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!
Longtime
teachers’ union president Jerry Jordan will hold on to his leadership
post after fending off a challenge from an increasingly vocal and
consequential caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers... Philadelphia Inquirer
The trend within teacher unions for more militant action bodes well
for WE and caucuses like it. But in Philadelphia at least, it’s delayed
by four years.... Mike Antonucci, Intercepts
March 3, 2020 - 4PM I'm watching a live feed on FB of Nancy Pelosi on the education bill with Randi standing next to her. Standing with them is newly elected Philly union president Jerry Jordan who just defeated the left WE caucus in the election last week. Hmmm. No Alex Caputo-Pearl who led a successful strike as president of the UTLA and was just elected VP after yielding to Cecily Myart-Cruz has been elected president of UTLA, the first biracial Black woman elected to lead the union in its 50-year history. UTLA, the 2nd largest union in the AFT after the UFT. Or Jessy Sharkey, president of the Chicago TU, the third largest local which was leaning Bernie but due to some Warren support did not endorse? (Randi endorsed Warren over the weekend- a political play since Mulgrew is running as a Biden delegate and we know they are on the same page. In other words, I see this as a shot at the left. (I wonder if WE pushed for an endorsement of Bernie as we saw MORE members under the guise of Labor for Bernie do in the UFT?)
I remember at the 2014 AFT convention in LA, a workshop was set up for Alex Caputo-Pearl and then Chicago union president Karen Lewis to discuss progressive unionism and Randi forced them to include Mulgrew and Jerry Jordan as part of the panel. I taped it but never published that very interesting debate. Alex and Karen were bulldozed by Randi.
Since I always look for conspiracy theories I see the Jordan presence as a slam at the left by Randi.
Anyway, here is some info on what happened in Philly where WE (Caucus of Working Educators) ran its 2nd campaign and doubled their vote from last time. I got to know WE people years ago when we hung out with them in LA before they were even a caucus and they were strong social justice people but with a real feel for the members. I liked a lot of them.
WE is affiliated with rising left wing opposition in the AFT through UCORE where elections were won in Baltimore recently - see my report: Why Can't MORE B more like BMORE? - Radical Teachers’ Movement Comes to Baltimore where I contrasted these rising movements with the failures of MORE in NYC. Look at the WE platform as described in the Inquirer story for an explanation.
The progressive group’s platform centered on empowering PFT members to
have more of a say in the operation of their union, and on holding open
contract negotiations with the district. It promised to fight for
higher wages for paraprofessionals, better environmental conditions,
and smaller class sizes. WE members have criticized the current PFT
regime as too bureaucratic and slow to respond to members’ concerns,
and not active enough on issues of social justice.
Last time WE focused on social justice - note the concentration on bread and butter. MORE fundamentally ignores the day to day issues UFT members face. MORE, by the way, ran a fundraiser for WE a few weeks ago. Look at the excellent WE web site: https://www.workingeducators.org/
And it is pretty interesting that WE, which was inspired by MORE in 2015 to form a caucus got almost 40% of the vote in its second run for office while MORE was destroyed in the 2019 UFT elections in its third run for office. [I have lots to say about why but will have to do that another time.] I believe if the undemocratic socialists hadn't blown up MORE we would have been able to push into the one third range by running a strong united front campaign. But that game is over for a long time.
Here is a fairly sympathetic article towards WE in the Inquirer and a more skeptical article by the right wing Mike Antonucci. I land somewhere between the two because Jerry Jordan is a weak union leader and Philly teachers have been slammed and he still got 62% of the vote. The turnout was tremendous - 60%, up from 44% in the last election in 2016, which accounts for the doubling of the WE vote from last time.
Compare that to the meager turnout in UFT elections - half that or less.
Still, 62% is not insignificant but we've always maintained that it is within striking range and if WE keeps organizing and doesn't make the same mistakes as MORE they may be serious contenders in 4 years. Or not, given the methods the UFT-like machines use to maintain control --- see above for Jerry Jordan appearance on the stage with Randi and Pelosi.
Philadelphia teachers’ union president Jerry Jordan fends off challengers, but progressives make gains
Longtime teachers’ union president Jerry Jordan will hold on to his leadership post after fending off a challenge from an increasingly vocal and consequential caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
The results are especially weighty given the PFT’s outsized role in the city’s political landscape. The union plays a crucial oversight role in the Philadelphia School District’s unfolding asbestos crisis, and it is negotiating the first contract since the union won back the right to strike with the district returning to local control in 2018.
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Jordan’s slate, known as the Collective Bargaining Team, appeared to win 62% of the vote, with the early tally 4,453 to 2,761. Split-ticket votes have not yet been counted, but the early results made clear that most of the union’s 13,000 members favored Jordan’s steady hand, track record, and collaborative working style.
Jordan, who has led the PFT since 2007 and has worked for the union full time since 1987, said he was “delighted” by the results, which came on his 71st birthday.
"Our nearly 13,000 members are passionate, dedicated, and engaged, and working with them daily is one of the great honors of my life,” Jordan said in a statement. “The campaign was spirited, and it allowed us the opportunity to organize around a vision for public education that resonated with our membership.”
Nearly 60% of the PFT’s 13,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and paraprofessional workers cast ballots, up from 46% in 2016, the first time WE opposed Jordan’s leadership.
The Caucus of Working Educators, whose slate was topped by Kathleen Melville, a teacher at the Workshop School, a high school in West Philadelphia, made a stronger showing than it did in 2016, the last time it challenged Jordan’s leadership.
The progressive group’s platform centered on empowering PFT members to have more of a say in the operation of their union, and on holding open contract negotiations with the district. It promised to fight for higher wages for paraprofessionals, better environmental conditions, and smaller class sizes. WE members have criticized the current PFT regime as too bureaucratic and slow to respond to members’ concerns, and not active enough on issues of social justice.
WE, part of a wave of young people turning to organized labor as a way to make change, comes out of a tradition of the rank-and-file educators who have taken over unions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore. These are cities where union leaders have taken their members on massive, high-profile strikes — with significant public support — that reminded the country that unions are still a force to be reckoned with.
The Caucus of Working Educators’ campaign is part of a trend of rank-and-file challenges to the union establishment, as legacy unions have languished around the country. Union members — from journalists to UPS package handlers to truck drivers — have challenged veteran leadership, which they accuse of being too complacent and too cozy with management to fight for workers.
Melville, 37, congratulated Jordan and his team and said in a statement that WE looked forward “to continuing to push for a more engaged and empowered PFT membership together.”
The caucus’ stronger showing, she said, made it plain that “Working Educators’ vision has resonated with thousands of educators across the city."
Jordan, in an interview, said WE’s campaign “was a very serious challenge," but said that its platform “was very similar to the platform my caucus had” — focused on working conditions and meaningful wage increases.
WE members’ views will certainly have a place during negotiations, said Jordan, adding that so far only a few bargaining sessions have been held. The PFT president expects that the pace of talks will now accelerate.
So far, Jordan said, the talks have been “very professional.”
On the heels of this story
about a long-time incumbent union president being challenged by some
members of his rank-and-file comes the election for officers of the
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
Jerry Jordan has been president of PFT since 2007, but he faced
strongly organized opposition from Kathleen Melville and her Caucus of
Working Educators (WE).
WE wants to reverse PFT’s decline. It claims that membership has shrunk by 40%, from 21,000 to 13,000.
Turnout was high for a union election, with more than half of
eligible members casting ballots. The final results have not yet been
certified, but Jordan emerged as the clear winner, with somewhere between 60-66% of the vote.
The outcome was bittersweet for WE, which more than doubled its vote
totals from four years ago and emerged as a force to be reckoned with.
However, even as the caucus improved turnout, it couldn’t cobble
together something closer to a majority.
WE is similar to other opposition caucuses throughout American Federation of Teachers affiliates in that it wants a more muscular approach to collective bargaining and a social justice focus.
The caucus has received credit for demanding open contract
negotiations, instead of the closed-door bargaining between district and
union officers that is standard practice throughout the U.S.
But a closer look reveals that WE’s call for openness extends only to
more members of the PFT. The caucus wants one member from each school
to be present at the table, not the public.
The trend within teacher unions for more militant action bodes well
for WE and caucuses like it. But in Philadelphia at least, it’s delayed
by four years.
Mike's last comment is ridiculous. What does he mean that the public should be at the table? Unions are not public agencies. Let the city bring in the public if it wants.
With today being Super Tuesday and supposedly democratic let me make a few points about consensus and caucuses and also talk about my experiences in caucuses (not the same thing) inside the UFT and my differing experiences with democracy in those groups. (Yes I can say everything I learned about democracy I learned in the UFT and in ICE and MORE.)
One of the big gripes I had in the transition from the consensus ICE Caucus to the strict voting of MORE Caucus was how much more democratic and satisfying emotionally the ICE experience was compared to MORE where there was all sorts of manipulation of democracy, including agenda items, how much time was allotted, who was chairing meetings, etc. All designed to assure the people running the group could keep control. And when a time came that they felt they were losing that control they just blew it all up and purged the potential opposition.
I always tried to raise the issue of how some of us viewed democracy and was mocked by some for doing so. Strict majority rule is oppressive and that was why when we established by-laws in MORE we put in provisions for super majorities to protect the interests of a minority. More ideal to me would have been attempts to find consensus like we did in ICE-UFT and in the previous group I belonged to in the 70s. On very rare occasions we On the ideologue left consensus is a no-no.
A big advantage of consensus is that everyone has to give something in
order for the group to function. But when you have hard-edged ideologues
in the group consensus will never happen. In ICE we were extreme in the sense that we would spend as much time talking things out as was necessary and we came up with some excellent understanding of issues - there wasn't one ICE meeting where I didn't learn something or get some insight. At MORE meetings I learned very little other than how some factions operated to control the group - actually a very valuable lesson. The argument against consensus was that we had too many people which was not really that true -- it was more about suppressing voices that might raise disagreement. In the early days of ICE we also had large groups and managed some consensus - even when people from groups like the open communist group, Progressive Labor were in the room and clearly disagreed with some policies they were given the chance to present their case and seemed fine if they didn't get their way and didn't veto - a key to consensus is viewing the health of the group as being more important at times than your own views.
Anyway, to get to the point - Today's NYT science section has an article (below) about how certain social animals make group decisions and it's fascinating - they use consensus - even bees. Thus I come to the conclusion that consensus is a natural state and I imagine back in the per-civilization days that was how small bands of humans made decisions.
Now I know that consensus is tough in large societies but I also believe that voting is in many ways undemocratic because 49% can be suppressed. Proportional representation would solve some of that - something you will never see inside the undemocratic world of the UFT which has been organized from its very beginning along some of the same ideologue ways we've seen in other groups. Like we know full well that Randi will decide on which candidate to support and will then try to hape things to make it look democratic - and not succeed. (More on this point in a follow-up).
The caucus system which has been so vilified is an attempt to have a version of consensus - oh horrors, the political game the media wants played doesn't get done so let's toss out democracy.
The 2020 election is off to a complicated start. Maybe we can draw some comparative political lessons from the animal kingdom.
Are
humans the only animals that caucus? As the early 2020 presidential
election season suggests, there are probably more natural and efficient
ways to make a group choice. But we’re certainly not the only animals on
Earth that vote. We’re not even the only primates that primary.
Any
animal living in a group needs to make decisions as a group, too. Even
when they don’t agree with their companions, animals rely on one another
for protection or help finding food. So they have to find ways to reach
consensus about what the group should do next, or where it should live.
While they may not conduct continent-spanning electoral contests like
this coming Super Tuesday, species ranging from primates all the way to
insects have methods for finding agreement that are surprisingly
democratic.
Leonie Haimson doesn't allow a broken ankle to keep her away
I attended the hearing Friday from 11 AM until it ended almost at 4. Leonie reports below in full on the day. I was supposed to go on a class trip with to the NY Historical Society but the teacher got sick and I decided to head down to the hearing. Gloria Brandman was already there but still in the hallway - she didn't get to speak until after 3 PM. I think current and ex-teachers have real world stories to tell from the long-range career perspective.
Leonie reported: When Chair Treyger asked
her what number she would give to the importance of class size from one to ten,
she refused to say. It was clear after questioning that the Quality Reviews that
DOE officials carry out and that are supposed to highlight for principals what
changes are needed in their schools never mention class size. I'd love to see Goldmark in a class.
A bunch of us were out in the hall for an hour because the room was filled to the brim. We missed the misleading and open lies told by DOE officials who defended their policies. One of them, Deputy Chancellor Karin Goldmark was quoted in the Chalkbeat article which claimed she had been a teacher. I wonder for how long she taught - and she makes around 220k a year.
The great Mark Treyger, the Ed committee chair, handled all these hours of testimony with grace and dignity, in addition to chiming in so many comments relating to his own teaching experiences. Former teacher and ed chair Danny Dromme was also present for part of the hearing, but through the afternoon the room thinned out considerably. Having political people who were teachers for more than 10 minutes is important.
I was not intending to speak but there to support Leonie, but as the hearing was ending she suggested I take the final slot to speak. With nothing prepared I still figured that I had enough experience with the class size issue to fill 3 minutes of time. There were about 5 people in the room to hear it. I barely remember what I said but Leonie did tweet out some of it -- maybe I'll look it up and put up some of my points later.
court officer explaining to crowd outside hearing
Leonie reports:
Today, from 10 AM to 3:45 PM, the City Council Education Committee
held hearings on class size at City Hall.
So many people showed up to testify that it was standing room only in
the Committee hearing room. It was so
overcrowded that City Hall guards did not allow many of the parents and advocates
to had planned to testify enter the room,
and many left before they had a chance to speak.
First, Chair of the Education Committee Mark Treyger, a
former teacher himself, opened the hearings by saying that “Unfortunately,
efforts to reduce class size in New York City public schools haven’t gotten
very far despite all the passion & hard work of parents, advocates,
teachers & students - including many here today.” Indeed class sizes have risen substantially
since NY state’s highest court said that class sizes in NYC schools were too
large to provide students with their constitutional right to an adequate
education.
Chair Treyger questioned Karin Goldmark , Deputy Chancellor of
the NYC Department of Education, and Lorraine Grillo, President of the School
Construction Authority, asking if they prioritized reducing class size as a
goal. Goldmark was non-committal, saying
that though the DOE realized the
research shows that smaller classes do lead to better student outcomes, there
is a lack of resources and NYC schools have many needs. When Chair Treyger asked
her what number she would give to the importance of class size from one to ten,
she refused to say. She also said she didn’t know if the DOE had ever tried to
analyze the results to see if smaller classes were correlated with student
success, and she did not know if Edustat or any of the other data systems that
the DOE currently uses or plans to use in the future even capture class size as
a critical factor. It was clear after questioning that the Quality Reviews that
DOE officials carry out and that are supposed to highlight for principals what
changes are needed in their schools never mention class size.
Then scores of parents, former teachers, students, advocates,
education leaders, professors, school service providers and representatives
from community based organizations testified from their own experience how NYC
students are deprived of a quality education and a better chance to learn because
of class sizes out of control. Many
urged the City Council to ensure that at least $100 million is allocated for
class size reduction in next year’s budget, as the first step towards providing
an equitable education for the city’s students.. All children benefit from smaller classes,
the research shows, but especially those children from low-income families,
students of color, English Language Learners, and students with special needs,
which together make up the majority of NYC public school students.
"Class size is one of the reasons I helped start the
Campaign for Fiscal Equity back in 1993, seeing how overcrowded the schools in
District 6 were during my time as president of the board," said State Senator
Robert Jackson. "I understand some of DOE's resistance to hiring more
teachers comes from fiscal concerns. That’s why I’m committed to fully funding
the Foundation Aid formula at the state level. I’ve introduced a bill that adds
a new bracket to increase income tax on New York’s highest earners, generating
an estimated $4.5 billion in revenue. But the DOE has to commit to use that in
adherence to the Contracts for Excellence," Senator Jackson added, which
requires NYC to implement class size reduction.
Joshua Aronson, NYU Professor of Psychology and Education
explained: "I have visited many schools in NYC and elsewhere in the
nation. Manageable class sizes aren’t sufficient to fix our schools. But from
my personal observations as well my analysis of the research, I believe small
class sizes may be necessary to creating the a powerful school culture,
especially in underserved populations, that students need to succeed. All
children can become eager, curious learners, but only when their key physical
and social needs are met. This takes time, care, compassion— and most
importantly—small class sizes. When a school offers small classes it can
accomplish what others can only dream of. Reducing class size is expensive on
the front end, but the benefits will soon outweigh the costs in my opinion, and
in the opinion of nearly every teacher and principal I have ever met."
Tiffani Torres, a senior at Pace HS and a member of Teens Take Charge, said:
“Having been in both small and large classes, I know first-hand the difference
between both. In smaller classes, I can
ask questions without fear of distracting 30 other students, and can receive
more one- on- one help from my teachers.”
She talked about how many students had dropped out of her calculus class
because it was too large, and how many of those who remained were confused
because of the lack of focused feedback and support from her teacher. Both she
and Lorraie Forbes, another student, said that they would give class size a ten for its importance for
student learning and engagement.
Jacqueline Shannon, Associate Professor and
the Department Chair of Early Childhood and Art Education at Brooklyn
College, said: “In 2014, I helped write a letter to then-Chancellor Farina,
warning her that increases in class size that had occurred since 2007 in NYC
public schools, particularly in the early grades, threatened to undermine the
gains one might otherwise expect from the expansion of preK. Our letter was signed by over 70 professors
of education, psychology, and sociology. Since then, the city has made very
little progress in lowering class sizes.
The number of children in Kindergarten in classes of 25 or more has
risen by 68% since 2007, and the number
of 1st through 3rd
graders of thirty or more has increased by nearly 3000%. While the Mayor should be thanked for
expanding preK and now 3K, early childhood education does not end at age
5. The city should now focus on lowering class sizes in our public
schools.”
Shino Tanikawa, the co-chair of the Education Council
Consortium, which represents the parent-led Citywide and Community Education
Councils in NYC, said, “It has been nearly twenty years since the landmark CFE
decision, which mandated smaller classes for NYC schools. Although the
City submitted a class size reduction plan, it was abandoned by both the DOE
and the NYS Education Department, and instead our schools experienced a sharp
increase in class sizes across the city. The Chancellor has been pushing
for school integration but we must reduce class sizes for integration to
succeed. Class size reduction is an urgent need that cannot wait. “
“I’ve worked in many schools and know from my own personal
experience that class sizes should be smaller to give students a better chance
at success,” said Evie Hantzopoulos, Executive Director of Global Kids and
public school parent. “Research proves
that this simple strategy helps all students, and especially our most
vulnerable ones, achieve the positive learning outcomes needed for the 21st
Century.”
State Senator Brad Hoylman,
whose statement was read for him by a staffer, observed : “On average, NYC
public school classrooms have 10-30% more students than elsewhere in the state.
As the elected representative for thousands of families with young children, I
know reducing class size is a primary concern. My constituents — and every
child in New York — deserve the opportunity to succeed in school, and class
size is an integral factor in determining student success. I’m proud to stand
with my colleague Senator Jackson and Class Size Matters in support of reducing
class size in New York.”
Tanesha Grant, a member of the Community Education Council
in District 5 as well as AQE and CEJ, stated:
“Class size has grown tremendously since 2007 in our schools, which has
a deep impact on the quality of education our children receive. This
impacts black and brown students the hardest. Our children are given hurdles to
jump over to just to get an equitable education. As a black mother of
three and grandmother of an autistic grandson, I know class size matters. I see
how it affects my children’s learning. The data proves that class size
MATTERS!”
Parent advocate Johanna Garcia and plaintiff in the class
size lawsuit launched by nine NYC parents, Class Size Matters and AQE that was argued
in the Appellate court last month said: "Class size matters. It’s a simple
idea, and it’s one of the single most effective tools we have to improve the
quality of the education our children receive. As a Black and Latina parent
advocate, I understand the failures to reduce New York City class size to be a
huge factor in educational racism because it has detrimental effects on a
student body that is 85% Black and Brown and predominantly working-class. If we
are serious about addressing that educational racism, we must get serious about
class size in our schools. We have to be honest about the problems and
clear-eyed about implementing the solutions going forward. Let's count our
students fairly and hire more teachers in line with the law so our
children get the quality education they deserve."
Nearly half of all middle school
students are in classes of 30 or more; and more than half of high school
students are in classes thirty or more. Jessica
Siegel, a professor at Brooklyn College and a former teacher, recounted what
one middle school teacher had told her about how she felt being unable to give sufficient help to all
her students: “My largest 8th
grade class is a whopping 37 students. I teach two more classes, one with 32
and the last one with 28. Both include English Language Learners and students
who require push in services for their Individualized Education Plans. I feel
as though I’m being torn to shreds when I’m helping others, their eyes hungry
and ready and yet there you are unable to reach them. It’s as if you have one
life raft and must choose which child gets saved. It’s heart wrenching and
demoralizing.”
Elsie McCabe Thompson,
head of the Mission Society, one of the nation’s oldest social service
organizations, testified that they see thousands of children
in poverty. One third have diagnosed special needs; but most have suffered
trauma. Smaller classes are important for ALL these children, she said, because
as a teacher, “you cannot authentically have high expectations for kids that
you do not know.”
A statement was
read on behalf of Diane Ravitch, eminent historian and education advocate: “The
single most effective way to improve instruction is to reduce class
size. The benefits of class size reduction are greatest for the neediest
students. . If you are serious about helping children, reduce class
size. If you are serious about helping teachers to be more effective,
reduce class size. Reducing class size is more effective than test prep;
it is more effective than hiring coaches and consultants. It is more effective
than buying new hardware and software. It is more effective than any of
the many other "reforms" that have been imposed by the federal or
state government. New York State's scores on national tests have been
flat for twenty years. It is time for fresh thinking. Do what works!
Reduce class sizes!”
For data on current
class sizes in NYC schools and trends, as well as the research on class size,
check out www.classsizematters.org
From Naked Capitalism - and Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report
World behavior (and reader in better run emerging economies will no doubt say that that’s not a feature of their political landscape). But the US crossed that Rubicon with the intel-security state acting as if it has the authority to approve who sits in the White House.
Paradise lost. One misstep is all it takes to take the proud down low.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud. —With apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow This is a small point that leads to a larger one. Consider what Mike Bloomberg is building within the Democratic Party, within the DNC. According to the following analysis he’s turning the DNC into an anti-Sanders machine, a force loyal to himself, that will operate even after Sanders is nominated, even after Sanders is elected, if he so chooses.
With that he hopes to limit and control what Sanders and his rebellion can do. It’s the ultimate billionaire counter-rebellion — own the Party machine that the president normally controls, then use it against him.
Our source for this thought is Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report. Ford is one of the more vitriolic defenders of radical change in America, but in this analysis I don’t think he’s wrong, at least in making the case that Bloomberg is giving himself that option. But do decide for yourself.
Here’s his case:
Bloomberg Wants to Swallow the Democrats and Spit Out the Sandernistas
If, somehow, Bernie Sanders is allowed to win the nomination, Michael Bloomberg and other plutocrats will have created a Democratic Party machinery purpose-built to defy Sanders — as nominee, and even as president.
The details of his argument are here (emphasis added):
Bloomberg has already laid the groundwork to directly seize the party machinery, the old fashioned way: by buying it and stacking it with his own, paid operatives, with a war-against-the-left budget far bigger than the existing Democratic operation. Bloomberg’s participation in Wednesday’s debate, against all the rules, is proof-of-purchase.
In addition to the nearly million dollar down payment to the party in November that sealed the deal for the debate rules change, Bloomberg has already pledged to pay the full salaries of 500 political staffers for the Democratic National Committee all the way through the November election, no matter who wins the nomination. Essentially, Bloomberg will be running the election for the corporate wing of the party, even if Sanders is the nominee.
In an interview with PBS’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday night, senior Bloomberg advisor Timothy O’Brien made it clear that the DNC is in no condition to refuse being devoured by Bloomberg, even if they wanted to. O’brien predicted the Republicans will spend at least $900 million on the election, while the DNC has only about $8 million on hand. Even the oligarch’s underlings are telegraphing the takeover game plan.
Bloomberg is not so much running for president as making sure that the Democrats don’t go “rogue” anti-corporate to accommodate the Sandernistas. He is ensuring that the Democratic Party will be an even more hostile environment for anti-austerity politics than in the past – not in spite of the phenomenal success of the Sanders project, but because of it.
Ford has not much love for Bernie Sanders, as he finds Sanders (and his supporters) weak for sticking with the Democrats. Ford thinks Sanders should go “third party” in his opposition to the corrupt duopoly that owns our politics. That’s a point on which we can disagree without disagreeing that the duopoly is indeed corrupt, or that Bloomberg is setting himself up for post-electoral mischief.
Ford also thinks the Party will split in the face of this anti-Sanders resistance, especially if the counter-resistance continues after a President Sanders is inaugurated.
We’ll see about all that. Ford may be right in his estimate of Bloomberg’s intentions. He may also be right in Bloomberg’s ability to carry through if his intentions are indeed as Machiavellian as he says.
On the other hand, Sanders may gather to himself enough control of the DNC and other Party machinery that he does indeed transform it, and with it, slowly, the Party itself. That’s certainly been his game plan, and if he does indeed have a movement behind him — a really big one — I wouldn’t bet against him being right. I myself don’t see a way for a third party to succeed in the U.S. unless it’s a “virtual third party” — but more on that at another time.
The Larger Point
So this is our smaller point, that Mike Bloomberg may be positioning himself to “own” the DNC, and with it enough of the Democratic Party, so that he can himself rein in a President Sanders. Is that his goal? It certainly seems possible. “Mini-Mike” is certainly Machiavellian.
Which leads to the larger point: How much rebellion, within the DNC and elsewhere, with or without Bloomberg’s interference, will someone like President Sanders encounter and how long will it last? If it lasts throughout his presidency, that’s a horse of a different color — a much darker one.
In fact, the dark horse of today’s American politics is the entrenched, corrupt (and frankly, pathological) über-rich and their death grip on all of our governing institutions, including the press. Will that death grip tighten as the Sanders movement grows? And will they continue to squeeze the throats of the working class, even as the victims find their own throats and tighten in response?
Would you bet, in other words, that the rich who rule us wouldn’t kill the country that feeds their wealth — wouldn’t spark such a confused and violent rebellion that even they would be forced at last to flee — won’t do all all this out of animus, pique and world-historical hubris?
That bet is even money all the way. They just might try it, just might be willing to strangle the body itself, the political body, just to see how far it they can get by doing it.
.... early Saturday morning the union leadership texted its members not to vote for Bernie - they didn't listen.
Fred Klonsky: Last week on Facebook I got a message from American Federation President Randi Weingarten blasting me for supporting Bernie Sanders on Medicare for All. “Why are you not listening to so many of our members that want to drive down costs, that want to take on big pharma and the insurance companies, but they want to have the choice on their insurance?” Randi challenged me. “I agree with Culinary,” she said.
Randi is listening to the anti-Bernie crowd, not "our members" who will ignore her as they have in the past. Randi wants us to have a choice in health plans. But more on that later.
And of course much of the Culinary rank and file went against the union leadership (and Randi) recommendation and voted for Bernie as Fred reports below. The story was subverted with the claims of the leadership that they were under attack by Bernie Bros - which probably has some truth but I never saw the name of one clearly identified Bernie supporter - in fact when you hear the Bernie Bro stories why aren't those people revealed and publicly shamed? From what I was reading, the actions of the leadership were very influenced by Nevada machine head Harry Reid (who may be the source of those phony "Bernie wanting to challenge Obama in the 2012 primary" stories. (Bernie told people to ask Harry Reid if it's true, yet the opponents like Biden continue to pass the story on.)
Here is a report from The Nation:
“How a Rank-and-File Revolt in Las Vegas Dealt Bernie a Winning Hand” [The Nation]. “Shortly after noon, caucus participants were asked to rise from their chairs and vote with their feet. The vast majority promptly marched directly to Sanders’s side of the room. Surprised by their strength, Bernie’s supporters erupted in cheers and more than one of us broke down in tears. It would be hard to overstate the political importance of Saturday’s win, which was replicated across the seven Las Vegas strip caucuses. A workforce made up predominantly of women of color enthusiastically gave their votes to a candidate who mainstream media pundits have repeatedly told them is backed only by white guys. Though one should never underestimate the perfidy of the corporate punditry, it’s possible that these strip workers, together with Nevada’s broader multiracial working class, may have finally put the ‘Bernie Bro’ myth out of its misery.”
But back to Randi, who still gives me a good laugh.
At yesterday's debate, Bloomberg talked about how well teachers were treated in NYC - just ask the union. While most teachers laughed out loud, I wasn't laughing because by "ask the union" he meant his old pal Randi Weingarten, then UFT president and not president of the AFT.
I reported on the great articles exposing Bloomberg's horror stories but so far haven't seen critiques coming out of the UFT.
Now she tries to play it coy about the Bernie movement, even adding him to the list of three potential endorsements (Biden and Warren too). But she had no choice given that if he won the nomination she would look real dumb. So Bernie was tossed in to the mix - and I also think that internal polling probably shows Bernie has the most support -- witness the UTLA and other teacher union endorsements for Bernie. So she had no choice.
But you know my mantra that I created by observing Randi - watch what she does, now what she says. Like the fact her surrogate, Mike Mulgrew is running as a Biden delegate -as a "private citizen" LOL - for where the leadership is really at. Randi is a super delegate and if Bernie doesn't get the majority going into the convention, and it's between him and Bloomberg, do we think Randi would vote for Bernie? I have my doubts.
Last week on Facebook I got a message from American Federation President Randi Weingarten blasting me for supporting Bernie Sanders on Medicare for All. “Why are you not listening to so many of our members that want to drive down costs, that want to take on big pharma and the insurance companies, but they want to have the choice on their insurance?” Randi challenged me. “I agree with Culinary,” she said.
More than 60% of Nevada caucus-goers support eliminating private insurance and moving to a single-payer healthcare system, according to a poll conducted by Edison Media Research as Democratic voters entered their precincts Saturday. The entrance poll showed that 62% of Nevada caucus-goers “support replacing all private health insurance with a single government plan for everyone,” the Washington Post reported. Single-payer received a similar level of support among Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Nevada caucus-goers also ranked healthcare as their top issue, followed by the climate crisis and income inequality. “It’s fair to say Democratic leadership fails to understand how much everyday Americans hate their private healthcare coverage,” tweeted TIME contributor Christopher Hale.
It turns out Nevada’s culinary workers have a better sense of class solidarity than the President of the American Federation of Teachers.
Despite the leadership of Nevada’s largest union criticizing Bernie Sanders over his health care plan in the lead-up to the state’s presidential caucus, the majority of union members caucusing at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas strip backed Sanders on Saturday. Some workers who spoke to BuzzFeed News said they support Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal, even though they appreciate the union health care they have, because they have friends and relatives who don’t have union health care and worry about what would happen if they lost their jobs.
And note that the Clark County teacher union - the largest in Nevada - endorsed Bernie - and also note that they are one of the few independent large unions - not NEA (which they left) nor the AFT.
My main take away from the election, aside from pleasure at the size
of Bernie’s victory, is how it exposed a giant chasm between union
leadership and the rank and file over Medicare for All. Health care and health insurance was the number one issue for caucus voters and over 60% support Bernie on the issue. Even as the leadership of the Culinary workers union trashed Bernie over it. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has been outspoken in her opposition to Bernie and Medicare for All. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka says he “hates” Medicare 4 All. They all claim their members love employer-provided health insurance. But nobody loves it. Most workers don’t have it. Get fired and there’s nothing to love. But Nevada’s voters rejected their leadership’s position and demonstrated the rejection on Saturday in a big way. Why are the union leaders so clueless about it? Because they live lives that have nothing in common with the lives their members live. They don’t share their members fears of serious illness and what that would cost them. They say it is a great benefit that was bargained and won by them. Those of us who had to bargain for health care every contract know how fragile a benefit it is for even those that have it.
OK - it's Fred Klonsky celebration day here at ed notes: A third blast from Fred - I wish he were doing commentary for the Bernie campaign - where he explodes Randi's argument that we want choice (jeez, echoes of the charter school bullshit).
Weingarten's Healthcare "choice" has echoes of Janus
What I find most troubling about Randi Weingarten’s response (the personal stuff about me not listening
is just silly and typical of union leadership whenever their positions
are challenged) is that she frames the issue with the language of choice. I was startled to hear a public employee union leader frame this
debate using the language of the enemies of collective bargaining rights
and collective action.
Digging into the Culinary Workers union story
The actions of the leadership of the Culinary Workers in its attack on Bernie Sanders for his health care plan were somewhat dishonest and the response of the members in giving Bernie the big victory is telling about many union leaderships and the rank and file. Leaderships are often part of the Democratic Party apparatus. Harry Reid is a power in Nevada. A non-reported part of the story was that early Saturday morning the union leadership texted its members not to vote for Bernie - they didn't listen.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would “end Culinary Healthcare” if elected president, according to a new one-pager the politically powerful Culinary Union is posting back of house on the Las Vegas Strip.
The new flyer, a copy of which was obtained by The Nevada Independent, compares the positions on health care, “good jobs” and immigration of six Democratic presidential hopefuls who have come to the union’s headquarters over the last two months to court its members. But the primary difference outlined in the document, which is being distributed in both English and Spanish, is in the candidates’ positions on health care, taking particular aim at the Vermont senator over his Medicare-for-all policy, which would establish a single-payer, government run health insurance system.
The flyer says Sanders, if elected president, would “end Culinary Healthcare,” “require ‘Medicare For All,’” and “lower drug prices.” The language it uses to describe the position of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who also supports Medicare for all after a transition period, is much gentler: “‘Medicare for All,’” “replace Culinary Healthcare after 3-year transition or at end of collective bargaining agreements,” and “lower drug prices.”
This is a huge and diverse union and it does not play games.
The union, considered an organizing behemoth in the Silver State, has been known to tip the scales in elections in the past. Though the 60,000-member union has not yet decided whether it will endorse in the Democratic presidential primary, the flyer appears to be part of a coordinated campaign ahead of Nevada’s Feb. 22 Democratic presidential primary and shows the union will not be sitting idly by, with or without an endorsement. A spokeswoman for the Culinary Union said the flyer is also going out to members Tuesday night via text and email.
As of mid-February, Michael Bloomberg has spentover $400 million
on his presidential campaign, including blanketing the air waves with
ads and is on track to spend more than a billion dollars. As a result,
he has risen sharply in the polls, and in turn, begun to receive
critical attention regarding his record on certain issues, such as
racial profiling and his stop-and-frisk policies.
When I heard that he was running for president, it felt like the return of a bad dream.
However, Bloomberg’s record on education has been glossed over. When it is mentioned at all, he has beenvaguely praised,
as in a recent Thomas Friedman column, for championing “virtually
every progressive cause” including “education reform for predominantly
minority schools.”
A quandary does not have a solution. There is no way out.
The conflict of interest between the Donor Class and the Voting Class
has become too large to contain within a single party. It must split.....Sanders rightly calls this “socialism for the
rich.” The usual word for this is oligarchy. That seems to be a missing word in today’s mainstream vocabulary. ...to call oneself a “centrist” is simply a euphemism for acting as a
lobbyist for siphoning up income and wealth to the One Percent. In an
economy that is polarizing, the choice is either to favor them instead
of the 99 Percent..... Michael Hudson, posted at Naked Capitalism
This is worth reading - twice. A deep dive by Hudson into what is really going on in the Democratic Party and the role it really serves. The attacks on Bernie are the symptom. MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace freaked out when Bernie called Bloomberg an oligarch. (The donor class and its sycophants in the press are oh so sensitive about being called out.)
I went to a Naked capitalism event and met Hudson who sat next to me in the bar and had an excellent chat with him. I was very interested in the UFT stories I had to tell.
Posted by Yves Smith who comments: Further down in this
post, Hudson suggests how Sanders could address the false dichotomy
between capitalism and socialism posted by Democrats aligned with the
super wealthy.
To hear the candidates debate, you would think that their fight was
over who could best beat Trump. But when Trump’s billionaire twin Mike
Bloomberg throws a quarter-billion dollars into an ad campaign to bypass
the candidates actually running for votes in Iowa, New Hampshire and
Nevada, it’s obvious that what really is at issue is the future of the
Democrat Party. Bloomberg is banking on a brokered convention held by
the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in which money votes. (If
“corporations are people,” so is money in today’s political world.)
Until Nevada, all the presidential candidates except for Bernie
Sanders were playing for a brokered convention. The party’s candidates
seemed likely to be chosen by the Donor Class, the One Percent and its
proxies, not the voting class (the 99 Percent). If, as Mayor Bloomberg
has assumed, the DNC will sell the presidency to the highest bidder,
this poses the great question: Can the myth that the Democrats represent
the working/middle class survive? Or, will the Donor Class trump the
voting class?
This could be thought of as “election interference” – not from Russia
but from the DNC on behalf of its Donor Class. That scenario would make
the Democrats’ slogan for 2020 “No Hope or Change.” That is, no from
today’s economic trends that are sweeping wealth up to the One Percent. All this sounds like Rome at the end of the Republic in the 1stcentury
BC. The way Rome’s constitution was set up, candidates for the position
of consul had to pay their way through a series of offices. The process
started by going deeply into debt to get elected to the position of
aedile, in charge of staging public games and entertainments. Rome’s
neoliberal fiscal policy did not tax or spend, and there was little
public administrative bureaucracy, so all such spending had to be made
out of the pockets of the oligarchy. That was a way of keeping decisions
about how to spend out of the hands of democratic politics. Julius
Caesar and others borrowed from the richest Bloomberg of their day,
Crassus, to pay for staging games that would demonstrate their public
spirit to voters (and also demonstrate their financial liability to
their backers among Rome’s One Percent). Keeping election financing
private enabled the leading oligarchs to select who would be able to run
as viable candidates. That was Rome’s version of Citizens United.
But in the wake of Sanders’ landslide victory in Nevada, a brokered
convention would mean the end of the Democrat Party pretense to
represent the 99 Percent. The American voting system would be seen to be
as oligarchic as that of Rome on the eve of the infighting that ended
with Augustus becoming Emperor in 27 BC.
Today’s pro-One Percent media – CNN, MSNBC and The New York Timeshave
been busy spreading their venom against Sanders. On Sunday, February
23, CNN ran a slot, “Bloomberg needs to take down Sanders, immediately.”[1]Given
Sanders’ heavy national lead, CNN warned, the race suddenly is almost
beyond the vote-fixers’ ability to fiddle with the election returns.
That means that challengers to Sanders should focus their attack on him;
they will have a chance to deal with Bloomberg later (by which CNN
means, when it is too late to stop him).
The party’s Clinton-Obama recipients of Donor Class largesse pretend
to believe that Sanders is not electable against Donald Trump. This
tactic seeks to attack him at his strongest point. Recent polls show
that he is the only candidate who actually would defeat Trump – as they
showed that he would have done in 2016.
The DNC knew that, but preferred to lose to Trump than to win with
Bernie. Will history repeat itself? Or to put it another way, will this
year’s July convention become a replay of Chicago in 1968?
A quandary, not a problem. Last year I was asked to
write a scenario for what might happen with a renewed DNC theft of the
election’s nomination process. To be technical, I realize, it’s not
called theft when it’s legal. In the aftermath of suits over the 2016
power grab, the courts ruled that the Democrat Party is indeed
controlled by the DNC members, not by the voters. When it comes to party
machinations and decision-making, voters are subsidiary to the
superdelegates in their proverbial smoke-filled room (now replaced by
dollar-filled foundation contracts).
I could not come up with a solution that does not involve dismantling
and restructuring the existing party system. We have passed beyond the
point of having a solvable “problem” with the Democratic National
Committee (DNC). That is what a quandary is. A problem has a solution –
by definition. A quandary does not have a solution. There is no way out.
The conflict of interest between the Donor Class and the Voting Class
has become too large to contain within a single party. It must split.
A second-ballot super-delegate scenario would mean that we are once
again in for a second Trump term. That option was supported by five of
the six presidential contenders on stage in Nevada on Wednesday,
February 20. When Chuck Todd asked whether Michael Bloomberg, Elizabeth
Warren, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar would support the
candidate who received the most votes in the primaries (now obviously
Bernie Sanders), or throw the nomination to the super-delegates held
over from the Obama-Clinton neoliberals (75 of whom already are said to
have pledged their support to Bloomberg), each advocated “letting the
process play out.” That was a euphemism for leaving the choice to the
Tony-Blair style leadership that have made the Democrats the servants’
entrance to the Republican Party. Like the British Labour Party behind
Blair and Gordon Brown, its role is to block any left-wing alternative
to the Republican program on behalf of the One Percent.
This problem would not exist if the United States had a
European-style parliamentary system that would enable a third party to
obtain space on the ballots in all 50 states. If this were Europe, the
new party of Bernie Sanders, AOC et al.would exceed 50 percent
of the votes, leaving the Wall Street democrats with about the same 8
percent share that similar neoliberal democratic parties have in Europe (e.g.,
Germany’s hapless neoliberalized Social Democrats), that is, Klobocop
territory as voters moved to the left. The “voting Democrats,” the 99
Percent, would win a majority leaving the Old Neoliberal Democrats in
the dust.
The DNC’s role is to prevent any such challenge. The United States
has an effective political duopoly, as both parties have created such
burdensome third-party access to the ballot box in state after state
that Bernie Sanders decided long ago that he had little alternative but
to run as a Democrat. The problem is that the Democrat Party does not seem to be
reformable. That means that voters still may simply abandon it – but
that will simply re-elect the Democrats’ de facto 2020 candidate, Donald
Trump. The only hope would be to shrink the party into a shell,
enabling the old guard to go way so that the party could be rebuilt from
the ground up.
But the two parties have created a legal duopoly reinforced with so
many technical barriers that a repeat of Ross Perot’s third party (not
to mention the old Socialist Party, or the Whigs in 1854) would take
more than one election cycle to put in place. For the time being, we may
expect another few months of dirty political tricks to rival those of
2016 as Obama appointee Tom Perez is simply the most recent version of
Florida fixer Debbie Schultz-Wasserman (who gave a new meaning to the
Wasserman Test).
So we are in for another four years of Donald Trump. But by 2024, how tightly will the U.S. economy find itself tied in knots?
The Democrats’ Vocabulary of Deception How I would explain Bernie’s program. Every economy
is a mixed economy. But to hear Michael Bloomberg and his fellow rivals
to Bernie Sanders explain the coming presidential election, one would
think that an economy must be either capitalist or, as Bloomberg put it,
Communist. There is no middle ground, no recognition that capitalist
economies have a government sector, which typically is called the
“socialist” sector – Social Security, Medicare, public schooling, roads,
anti-monopoly regulation, and public infrastructure as an alternative
to privatized monopolies extracting economic rent.
What Mr. Bloomberg means by insisting that it’s either capitalism or
communism is an absence of government social spending and regulation. In
practice this means oligarchic financial control, because every economy
is planned by some sector. The key is, who will do the planning? If
government refrains from taking the lead in shaping markets, then Wall
Street takes over – or the City in London, Frankfurt in Germany, and the
Bourse in France.
Most of all, the aim of the One Percent is to distract attention from
the fact that the economy is polarizing – and is doing so at an
accelerating rate. National income statistics are rigged to show that
“the economy” is expanding. The pretense is that everyone is getting
richer and living better, not more strapped. But the reality is that all
the growth in GDP has accrued to the wealthiest 5 Percent since the
Obama Recession began in 2008. Obama bailed out the banks instead of the
10 million victimized junk-mortgage holders. The 95 Percent’s share of
GDP has shrunk.
The GDP statistics do not show is that “capital gains” – the market
price of stocks, bonds and real estate owned mainly by the One to Five
Percent – has soared, thanks to Obama’s $4.6 trillion Quantitative
Easing pumped into the financial markets instead of into the “real”
economy in which wage-earners produce goods and services.
How does one “stay the course” in an economy that is polarizing?
Staying the course means continuing the existing trends that are
concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the One Percent, that
is, the Donor Class – while loading down the 99 Percent with more debt,
paid to the One Percent (euphemized as the economy’s “savers”). All
“saving” is at the top of the pyramid. The 99 Percent can’t afford to
save much after paying their monthly “nut” to the One Percent.
If this economic polarization is impoverishing most of the population
while sucking wealth and income and political power up to the One
Percent, then to be a centrist is to be the candidate of oligarchy. It
means not challenging the economy’s structure.
Language is being crafted to confuse voters into imagining that their interest is the same as that of the Donor Class of rentiers,
creditors and financialized corporate businesses and rent-extracting
monopolies. The aim is to divert attention from voters’ their own
economic interest as wage-earners, debtors and consumers. It is to
confuse voters not to recognize that without structural reform, today’s
“business as usual” leaves the One Percent in control.
So to call oneself a “centrist” is simply a euphemism for acting as a
lobbyist for siphoning up income and wealth to the One Percent. In an
economy that is polarizing, the choice is either to favor them instead
of the 99 Percent.
That certainly is not the same thing as stability. Centrism sustains
the polarizing dynamic of financialization, private equity, and the
Biden-sponsored bankruptcy “reform” written by his backers of the
credit-card companies and other financial entities incorporated in his
state of Delaware. He was the senator for the that state’s Credit Card
industry, much as former Democratic VP candidate Joe Lieberman was the
senator from Connecticut’s Insurance Industry.
A related centrist demand is that of Buttigieg’s and Biden’s aim to
balance the federal budget. This turns out to be a euphemism for cutting
back Social Security, Medicare and relate social spending (“socialism”)
to pay for America’s increasing militarization, subsidies and tax cuts
for the One Percent. Sanders rightly calls this “socialism for the
rich.” The usual word for this is oligarchy. That seems to be a missing word in today’s mainstream vocabulary.
The alternative to democracy is oligarchy. As Aristotle noted already in the 4thcentury
BC, oligarchies turn themselves into hereditary aristocracies. This is
the path to serfdom. To the vested financial interests, Hayek’s “road to
serfdom” means a government strong enough to tax wealth and keep basic
essential infrastructure in the public domain, providing its services to
the population at subsidized prices instead of letting its services be
monopolized.
Confusion over the word “socialism” may be cleared up by recognizing
that every economy is mixed, and every economy is planned – by someone.
If not the government in the public interest, then by Wall Street and
other financial centers in theirinterest. They fought against
an expanding government sector in every economy today, calling it
socialism – without acknowledging that the alternative, as Rosa
Luxemburg put it, is barbarism.
I think that Sanders is using the red-letter word “socialism” and
calling himself a “democratic socialist” to throw down the ideological
gauntlet and plug himself into the long and powerful tradition of
socialist politics. Paul Krugman would like him to call himself a social
democrat. But the European parties of this name have discredited this
label as being centrist and neoliberal. Sanders wants to emphasize that a
quantum leap, a phase change is in order.
If he can be criticized for waving a needlessly red flag, it is his
repeated statement that his program is designed for the “working class.”
What he means are wage-earners and this includes the middle class. Even
those who make over $100,000 a year are still wage earners, and
typically are being squeezed by a predatory financial sector, a
predatory medical insurance sector, drug companies and other monopolies.
The danger in this terminology is that most workers like to think of
themselves as middle class, because that is what they would like to rise
into. That is especially he case for workers who own their own home
(even if mortgage represents most of the value, so that most of the
home’s rental value is paid to banks, not to themselves as part of the
“landlord class”), and have an education (even if most of their added
income is paid out as student debt service), and their own car to get to
work (involving automobile debt).
The fact is that even $100,000 executives have difficulty living
within the limits of their paycheck, after paying their monthly nut of
home mortgage or rent, medical care, student loan debt, credit-card debt
and automobile debt, not to mention 15% FICA paycheck withholding and
state and local tax withholding.
Of course, Sanders’ terminology is much more readily accepted by
wage-earners as the voters whom Hillary called “Deplorables” and Obama
called “the mob with pitchforks,” from whom he was protecting his Wall
Street donors whom he invited to the White House in 2009. But I think
there is a much more appropriate term: the 99 Percent, made popular by
Occupy Wall Street. That is Bernie’s natural constituency. It serves to
throw down the gauntlet between democracy and oligarchy, and between
socialism and barbarism, by juxtaposing the 99 Percent to the One
Percent.
The Democratic presidential debate on February 25 will set the stage
for Super Tuesday’s “beauty contest” to gauge what voters want. The
degree of Sanders’ win will help determine whether the byzantine
Democrat party apparatus that actually will be able to decide on the
Party’s candidate. The expected strong Sanders win is will make the
choice stark: either to accept who the voters choose – namely, Bernie
Sanders – or to pick a candidate whom voters already have rejected, and
is certain to lose to Donald Trump in November.
If that occurs, the Democrat Party will evaporate as its old
Clinton-Obama guard is no longer able to protect its donor class on Wall
Street and corporate America. Too many Sanders voters would stay home
or vote for the Greens. That would enable the Republicans to maintain
control of the Senate and perhaps even grab back the House of
Representatives.
But it would be dangerous to assume that the DNC will be reasonable.
Once again, Roman history provides a “business as usual” scenario. The
liberal German politician Theodor Mommsen published his History of Romein
1854-56, warning against letting an aristocracy block reform by
controlling the upper house of government (Rome’s Senate, or Britain
House of Lords). The leading families who overthrew the last king in 509
BC created a Senate chronically prone to being stifled by its leaders’
“narrowness of mind and short-sightedness that are the proper and
inalienable privileges of all genuine patricianism.”[2]
These qualities also are the distinguishing features of the DNC. Sanders had better win big! ________________ [1]https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/22/opinions/bloomberg-needs-to-take-down-sanders-lockhart/index.html.
Joe Lockhart, opinion. For the MSNBC travesty see from February 23,
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/23/msnbc-full-blown-freakout-mode-bernie-sanders-cements-status-democratic-frontrunner,
by Jake Johnson. [2]Mommsen, History of Rome, 1911: 268.
