NEA’s President Dennis Van Roekel’s Letter to NEA Delegates of May 5

Rich Gibson

Friends ~ On Thursday, May 5, 2011, the NEA Political Action Committee approved a recommendation to come to RA delegates -- our highest governing body -- to support the re-election of President Barack Obama. During the Representative Assembly, July 2-5, delegates will act on the PAC's recommendation.

 

To be very clear, this does not mean that NEA has endorsed or recommended President Obama. What it means is that the PAC Council -- which includes every NEA state Association president and representatives from several constituent groups -- will be asking you, our RA delegates, to recommend President Obama this summer in Chicago.

 

The obvious questions: Why now? What are the advantages and disadvantages for our members? And what are the advantages and disadvantages for our Association? I expect you will have lots more questions of your own -- and we will have plenty of time to debate this at the Representative Assembly.

 

For now, please watch my <https://dennis2delegates.groupsite.com/main/summary>new video on Dennis2Delegates for my personal message to you on this action, which takes on some of the obvious questions posed above.

 

And please continue to check D2D regularly in the coming weeks. This site will be a great source of information leading up to the 2011 Representative Assembly, and well beyond the RA as we take on so many important issues that affect us.

 

Dennis Van Roekel

 

You cannot make this stuff up. Let's see. A third war (ok by most fake educators), financial bailouts to the banksters, Arne Duncan, a full scale assault on reason and wages in school, 2.3 million mostly poor and black people incarcerated, attacks on immigrants that exceed the Bush era, a speech about the assassination of OBL that dripped with mysticism, nationalism and treacle, the refusal to publish the OBL photos denying he's a trophy, then a victory lap at "ground zero" , and a very real promise of perpetual war matched by booming inequality as the bill for foreign invasions comes home to workers.

 

This is NEA's buddy.

 

Reformers typically buttress fascism. The more people buy into the legal system where the fascist Supremes, millionaires in black robes, rule; into the Constitution, written to protect the rich and their properties; into holograms of democracy like unions which are not democratic nor unions in any sense of solidarity or resistance, the more they give up (eager to make concessions in Wisconsin in order, only, to preserve dues check off) , the more people "Defend Public Education" (an indefensible myth); the more people protest under American nationalist flags; the more people stay in line behind union tops who profit from betraying those who they claim to represent---selling labor peace and nationalist warfare in exchange for fat salaries---the more the people see the Democrats as "lesser evils" the more they ratify evil, and the sharper become the attacks from capital as capital in crisis, as it is, MUST attack. That is the track record of fascist self-alienation.