NEA Tops Move to Back Obama, Again
Rich Gibson
May 7, 2011
In
the 2008 election cycle, the National Education Association, the largest union
in the US, by far, spent more money on the Obama campaign than any other union,
had more volunteers working for him, and more members on the floor of the
Democratic National Convention than any other group. NEA leaders like Dennis
Van Roekel, now President of NEA, bragged about their effective support for
Obama repeatedly.
Now,
after a third war (ok by most fake educators), $12.9 trillion of 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
Osama Bin Laden 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–after all this, NEA wants to be an early endorser of Arne Duncan.
“NEA’s
President Dennis Van Roekel’s Letter to NEA Delegates of May 5
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”
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.
Everything is
in place that would indicate the possibility of a full rearrangement of social
relations:
*a break down of competence,
morals and ethics at the top,
*growing dissension in the ruling
classes despite their ability to unite in class war,
*failing foreign wars led by inept
generals and corrupt corporations,
*incompetence and transparent
degeneracy in government and the corporate world,
*an obvious all out assault on the
dispossessed from every angle, (employment, wages, benefits, pensions, social
service net, mass incarceration, deportations, etc.),
*a turn to sheer force whenever
even mild resistance appears,
*flat-footed deception (“this is
not a war and it has no cost”),
*accelerators of social change
multiply (Wisconsin, the Middle East, etc.),
*an attack on reason itself as
irrationalism infects even the military,
*real hope vanishes while false
hope remains powerful,
*inability or unwillingness of
elites to use carrots, mild reforms, to divert struggle.
There is resistance as people must
resist in order to live.
At issue: will people make sense
of why they must resist (class war, imperialist war) and seek a fundamental
transformation of the way things are as well as sustainable reforms? Will people once again disappear into
Democratic Party voting booths, asking capital’s favorite question: “What about
me?” in pathetic isolation. Or will people withdraw the “mandate from heaven,”
that is today the fetish of “democracy,” and overturn class relations?
Or will people merely be defeated
for the time being, be crushed?
Good luck to our side.
Rgibson@pipeline.com
Rich Gibson is an emeritus professor at
San Diego State University.