Election Post Mortem: John Liu is the Bomb

I'm not all that big on the voting process, given the fact that the choices we have are so narrow and the people who run need to raise so much money.

Voting is the least involvement (choose from amongst the very poor choices being offered by the wealthy oligarchy and go away for the next 4 years) and it is just not enough.

But given the election results, there is already speculation about the 2012 mayoral election.

Quinn? A Bloomie suckup. DeBlasio has a history of accommodating Bloomberg. Liu gives no quarter. And has the guts to do it. He showed up at the CPE founding convention and seems willing to lay waste to Bloomberg on education and other issues.

How gratified to read in yesterday's Times: ...when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu...Mr. Liu could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight.

Liu told the reporter, "A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City."

DeBlasio, on the other hand, who will be a major rival of Liu in jockeying for position, did meet with Bloomberg, despite the fact Bloomberg had called for the abolition of the office of Public Advocate.

Thus the landscape of the next 4 years was laid down the day after the election. I'm betting on Liu being smart enough to be as tough as anyone could get on Bloomberg, while DeBlasio already showed Bloomberg will have an easier time with him.

Watch the attacks on Liu start real soon. Anthony Weiner caved at the first hints of a Bloomberg assault. Liu will not be such an easy mark.

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Educate, Organize, Mobilize

From some of my young radical friends, the themes of educate, organize, mobilize (when necessary.) The first 2 are ongoing.

I take the same view of lobbying by individuals and groups with small constituencies. One of my friends talks about going to Albany to lobby against the charter school cap. Sure, why not try and compete with billions of stimulus funds. On the other hand, have thousands behind you with the ability to educate, organize and mobilize and you have another thing altogether when you try to lobby. Call it "muscle."

The UFT has all the elements in place to do this effectively but they don't educate their members or the public on the major issues (what they do is propagandize). They do minimal organizing in terms of the long term. An educated and organized membership would look at the operation they run and laugh. And they only mobilize for a narrow agenda once in a while. The UFT "muscle" in terms of results for members and the schools is fairly tiny.

Comments on UFT and Bloomberg Embarrassing Win

Did Thompson run a campaign that could have won?

A couple of things were obvious during the long slog to today's Bloomberg "win." To have Thompson come so close is astounding and the closeness given the spending is almost being painted like a loss by the TV press. 5 points. Here are two emails that rolled in on ICE mail:

So from a position of weakness; not endorsing Thompson, we end up with a Bloomberg win by less than fifty thousand votes. Nice move UFT, excellent strategy to stay on the sidelines.
.......

Remember when [UFT Legislative Rep] Egan said that [at the Oct. DA] UFT endorsement would mean only a 3 pt.bump for Thompson?

I always questioned whether Thompson was running for mayor this year or in 2013. The catalogue of incompetencies in the campaign seemed astounding. He seemed to amble through, husbanding his resources and the UFT non-endorsement of one of their long-time buddies almost seemed like a plan. "You're still our candidate for mayor. Just not this year."

The NY Times had an interesting article on the campaign, with this dig at Thompson:

Three weeks before the election, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made an appearance with Mr. Bloomberg before a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.

Whatever message they had hoped to convey was drowned out by Mr. Giuliani’s speech, in which he suggested the city could not afford to return to the bad days before 1993, when the city’s first black mayor reigned, adding, “And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who had prided himself on lowering the city’s racial temperature, was furious. The mayor’s advisers recognized the statement could become a nightmare if Mr. Thompson’s campaign exploited it deftly.

Mr. Thompson’s advisers pleaded with him to seize the opening.

“I talked to the Thompson campaign and said, ‘This is the decisive moment, it may be the best opportunity to change the race,’ ” a Democratic leader said. But Mr. Thompson refused to make a big fuss about the statement. He addressed it only in passing, relying on surrogates to take on the mayor. The Bloomberg campaign braced itself. But the storm never came.

Many always thought that Anthony Weiner could have won and today it is clear he could have. But no guts, no glory as he backed off at the first sound of unfriendly fire out of the Bloomberg camp.

In many ways, what the campaign was selling was a charade. Inside the campaign, pollsters and consultants fretted over surveys that showed New Yorkers angry over term limits, anguished over the economy and eager for change. Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election numbers were alarmingly low for a two-term incumbent. <>

Mr. Tusk started to hold daily meetings about how to knock Mr. Weiner out of the race, unleashing a two-pronged attack: making on-the-record statements belittling his record and encouraging embarrassing articles in the New York dailies. Negative articles began appearing, the most colorful of which purported to show that Mr. Weiner had skipped votes in Congress to play hockey in Manhattan.

Despite angry denunciations of what he called a smear campaign, the congressman slowly lost his will to take on the mayor.

On May 26 Mr. Weiner announced he would not run, and Mr. Tusk and Mr. Wolfson held a celebratory dinner at Peter Luger’s, splitting an $85 porterhouse steak.

When Weiner shows up at our doors in 3 years to announce he is running for mayor, give him the boot for his "no guts, not glory" philosophy.

ICE urges all readers to vote against Bloomberg!

Published at the ICE blogs and web site: UFT Elections 2010, ICE Blog, ICE Web site

ICE Statement on the Nov. 3, 2009 Vote for Mayor

The election on November 3^rd will have lasting consequences for public education and the city. It deserves the attention and involvement of all New Yorkers. The UFT has a long history of candidate endorsements made without any regular process of consultation with the membership and often contrary to members' interests. The decision to sit out the contest between Michael Bloomberg and his opponents speeds us to the brink of more disasters. If appearances are real and the UFT leadership's passive support for the mayor's reelection is a deal for a new UFT contract by deadline, our union is deeply complicit in another landmark defeat for the teaching profession.

Nearly eight years of direct control over the schools have provided Bloomberg with an unchecked opportunity to implement numerous policies premised on distrust and contempt for teachers, students and school communities. Early on with his rush to implement grade retention policy he put the blame on 8-year olds for low reading scores and further worked to make standardized testing a year-round concern. “Weekend, vacations, summer -- time off is a luxury earned, not a right,” he told a radio audience in 2002. Chancellor Klein went to work making testing an obsession for all schools by hanging their fate on it.

His administration accelerated the wholesale closing of neighborhood high schools. Together with a successful assault on teachers' contractual rights this led to the creation of an excess teacher reserve force in the thousands. The result of dozens of school phase-outs deepened the gulf between the two worlds children in New York encounter at the high school level. One consists mostly of large neighborhood or selective schools and is increasingly filled with white and Asian students An entirely different realm awaits black and Latino students consisting mostly of new small schools, stripped of both enrichment programs, IEP services and bilingual programs and plagued with teacher turnover.

The new schools have been staffed with discriminatory hiring through privately-run programs. Just as tens of millions in funding by Bill Gates went to school reorganizations, Eli Broad's millions were used to train principals to see teachers as antagonists. In recent years Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have extended the agenda of privatized education by embracing charter schools, displaying a marked preference for the chain operators. Their favoritism towards the charters has allowed them to invade neighborhood schools and shrink them.

For educational activists the past eight years have meant not only palpable damage but also lost opportunity for positive and progressive change. The Bloomberg monopoly of power has excluded local participation in decision making, eliminating a common entry into politics by Black and Latino New Yorkers. It has also preempted meaningful discussion around educational goals and policy. What should be the goals of a public education? How can schools do more just provide an exit from the poorest communities? How could schools be part of a collective effort to improve neighborhoods and increase democracy?

Bill Thompson has played an important role as city comptroller in exposing Bloomberg-era fraud and mismanagement. His supporters are waging a spirited fight against a billionaire mayor with lopsidedly less resources. It is difficult to offer Thompson unqualified support when he has thrown support to mayoral control and supports much of the underlying corporate agenda for education. The mayoral race this year also attracted Tony Avella (who Thompson defeated) and Billy Palen who is running as the Green Party candidate. Both advocated a more grassroots response to the current mess and it's a shame Thompson didn't adopt some of their policies in his campaign against the mayor.

Despite these differences anything other than energetic rejection of the Bloomberg monopoly is the wrong choice for our union.

We urge all readers to vote against Bloomberg!

Endorse Thomson Resolution Trashed at DA Fearful UFT Leaders Surrender to Bloombergs’s Reich

Special to Ed Notes

By Philip Nobile

Sometimes union loyalty asks too much. Like heeding the advice of UFT leaders at yesterday’s Delegate Assembly NOT to do the right thing by endorsing our ally Bill Thompson in favor of our enemy Mayor Bloomberg and avoiding his payback in contract negotiations.

Stretching for the offensive historical allusion, President Mulgrew, Political Action Director Egan, and Staff Director Barr told us not to join the Resistance because the Fuehrer might get mad. And the delegates, who originally voted enthusiastically to discuss the endorsement resolution, turned around and cheered Barr’s full throated, morally compromised, debate ending cri to postpone a decision. If things change in the next three weeks, he said, we can bring you back. As if.

Mulgrew telegraphed his Thompson position prior to the debate when he said, “I suspend my emotions” (read conscience) and voiced his mantra, repeated ad nauseam by the non-endorsers, about acting “in the best interest of the membership” and “our job is to protect their well being” … without adding “because a sweeter contract is more important than our integrity,” thus killing his shot at a Profile in Courage Award.

Speaking relentlessly against the resolution, Political Non-Action Director Egan earned the Dick Morris Triangulation Award for ticking off realistic political reasons for icing Thompson—the polls are bad, there’s an eight point gap, the best an endorsement can do is move three points, no winning strategy, other unions back Mayor, negotiations would end, why take the risk. Egan went further to ridicule the highroaders—“It’s not the Alamo. There’s nothing virtuous in falling on our sword.” So don’t fight Santa Anna in City Hall. Mulgrew profusely thanked the Triangulater for justifying surrender.

Speaking boldly for the resolution was a delegate who dared to unleash his emotions: We’re dying with bad data, U-ratings, reassignments, Bloomberg regime is brutal to teachers, to students, Thompson has supported us and he’s not Bloomberg who’s making hay on education. And virtuously falling on candor, the delegate conceded that Thompson would probably lose. Camus would love this guy, but not the Vichyites in the room.

In the end, Barr killed with his let’s-wait argument. “If we endorse Thompson,” he said, negotiations end. Now we are players. We have to do what’s best for the members.”

Contract, contract über Alles.

To understand all is not to forgive all.

Philip Nobile is a former staff writer for Esquire, New York, and the Village Voice. He has been reassigned to Brooklyn’s Chapel St. rubber room for the past two years on two trumped up (he says) corporal punishment complaints. Although OSI substantiated the complaints, to date the DOE has failed file charges.

Note: Ed Notes has not endorsed Thompson due to his refusal to rigorously attack Bloomberg's education record but urges people to vote for him to keep the Bloomberg winning percentage as low as possible. Nobile points to UFT political director Paul Egan's point that a UFT endorsement would at most mean around 3% points for Thompson (now we know the value of all the time and money the UFT spends on endorsements). The closer Thompson comes the weaker Bloomberg would be in the future based on a lower perceived mandate which would weaken him politically. We will add our own thoughts on the DA later.

See James Eterno's report at the ICE blog:

Foreign and Domestic

For my School Scope column in the October 16 edition of the Wave, www.rockawave.com.

By Norman Scott

The day after Obama’s election, working on my column for the Wave, I posed the question, “Will Obama turn out to be a great president or a failure? An FDR or a Herbert Hoover, who had an even lower approval rating than W? It could go either way. When you think of great presidents, they seem to emerge only in times of crisis. Think there are just a few lurking? FDR ran for president with a very different agenda than he ended up enacting due to desperate times. He showed the kind of flexibility that was needed. Policies that had a major impact for generations.”

“The problem I have had with Republicans is that they are driven by a narrow ideology that has helped put us into this mess. Like if you breathe government action, you are a socialist. But when it takes forms of socialism to bail out millionaires, why go right ahead. It was this sort of thinking that led to handing over billions to banks that should have had the requirement to be used as loans to free up credit but instead is being held onto by banks to buy other banks. One day soon we will have only 3 or 4 banks in this country. The only thing I have to fear is fear of Obama's dependence on the same old, same old Clinton people, who come out of places like Goldman Saks when we need some truly radical thinking. Bill Ayres, where are you when we need you?”

Well, almost a year later, it’s looking a lot more Hoover than FDR. Now don’t get me wrong. This is no tea-bag right wing criticism of Obama. I am coming from the far left, which has been just as critical. When the Republicans went after FDR’s radical (at the time) call for things like social security, he laughed at them and organized his core supporters in a form of class warfare (even though he as from the upper class) and became the most loved president by working people ever. Instead of following in FDR’s footsteps, Obama has kowtowed to his critics. For those of us itching for a class warfare fight, it is sickening.

Obama’s education policy is even worse than Bush’s as he supports all the evils that we have seen here in NYC as a result of the BloomKlein policies.

On the economy, Obama seems to have sided with the banking class that got us into the mess. Goldman Saks seems to be running the country – and making billions. Worse for Obama has been the rising unemployment rate. Remember the Hoovervilles – tent cities of homeless that sprung up all over the country between 1929 and 1932? Tampa recently rejected a Catholic charities proposal to create a tent city for the homeless. They didn’t call it Obamaville, but that is coming soon to a tent city near you.

How fast can you say “President Sarah Palin?” I’m already looking for a safe haven, like a condo in Kabul. Speaking of which….

Let’s talk Afghanistan

I must venture into foreign policy here before the raging debate on Afghanistan gets totally out of hand. First, a little historical perspective. Before Bush invaded after 9/11 that country had a rough stretch – of around 2000 years. Well, certainly 200 years. Take a look at a map of where Afghanistan sits. Iran on the east, Pakistan on the west and south and a bunch of small states that were part of the Soviet Union. The British controlled India/Pakistan until 1949 and ended up fighting 3 wars in Afghanistan to protect these areas from Russia. Every one was a disaster, with an entire British army being wiped out in the 1841. The more you look at history the more you can blame British colonial policy for many of the problems the world faces today as they created many artificial nations ignoring tribal realities. Can you spell I-R-A-Q? Add Palestine/Israel, India/Pakistan and the entire Middle East.

The Soviet Union took a crack at Afghanistan in 1979 when the Afghan government asked for help against a Mujahideen Islamist revolt, which was supported by Muslim nations, including Pakistan, while the government was supported by Pakistan’s enemy, India. (The results of those British colonial machinations again.) President Carter punished the Soviets by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and started sending aid to the rebels. But when Regan took over, he went much further, sending a great deal of support to the Mujahideen in an attempt to undermine the Soviet empire. The nine-year war really did in the Soviets and was instrumental in the ending of the Cold War. But watch out what you wish for. One of the people the Regan administration supported was a guy named Osama bin Laden and that led to the rise of Al Qaeda.

One of the strengths of the Taliban in defeating the Soviets was the moral imperative of fighting an incredibly corrupt and lawless government. With all the horrors they brought to the table, the Taliban also created such a harsh environment, the crooks and rapists couldn’t operate. All the Taliban did was cut off the heads of girls who wanted to go to school.

Now, jump ahead to George Bush and the post 9/11 invasion. Instead of focusing on solidifying Afghanistan and dealing with Pakistan’s support of Al Qaeda, he invaded Iraq, while leaving Afghanistan in the hands of one of the major crooks, Harmid Karzai. The “defeated” Taliban went back to work and “Voila”, 8 years later (one year less than the Soviet fun time in Afghanistan) we have the major pickle we are in.

Think back to Vietnam in the 60’s, with a fraction of the population and land area of Afghanistan. Our ally in South Vietnam had a corrupt and ineffective president. The CIA solution was to have Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated on November 2, 1963, an assassination approved by Kennedy. Three weeks later, he was dead himself. Remember, we pumped in over 500,000 troops. Estimates are that we would need at least double that in Afghanistan, not the measly 80,000 the military wants now. No matter how many troops end up there, the problem is Karzai and his band of merry thieves. That gives the Taliban the moral high ground. I wonder if the Obama administration sometimes doesn’t think of the assassination option as a “solution” to that part of the problem. No matter what they decide to do, all options lead to disaster – lose/lose no matter what Obama decides to do. No one wants see the Taliban in power again, but it may be inevitable given the lack of an effective Afghani government forever. (Hey, maybe they could use Mayor Mike running the country?) The question on the table is whether to also lose thousands of American lives and untold billions of dollars and still lose the war.

But no matter what, let’s never forget that this no-win position is a result of the Bush disaster. And no matter how bad the Obama presidency gets, I wouldn’t go backwards to a Bush-like Presidency for anything. But I’m afraid that’s exactly what will be happening in 2012. Hmmm, maybe I can get a deal on a condo in South Waziristan.

Big Guvment

I was listening to Mike Francese on the FAN yesterday. I have been a Mike fan since he started there 21 years ago. I used to call him up off air to ask for advice about a former student who had become a great high school basketball player. So I feel this long-term relationship with him.

But I am disconcerted when Mike enters into the political arena, which he did with his attack on the proposed health care changes yesterday. Mike takes the view that government can't do anything right. The corollary must be that private is better.

Well, I just had a day and a half of nightmare private plumbing, where a 10 minute job turned into hours. And 10 minutes after the guy left, the place leaked like a hole in a dike without a finger. And I actually know something about plumbing, having done lots of work on my own, including installing baseboard heating. I mean I can solder a joint. And sweat it. And put on the flux. This guy was a destroyer and I ended up with more work needed than when he started.
Hey, Mulgrew, where are all those apprentice plumbers you were working on?

I find Mike's take interesting since he knows his sports, none of which is under government control – at least the last I looked. Well, if you consider that politicians who run government are happy to subsidize any stadium that comes their way, I guess they are involved in sports. But has Mike looked at the privately managed NY Mets lately? Or the Knicks? How about the classic decade long failures in sports management like the San Diego Rockets. Or, even better, J-E-T-S!!!

This lauding of private over public leaves out so much about the enormous failures and errors privately managed organizations make all the time. Microsoft has been notorious for numerous errors in judgment and has wasted billions. Anyone remember Bob? Their bloated software is known not to work until they sell you 3 versions. They can waste these billions because they were brilliant in setting up a monopoly.

This is all pretty funny since Bill Gates thinks he knows what's wrong with public schools, yet brought the Microsoft ethos by getting the first iteration of small schools wrong. Now in the 2nd iteration, he is looking at teacher quality. Guess what Bill? Maybe on the third try you'll get it right. Try class size reduction.

How about all those captains of the financial meltdown? Can you spell A-I-G? How was that private management? The guvment owns so much of them and they don't seem to be doing worse.

Now I read that former Ebay chairwoman Meg Whitman, a McCain advisor (how did that work out) is running for governor of California. Whitman's errors at Ebay in recent years became legendary. Even I scratched my head when she bought SKYPE. (See recent NY Times on this one.) I'm not picking on women here, but how did Carly Fiorina (another McCain advisor who went down in flames) do at HP?

Now when it comes to health care, my wife knows a thing or two. She deals with the thievin' insurance companies and medicare all the time. In terms of competence, guvment wins all the time. (Right now she is looking forward to retirement so she won't have to deal with the the crew at GHI and HIP who don't know who covers what and when.)

So, Mike. Take a broad look at guvment and private and give us a balanced view.

Come to an Ed Notes Teabag Party and Town Hall Meeting

I've had it with all that socialist government interference. Why I was just driving and had to stop at a traffic light. And a STOP sign. There were speed limits. And worst of all, I was not able to drive on the other side of the road like those people with cute accents in England and Australia do. And Japan- the English accent there is not that cute.

We need more of this

How dare they keep us from driving wherever we want!
It's all because of Obama, that socialist.

Make a stand now.

Ed Notes is organizing town hall meetings nationwide to protest restrictive traffic laws.

Join us in ending tyranny.

Press Conf Today at City Hall to Congratulate State Senators

Some things I just don't get. There will be a press conference today on the steps of city hall sponsored by the senators who voted for the best of the mayoral control bills offered, but not a great one. This press conference is about supporting a set of fairly mild tweaks on mayoral control. No one involved wants to end it.

These senators do need some support since the Bloomberg gestapo are making robo calls to their constituents to turn the population against them. So if only for that, I'm all for this press conference as a way to fight the Bloomberg machine.

Generally, I'm not for wasting time organizing or catering to politicians. Let them play in their playpen. I'm not saying ignore politicians, but let's not cater to the least offensive.

I spoke to an aide from Bill Perkins' office last week at the PS 123 demo and Lynch also doesn't oppose mayoral control but seems open to listening. I like what he is doing this week with demos and meetings all week in Harlem on the charter school issue, culminating in an action at Tweed on Thursday (see sidebar.) He is tailing a movement that got started without politicians, but he is trying to take some leadership. Charles and Inez Barron have also been taking strong positions opposing mayoral control. And Tony Avella is garnering more and more support from teachers in his campaign for mayor.

This is a sign that if people start taking action, politicians will jump on board. It all depends on the numbers and organization. Build it and they will come. The question I still have: Do we really care if they do or don't? Their involvment will often lead to subversion as people look to them for solutions. The solutions lie with a movement of rank and file parents and teachers that can build credibility to force policians to act in their interests.

David (Bellel) Does Tony (Avella)

Our ICE/GEM spies at the mayoral candidate forum the other day came away pretty impressed with Tony Avella. Some guy named David (he is ubiquitous) did a tape. NY Times article here.

http://dbellel.blogspot.com/2009/07/tony-avella-on-education.html

Matt Taibbi on The Big Takeover

Select quotes from Taibbi's scathing piece in Rolling Stone

...this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror.

The Democrats, tired of getting slaughtered in the fundraising arena by Republicans, decided to throw off their old reliance on unions and interest groups and become more "business-friendly."

Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers.

the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

Illustration by Victor Juhasz

A MUST READ
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/

Related: Naomi Klein's Nov. 08 piece, The New Trough

The Obamagogues' Liars and Our Future

Susan Ohanian puts out a daily digest of dynamic articles. This one by Rich Gibson ties many points together from Geithner to Duncan to Obama. All these years we are told there is no money to reduce class size but magically trillions appear to bail out banks and for wars. Their solution is to look for quality, heroic teachers who will work 12 hour days till they burn out, who just happen to be brand new at half the salary. Why do we accept this? Gibson's call to action may be starting to resonate but there is a lot of work to be done. The communities under attack and socially conscious teacher must organize together so if it ever comes to having to shut down schools to fight back, there will be less chance of dividing people. There are two ways to shut down schools to stop the madness: a strike or a parent/student boycott. Imagine both.

Just a taste before reading the entire article. Gibson says:

"No money for schools - print it"

"This is a full scale class war, with the rich assaulting poor and working people everywhere. This is going on in schools, in warfare, in the financial crisis, in the health care system, in the foreclosures: everywhere."

"the union bosses are on the side of the banksters and their bought and paid for hucksters who serve in the executive committee of the rich, the government. The union bosses deny that this real class war is going on, and lure people into support for the emergence of what has all the markings of fascism, as with the eradication of any semblance of academic freedom in schools."

And my favorite:

"No money? Go print it. You did for the banksters, now go get ours. You admit that reason had nothing to do with the bailouts. That was about power. If you do the printing, we will not accept the money as
a bribe to go back in and continue the racist child abuse that is whatever you plan to call NCLB. We will treat the money, and our new colleagues, as victories, and we will press on for more still."

The Obamagogues' Liars and Our Future

http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=649
Publication Date: 2009-03-12
By Rich Gibson

It is not our education system. It is Theirs. It is not our economy. It is Theirs.


For those who had the time to stay up and watch Charlie Rose on PBS the last two nights, we were treated to Timothy Geithner, the new Treasury boss, and Arne Duncan, in that order.

What was striking to me was that, in contrast to The Obamagogue, they're both lousy liars.

Geithner looks like he is in a card game and knows that everyone at the table can see he is cheating, but he is smug enough to keep dealing off the bottom anyway. Geithner repeatedly said that those who led the world into this great financial crisis are bad people, but they must be saved as "we are all in this together and must save our economy." He went on to insist that, really, we are all at fault.

Arne Duncan, Education boss, enjoyed Rose's typically softball style (they ended with a near hug). Duncan, following on The Obmagogue's education speech at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, insisted that schools are really the central organizing point of much of US life
(true) and that he intends to expand that, with schools fully open to the community, as much as possible.

Of course, they must be very good schools, in order to serve our nation, where we are all in international competition with other countries whose education systems are better.

With what I saw as a smirk, that others may see as a cute grin, throughout the interview, Duncan was not so good at dodging the fact that he has never been an educator, nor did Rose do much to press him on the issue. Duncan just harkened back to his days at his lovely mother's knees when she was tutoring poor kids. Mom the Missionary. Son the Bishop.

Rose took for granted that Chicago schools are the better for Duncan's presence, though in a quick comment they agreed that he had closed some of those schools---and Substance News has covered which ones. Guess whose?

Duncan even did a poor job trying to convince us that the President's (and Duncan's) project is "non-ideological, just what is good for kids."

Duncan spoke up, over and over, for merit pay, for charters, for more regimented national curricula, more sophisticated testing, though he made no mention of the militarization of schooling--and Rose never asked. This is the crux of a non-ideology.

Remarkably, Duncan claimed that he spoke to both the president of the NEA and the AFT. Each fully backed The Obamagogue's education speech.

Duncan underlined that the bureaucrats who run both school unions support national standards, as they do. And he reminded us that Al Shanker, the worst union boss in the history of the US, was a progenitor of charter schools, as he was. Duncan told the truth about that, just as The One told us the truth before the election: more wars and more attacks on freedom in schools. That so few actually grasped this is troubling--a very disturbing analytical miscue.

The problem with NCLB, was two fold, per Duncan. It was under-funded. It did not set a high bar for all states. To him, "NCLB needs to be rebranded."

Notably, the Duncan segment of the Charlie Rose Show was sponsored by the Eli Broad Foundation.

The key lie that is shared by Geithner, Duncan, and The Obamagogue, is that we are all in this together. We are not.

This is a full scale class war, with the rich assaulting poor and working people everywhere. This is going on in schools, in warfare, in the financial crisis, in the health care system, in the foreclosures: everywhere.

The education agenda, the finance agenda, all of these are war agendas.

It should be easy to see who is one the side of who. The union bosses are on the side of the banksters and their bought and paid for hucksters who serve in the executive committee of the rich, the government. The union bosses deny that this real class war is going on, and lure people into support for the emergence of what has all the markings of fascism, as with the eradication of any semblance of academic freedom in schools.

Right now, thousands of layoff notices are going out to California teachers who, predictably, will be told that sacrifices must be made in order to save jobs and "our" education system.

It is not our education system. It is Theirs. It is not our economy. It is Theirs.

The core issue of our time is booming color-coded inequality potentially challenged by mass class conscious resistance with a real purpose, a north star: overcoming the system of capital with considerable sacrifice in order to live in a world where people can live more or less equitably by sharing--each contributing to the freedom of the others.

Concessions do not save jobs. Like feeding blood to sharks, concessions make bosses want more. Look at the demise of the United Auto Workers Union, now near dead, after decades of one concession after the next, pensions and health care about to be wiped out (note Delphi).

When they say cut back, we must say Fight Back.

We want, not the status quo, but more school workers hired. No more racist high stakes exams. Recruiters off the campuses.

No money? Go print it. You did for the banksters, now go get ours. You admit that reason had nothing to do with the bailouts. That was about power. If you do the printing, we will not accept the money as a bribe to go back in and continue the racist child abuse that is whatever you plan to call NCLB. We will treat the money, and our new colleagues, as victories, and we will press on for more still.

We have some power too. We can shut down your schools, open freedom school in the midst of growing civil strife, and teach kids the fact that, among other things, all of history really is the history of class struggle.

If we do not resist, we can look quickly into the future and see what is in store for us. Here is The Duncan/Obamagogue model, Michelle Rhee:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/0/11/AR2009031103742.html

Hugo Bloomberg....

...Michael Chavez

Based on Elizabeth Benjamin's post on the Daily News Politics blog (Feb. 18, 2009) in a piece titled Bloomberg: No Connection Between Me and Chavez the Economist Democracy - -heh- heh -- in America blog posted this:

ERIN EINHORN of the New York Daily News deserves some sort of award for this question. Last year Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, got the city council to repeal the law that prevented him from seeking a third term. This week, Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, won a vote (insofar as the polls there can be trusted) allowing him to run for as many terms in office as he likes. Cue Ms Einhorn:

Q: Mayor, it’s hard to compare New York City to Venezuela but as you know, Hugo Chavez did his second effort - this time sucessful - to extend term limits. You chose to go through City Council. Do you have any second thoughts about this? Do you wish you should have had a chance to take to the...

A: I don’t understand your question. What on Earth do we have to do with Hugo Chavez?

Q: Well, like you, he wanted to extend his term.

A: If you wanted to ask Hugo Chavez, call him up! Maybe he’ll take your call. My suspicion is he doesn’t have press conferences and let people ask questions or if they ask questions, he probably throws them, I don’t know what he does with them...Who knows? (Laughs). I still fail to see a connection.


Mr Chavez doesn't throw too many press conferences, but he does host hours-long radio shows and TV shows where citizens can toss questions at him. No one's suggesting that Mr Bloomberg should do that.

More from Benjamin

Mayor Bloomberg did not take kindly today to a question from the DN's Erin Einhorn about whether he wished he had followed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's lead and allowed a public term limits vote.

As Erin noted, this was Chavez's second attempt to scrap term limits. After Venezuelans voted down a similar proposal in December 2007, Chavez, who was facing ouster from office in 2012, spent considerable government resources on this second - ultimately successful - effort.

Unlike the first proposal, which would have only applied to the president, the one that passed earlier this week applies to all elected officials (sound familiar?).

Here in New York, opponents of extending term limits are still holding out a slim hope that the courts will force a third public referendum on the subject. But so far, the legal challenge hasn't been going so well.

Despite the efforts of Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Kevin Parker, it doesn't appear a bill that would require a public referendum for any term limits change - even the one Bloomberg signed into law last November - will be brought to the floor in either house in Albany.

This isn't the first time the mayor has been unfavorably compared to Chavez. During the City Council's term limits debate, Councilman Charles Barron urged Bloomberg to "be like Hugo, and let the people decide."

Politics is –

A: Local B: Global C: Sleazy
D: All of the Above

by Norm Scott

(For The Wave, Feb. 20, 2009, www.rockawave.com)

They say all politics is local. Or maybe in the flat world of Thomas Friedman and worldwide financial meltdowns, all politics is really global. Or both.

Politics, both global and local comes together in next week’s election for the vacant City Council seat in Rockaway, Howard Beach and South Ozone Park. That the issue of education has been put on the table makes it all the more delicious. First, some facts.

Democratic District Leader Geraldine M. Chapey is running against Lew Simon and newcomer Glenn DiResto, amongst others. A DiResto ad in last week’s Wave charged Chapey with underhanded tactics in challenging his petitions on a minor technicality, causing him to be tied up in Supreme Court and denying him public campaign funding. DiResto claims Chapey received $55, 000 of these funds. He has since been restored to the ballot and the Wave is endorsing him, but his supporters are livid at Chapey’s tactics, as evidenced by a number of letters to the Wave (“Chapey’s Disgusting Tactics.”) Hey, haven’t I been telling you all politics, global or local, is sleazy? And so are most politicians. But that’s an article for another time.

Then there is the little matter of Chapey’s million-dollar taxpayer subsidized bus service over the past decade and exactly how it is used – Chapey has refused to reveal how the funds are being spent. (I’ll leave those details for you to read elsewhere in the Wave.) Sleaze squared.

Now, onto the education connection. Chapey’s mom, Geraldine D. Chapey, has been on the NY State Board of Regents since 1998. How did she get that seat? Wave editor Howie Schwack reports that when Floyd Flake gave up his congressional seat and wanted his assistant Greg Meeks to replace him, Chapey junior held the deciding vote and traded it in favor of Meeks in exchange for the Regent seat for her mom. Rudy Blagojevich, where are you when we need you? Sleaze to the third power.

Ah, it doesn’t stop there. Let’s look at the role Chapey the elder and the rest of the Regents have played in enabling the Michael Bloomberg/Joel Klein assault on the school system, part of the nationwide attack on urban public school systems and the rights of parents and community to make basic choices as to who will run their schools. Oh yes, and the focus on blaming teachers for all the failures of the system with the consequent assault on basic union rights.

Chapey senior and her buddies gave Joel Klein the lawyer his waiver to be chancellor and have supported BloomKlein in just about every scheme they have foisted on the public, from allowing the manipulation of tests that show phony results to the just as bogus graduation rates where teachers joke about drive by diplomas – just leave your car window open as you drive by the school and they’ll toss it in. And how about the worm-ridden state education department headed by Richard Mills, one of the worst commissioners in the nation, all supervised by the Regents? Chapey and her buddies at the Regents make basic decisions about approving charter schools.

Enter charter schools
Remember those old movies about the opening of the west where the settlers lined up behind a rope and made a mad dash to claim their land when the rope was dropped? Reminds me of how the charter school movement has led to the movement of public school buildings into the hands of private interests. That is the essence of the charter school movement where most schools are non-union and very unregulated. Think: Real Estate scam. Just in the last few weeks, we have heard of the announced closings of large high schools Brandeis (upper West Side) and Bayard Rustin (Chelsea) and the smaller Health Professionals (Grammercy Park). Guess in whose hands these massive buildings built and maintained with public funding, all in Toney neighborhoods, will end up?

Add closing Catholic schools to the mix
Wait, we’re not done yet. With the announced closing of many Catholic schools – due to a great extent because the free charter schools have drained away so many students – Mayor Bloomberg has offered to come to their rescue by turning them into charters.

Now I spent years working in Williamsburg and saw how parochial school interests – in that case the Hasidic community – glommed onto as much public money as they could. (At one point, $7 million just went up in smoke, a crime for which no one spent one day in jail.) They even managed to set up a bi-lingual Yiddish school, claiming it was open to all students. Somehow, they were not inundated by Black and Hispanic kids. Believe me, it won’t be long before every denomination will seek to turn their religious schools into charters.

Now mind you, the NYC public schools are overflowing and could certainly use the often large buildings the Catholic Schools occupy – remember all those arguments that there is not enough room to reduce class sizes in NYC schools to a limit that comes close to the suburbs. But instead of trying to lease these buildings or buy them outright, Bloomberg wants to turn them over to private interests. Maybe even the church itself. Mr. Archbishop, tear down that cross – or don’t tear it down at all. Just cover it up from 8-4. There is a plan afoot for the Church to create a non-profit so they can continue to manage the schools, though, by law, no religious instruction could be offered. So, what exactly is the Church’s purpose in trying to manage these schools?

Just as I’m sitting down to write this column, Lorri Giovinco-Harte, NY Education Examiner, sends this piece she wrote on the web, based on a February 17th Daily News article:

Bishop's questionable 'donation' made to daughter of woman who assists in the approval of charters:

Just one month before Mayor Mike Bloomberg made the announcement that some city Catholic schools would be converted to charters, Brooklyn/Queens Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio made his first ever donation to a political candidate - a political candidate whose mother is involved in the approval of charter schools. Bishop DiMarzio donated the money to Queens candidate, Geraldine M. Chapey, whose mother is a member of the Board of Regents; the governing body which approves the creation of charter schools in New York. The Bishop dismissed accusations that there was a connection between the donation and the subsequent announcement that several struggling Catholic schools would be converted to charters.

The $250 dollars is minor, but it is matched by over $500 in taxpayer money. The Daily News quoted DiResto (I guess religion has a place in politics now), Simon (I've never seen the church speak out on a candidate before) and Chapey (The bishop is a citizen, and he's participating in the democratic process.) She said there was no quid quo pro for her mother to ease the way for the funneling of massive amounts of public money into the hands of the archdiocese.

Is Chapey following the same script Illinois Senator Roland Burris is using in denying he made a deal with impeached Governor Rudy B who tried to sell the Obama seat? Sleaze to the – sorry, I’ve lost track.

Gee, politics really is global.

Related:
Bloomberg Is as Bloomberg Does from NYC Educator

The Examiner article

The Daily News article

Obama Changes Rules on Lobbyists and Ethics

WOW. IT WORKS FOR ME.

IMPRESSIVE START!

BUT BIDEN IS AN IDIOT!

Inauguration

UPDATED

On inauguration day, I was riveted to the screen all day. I received a Move-on invitation to an inauguration party in Arverne-By-the-Sea (in Rockaway) that evening but I didn’t want to miss the chance to channel hop (not that the cold and snow weren’t factors). Now I’m sort of sorry I didn’t get into the spirit of the Obama call for community action. I wonder how he’ll feel if the activation of the American public leads to real protests over giving away the country to the wealthy? I certainly don’t have much hope for effective change in education based on Obama’s choice of Chicago school superintendent Arnie Duncan as Education Secretary. (More on this in future columns.)

I generally don't pay much attention to inaugurations. John Kennedy's inauguration in 1961 was unforgettable for a 16 year old. He had galvanized young people just as Obama has today. I was a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson HS in East New York. It may have been regent week and there wasn't a full program at school or schools were closed due to a snowstorm, but we were home that day. After a morning of carousing in the snow, my friends and I gathered in front of the TV to watch the speech. I vividly remember feeling embarrassed when Robert Frost's poem blew away. We listened intently to Kennedy's galvanizing words, still somewhat surprised we were actually interested in politics after the boring Eisenhower.

I'm still haunted by visions of that day connected to the stunning events less than 3 years later and the horrible years that followed. Despite the excitement of this past Tuesday’s events, that gnawing knot just never goes away. When the Obamas got out of the car, I couldn’t sit still. These feelings will never go away, as I bet they won’t for most people of my generation.


That Kennedy inaugural in you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0iPY7XGBo



The only inauguration I attended was Richard Nixon's 2nd inaugural in 1973. We were not there to cheer. A large group of protesters went down to line the parade route to boo Nixon as he passed. I took the train with Lew Friedman. Lew was the guy who introduced me to left politics after I started working with Another View, an organization of educators based at IS 318 in District 14 (Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.) Another View is in many ways the antecedent of today's Independent Community of Educators, with some of the same people involved.

It was a cold day in DC and we stood on the parade route for hours, freezing our butts off. There were an estimated 60 - 75.000 people in DC protesting that day, a number not topped until Bush's first inaugural in 2001. We ducked into a coffee shop to grab a cup of cocoa. Just as we were paying, we heard a roar and a massive chorus of boos. We raced out and caught the tail of Nixon's car disappearing down Pennsylvania Ave. I got in a weak, hoarse boo. Even that brief moment gave us a high and the train ride home was a party.

This was all new to me, as I had missed the protests of the 60's. My first demonstration had been with Another View on May 1, 1971 at UFT HQ where we protested UFT President Al Shanker's support for the Vietnam War. In less than two years I had made up a lot of protesting time.

Time to Bring Honest Government to NYC

As the Bloomberg administration has been exposed for it's blatant attempts to subvert basic democratic institutions - buying and bribing politicians and charities in exchange for political support and subverting the entire system of public education to benefit private interests, a call has gone out to find an appropriate candidate on the Democratic side to stand firm for more honest government.

After diligent research, Education Notes has come up with a worthy candidate who will soon be available and looks clean as a hound's tooth compared to Bloomberg - soon to be former Illinois governor Rudy Blogojevich.

With his appointment yesterday of a candidate for the US Senate who is about 1000% more qualified than Bloomberg's favorite, Carolyn Kennedy, Rudy B has exhibited a significantly higher degree of judgement (and honesty) than Bloomberg.

Of course, if Rudy B is not available, there's always Bernie Madoff - who better to have raise money in a budget crunch?

But if Bernie's not available, here's my favorite -


Related from Gary Babad at NYC Public School Parents:

Test Scores Crash, Class Size Soars as Klein Rings Closing Bell

GBN News “Best Headline of 2009” Contest

Election Whoopee

For The Wave: Politically Unstable (column)

Election Whoopee
by Norman Scott

There's a lot to be said about the election. I know people are thinking about the race issue. Since so many people are touching on this issue with more eloquence, I'll leave that to others. I am thinking about other issues. A smart guy in charge (Clinton was too but seemed to have other things on his - er - mind.) A connection to the young people that reminds me of the way we felt in 1960 seeing the glorious John F. Kennedy replace Eisenhower. (We used to race home after school to see his press conferences.) An activated army who got involved in politics. Expect to see a new, inspired generation of people who hopefully won't get fooled again.

I haven't cared all that much about the politics as usual for quite a while, having voted 3rd party in all but one or two elections over the last 25 years. Yet last Sunday I got up early and drove to Allentown, PA to spend a few hours working for Obama. Witnessing the massive ground game as people from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other places poured into a basement Obama headquarters on the outskirts of town made it worth it. And made me feel just a little less dread about losing PA, which I felt was the key (stone) state. It did turn out that way (along with the Buckeye state and about 30 others.) And hanging with like-minded people, whom I had to look for under rocks in Rockaway. Some of the awful letters in The Wave didn’t help. Thank goodness for the good sense to endorse Obama.

The conversations I engaged in with people who came up with so many irrational reasons to vote against Obama had been discouraging. The emails came in daily disparaging Obama for being the next Hitler and looking to set up a police state and being a terrorist Manchurian candidate. His "associations." Remember how he was going to paint the White House black?

They always made sure to disavow that race was an issue. Yet they were so over the top on a candidate whose policies were not so far off John Kerry and Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Very talented, but a fairly traditional politician. An impeccable personal history. Exceedingly bright. Amazingly disciplined. Self-controlled. Calm. And logical and orderly in his thinking. Did I say exceedingly bright?

Growing up poor, both black and white, married to a working class gal. Both had used their smarts to rise to the top of society. How could all this not only be ignored, but be disparaged?

Some element of racism, latent or not, had to be in operation. I can just imagine what they were thinking as they saw people dancing in the streets in Harlem last night. Will they secede from like half the nation did when another candidate from Illinois was elected 7 score and 8 years ago?

I purposely watched Fox last night, which had done its share in scaring people. Suddenly commentators were talking about how Obama was really a centrist and was surrounding himself with Clinton era advisers. I mean Warren Buffet the terrorist? Duh!

Will Obama turn out to be a great president or a failure? An FDR or a Herbert Hoover, who had an even lower approval rating than W?

It could go either way. When you think of great presidents, they seem to emerge only in times of crisis. Think there are just a few lurking?

FDR ran for president with a very different agenda than he ended up enacting due to desperate times. He showed the kind of flexibility that was needed. Policies that had a major impact for generations.

The problem I have had with Republicans is that they are driven by a narrow ideology that has helped put us into this mess. Like if you breathe government action, you are a socialist. But when it takes forms of socialism to bail out millionaires, why go right ahead. It was this sort of thinking that led to handing over billions to banks that should have had the requirement to be used as loans to free up credit but instead is being held onto by banks to buy other banks. One day soon we will have only 3 or 4 banks in this country.

The only thing I have to fear is fear of Obama's dependence on the same old, same old Clinton people, who come out of places like Goldman Saks when we need some truly radical thinking. Bill Ayres, where are you when we need you?

It is worth hearing from the left on the election. Here is George Schmidt, who is based in Chicago, posting on ICE-mail, where some vituperative attacks on Obama have taken place by both the right and left.

One of the strangest things to watch the past couple of months was how the "left" deployed towards the finish line on Obama. We've reported, early and often, that he was one of the most brilliant politicians ever to come out of Chicago. Now everyone knows that who has been paying attention. What happened yesterday in places like Pasco County, Florida (where I spent some time long long ago living and working out at a gym in New Port Ritchey) and Southwest Ohio was simple:

Chicago precinct work linked to the Internet.

Once you have a very very very good candidate (and Obama was one of the best bourgeoise candidates we've ever seen come out of Chicago politics; Harold Washington was another), a lot of the job is what is called "the ground game." After the AFT convention, I was miffed (that Obama snubbed both AFT and NEA) and worried (that the snub would leave huge parts of white America without the infantry for the ground game the final weeks before the election).

Now it's back to work.

Most of us here think the world is a happier place this morning because of what those of us who voted in the USA did yesterday. A large number of our neighbors went down to Grant Park last night and haven't been seen since. As someone said, this is the world's biggest (Chicago style) block party.

To have helped smash white supremacy on the level it existed in the USA in one lifetime has been a wonderful moment. And we have, indeed, helped smash it with what has been done the past year, culminating in the past week.

I have three sons, one of whom is 19 and in college, and the other of whom are seven and four. All three, at their levels, understood that something very important was happening yesterday (and leading up to yesterday).

As to what's going to happen next (especially for K-12 education)?

The one thing we've learned from Barack Obama over the years (remember: some of us have known him since he was in the Illinois Senate) is that you can't predict the next policy thrust -- only that it will have been very carefully thought out and very well planned (example: the last six weeks of the campaign organization, from TV ads to precinct work across the entire country, from suburban Indiana to the vastness of Montana).

It's worth savoring today. Our children are very happy. Coming from a time when my father's best friends (all brave men who had fought to defeat Nazism on the ground in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria) referred to Jackie Robinson as "Black Jack" and use to cheer the Dodgers with a cheer of "Run N_____ Run!" I'm very glad my own sons are coming of age in a different world. My Mom and Dad were among the few people in Linden, New Jersey who explained to us why we shouldn't use the "N" word back in the 1950s, while also explaining that the people we knew who did use it were good people (and brave; these were men who had "served" in combat in World War II) but limited.

Today, even in the most segregated parts of the USA (and Chicago has some of the most intensely segregated parts of the USA) that Jackie Robinson era racism is simply out of fashion. And given what things look like now, it's unlikely it will make a comeback, despite all the exertions of Sarah Palin and those mobs she luridly fired up at the most base level.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

Election Yin and Yang

Just back from the gym. Ran into a UFT retiree. "Explain to me how the union could support a candidate who is against voting by secret ballot?" Huh? "What are you talking about? Where did you hear this?"

I know what's coming. Some kind of Obama trashing (the same thing happened last week with a retired fireman - why are they coming to me?)

"I was told by someone that he wants to take away the secret ballot." I begin turn 5 shades of green. "I don't want to talk about anything else. I just wanted to ask that question." "But McCain and Republicans view unions as enemies of big business."

I then started to explain that this position supports union attempts to organize.

"I don't want to get into it. But cry the beloved country." Oy!

Brilliant. Why get the real facts when all you need is an excuse to continue to bash Obama? My instinct is there's heavy racism acting here. The vehemence goes way beyond normal dislike of candidates. Like would this same conversation have taken place over Kerry or Gore given the same exact positions?

I also spoke to the gal who is having the Obama election night open house. She is from Canada and rethinking things if McCain wins. Or maybe just drink her way through tomorrow evening. Or the next 4 years.

On the other hand there's this from Five Thirty Eight's 3am polls:

Barack Obama's position has become somewhat stronger since our update this afternoon. We now have him with a 5.8 point lead in the national popular vote, and winning the election 96.3 percent of the time. Earlier today, those figures were 5.4 and 93.7, respectively.

I continue to find a hair's worth of tightening on balance in the state-by-state polls -- even as Obama's position in the national trackers seems to be roughly as strong as it has ever been. This, ironically, is the exact reverse of the position we saw earlier in the week, when the national polls seemed to be tightening even as the state polls weren't.

However, Obama's win percentage has ticked upward again for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he's gotten some relatively good numbers out of Pennsylvania since our last update, with PPP and Zogby giving him leads of 8 and 14 points, respectively, and Rasmussen showing his lead expanding to 6 points after having been at 4 before. (The Zogby poll is probably an outlier, but may serve to balance out outliers like Strategic Vision on the other side).

Secondly, McCain's clock has simply run out. While there is arguable evidence of a small tightening, there is no evidence of a dramatic tightening of the sort he would need to make Tuesday night interesting.

Related to this is the fact that there are now very, very few true undecideds left in this race.

MORE

Dear Bubbe And Zaidy

This article appeared in The Wave
http://www.rockawave.com/news/2008/1024/columnists/050.html

It's My Turn
By Howie Greene

Howie Greene is the consummate New Yorker. Born and raised in Brooklyn and at one time a resident of Beach 117 Street, Greene knows New York. He was part of the management team for The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, traveling the world with him.

He was also an executive Producer for Sirius Satellite Radio, working on their Talk & Comedy channels. Greene spent two years working on cruise ships and has literally "sailed the seven seas."

He's been involved in New York politics for decades and at one time had aspirations of being a professional bowler, actually obtaining his PBA card.

Greene lived in Rockaway Beach in the early 90s when he was the morning show host on the old WDRE-FM in Long Island.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my Uncle Milty. It usually happens this time of year around the High Holidays. He was the one who made sure I carried on the family tradition of going to shul, admitting my sins and asking for forgiveness before G-D. My father, being a Holocaust survivor, abandoned his religion way before I was born. So it was left to the uncle.

This year, however, my wife had to drag me to Yom Kippur services. Why? Well, maybe it's because I've seen the people I respected the most, all of the bubbes and zaidies who put up with bigotry, racism, religious zealotry and Nazis, abandon the basic tenets of what it means to be a Jew.

With all due respect to Sarah Silverman, I do not see this as a laughing matter. It is impossible for me to justify how "my people" will not vote for Barack Obama because he has a funny name, or, worse, to paraphrase Jackie Mason, is a "fancy schvartze."

Have you become so comfortable, Bubbe and Zaidy down in your South Florida condo communities, that you have completely forgotten from whence you came? Even though, on these, the holiest of holy days on the Jewish calendar we promise our redeemer that we will never forget? That we will be tolerant, and righteous and KIND?

My Uncle Milt was once turned down for a job at Con Edison, the New York area utility. It was the late 1930s, his father had just passed away, and it was up to him to support his immigrant mother and his younger brother and sister. He dropped out of high school. There were jobs at Con Ed. The interviewer asked him if his last name, Grosswirth, was German? Uncle Milty said, "It's Jewish." The interviewer insisted it was German … my uncle, however, did not relent. The interviewer told him that Con Ed would not hire Jews, so please say he was German. Well, my uncle never got the Con Ed gig. All of you, my dear Bubbes and Zaidies, have family stories like these. When did you forget? How did you forget?

Some of you won't vote for Barack because of his name. Okay. Did you know that Barack is the Muslim equivalent of Baruch … Hebrew for Blessed? The beginning of EVERY blessing to G-D we ever utter. Some of you have said you'd vote for him if he changed his name to Barry. WHAT? When did we forget as a people, our being persecuted for our names? How many times did your name exclude you from employment, club membership or staying at a hotel? Surely my family wasn't the only one asked to display our "horns" by ignorant Southerners back in the 1960s. Surely my family wasn't the only one that was told to go find a "jew hotel." At what moment did you forget this, Bubbe and Zaidy?

Not voting for Senator Obama because you are afraid is an insult. It's an insult to those who were murdered because of our names and our religion. It's an insult to those of us who came after you. To vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin simply because they are not Barack Obama is not only a shondeh, it is quite simply, ignorant.

McCain/Palin have come to South Florida to scare you. To drop the name of the Holocaust on your laps. They've intimated that Obama consorts with terrorists. That he is not a friend of Israel. But here is the record:

Gov. Palin belongs to a church that believes Jerusalem is the launching pad for the Rapture. Gov. Palin sat idly by in this church while leaders of Jews for Jesus proclaimed that Israel was getting what it deserved because they refused to acknowledge Jesus as the messiah. Gov. Palin is not a friend to our people.

Sen. McCain, for all of his "straight talk," has advisers on his campaign staff that have records as lobbyists for Saddam Hussein and Saudi Arabia.

And, the most heinous is that these two Americans who claim to put "Country First" have spent the past two weeks whipping up crowds into frenzy with hatred for Obama. Didn't those hate-filled rallies with cries to do harm to Obama remind you of anything, Bubbe and Zaidy? Have you finally forgotten the Nazi rallies in the 1930s that were used to whip up crowds into similar frenzies while blaming the Jews of Europe for all of its economic ills?

Surely, Bubbe and Zaidy, you recall the days of McCarthyism, where scores of Jews were blacklisted from ever working again in this nation because they went to a meeting or a party that happened to have a Socialist or Communist as a guest. And Jewish lives and livelihoods were wiped out because of our names or loose, quite loose, associations.

That is why your refusal to vote for Barack Obama because of his race and name is so perplexing and disturbing. When did we become the very people who threatened our existence?

Bubbe and Zaidy … listen to me. You owe this to us. You gave us eight years of George Bush. Okay, maybe it was an accident. But, you had your Franklin Delano Roosevelt whom you no doubt still revere. Barack Obama is OUR FDR! Let us have our chance to have the America I thought you always wanted for us.

I don't know how my Uncle Milty would have voted. He's gone now. But, I DO know he would not have dismissed Barack Obama because of his name, race or out of unsubstantiated fear!

Look, if you want to vote for McCain/ Palin because you think they would be a better team, then go vote. But, if you are voting for them because they are not a fancy schvartze with a scary name, then PLEASE, on Election Day, stay home, for us. Or better yet, find a good mah jongg or pinochle game and leave the future to your little bubbelehs.

You Can't See It Any Better

Don't miss NYC Educator's latest. Here is a delicious slice:

Because that's what the GOP is all about. We'll stick with you right up until you're born, but from there on in, you're on your own, kid (unless you're an investment bank or something). No health care for you. Unqualified inexperienced incompetent teachers, but let's hope at least they aren't unionized. Perish forbid that nasty Barack Obama should open up the health plan US government employees have to Joe Sixpack, Joe the Plumber, or any of the regular Joes Maverick Johny supposedly pals around with while driving his 13 cars between his nine homes.

Make sure to eat the entire pie. It's fairly small but packed with goodies.