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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Unions and Cadillac Health Plans - NYT/ Democratic Progressives/Centrists Are Both Committing Strategic Suicide - NY Mag

Bernie and other single payer proponents have come under assault because the very idea is a threat to so many vested interests. But the reality is that at this point in time, the idea of a massive elimination of the insurance industry - which I would ultimately support, looks like too much too soon. Infrastructure needs to be built and I would start with the public option along with moving down the age for medicare. As UFT members, no matter how much people might complain about the health care plans, they are still considered

Cadillac insurance plans.

Meaning that under Obamacare, many people would be taxed and see a reduction in their plans. Single payer imposed in one quick chunk would also reduce what a lot of people have now. But ultimately, I agree that in the long run we would be better off. But even if Bernie were elected, single payer would not happen.

In one of the few bipartisan agreements, the House voted to repeal the cadillac provision of ObamaCare, which has been supported by the unions, including our own UFT -- a warning shot for those pushing for single payer, especially Bernie. Mulgrew has been castigated for his stance, along with other state unions, in opposing proposals for NY State single payer plans. While I have generally supported the idea of single-payer, especially since I have been on the wonderful Medicare plan for 9 years - and this is Bernie's point -- everyone seems to love medicare. But I have moved toward incrementalism in this case because I am a realist. If unions oppose single payer ala Bernie, it is a dead issue.

Here is the NYT article:

House Votes to Repeal Obamacare Tax Once Seen as Key to Health ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/us/.../obamacare-democrats-cadillac-tax.html

And here is an article from NYMag on the hole Democrats may be stepping into -- not only on health care but on the idea that if they should ever win, they would hand the Republicans a loaded gun to shoot down all their proposals and judges. Are Dem leaders just stupid?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/democrats-candidates-unpopular-senate-filibuster-judges.html

Democratic Progressives and Centrists Are Both Committing Strategic Suicide

When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield

A friend posted this on FB with some personal views on how his Jewish consciousness, which he hadn't spent  much time thinking about for half a century, has been awakened over the past two years.

After an already longish life of not caring much one way or another about my Jewish heritage it’s almost impossible for me to believe how the last two years have raised my consciousness of it to unimagined levels.

After 50 years of believing ourselves immune to the old anti-semitism (‘Go back where you came from, kike!” or ‘Great to have you up to our place in New Canaan but, no, I can’t introduce you to my real estate agent because of all those covenants we got here.’) we’re now just straight out shot (Pittsburgh), terrorized by khaki-wearing brownshirts yelling ‘Jews will not replace us’ (Charlottesville) or used as human shields for white nationalists and racists to attack people of color (Washington and North Carolina).
‘There’s a meme I’ve seen go around a thousand times in Jewish spaces online—a still from a Yiddish lesson series on Youtube, with the phrase “The Jews Are Tired.” It’s an all-purpose response for Gentile fuckery—speaking for Jews, about Jews, around Jews, against Jews, utilizing us without our consent or input. Black background, white letters: The Jews Are Tired.

And after the past few days, in which 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. Just plain tired.’

Michelle Goldberg's opinion

Defenders of a Racist President Use Jews as Human Shields

https://www.nytimes.com/.../opinion/trump-ilhan-omar.html...
Excerpt:

Ravitch: Leaks Reveal How Billionaires Shaped Hillary’s Education Agenda

Ravitch links to great article by Jake Jacobs. I know a number of teachers who could not pull the trigger for Hillary due to anger at Democrats for supporting ed deform. If the Dem party waffles on charters and testing and blaming teachers, I bet the unions will still endorse people like Biden whose connection to horrible Obama ed policies hasn't been raised seriously yet. I want to see him defend Race to the Top "let's blame teachers and their unions." This time faced with Trump they may hold their noses but the lack of enthusiasm will help Trump. Still, until recently even the left of the party were weak on education though Bernie seems to have moved the most.

This is an article you must read in full. You might even want to read the underlying document to understand how fully the Democratic Party sold out to the billionaires who oppose public schools.... Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch watchers - and I have been one since her conversion to rational education policy about a dozen years ago -- would see her evolution from cautious support for the Democratic center towards real reform policies -- on issues like testing and charters and so many others. But she has also taken on Randi and the unions and here she goes after the Democratic Party.

Leaks Reveal How Billionaires Shaped Hillary’s Education Agenda

 

 

Alternet published an expose of documents from Hillary’s 2016 campaign that reveal the names of the billionaires who shaped her education agenda. The documents were leaked by Wikileaks.

The education portion of the document runs 66 pages, mostly concentrated on K-12 policy, and captures specific input from billionaire donors looking to overhaul and privatize public education.

You will recognize the names: one is Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve.

One of the most connected “thought leaders” discussed is Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, and the head of the Emerson Collective, a prominent education reform advocacy group. Powell Jobs who has been close with the Clintons since the late '90s, also sat with Betsy DeVos on the board of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. She set up billionaire “roundtables” with Clinton’s campaign advisors through 2015 while donating millions to Priorities USA, Clinton’s main PAC.

Another is Bruce Reed, who had been Biden’s chief of staff but was then president of the Broad Foundation. Reed pointed to New Orleans as an amazing success story, where the public schools were replaced by charter schools, the union was crushed, and the teachers were fired and replaced mostly by TFA.

Notes taken by Clinton aide Ann O’Leary were made in interviews with Powell Jobs and Bruce Reed, President of The Broad Foundation (and former chief of staff to Joe Biden). According to the notes, the “experts” were calling for new federal controls, more for-profit companies and more technology in public schools — but first on the menu was a bold remake of the teaching “profession.”

(Ann O’Leary is now Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff in California.)

Imagine: The billionaires and policy wonks had prescriptions for remaking the teaching profession, even though none had ever been a teacher.

But they did more than talk. On June 20, 2015, O'Leary sent Podesta an email revealing the campaign adopted two of Powell Jobs' suggestions, including "infusing best ideas from charter schools into our traditional public schools.” When Clinton announced this policy in a speech to teachers, however, it was the one line that drew boos.

“Donors want to hear where she stands” John Petry, a founder of both Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Success Academy, New York’s largest network of charter schools, told the New York Times.  Petry was explicit, declaring that he and his billionaire associates would instead put money into congressional, state and local races, behind candidates who favored a “more businesslike approach” to education, and tying teacher tenure to standardized test scores.

Clinton’s advisors warned her that wealthy donors like Petry, Whitney Tilson, or Eli Broad could walk if she didn’t support charter schools. Broad would indeed threaten to withhold funding from Clinton when she criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students. John Podesta and Ann O’Leary would publicly correct Clinton, reaffirming her commitment to charters.

This is an article you must read in full. You might even want to read the underlying document to understand how fully the Democratic Party sold out to the billionaires who oppose public schools.

Also see Diane's:

Tim Slekar Interviews Carol Burris about Charter Scandals

Newsday Reveals Backstory for Elia Resignation - private school and opt out

....many Regents were furious that schools had been placed on state watch lists largely because of high opt-out rates, despite Elia saying those schools would not face repercussions.

The article in Newsday goes into the background for Elia's hiring and dismissal. It makes NYSUT a king. James disagrees on the ICEUFT blog: NEWSDAY EDITORIAL ON ELIA RESIGNATION CONTINUES MYTH OF NYSUT STRENGTH


Actually there is a middle ground. I pointed to the alliance between the AFT/NYSUT/UFT educational complex with Elia going back to the 2010 AFT convention. Randi/Unity Caucus Lauded Elia/Bill Gates and Booed Those Who Walked Out at 2010 AFT Convention.

Elia got the NY State Ed job with the compliance of the union complex, not in antithesis - at the very least they could have made a stink about it. The idea that her resistance on the opt-out issue somehow got her fired with NYSUT behind it may be true but not because of NYSUT. See opt-out leader Jeannette Deuterman on the great betrayal by NYSUT's Andy Pallota and Mulgrew:  NYState Opt Out Leader Jeanette Deuterman Castigates Mulgrew.

Watch who the next state ed commissioner is to get a handle on the power plays. It will more likely be someone in line with previous policies rather than some real progressive.

The article in accurate in the changes in the regents from the Tisch days. Betty Rosa is an improvement by far. At Leonie's Skinny Awards dinner she was hugging and schmoozing with the great anti-high stakes testing guru Fred Smith -- apparently they get together to talk testing regularly and that is a very positive thing.

https://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/lane-filler/maryellen-elia-state-education-commissioner-resigning-regents-1.33946801?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_ny

Newsies Coming to Rockaway Theatre Company July 19 - and I get to play an anti-union thug

Rockaway Times

One of the most telling scenes is when a Newsie pleads with a cop for help after being attacked by goons (which I am one) and the cop hits him. There is a lot more politics in this show than I expected. Workers' rights, unionizing, strikes, goons and cops beating workers, women's rights. And rousing singing and marching that will stir any unionist. And they find a printing press and create their own alternative newspaper telling their story. Well, OK, they couldn't do it without the help of children of the ruling class, but we won't quibble - for now.

Tonight is the final dress rehearsal before opening tomorrow night for a 3 week run (Friday, Saturday and Sunday Matinees). The Newsies are mostly young men - aged 10-early 20s, with a few young ladies playing boys is astounding in its acting, singing, dancing. There are a few older folks - the meanies and I get to play a small role as one of them (I have about 8 lines).

Here is a preview by Kami-Leigh Agard, an excellent reporter for the Rockaway Times who came to rehearsal earlier this week, followed by my own column in The Wave which is published tomorrow.

Memo from the RTC:  Newsies Backstage

By Norm Scott

The past 10 days has seen some heavy lifting at the Rockaway Theatre Company with long rehearsals every day as the Newsies cast and crew gets ready for the Friday opening. Yes, Hell Week is upon us. I’ve been trying to get to know the many newcomers to the RTC in this production and will tell you about them in next week’s column. Director Gabrielle Mangano along with producer/stage manager James Dalid and assistant stage manager Casey Stabiner have led with firm hands, making sure to include some old and young vets from the RTC in supporting roles. Cliff Hesse, John Gilleece, Fred Greiiko and myself cover the old. Brian Sadowsi who has been with RTC in prominent roles for over three years, plays Pulitzer. Dana Mongelli who has been with the company for a few years and appeared in almost every recent production, plays Pulitzer's secretary Hannah, a Bowery Beauty, and a nun. Quite a combo of roles.

Of course the heart of the show, aside from the two key leads played by Sam Kelly, a newcomer from Iowa, and Melody Portnoy, making a 2^nd appearance after her role in Pippin (more on them next week), are the many young men and boys from ages ten to the early 20s playing the news boys. It is  not easy to find so many young males who sing and dance but the RTC is a magnet for talent. Gabby did cast a few young ladies, including RTC super jack of all trades Adele Wendt, she of the glorious red mane, who manages to pull of a miracle: She turns herself into a young boy. Guess who Adele is and win a free mention in this column.

Frank Caiati who designed the sets, made a special appearance one evening at rehearsal to teach the cast how to do stage fighting. What an evening where we all got to throw punches at each other without hitting anything. Frank emphasized safety and turned potential chaos into choreography. Scenes that take about 20 seconds of playing time required hours of repetitive practice, but we expect nothing less from an RTC production.

Of course RTC leaders Susan Jasper and John Gilleece have been around to lend whatever support is needed. But clearly this show has been placed in the hands of the next generation and the audiences will love it – and you better get your tickets as there are already sold out performances.

July 19, 20, 26, 27/Aug 2, 3 at 8PM. Matinees July 21, 28, Aug. 4 t 2 PM. Tickets – Adults $25, Seniors/children $20. www.rockawaytheatre.org.

Norm’s other column is School Scope and he blogs daily at ednotesonline.com

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