also think there may be a bit of a blow back when the actual vote comes in November. She needs to be seen in her district as much as around the nation because there will be some resentment and Crowley is still on the ballot on the WFP and even a modestly good showing would burst her bubble a bit.
Check this early morning On The Media segment on NPR we hear a rational discussion of socialism and some of the right - and even Democratic center hysteria over the Ocasio-Cortez win. Like Venezuela is not exactly what socialists consider democratic socialism. I love the part where the public libraries are talked about as being a threat because they show a form of socialism and government competency -- see, things can work -- I never hear complaints about the libraries.
Here's the intro:
The right-wing media has long painted left-wing socialism as an encroaching — and existential — threat. The Democrats, they argued, were secret socialists, looking to take over the country in the name of a Soviet agenda. But what happens when Democrats start calling themselves socialists — and socialist policies turn out topoll quite well with voters?
In the wake of self-described democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stunning primary victory in New York last month, the word "socialism" has been trending, appearing onop-ed pages,FOX News, ABC's The Viewand beyond. In this word watch, Bob speaks with another self-described socialist, Current Affairseditor-in-chiefNathan Robinson, about how an idea once relegated to the kind of far-left newspapers given out at campus conferences has become fodder for daytime talk shows and why it might prove hard to shake.
This segment is from our July 27th, 2018 episode,The Center Folds.
Listen here:
I've been blogging about the socialist wave and how it is being dealt with in the media:
The WAVE is published weekly in Rockaway. The few people who read the column are probably involved in education so I generally write with those people in mind. But I was reminded in my writing group by a new member, a non-educator but one who has some familiarity with some top level people in the UFT through personal relationships, that I should not make assumptions as to what people know and also assume that in a general publication some non-educators might be readers. I've been trying to write for a broader audience. I should also point out that the current socialism buzz is also a threat to the UFT ideologues who founded the UFT on an anti-left agenda. The UFT/NYSUT/AFT will always land with center democrats no matter the rhetoric you hear out of Randi -- watch what they do not what they say.
Here is this week's column. I'm trying to figure this stuff out myself.
Published July 27, 2018 in The WAVE -- www.rockawave.com
School Scope: The Democratic Party in Crisis: Left or Center or Gone
By Norm Scott
“Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left. This president and his Republican Party are counting on you to do exactly that. America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership,” tweeted one James Comey, who did as much to give us insensible, unbalanced and unethical leadership as anyone.
“What people call socialism these days is Eisenhower Republicanism!”... Frances Fox Priven, in The New Yorker.
Oh to dive into the depths of these statements but I have a word limit.
Last week I wrote about the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated Queens power broker Joe Crowley, and how she is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which has grown four-fold since the election of Donald Trump. By the amount of commentary about Alexandria who won an election that may prove to be an anomaly, she has caused people to go nuts on the right (which has gone nuts attacking her), the center – so much angst over having the first member of the House who ids as a socialist since the late 1940s – and on a fawning left. Last weekend she appeared with Bernie Sanders in red state Kansas and they attracted 4,000 people. Scary stuff even to many Democrats. As someone on the fringe of being some form of social democrat myself, but also concerned that going too far out can turn into a disaster, the debate has been fascinating. Her election has exacerbated the schism between the progressives (the Bernie) wing and the centrists (the Clinton wing) which will only grow as the race to run against Trump in 2020 heats up.
There is a lot of fuzziness between these wings and various versions of what is socialism, so I thought I’d try to clarify some of it over the next few columns as a way to get my own fuzziness cleared up a bit.
The “socialist” label is tossed around willy-nilly and those who identify themselves as socialists fume when people like Obama are branded as socialist. Anyone who views the need for government to be active is considered socialist, like Eisenhower and Nixon, I guess. Centrist Democrats like Obama, Hillary, Biden, etc. are viewed by people on the true left as neo-liberals, as far from socialist as you can get. Neo-liberals are free marketers and include both Dems and Republicans. Education is a prime example of where the neo-liberal positions of both parties align – open things up to competition like having charters and let the market decide even as we’ve seen the market manipulated. That is why both parties - until Trump – supported the free trade agreements which have devastated workers, opposed mostly by the left and some unions when they came up – again, until Trump. That is why neo-libs of both parties have been upset, though Republican neo-libs have bitten the bullet and shut up over tariffs. (Both parties generally aligned in the views on Russia – again until Trump, but more on this another time – hint: I don’t totally diverge from Trump on NATO and Russia.)
The Democrats are viewed as being pro-union since so much of their support comes from unions. In reality, the Dems have been screwing the unions as they have shifted into identify politics and downplayed class struggle (Yes, Virginia, the old 1% is screwing us all). As union influence dissipated, so did the protections workers had and it opened the way for Trumpists to gain ground – one of the main turning points in the 2016 elections – and the Dems did it to themselves. The have allowed the FDR/New Deal coalition of the working class (both white and black) and liberals to fracture.
My own UFT is knee deep in the Dem Party and the recent Janus decision allowing people to not pay union dues is a response from the right wing to chop up unions’ ability to support the Dems. Unions have generally been anti-left wing and have kept the party to the center. So their weakening might actually open up the Dems to a shift to the socialist- leaning left which is more open to supporting workers – hey, it’s socialism.
It it is always great seeing John Lawhead at ICEUFT meetings as we did yesterday. John, Sean Ahern and I sort of founded the idea of ICE in a bar back in September 2003. Michael Fiorillo who spurred the idea of organizing a meeting when I ran into him at a UFT rally in October 2003 was also there yesterday. So one of the really fun things about getting together is the chance to delve deeply into issues - which we did yesterday - and I hope to report later.)
At the end of the meeting John announced he was organizing a study group. Study groups are important for us to get an understanding of the big picture from a long range perspective. We feel you can't make rational choices without having a deeper understanding - something missing from the current institutions - both in power and in opposition in the UFT. But more on that later. Here is John's announcement. I am hoping to go. John Dewey is a good starting place. His role in union politics in the 1930s is also worth delving into.
Dear Colleagues,
Please forward this announcement to anyone you think might be interested.
With the Democratic Party in flux over so-called progressive and centrist wings, when it comes to education things get fuzzy. In which camp are supporters of elements of the ed deform agenda -
high stakes testing, teacher evaluations based on such tests, calls for the end of tenure and LIFO, and at the top of my list - charters - fundamentally an attack on public school teacher and their unions that will make Janus look like a picnic? (Note - if Betsy DeVos had her way there would be NO public schools and no unions.)
Note the relationship between Obama and Netflix' Reed Hastings, one of the most vicious anti-union ed deformers. So we know all about the Obama assault on us that made George Bush look like a light-weight. And Obama is a centrist.
We also know that Cuomo is an ed deformer at heart when he thought that would play well but has backed off on some of that - but not charters.
Rising powers, especially black politicians like Cory Booker and locally, Hakeem Jeffries, are praised to the sky. Read this piece:
and see Obama redux on education. I found the article on Jeffries frightening. (And ironic in that he went up to Albany with us to stand against Cathy Black as chancellor but after that turned.)
Every time I see a piece praising a Dem Party candidate who is a known ed deformer, I figure that's another shot at the growth of a true progressive movement that would not only talk about single payer health care as a public service but also funding great neighborhood public schools and taking on the phony "choice" movement. But from the progressive wing like Bernie, Warren, and even the new darling Ocasio-Cortez, we don't see education on the agenda.
Reading super charter supporter David Leonhardt in the NY Times, who wrote "it’s worth noting that, so far,progressive activism has been much more of apositive for Democrats than a negative", I find it interesting how little progressive activists avoid the ed deform fault lines. He has been writing about the Democratic Party and its future. Does he realize the anti-union charter movement is one of the elements undermining the Party?
Yesterday the stories about how Eva's high school lost 70% of its teachers was making news, which ed deformers ignore. I mean why care about schools that can't retain teachers when you blame teachers all the time for the problems in the schools? Yes, teacher bashing looks to be as rampant in the Progressive wings as in DFER. No matter the modified rhetoric of Evan Stone and E4E - Randi writing op eds with Evan is a joke -- they are fundamentally anti-union and anti-teacher.
Chaz connects the teacher sieve at Eva schools to her attempt to make it easier for her to hire teachers by reducing qualifications to fogging a mirror.
"No wonder Eva Moskowitz had SUNY 's Charter Board try to weaken the teacher certification system for charter schools since her network experiences extremely high teacher turnover and eventually the influx of freshly minted "newbie"
teachers will dry up as fewer college students are going into teaching,
especially as the economy is on an upswing and teaching salaries and
lack of respect cannot compete with other professions."
Leonie Haimson took Leonhardt to task on his recent pro-charter puff pieces. He praises the New Orleans post-Katrina "miracle" where the public school system was wiped out and replaced by charters, ignoring the increase in funding that ensued based on a report by Doug Harris:
Doug Harris maintains that he doesn't even have to attempt to
disentangle the differential impact of increased funding in NOLA schools
on student outcomes from their charterization, since in his estimation,
it was unlikely that philanthropic support or increased local spending
would have occurred without privatization happening first. Thus he
posits that the political will to fund schools properly was an effect of
charterization, and thus not a possible cause of their academic
improvements - a speculative argument at best.
Well, I do think that the wealthy give only to charters because they are anti-public schools and anti-union. But we need to argue for full PUBLIC funding of schools not private money.
I'm reposting Leonie's full piece below the break.
One of the most substantive, alarming press releases I have ever read.... Leonie Haimson
Funny how when people think of welfare they see certain people of color but not Hasidic. I wonder to what extent the demands for people on welfare to work will include them. Does public education money flow to these communities? Hell yes.
I worked in Williamsburg where the local Hasidic had effective control of the local school board with their voting block - they had 3 of the 9 seats and allied with the Greenpoint people to screw the 95% of the kids of color in the public schools in the district. They established a bi-lingual Yiddish school which is still in operation. At one point $7 million disappeared into the vapor and the District office was invaded by FBI -- the blame went to the two District Supt who both died of cancer before the judgement. The Hasidic community got off scot free. The early 70s were the earliest days of my activism and I attended all the monthly school board meetings and we raised issues at these meetings and the people running the operation were not happy -- we even worked with the community in school board elections where I learned you could not beat the machine with the Hasidic block vote.
Here are a few excerpts from the press release which you can read in full below the break.
...... the [Simcha Felder] amendment creates a carve-out that relieves
ultra-Orthodox yeshivas from following the rigorous standards set in
state education laws for all other non-public schools, these yeshivas
continue to benefit from hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars
annually. Federal money flows to yeshivas through programs such as
Title I, II, and III; Head Start and child care contracts; the E-rate
telecommunications program; and food programs. For example, non-public
schools in the largely Hasidic neighborhood of East Ramapo received
approximately $835 per student in federal Title funding in 2016-17. In
addition, state and city funding is provided to yeshivas through
Academic Intervention Services (AIS), Nonpublic School Safety Equipment
(NPSE), Mandated Services Aid (MSA), the Comprehensive Attendance
Program (CAP), EarlyLearn, Universal Pre-K, child care vouchers, and New
York City Council discretionary funds.
Approximately 45% of Hasidic
households in New York are poor and another 18% are near poor. In the
largely Hasidic area of Williamsburg, the median household income is
$21,502, compared to the Brooklyn median of $46,958 and the city median
of $52,737. Hasidic communities in Brooklyn have a greater percentage of
families receiving cash assistance, food stamps, public health care
coverage, and Section 8 housing vouchers, as compared to Brooklyn and
New York City as a whole. For example, 33.8% of Borough Park residents
utilize Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps; in
Williamsburg, the number is an astounding 51.8%. The Brooklyn total is
23.8%, while 20.4% of all New York City residents receive SNAP food
stamps.
YAFFED Files Federal Lawsuit
Against New York Governor, NYS Education Commissioner, Board of Regents
Chancellor Alleging Unconstitutional “Felder Amendment” Denies Yeshiva
Students Right to Basic Education
Hundreds of Millions of Taxpayer
Dollars Support Schools that “Graduate” Students with Few Skills;
Poverty Rates and Public Assistance Sky High
Mulgrew’s sister works for a DOE office I’ve never heard of, and is on advisory board of for-profit corp that just got $2.2M from Gates Foundation. Kathleen Mulgrew-Daretany: NYC DOE Time Lab
Listen, I have relatives who I do not align with so maybe it's not fair to taint Mulgrew with his sister's job or blame the lack of UFT response on the DOE tossing more money overboard on more slugs. The UFT is a partner with the doe and will shut up. But it is interesting to speculate on what gets said at family dinners.
Unlocking Time is a national project that empowers K12 school leaders to adopt new time strategies that fuel student-centered learning. The project will gain new insights on how U.S. schools structure their time, provide a rich set of resources to help K12 school leaders align time and resources with their values, and provision administrators from eligible high-need schools with new master scheduling tools and services to implement new time-based strategies.
The project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
dvisory Board Members
Darryl Adams: Former Superintendent, Coachella Valley Unified Karin Chenoweth: Author & Researcher, EdTrust Marilyn Crawford: School by Design Jackie Gran: New Leaders Terry Grier: Former Superintendent, Houston ISD Crystal Harden: Principal, Green Street Academy Casey Haugner-Wrenn: Asst Commissioner, Tennessee Dept of Education Rick Hess: American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Bob Lenz: Buck Institute for Education Kathleen Mulgrew-Daretany: NYC DOE Time Lab Bev Perdue: Former Governor of North Carolina; Digital Learning Institute Michael Rettig: School Scheduling Associates Jeff Wetzler: Transcend Education
Who knew how political 9 to 5 would be when they chose it a year ago in the context of today's metoo movement? I never saw the movie or the show before. Very powerful workplace and pro-feminist story.
The show runs though August 5.
If there are no tickets online, get in touch with me or show up about an hour before the show and there are always some available at the door. A big cast with some gorgeous people (I won't be sexist here) and wonderful dancers, a few who are out of the LaGuardia HS dance program a decade ago.
Warning to Unity trolls --- many of us are discouraging people from pulling dues - telling people to stay in the union. That may not last forever.
If the current structure of the union stays the same there will be moves to get people to not just not pay dues but to take that money and fund a move to organize an alternative. You guys will go nuts and attack the shit out of them and accuse them of dual unionism. You will say they are being funded by the Koch bros (they used to say Ed Notes was funded by Bloomberg).
But imagine even 100 people kicking in $1400 bucks to start an ad campaign to get people to join them. They would say how pro union they are but that Unity has failed some crucial tests of unionism.
I don't expect Unity to change, as the AFT convention proved when 750 slugs backed Randi all the way in everything she does -- it is going too far to compare this to Republicans backing Trump, so don't even try that.
With MORE becoming what it's become and no real viable alternative to Unity, where do people go? Initially, they will still gravitate to an opposition group, thinking Unity can be taken down - remember that was what Solidarity and Portelos was selling last time and when I tried to point out the realities I was accused of not wanting to win. Even of they have a slate this time, between them and MORE and New Action there is so little presence in the schools the election results for next year are already in --I always maintained you can judge by how many people show up to a Delegate Assembly to challenge Unity -- and it is less than ever,
With UFT elections coming in 6 months I am sitting on the hammock and doing what I can to get people to boycott -- to me it would be a joy to see Unity have no loyal opposition to point to -- people don't vote because there is so little at stake.
Even in the high schools where there is a real contest, less than 5000 out of 20,000 vote. So MORE/NA won with 2350 votes out of a potential 20,000. It will be no different this time. MORE HS Ex Bd people cannot claim to rep high school teachers in the real world -- only the 2350 who voted for them. And the 2250 who voted for Unity - well, they get rep from the other Unity people. Meanwhile, those 2350 high school people had no voice in Pittsburgh.
What about 2 thousand elementary school people who voted for the opposition or the 1300 middle school people --- no voice on the Ex Bd or at the AFT and NYSUT. In a proportional rep system they would get a few Ex bd seats and some AFT delegate positions. That would bring some political diversity to the UFT -- those disgruntled people might not be leaving so fast.
Let's see what happens over the next 3 years. The danger is if the Koch type people use e4e to do exactly this. Don't think Randi is not aware of this danger and that is why they are trying to co-opt E4e.
So, the Unity machine may be able to keep membership through threats and intimidation. But one day some people may just decide to look for an alternative.
