The Bernie/Hillary Battle: Commentary from the Left (New Politics) and Mainstream (Politico)

Speaking of elections

I'm finally getting revved up to watch the show on both sides of the aisle unfold. I'm starting to balance the still remote possibility Bernie will win the nomination with the electability of a Jewish socialist. But then again, how electable is Hillary at this point? Even the most rabid Bernie fans, face it. If given Hillary vs any one of the Republican candidates most will hold your nose and vote for her.

What is interesting to me is that Bernie is winning the young and the white working class which rejected Obama and will reject Hillary. Imagine a Bernie vs Trump or Cruz election. Can Bernie win?

Yes, he has problems with people of color, in particular the black community. It is not just that he comes from a white state but there has also been issues between Jews and Blacks for decades, especially here in NYC going back to the 1968 teacher strike which was often framed as Jewish teachers opposing Black community control. As a teacher I often found that my own kids had certain attitudes toward Jews and they were surprised I was Jewish because they had a certain image of Jews - but then again that was in Hasidic Williamsburg.

This country brands itself as a Christian nation. Many Jews believe that it the Obama election was more likely than a Jew being president. I can remember as a young child being told we would never see a Jewish president, forcing me to give up my political career when I was 3.

But when people of color are faced with the stark choice what will they do?
And then again there is Michael Bloomberg jumping in if Bernie looks like he can win.
Imagine this: Bernie vs. billionaires Bloomberg and Trump.
How will that play out with the added factor of having 2 of the 3 being Jews?
But reality bites. The Democratic Super delegates in a close race will hand it ti Hillary and even in not a close race.
No wonder I love 2 major things: sports and politics - better than any other entertainment you can get.

Here is a selection of readings for this cold day from Politico and from New Politics.

New Politics, Winter 2016 Issue

http://www.newpol.org

A Discussion of the Sanders Campaign

Bernie Sanders and the Dilemma of the Democratic “Party,” Jason Schulman

Some months ago I responded to a piece that appeared on the New Politics blog by my longtime fellow NP editorial board member and friend Barry Finger.1 In my own blog, I argued that Barry had a better, more sophisticated understanding of the peculiarities of the Democratic Party and the U.S. electoral system than do many on the radical left who refuse to support any Democratic candidate regardless of that candidate’s personal political platform. However, I also made clear that I believed that Barry still suffered from certain misunderstandings regarding just how different American political parties are from parties that exist anywhere else in the world, and this meant there were defects in his suggestions as to how left-wing socialists should relate to the Sanders campaign. Other defects still characterize the arguments of those who claim that to support Sanders, however critically, is to support a candidate of a party of capital.
While invoking my debate with Barry, I’ll touch upon those other arguments and their problems and explain why I think that critical support for the Sanders campaign is a necessity if we’re to build a much larger socialist movement and how the campaign may lay the basis for an independent party of the left.

The Sanders Campaign and the Left, Lance Selfa and Ashley Smith

Senator Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic Party nomination for president has certainly energized thousands. It has also rekindled an old debate on the American left that revolves around the question: Should the left join, endorse, support, or work for campaigns in the Democratic Party?

Politico has some more traditional stuff:
 

HILLARYWATCH -- "The gaping hole at the heart of Hillary Clinton's campaign," by Paul Waldman in WashPost's PlumLine blog: "[R]ight now, the Clinton campaign has a much bigger problem than the story it wants to tell about New Hampshire. That problem is this: the campaign has no story to tell the voters about Hillary Clinton and why she should be president. Having a good story doesn't guarantee you victory, but nobody becomes president without one ... Now tell me: what's Hillary Clinton's message? She doesn't have one." http://wapo.st/1POOItc

BENJAMIN WALLACE-WELLS on NewYorker.com, "The Clintons Have Lost the Working Class": "Most arrestingly, Sanders won voters with an income of less than fifty thousand dollars by 2-1. There's a lot of talk about Clinton's campaign repeating the chaos and errors of 2008, but that year she had the white working-class vote. Clinton's candidacy looks narrower than ever, more confined to those whose experience of life approximates her own. ... That is not the most promising platform from which to begin a general-election campaign in any year, and especially not in a vigorously populist one." http://bit.ly/1QsXwRI

AMB. HOWARD GUTMAN on Politico, "Why Sanders' Win Is Good for Clinton: The socialist senator has been a saving grace for the Clinton campaign. Best to keep him around as long as possible": "This campaign season, the socialist senator has been a gift to Clinton. He's pumped a huge amount of oxygen into a race that could easily have been starved for attention. And even more importantly, he's made sure that the biggest story in the race isn't Clinton's own background." http://politi.co/1POPPco

MARGARET CARLSON on Bloomberg, "Beware a Wounded Clinton ": "Maybe it's HDTV, but stagecraft is so obvious now. Clinton's sense of entitlement comes through, while Sanders' basic decency is apparent whenever the camera lands on his wild hair, bad suits and Brooklyn accent. The Clintons exude the belief that we would be lucky to get them back not the other way around." http://bv.ms/1o5mNuW

- WNYC's Rebecca Ibarra: "What Will it Take for Black Voters to Choose Bernie Sanders?" http://goo.gl/8U4AXS
 
-- WNYC's Andrea Bernstein: "If There's One Thing Hillary Clinton Knows, It's How to Come Back from Defeat" http://goo.gl/GE5mbc

Randi and Lily Are Democratic Party Super Delegates

While much of the Democratic Party has savaged teachers and their unions on ed deform, the leadership of this unions is part of the structure of the party. We know where they stand on Hillary/Bernie and since a good chunk of the members are anti-Hillary from the right and the left, their stand is very divisive and diverts us from the major battle. Randi was traipsing around Iowa and New Hampshire and giving credence to Teach for America by showing up to speak at their conference last weekend.

Diane Ravitch is taking a neutral stance on Hillary/Bernie and explains why in a reply to a comment on her post Hillary Won More Delegates in New Hampshire than Bernie.

Now I find this an interesting post in that while talking about the super delegates she never mentions that the presidents of the 2 teacher unions with almost 4 million members are out and out Hillary supporters who will be overriding the popular vote if they can. Randi has been tweeting that Bernie and Hillary basically tied in New Hampshire among Democrats and it was the independent vote that gave him such a big margin. I guess independents who reject Hillary don't count in the general election. It is the typical stance that the Republican choice will be so awful, everyone will hold their noses and vote for Hillary anyway. Listen, I would probably do so myself.

Rob Rendo is disturbed enough to offer the following:

How rigged the system is:
Please review the following list for names that you recognize among the superdelegates.
You will see Lily Eskelsen Garcia and Randi Weingarten right there, undermining the one man one vote fundamental to our democracy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_Party_superdelegates,_2016
Will you sign the petition to let voters decide?
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-the-democratic-superdel?source=s.fwd&r_by=4412807
Will you sign this petition to the DNC to end voter manipulation?
https://www.change.org/p/democratic-national-committee-dnc-destroy-and-dismantle-the-superdelegacy-end-election-manipulation
Please forward widely
Thank you

Randi undermining democracy? I'm shocked, just shocked. Any photoshoppers out there to take these cartoons and put Randi in them?

Randi Spin on Hillary Defeat Ties Her Up In Knots While Lily Stays Mum and Fred Smith Nails It

EIA's Mike Antonucci compares the NEA spin after Iowa and after New Hampshire: NEA Pulls a Cam Newton in New Hampshire .

As I write this, it’s about 1:30 pm Eastern time. Anything about New Hampshire on the NEA web site? Nope. Education Votes web site? Nope. Education Votes Twitter account? Nope. NEA’s Twitter account? Nope. NEA Public Relations Twitter account? Nope. Eskelsen García’s Twitter account? Nope. How about NEA New Hampshire? Nope.

While Randi just can't seem to shut up, creating a WTF moment for some:

AFT Randi Weingarten had her spin on the results, but she addressed them (here, here, and here).

fklonsky ‏@fklonsky 23h23 hours ago

@rweingarten Trying to turn a pig's ear into a purse.

1 retweet 3 likes

1. I'mabeacher ‏@PaulaGibbons13 24h24 hours ago
   @rweingarten @HillaryClinton hugely outspent?? I don't think so.
   0 retweets 5 likes
Lee in Iowa ‏@Lee_in_Iowa 23h23 hours ago
@PaulaGibbons13 @rweingarten @HillaryClinton Yes, she was. Bernie DOES have SuperPACs, and Hillary gives % her donations to other Dems, $23M
7 retweets 7 likes
2. View other replies
David Ruperti ‏@davidruperti 21h21 hours ago
@Lee_in_Iowa @PaulaGibbons13 @rweingarten @HillaryClinton Wait. You are equating a nurses union with a super PAC like American Crossroads?
1 retweet 4 likes
3. Alison Eichhorn ‏@alison_eichhorn 21h21 hours ago
   @rweingarten @HillaryClinton you want a leader that is pro-charter? this, after speaking at TFA? maybe you have the wrong job. #FeelTheBern
   2 retweets 3 likes
Alison Eichhorn ‏@alison_eichhorn 20h20 hours ago
@rweingarten @HillaryClinton also note: you used no democratic process to endorse her. Instead, you made a decision for members. not okay.
1 retweet 2 likes
Sahila ChangeBringer ‏@Kiwigirl58 23h23 hours ago
@rweingarten what a weasel way to avoid the reality that @HillaryClinton is not liked by women, that most people see thru her lies/posturing


5. Sahila ChangeBringer ‏@Kiwigirl58 23h23 hours ago
   @rweingarten what's wrong w/the polls? @HillaryClinton did badly --- that's on her; she doesnt have peoples' trust, nor a winning platform
  Senator_Corleone ‏@JimmyA_Shook1s 23h23 hours ago
@Kiwigirl58 @rweingarten @HillaryClinton you don't follow politics much I take it.
6. CNY Teacher ‏@CNYTeacher 24h24 hours ago
   @rweingarten @HillaryClinton should back off personal and policy attacks and focus on electability. It'll carry her 2 #potus if she lets it.
Senator_Corleone ‏@JimmyA_Shook1s 23h23 hours ago
@CNYTeacher @rweingarten @HillaryClinton lol personal attacks.
0 retweets 0 likes
Arielle Chiger ‏@fraublucher606 13h13 hours ago
@rweingarten Speaking at #TFA25 and endorsing @HillaryClinton against the wishes of most R&F. You're eating your own. #Feelthebern
Tim Schrodel ‏@TimSchrodel 24h24 hours ago Carroll Park, Philadelphia
@rweingarten "tough polls"? What were the polls last summer?

Gail Swingler ‏@Swinglerg 24h24 hours ago

@rweingarten You may be, but apparently you misread the AFT crowd...

Fred Smith comes to our rescue from the twitter world with these comments:

Did Randi campaign for Hillary in NH? She must have -- otherwise how do you account for such a large loss. Is it too late for Randi to endorse Trump?  Maybe she can revive Pataki's campaign...In an act of pre-emptive misrepresentation of those whom she professes to represent Randi she sold her soul to be the next Secretary of Education. Even Goliath knew he was in trouble when Randi bet on him. The real reason Cam Newton had a lousy game was because Randi put union money on the Panthers.....Fred Smith

On Bill and Hillary Clinton’s First Date in 1971, They Crossed a Picket Line

We both had wanted to see a Mark Rothko exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery but, because of a labor dispute, some of the university's buildings, including the museum, were closed. As Bill and I walked by, he decided he could get us in if we offered to pick up the litter that had accumulated in the gallery's courtyard. Watching him talk our way in was the first time I saw his persuasiveness in action... Hillary Clinton, 2003 memoir Living History

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein, In These Times with a fascinating analysis of the first couple's first date:

The “labor dispute,” not even named here as a strike, is not only abstracted from the very spaces the future Clintons inhabit in this narrative, it is made incidental to them, an obstacle which has to be sidestepped.....

The relationship between Rodham and Clinton, two instrumental figures in the decoupling of the Democratic Party from the priorities of the mainstream labor movement, thus began with the crossing of a picket line.....

When Rodham and Clinton picked up the garbage strewn about the art gallery courtyard (if, indeed, they ever did so), they were doing exactly what everyone from Vincent Sirabella to the Black Student Alliance at Yale had asked students not to do: they were performing—or at the very least offering to perform—the work that members of Local 35’s Grounds Maintenance division, had refused.
Rodham and Clinton were offering themselves as replacement labor, blunting, if only temporarily, the effects of the strike on the university. The two law students then bartered their litter pickup, which was, in essence, scab labor (or maybe just the promise thereof) into access to a struck building.

The art gallery and other nonessential buildings were closed because the university did not have enough managers to keep them open during the strike. They were closed because the people who usually cleaned and repaired them, whose labor helped make the university’s display of art possible, had been forced to absent themselves by the necessity which fueled the ongoing strike.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18841/hillary_rodham_bill_clinton_and_the_1971_yale_strike

Excerpted and adapted from Beneath the University: Service Workers and the University-Hospital City, an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. 

Kasich is as Big a Disaster as the Rest of Them

Scary thing last night: Fooled by his demeanor, omeone told me she could live with Kasich. I sent her this - and it doesn't even touch on his horrible ed deforms.

Please see the below highlights from Tina Brown’s Women in the World Forum in LA last night. Tina asked Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, what a Kasich presidency would be like:

“It would be a complete and utter disaster. Governor Kasich has come off as a moderate, only by comparison to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, but it’s really important to know in Ohio, more than half the providers of safe and legal abortion have had to shut down. He signed 17 separate bills to restrict reproductive access in the state. It’s rivaling Texas as the worst place for women to get access to healthcare. We have a lot of work to do to to make sure folks know about his record and where he really stands.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tptznes2CtQ 

Cecile’s thoughts on closing clinics in Texas:

"The heartbreaking part of it is it’s hitting low income women the very worst. If you live in the rear border of Texas, you have very few options for healthcare. Many women are now going over the border — estimates of up to 250,000 women trying to self abort in the last several years in Texas. We’re better than that as a country.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXMnscLUPjQ

Ding, Dong: Courtenaye Jackson-Chase IS LEAVING the DOE

The EVIL DOE Legal Empire, which basically decides much of school policy towards how to treat employees, loses its Darth Vader.

EDUCATION MOVES: “Courtenaye Jackson-Chase, the city Department of Education's general counsel, will leave the department next month, education officials said Tuesday. Jackson-Chase has been at the DOE for nearly a decade and has served as general counsel since 2012. She will become general counsel at the Children's Aid Society in March. Charity Guerra, the current chief deputy counsel, will take over as interim general counsel while the DOE conducts a search for Jackson-Chase's replacement.” —POLITICO New York’s Eliza Shapiro [PRO] http://politi.co/1Lfd61E.

Time to party - until they appoint the next slug.

Learning From Lois (Weiner): Social Justice Unions, Restorative Justice, and Caucus Building

Lois talked about how Restorative Justice can only work in a democratically run, collaborative school environment with a non-abusive, instead of a top-down principal.  ... AMEN

I was at Lois Weiner's very interesting presentation last night, Urban Education & Teacher Unionism Policy Project. MORE co-sponsored it.

This is an exciting venture that, in addition to the goals listed below, will also focus on the various movements within unions rather than the current leaderships. As Lois pointed out, many of these movements like MORE and WE in Philly were inspired by CORE Caucus in Chicago.

Lois pointed out that forming a strong democratic caucus with a large school base is the key. She contrasted cases like Milwaukee. Bob Peterson of Rethinking Schools won election pretty much on his own without a caucus and now leads a union where people are not especially active. That is problematical - trying to build a caucus without a firm school base AFTER winning.

As Lois talked I felt she was affirming the rough strategy MORE has been following - building enough of a base of schools which in NYC with 1800 schools and a Unity machine that battles for every single one, is the biggest challenge. When people say MORE doesn't want to win they are distorting reality. MORE can't win UNTIL it establishes enough of a base to win. Why can MORE challenge in the high schools and why did New Action win the high schools for over a decade? There is enough of a base in the high schools to win.

Lois emphasized the school as the organizing tool. And she is a board member of Teachers Unite, which also emphasizes the school unit. Where I  differ somewhat is that she doesn't focus attention on building geographical clusters of schools on the district level. NYC is a special situation due to size and the massive Unity control of the schools. District level clusters of K-8 schools must be built to begin to challenge Unity in the middle and elementary schools before any caucus has a chance to win.

Lois emphasizes that the social justice component is a key to building an alliance that goes beyond narrow teacher interests, which is proving to be a dead end no matter how much people scream and yell about teacher rights. Without building a community component that supports the teachers, a hostile press will kill them. The teachers walking out in Detroit, even if unorganized, can do so because parents are not killing them for doing it. Imagine if there were gangs of people outside schools screaming at them on days when they do come to school. That hasn't happened.

For me one of the most illuminating parts of her presentation was about restorative justice, which Teachers Unite has made a key part of its operation.

MORE supports restorative justice and has come under criticism for doing so. MORE supports RJ WHERE IT CAN WORK. MORE has to make that clear.

We know that some principals use RJ as a cover - and as a way to suck up to Carmen Farina - "see, we have an RJ program" - while they screw the teachers.

I have not always been comfortable with simply saying we support RJ without qualifying the RJ language used. She talked about how RJ can only work in a democratically run, collaborative school environment with a non-abusive, top-down principal. I pointed out that there are complaints about MORE's support for RJ from people who have such principals and RJ is just used as public relations crap to put the blame on teachers. Lois pointed out that the very idea of RJ is children and teachers taking control and if a principal has total control it just doesn't work.

She made it clear. If you have an autocratic or abusive principal, fuhgetaboutit. Well we know that leaves out the majority of schools in the system and MORE should clean up its RJ platform language to make that clear. Jia Lee was present and I hope that she makes this clear when she talks about RJ which she knows would never work with her old abusive principal but works in her current school - as long as the principal is supportive. But things can turn on a dime once an ego-driven principal takes over a school that was progressive.

Lois also addressed the issue of institutional racism, a term which seems to rub some (white) people the wrong way. I will deal with this in a separate post.

One thing I would have liked to address was the special situation of Unity Caucus being able to dominate the city, state and national unions and set policy for all of them through their autocratic rule.

Here is description of the Teacher Unionism Policy Project:

The aim of the New Jersey City University's Urban Education and Teacher Unionism Policy Project is to apply research, explained in accessible language, to address those very hard issues that divide teacher unions from communities of color and support strong alliances.

Dr. Lois Weiner, Project Director of the Urban Education and Teacher Unionism Policy Project, is an internationally-known scholar in urban teacher education and teacher unionism.

This event is sponsored by the GC Urban Education Program, GC Critical Psychology Program, Public Science Project, Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Graduate Center Chapter, Teachers Unite, and the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE).