Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Corporate Dream: Teachers as Temps



Published on Sunday, May 29, 2011 by Black Agenda Report

The Corporate Dream: Teachers as Temps

A Black Agenda Radio commentary


As Democrats hustle to shovel a billion dollars into President Obama’s campaign coffers – making promises to rich people and their corporations every step of the way – America’s billionaires are spending even more money to seize control of the nation’s public schools. Although super-wealthy capitalists like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, fellow computer mogul Michael Dell, real estate magnate Eli Broad, and the rapacious owners of Wal-Mart, the Walton Family, would like people to think of them as philanthropists, they are nothing more than down-and-dirty investors who hope to reap much more than they sow. This mega-buck mafia's goal is to gain access to the $600 billion per year that taxpayers pump into public schools, and then to profit in perpetuity by shaping the nation’s educational system to their corporate needs. The corporate education project has nothing to do with growing new generations of smarter, socially aware, independent-thinking citizens, but is designed to raid public treasuries through wholesale contracting-out of public schooling.

Teachers are the biggest obstacle in the way of the corporate educational coup, which is why the billionaires, eagerly assisted by their servants in the Obama administration, have made demonization and eventual destruction of teachers unions their top priority. Corporations hate collective bargaining, or working people’s power of any kind, but their vision goes way beyond simply neutralizing teachers unions. The billionaires, and the politicians they have purchased, want nothing less than to destroy teaching as a profession. Plutocrats like Bill Gates and politicians like Barack Obama may make noises about respecting teachers' life-long commitment to learning, but their actions prove the opposite. At every opportunity, whenever a real or manufactured educational crisis presents itself, the corporate gang champions charter schools and imports platoons of young, mostly white, inexperienced rookies from programs like Teach for America. Most of these neophytes have no intention of making teaching a career, so they accept low wages, turnover is high, and they have no long term interest in any particular school, or school system, or the profession in general. They are temporary teachers – which is precisely the point.

Just as corporations have revamped the private white collar workforce, replacing full-time, salaried personnel with “temporary” workers – a system in which some managers are officially temps – such are the prospects for teachers in the brave new corporate world of education “reform.”
The billionaires' propaganda machinery claims the corporatization of American education is necessary to make the United States “competitive,” internationally. But teachers in most of the countries that lead the U.S. in learning are highly respected, if not revered, and relatively well compensated. Under the guise of “reform,” the United States is moving in exactly the opposite direction as the rest of the world. The American people are being conned by billionaire hustlers who are stealing the public schools – and the national future – right in front of our eyes.
© 2011 Black Agenda Report
Glen Ford
Back Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

A Certain View of Recent History Produced as a Public Service by Earthhome.us

[Key INFO 6]  Judge rules Corporations may purchase Candidates directly
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Most voters are at least vaguely aware of a case called Citizens United, where 5 Supreme Court Justices (at least 2 of them owned by the Koch Fascist Empire) ruled that legal fictions, Transnational Fascist Corporations, were the same as living, breathing citizens, and therefore they could finance political messages about Candidates, as secret donors, so long as they were not donating directly to Candidates.  storyofstuff.org/citizensunited

But now, if the decision below on 5-27-11 holds on Appeal to these same corrupted Supreme Court Justices, Fascist Corporations will be able to directly purchase Candidates, with no limits on amounts in their bidding wars.  Candidates will begin to wear Corporate Sponsor Logo Patches, exactly like race car drivers so that voters can tell who is owned by who, not that it will really matter.

Politicians will appear more honest:  The Honorable Koch Judge from Wisconsin.  The Honorable Goldman-Sach Representative from NY.  The Honorable Art Pope State Senator from NC.  The Honorable MobileExxon Governor of Texas.  Etc, etc.

BREAKING: Republican Judge Strikes Down Ban On Corporate Contributions Directly To Candidates

Reagan-appointed federal Judge James Cacheris just ruled that corporations have a constitutional right to contribute money directly to political candidates:
In a ruling issued late Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris tossed out part of the indictment against two men accused of illegally reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns.
Cacheris says that under last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court case, corporations enjoy the same right as people to contribute to campaigns.
The ruling is the first of its kind. The Citizens United case had applied only to independent corporate expenditures, not to actual campaign contributions.
Today’s decision extends beyond the egregious Citizen United decision because Citizens United only permits corporations to run their own ads supporting a candidate or otherwise act independently of a candidate’s campaign. Cacheris’ opinion would also allow the Chamber of Commerce and Koch Industries, for instance, to contribute directly to political campaigns.
If today’s decision is upheld on appeal, it could be the end of any meaningful restrictions on campaign finance — including limits on the amount of money wealthy individuals and corporations can give to a candidate. In most states, all that is necessary to form a new corporation is to file the right paperwork in the appropriate government office. Moreover, nothing prevents one corporation from owning another corporation. Thus, under Cacheris’ decision, a cap on overall contributions becomes meaningless, because corporate donors can simply create a series of shell corporations for the purpose of evading such caps.
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American Nazi NeoCons & NeoLiberals who in 1980 began their major thrust to overthrow democracy in America are celebrating victories this Memorial Day Weekend

Being able to purchase Public Officials on the open market could spell the end of having to finance the tea party, since those volunteer Storm Troopers, useful at first, have become a major liability, more and more difficult to control. •> In 2012 campaigns, spoilers from the tea party worry GOP  

Like all conned masses, some are beginning to catch on that they are being used for free to make billionaires out of millionaires.  Some now see that what they think makes no difference to the political process at all. •> Earthhome.us

Now that Candidates can be purchased directly like any product, Billionaire Funding and Corporate Funding have been consolidated, essentially making Political Parties meaningless.  Plans are underway to sell Futures Shares in select Congressmen on the Chicago Commodities Market.

Click these links to review resistance •> KochBros Karl Rove Amerikans for Prosperity of the Rich, and FreedumbSmirks.

The first step in this 30-year GOP Master Plan after Corporate Deregulation was accomplished, was for Wall $treet to collapse the Economy, destroying jobs and income for the Middle Class, so that they had no money to give to Political Parties or Candidates.  Causing American Taxpayers go into hock to bail out Big Bank Casino Gamblers was a no brainer.  

Second step was to elect purchased Nazi Puppets into State Governments as Governors and Legislators so that destruction of Unions that had built the Middle Class could proceed.

And third was the Brainstorm put forth by GOP Nazi Paul Ryan to destroy Medicare and Social Security, a diabolical weapon aimed intentionally at veterans Social Security Cuts Put Vets Back in Line of Fire and the elderly because they were the only Americans who could remember that this is NOT what America was founded to be. More here •> Vets Being Sold Out by GOP

Sidenotes: The G.I. Bill signed by FDR was to avoid a Recession after WWII, by Government providing low interest, small business loans to Vets, subsidizing sending a hundred thousand of them to College, and providing up to a year's unemployment payments while they found jobs, in addition to Socialized medical treatment.  This was the best investment Government ever made in its citizens, and it forestalled the Nazification of America for 35 years, until Rethugs and Corporate Fascists gained enough strength to elect an B-grade actor as President.  It also laid the foundation for paying down the huge National War Debt, which did not begin to rise again until Rethug Ronnie Rayguns began Deregulating Corporations, removing them from control by Law.  http://zFacts.com/p/1195.html

See •>Proof of Lies told by Supply Siders  Note constant rise during Regan&BushI, fall during Clinton, and steady rise again during BushII.  Obama has not been able to get the Debt under control as FDR did because of Nazi Rethugs collapse of the Economy at the end of NaziBushCheney, and their steadfast dedication to do it again.


The elderly and affected Baby Boomers grew up in an expanding Middle Class that was because of total defeat of Naziism in Germany, Italy and Japan.  Growth of the Middle Class was accelerated by progressive high tax rates on the rich who had benefitted from both the Great Depression & WWII.  

For a few decades after FDR New Dealers built a safety net which allowed the Middle Class to thrive, American Oil Aristocrats who financed Hitler -- like the Bush Family -- simply adjusted their plans and waited, gradually purchasing Nazi Sympathizers elected or placed in key Government Offices in "their" Amerika.

The long advocated GOP Master Plan of ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security culls and eliminates the weak, sick, elderly, poor and other undesirables,  Now fully underway, within a generation when Ayn Rand disciple Paul Ryan becomes Fuhrer (or some other Puppet), the population in Amerika will have been reduced to only those Wage Slaves who are working taxpayers.  

•> Read Disabled Abandon Wheelchairs, Protest Medicaid Cuts

How many more will be murdered in the name of saving money while the rich get richer? Annually now fifty thousand die for lack of access to affordable Healthcare.  As long as no one dares call these Private Corporate Death Panels genocide, perhaps no one will have to be shot or sent to gas chambers this time. 

Corporations are such a civilized and non-visible way to kill undesirables.  Once you cannot pay premiums and taxes for enrichment of Fascist Corporations, you are unproductive, and therefore expendable.

Refusing treatment this way to Aids victims will put effective elimination of homosexuals in Amerika back into the GOP Master Plan.  And, like with Hitler's Master Plan, everything will be "legal," passed by some Nazi-controlled Legislative Body.
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Naziism by definition is Corporate Control of Government for profit, the exact opposite of a democracy, where the people who are governed control their Government.  The single purpose of launching Deregulation of Corporations in 1980 under the Alzheimer's President was to wipe troublesome Representative Democracy off the face of Amerika, replacing it with total control by the Nazi Wealth Aristocracy and their Fascist Corporations

Throughout human history, when such oppressive control from Kings, Aristocrats, Feudal Lords or Dictatorships has become unbearable, civil order and Rule by Law collapses, a process which has already begun in Amerika with last week's discovery that the current Corporate Controlled Government has been operating electronic systems to spy on American citizens far in excess of what is allowed by Law, and intends to continue, regardless of what Law says. Senators claim secret expansion of illegal Patriot Act surveillance

Perpetual War has been strategically planned around the Globe by the rapidly emerging American Nazi Empire so that wealth may be transferred directly out of Middle Class pockets into the 100% Socialist Military, without the messiness of Congressional approval required by the Constitution.  The Fascist Corporate Military-Industrial-Healthcare-Media Complex is becoming an impregnable fortress, with permanent pipelines sucking taxes and profits from the consumer Middle Class, as was planned decades ago as Trickle-Down and voodoo economics <•  

Now that Wall $treet and Corporate Fascists -- due to Government Bailouts -- have fully recovered even beyond wealth and power levels before their 2008 Global Collapse, in a repeat performance sometime before the 2012 Elections arrive, the 2nd Dip of their Double-dip Recession will be put into affect, to drive at least 50% of Americans effectively into poverty, allowing Corporate Fascists to increase their War Profits by declaring Martial Law in Amerika against anyone who resists. Those too poor to survive will thus be eliminated, purifying the Amerikan race.

Finally, after 30 years of perseverance, all Rethuglicans in Amerika are Nazis.  Electing more Rethuglican Nazis is intended to wipe out the Democratic Party as an effective resistance, which was begun by Rethug rebirthing racist hatred in Amerika.  

All essential pieces of the New World Order Nazi Master Plan are sliding precisely into place, ready to unlock and be let loose, cleverly masked by massively funding and encouraging nut-case female GOP Presidential Candidates to run in order to distract the public from discovering their covert Master Plan ticking away like clockwork.

Think your future over carefully as you take a break to enjoy this last Memorial Day Weekend, when we celebrate those who died in vain for 236 years, believing in the Dream that they were preserving Freedom in America for indefinite generations to come.  Your children and grandchildren shall live under Corporate Tyranny.

On the other hand, nothing is ever too big to fail.

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Unattributed parts of this Article  © 2011  Gene Messick

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Produced as a Public Service by  Earthhome.us

                
AT&T's proposal to take over T-Mobile will leave 
AT&T and Verizon with 80% of the Mobile Phone 
market, a perfect example of what our anti-trust 
laws are supposed to prevent. They win. We lose.

The FCC is the only federal agency with jurisdiction 
over this takeover that accepts public comments on 
the record and the Deadline is Tuesday, May 31st.


Friday, May 27, 2011

The onion -Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation's Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students

WASHINGTON—According to bewildered and contrite legislators, a major budgetary mix-up this week inadvertently provided the nation's public schools with enough funding and resources to properly educate students.

Sources in the Congressional Budget Office reported that as a result of a clerical error, $80 billion earmarked for national defense was accidentally sent to the Department of Education, furnishing schools with the necessary funds to buy new textbooks, offer more academic resources, hire better teachers, promote student achievement, and foster educational excellence—an oversight that apologetic officials called a "huge mistake."
"Obviously, we did not intend for this to happen, and we are doing everything in our power to right the situation and discipline whoever is responsible," said House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), expressing remorse for the error. "I want to apologize to the American people. The last thing we wanted was for schools to upgrade their technology and lower student-to-teacher ratios in hopes of raising a generation of well-educated, ambitious, and skilled young Americans."
"That's the type of irresponsible misspending that I've been focused on eliminating for my entire political career," Ryan added.
Ryan went on to tell reporters that the $80 billion budget slip-up will "unfortunately" help schools nationwide to supply students with modernized classrooms and instructional materials. Struggling to control his frustration, Ryan said he prayed the costly mistake would not allow millions of American students to graduate with strong language skills.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a full investigation into how the nation's schools were able to secure the necessary funds to monitor teachers and pay salaries based on performance.
"The fact that this careless mistake also ended up financing new teacher training programs, allowing educators to become more than just glorified babysitters, is disgraceful," Reid said. "Now we are left with a situation where schools can attract talented professionals who really want to teach our children, which will in turn create smarter and more motivated students who wish to one day make a contribution to society."
"In all my years in government I have never seen such a shameful error," Reid added. "Our appropriations process has gone horribly awry, and I for one demand to know how it happened."
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) echoed congressional leaders and vowed to do "everything in [his] power" to resolve the costly error that led to schools updating their curriculums to emphasize math, science, and language arts, and provided students with instruction on how to use newly purchased computers to aid their research.
"Once these kids learn to read and think critically, you can never undo that," Boehner said. "In 20 years, we could be looking at a nightmare scenario in which vast segments of our populace are fully prepared to compete in the new global marketplace."
"It could take a whole generation to cancel out the effects of this," Boehner added.
Congressional leaders also stressed that providing the nation's students with an adequate education that prepared them for college or supplied them with a solid grasp of basic knowledge could also have a devastating impact on the economy by creating a new class of citizens uninterested in settling for fast food meals and useless plastic knickknacks.
"And politicians will be adversely affected as well," Boehner said. "What will our nation do if the next generation knows that all we care about is our own selfish interests and pandering to the wealthy elite? Is that the future you want? Not me."

Trial on New Orleans school employee terminations after Hurricane Katrina starts


Unbelievable that Alvarez and Marsal were hired; with their pathetic track record in NYC and elsewhere. 

Their recommendations led to the busing fiasco in NYC when kids were left shivering in the streets in the middle of February; even Joel Klein later admitted this was a disaster. 

See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DEFDA123FF930A35751C0A9619C8B63&pagewanted=all

Trial on New Orleans school employee terminations after Hurricane Katrina starts

Published: Monday, May 23, 2011, 7:30 AM     Updated: Monday, May 23, 2011, 9:31 AM
 
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/05/trial_on_firings_at_new_orlean.html
 
Was the mass termination of Orleans Parish public school employees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina legal? That is the issue in a trial starting today in Civil District Court, with seven plaintiffs representing thousands of dismissed workers, from teachers and principals to janitors and bus drivers.
opsb-meeting-post-katrina_1024.jpgAlex Brandon, The Times-Picayune archiveMembers of the Orleans Parish School Board saying the Pledge of Allegiance before a meeting in the city council chambers on Oct. 7, 2005. Three weeks before, the board placed all of its employees on emergency leave, effectively terminating them.
The case before Judge Ethel Simms Julien comes more than five years after the wrath of the storm, and the bitter politics that followed, turned one of the nation's worst public school systems upside down.
Katrina buried more than 80 percent of New Orleans schools in floodwaters. Louisiana officials soon wrested control of most of them from the local school board, and what followed, under the state Recovery School District, was a sweeping reform effort that now has turned nearly three-quarters of the city's public schools into independently run charters.
That post-Katrina political struggle stands at the heart of the case, said Willie Zanders Sr., the lead attorney for the seven plaintiffs, who include three teachers, an assistant principal, a teacher's aide, a school secretary and a social services administrator.
Armed with documents showing how then-state schools Superintendent Cecil Picard grabbed power from the Orleans Parish School Board and cleared the way for mass dismissals, Zanders will argue that the state interfered with the employees' contractual rights and wrongfully terminated them without cause, ignoring state statutory safeguards in the process.
A proper reduction in force, he will say, would have required creation of a recall list, based on seniority, for hiring back available workers as schools reopened.
"The state should have honored the due process rights of employees after Katrina destroyed their lives," Zanders said recently. "A disaster does not equal termination."
Julien ruled in 2008 that the case can be converted to a class action if the first plaintiffs prove their case. About 6,900 people could be eligible for claims under such a suit, Zanders said. The lawsuit names as defendants the state, the state Department of Education, the Orleans Parish School Board and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Zanders said the plaintiffs are seeking lost wages, benefits and damages for emotional distress.
Law cited as move defended
BESE has issued a statement defending the move to charter schools that led to the mass terminations.
"In 2005 the Louisiana Legislature passed Act 35, which applies statewide. That law requires certain schools to be transferred to the Recovery School District if a school district does not meet minimum standards," the statement said. It said the law "gives no discretion" to BESE and the Department of Education: "those failing schools are required to be automatically transferred to the Recovery School District. That happened in Orleans Parish in 2006."
However, Zanders said, Act 35 didn't require that the schools become charter schools or that the school employees be terminated.
"The state has a right to regulate failing schools and take reasonable measures to correct what is wrong, terminate employees for cause," he said. "It should be fair and reasonable and should not be vindictive or retaliatory. ... They did it the wrong way and for the wrong reasons."
Zanders pointed to a Sept. 14, 2005, letter signed by Picard a few weeks before the state issued an "emergency suspension of education laws" that eased the path to converting schools to charter schools, in part by suspending the need for a faculty and staff vote.
In the letter, Picard pleaded with then-U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for nearly $800 million to help pay for salaries and pensions of school employees in hurricane-damaged areas, noting the threat to those employees' "livelihood, health insurance coverage, and just being able to cover basic needs."
Spotlighting tension
Other documents reflect the long-standing tension between Picard and then-Orleans School Board President Torin Sanders. A few months before Katrina, the state forced the local board to hire an outside firm, Alvarez & Marsal, to oversee the school district's finances. The battle came to a head after the storm, when Picard led a push to expand the firm's authority over the district.
Zanders described the state's actions as "retaliatory, vindictive, based on politics."
Three of the seven plaintiffs eventually were rehired, but without seniority or their former pay and benefits, Zanders said.
About 7,500 employees, many of them union members, were terminated after the storm by the School Board, which now employs just 575 people, most of them rehires, according to board data. In 2007, the last year for which figures are available, 381 of 400 board employees were rehires. As of 2007, the Recovery School District employed 1,578 people, about half of them previous Orleans Parish School Board workers.
Turning the system around
The RSD under recently departed Superintendent Paul Vallas has received wide praise for rapidly improved test scores at the charter schools, even as critics say increased school choice in the system has left the most vulnerable students further behind and forced special-needs students to struggle to find schools to accommodate them.
Nationally, the system has been painted as a model for reform.
"Rapid-fire reform," said Luis Miron, director of Loyola University's Institute for Quality and Equity in Public Education.
"It was evolutionary, not revolutionary, to the extent Orleans used the opportunity of a perfect storm -- let no crisis go wasted -- to do what other states and localities were going to do inevitably down the road," Miron said. "They did that so they could rid themselves of benefits like bloated pensions and give principals the power to pay at whatever level they wanted. On the professional side there was a severe cost to that."
Pre-Katrina, New Orleans had the highest percentage of black teachers in the country, at 80 percent, Miron said. Still, he said, the gains would have been "much more difficult" with the financial constraints, union resistance and political grime that colored New Orleans school politics before the storm.
The trial is expected to last a month.
John Simerman can be reached at jsimerman@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3330.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers

Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers

by: Stephen Zunes, Truthout

Teachers and their unions are under assault throughout the country. Unfortunately, their ability to resist has been weakened by a series of actions over the past decade by the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest and most influential teachers' unions. These actions have seriously damaged AFT's credibility among its membership and progressive allies when they are needed the most. Of particular concern has been the AFT's support for the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East, including the US war on Iraq and Israel's war on Lebanon, as well as the current leadership's apparent opposition to pro-democracy struggles in the region.
Had the hundreds of billions of dollars used by the federal government to pay for the Iraq war through 2006 - the period during which the AFT supported the costly occupation and counterinsurgency operations - instead gone to education, none of the massive teacher layoffs and other draconian cutbacks to education would have been necessary. Indeed, funding for education (as well as health care, housing, public transportation, environmental protections and other human needs) could have been dramatically increased, or the federal deficit - currently being used as the excuse for cutbacks in such programs - could have been dramatically reduced. As a result, the AFT is faced with the politically difficult task of arguing for the federal government to borrow additional money to support public school teachers in the states, money Washington would have available were it not for the war the AFT supported.
In addition, the policy has lost the union the support of large segments of the rank and file at a time when that support is needed most. Despite the urgency of the issues at hand, many thousands of AFT members - angered at their leadership's anti-Arab bigotry and support for war in the Middle East - are no longer active in the union. Many of us, in recent years, have even been withholding the portion of our union dues that support the AFT's political activity, not wanting it to be used to promote the union's right-wing foreign policy agenda, and not wanting to have our money go to the campaigns of hawkish Democrats endorsed by the AFT's political action committee.
The union's hawkish stand has caused serious divisions within statewide chapters and locals, where dissent to the union's pro-war policies has not been welcomed by many in the leadership. (For example, the outgoing president of my union local referred to my opposition to the AFT's support for the Iraq war position as "demagoguery," and the incoming president of my local, an outspoken supporter of the war, accused me of "aligning with the forces in the world that would like nothing better than to see the USA fail in Iraq.")
In addition to problematic foreign policy positions themselves, it boggles the mind as to why a union faced with so many threats on the domestic front would risk serious divisions within its membership by adopting such right-wing foreign policy positions. Unfortunately, the AFT's insistence on taking such hawkish positions is not new.
A Militarist History
Albert Shanker, who served as the union's influential president for nearly a quarter-century until his death in 1997, was an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War and US military intervention in Central America, as well as a booster of President Reagan's dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race and dramatically increased military spending. He was a board member of the Committee for a Democratic Majority, a coalition of hawkish Democrats founded by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson and professor Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who later served in the Reagan administration. Although outspoken in its criticism of Communist regimes and leftist governments - even to the point of supporting right-wing terrorists attacking Nicaragua - the AFT under Shanker was reticent about criticizing autocratic allies of the United States.
Shanker was also virtually the only prominent trade unionist to join the Committee on the Present Danger, the influential right-wing group that accused President Gerald Ford and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger of engaging in "unilateral disarmament." Shanker and his colleagues claimed that Soviet Russia was somehow getting stronger than the United States and its allies and that the Soviets posed "a clear and present danger" to America's national security when, in reality, the Soviet Union was actually falling way behind the West in its strategic capabilities and its whole decrepit system was collapsing.
Following his death in 1997, Shanker was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who in turn was replaced by Shanker protege Edward McElroy in 2004. McElroy joined AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour as an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) vice president. Although much of the national labor federation had moved to the left since the 1970's, McElroy and LaCour stood out for their unrepentant right-wing agenda, serving as the only members of the AFL-CIO executive council who failed to express opposition to the George W. Bush doctrine of preventative war.
Support for the Iraq War
In January 2003, antiwar activists were scrambling to prevent a US invasion of Iraq by challenging the Bush administration's ludicrous claims about Iraq having reconstituted its chemical - and biological - weapons capabilities, offensive delivery system and nuclear weapons program. In an apparent effort to discredit such efforts and give credibility to the Bush administration's fearmongering, the AFT leadership went on record claiming that Iraq posed, "a unique threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East" and the national security interests of the United States.
This decision to parrot the Bush administration's alarmist and unsubstantiated rhetoric regarding Iraq's alleged military capabilities came in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary presented by UN arms inspectors, independent arms control specialists, investigative journalists, academic journals and analyses by independent research institutes that cast serious doubts upon such allegations. However, the AFT leadership in Washington apparently believed it knew more than arms control experts on the ground in Iraq, insisting that in order to avoid war, "There can be no equivocation. The Iraqi regime must disarm."
Given that the Iraqi regime had already disarmed as required years earlier and was already allowing unfettered inspections inside Iraq to confirm the disarmament, the demand by the AFT leadership appears to have been simply an excuse to back a US takeover of that oil-rich country.
In light of public opinion polls indicating that the only reason a majority of Americans would support a US invasion of Iraq was if they believed that Iraq constituted a threat to the national security of the United States, the decision by the leadership of one of the most powerful labor unions in the country - particularly one representing hundreds of thousands of primary, secondary and university teachers - to go on record making such false claims contributed to the political climate that made the US invasion of Iraq possible.
To this day, the AFT leadership has never apologized for misleading its members and the American public about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) or the alleged Iraqi threat.
Even after US forces invaded and occupied Iraq and the Bush administration admitted that Iraq had not failed to disarm as they and its supporters in AFT executive had claimed, the AFT continued to support the war. At the 2004 AFT biannual convention, the leadership rebuked antiwar elements of the union by passing a resolution declaring, in part, that, "we urge the Bush administration, the Congress and the American people to reject calls for the precipitous withdrawal of US forces." The resolution did not define what "precipitous" meant, and listed no criteria for when, or under what conditions, AFT leaders believed US forces should come back home, a choice of words widely interpreted to mean support for an indefinite US military occupation. This hawkish stance was in sharp contrast to the AFL-CIO as a whole and most of its other member unions, which had gone on record in opposition to the US war in Iraq and in support of an immediate withdrawal of American troops from that country.
There was widespread opposition within the union to the AFT's continued support for the war, however. In addition to rank-and-file opposition to the occupation in terms of its impact on the people of Iraq, including Iraqi trade unionists, there was also concern raised among the membership regarding its economic costs. It was presciently pointed out how supporting such a financially costly war could result in massive cutbacks to domestic programs, including education.
Meanwhile, the AFT leadership backed its hawkish position on Iraq with action: the majority of AFT's political contributions (funded from the dues of its members) in 2004 and 2006 went primarily to candidates who supported the Iraq war.
Although the union later criticized the Bush administration for misleading the nation about Iraq's WMD's, it was far more forgiving of Democrats who had done the same: in a 2002 meeting with McElroy, LaCour and other union leaders, then-senator Hillary Clinton insisted that Iraq had somehow reconstituted its WMD's and constituted a threat to the United States. Union officials later acknowledged her categorical claims played a major role in formulating their January 2003 statement. Despite being misled by Clinton, the AFT endorsed her 2008 presidential bid against Barack Obama, who had opposed the war and challenged the false claims of an Iraqi threat. To this day, Clinton has refused to apologize for misleading union leaders on Iraq's military capabilities or for her vote authorizing the war. The union poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into key primary states in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Clinton's antiwar challenger, with AFT president McElroy insisting that - despite the Clinton-backed invasion having alienated much of the international community from the United States- it was she, not Obama, who would "improve America's standing in the world."
Backing Bush on Lebanon
The AFT has also been eager to endorse the wars of America's allies. The AFT leadership was able to push through a resolution in the 2006 convention defending another aspect of the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East: support for Israel's assault that summer on Lebanon, which killed nearly 800 Lebanese civilians, destroyed billions of dollars worth of that country's infrastructure and caused widespread environmental damage.
As with the decision by the AFT leadership in 2003 to repeat the Bush administration's false claims about Iraq, the 2006 resolution repeated a series of false claims by the Bush administration regarding the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
For example, the resolution claimed that Hezbollah, "proudly takes credit for the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks" that killed 258 US Marines. In reality, while some individuals who later became part of that extremist Islamist group may indeed have been involved in that attack, Hezbollah has repeatedly denied having any role. My repeated requests to the AFT leadership for evidence to back its claim that Hezbollah "proudly takes credit" for the attack have remained unanswered.
In defending Israel's war on Lebanon and its bloody assault on heavily populated areas of the besieged Gaza Strip, the AFT went on record claiming that Hezbollah and Hamas were, "holding the people of Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza hostage," as part of an effort to back the Bush administration's insistence that it was these Palestinian and Lebanese militias that were ultimately responsible for the deaths of their own countrymen, not the indiscriminate bombardments of civilian areas by US-supplied Israeli forces. This was also apparently an effort by the AFT to discredit human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which published detailed empirical reports rejecting the Bush administration's claims that Hamas and Hezbollah used human shields or were otherwise responsible for the large numbers of civilian deaths. The AFT has refused to respond to requests to provide evidence countering the findings of these reputable human rights organizations.
The AFT also went on record claiming that the aims of Hezbollah and Hamas are to, "carry out the agendas of Iran and Syria." Most analysts familiar with the parties, however, argue that the provocative actions by these indigenous Islamic groups were based upon their own issues and that neither the Iranian nor Syrian governments - despite some financial and military support - had any operational control over these militias. Passing a resolution claiming that these militias were somehow being directed by foreign governments - governments that happened to be targeted by the Bush administration for sanctions, diplomatic isolation and possible military action - appears to have been part of an effort by the AFT leadership, despite the lack of evidence to support such accusations, to give credence to the administration's efforts to further its broader Middle East agenda.
Similarly, in an effort to undermine Syrian efforts to reopen negotiations with Israel and the United States, the AFT resolution claimed that both Hezbollah and Hamas were attacking, "Israeli cities and civilians with rockets, mortars and other heavy weapons supplied to them by ... Syria." In reality, the Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel appear to have been almost exclusively of Iranian origin, and the smaller, less-sophisticated Hamas rockets fired into Israel were largely homemade, with components smuggled in from Egypt. Again, the AFT has refused to provide evidence to back its claims that Syria supplied Hamas or Hezbollah with rockets.
While the AFT has done an admirable job of pushing the need to close the learning gap between middle-class white children and low-income children of color here in the United States, the union rejects such notions of equality when it comes to young Israeli and Arab victims of political violence. For example, the AFT has quite appropriately denounced Hezbollah and Hamas for the deaths of Israeli civilians, but at no point has the AFT ever expressed any concerns over the far greater number of civilians, including hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian children, who have been killed in recent years by US-supplied weapons and ordnance provided to Israel during that period. To the AFT leadership, the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza or Lebanon, like the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died as a result of the AFT-backed US war on Iraq, are apparently of little concern.
AFT Under Weingarten
In 2008, McElroy was succeeded as president by Randi Weingarten, who had led the important New York City chapter of the union. Weingarten came into office advocating an agenda that not only pushed for improved benefits for teachers and support staff in the nation's public schools, but advocated increasing state and federal funding for education and making it possible for schools to serve as community centers that could offer health and nutrition services for needy children (both of which are critical for the learning process). Instead, the AFT under her leadership has found itself on the defensive in the face of a right-wing assault on education.
Indeed, her leadership has been seriously damaged by her support for AFT's militaristic foreign policy, as well as her anti-Arab racism and her apparent opposition to the largely nonviolent struggles - labeled intifadas in Arabic - against autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere.
While head of the New York chapter, she contributed to a racist smear campaign that led to the dismissal of a newly appointed Arab-American school principal who had previously worked in an office in which some young volunteers printed out T-shirts which read, "NYC Intifada." In the face of vicious right-wing attacks falsely accusing her of supporting terrorism, the principal - a native Arabic speaker - who had nothing to do with the T-shirts, correctly pointed out that intifada simply means "shaking off" and does not connote violence. However, Weingarten - who does not speak Arabic - writing on the opinion page of The New York Post, falsely claimed that the use of the word was actually an endorsement of "rampant violence and bloodshed" and constituted "warmongering." Such intifadas, according to the AFT president, are inherently, "campaigns or ideas tied to violence" and should be "instinctively denounce[d]."
In reality, the word came into common usage in the West during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987-1993 against the Israeli occupation, which - while it included well-publicized incidents of stone-throwing and several slayings of suspected collaborators - was largely nonviolent, consisting primarily of peaceful demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, tax refusal, occupations, blockades and the creation of alternative institutions. The Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, in a comprehensive study of resistance activities during the first two years of the uprising in the Palestinians' occupied homeland, noted that 92 percent of the actions called for by the popular committees were explicitly nonviolent.
Intifada was also used by the Lebanese in their successful nonviolent uprising in 2005 against Syrian domination of their government and the ongoing presence of Syrian troops in their country. As far back as 1985, the word "intifada" was used to describe the nonviolent insurrection in Sudan against the US-backed dictatorial regime of Jaafar Nimeiri. In more recent years, it has been used in reference to the nonviolent resistance struggle in the Western Sahara against Moroccan occupation forces. And, during the past six months, it has been the term used by pro-democracy activists in their overwhelmingly nonviolent struggles against autocratic regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, the only intifada that engaged in extensive violence was the second Palestinian intifada early in the last decade. Any survey of the academic literature on this topic confirms that the origins and use of the term "intifada" are very different from what Weingarten claimed.
Despite efforts by me and other Middle East scholars to get her to withdraw the statement, however, Weingarten has refused to correct the disinformation, even in light of recent events. By remaining on record that those of us who support these pro-democracy intifadas are endorsing "rampant violence and bloodshed" and engaging in "warmongering" and should "instinctively denounce" them, the AFT president appears to be putting a prominent voice of American labor on the side of dictators and "stability" over freedom and democracy.
Recently, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that those who forced the principal, Debbie Almontaser, from her post as a result of the false claims against her - including claims that "intifada" connoted violence - were guilty of discrimination based upon her Arab background.
Costs to the Union
Now, with teachers being laid off in record numbers and educational rights under assault, the AFT - now weakened by the alienation of its progressive base - is trying to mobilize its membership against the onslaught.
In addition to facing massive budget cuts, teachers - along with allies in organized labor, community groups and university schools of education - are battling "reformers" largely aligned with corporate interests.
There is a growing movement to hand over urban schools to anti-union corporations and to appoint as heads of school boards corporate executives with little to no background in education.
The Obama administration, while not completely giving in to the "reformers," has largely failed to defend the teachers and their allies. The administration's refusal to rescind No Child Left Behind makes it likely that the overemphasis on standardized testing rather than on more holistic approaches to learning - along with the decreasing input allowed by teachers and community groups - will probably continue.
Fortunately, there is a strong and growing progressive wing in the union which succeeded in reversing the AFT's position in support of the Iraq war at the 2006 convention. A number of major locals, and even entire statewide chapters, broke with the national leadership even before that in coming out against the war. In addition, AFT dissidents have been disproportionately represented in US Labor Against the War and other progressive union activities that have challenged the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
These efforts have been primarily supported by the AFT's younger members, however, who - due to their lack of seniority - are now losing their jobs by the thousands.
As a result, until the AFT abandons its right-wing foreign policy agenda, the union's credibility will continue to be compromised, and embattled teachers will be without the kind of leadership they so desperately need.
Earlier versions of this article appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus in 2008 and AlterNet in 2009.

Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers

by: Stephen Zunes, Truthout

A high school senior speaks at Washington Teachers Union Rally for Respect, which also featured members from the American Federation of Teachers. (Photo: mar is sea Y)
Teachers and their unions are under assault throughout the country. Unfortunately, their ability to resist has been weakened by a series of actions over the past decade by the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest and most influential teachers' unions. These actions have seriously damaged AFT's credibility among its membership and progressive allies when they are needed the most. Of particular concern has been the AFT's support for the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East, including the US war on Iraq and Israel's war on Lebanon, as well as the current leadership's apparent opposition to pro-democracy struggles in the region.
Had the hundreds of billions of dollars used by the federal government to pay for the Iraq war through 2006 - the period during which the AFT supported the costly occupation and counterinsurgency operations - instead gone to education, none of the massive teacher layoffs and other draconian cutbacks to education would have been necessary. Indeed, funding for education (as well as health care, housing, public transportation, environmental protections and other human needs) could have been dramatically increased, or the federal deficit - currently being used as the excuse for cutbacks in such programs - could have been dramatically reduced. As a result, the AFT is faced with the politically difficult task of arguing for the federal government to borrow additional money to support public school teachers in the states, money Washington would have available were it not for the war the AFT supported.
In addition, the policy has lost the union the support of large segments of the rank and file at a time when that support is needed most. Despite the urgency of the issues at hand, many thousands of AFT members - angered at their leadership's anti-Arab bigotry and support for war in the Middle East - are no longer active in the union. Many of us, in recent years, have even been withholding the portion of our union dues that support the AFT's political activity, not wanting it to be used to promote the union's right-wing foreign policy agenda, and not wanting to have our money go to the campaigns of hawkish Democrats endorsed by the AFT's political action committee.
The union's hawkish stand has caused serious divisions within statewide chapters and locals, where dissent to the union's pro-war policies has not been welcomed by many in the leadership. (For example, the outgoing president of my union local referred to my opposition to the AFT's support for the Iraq war position as "demagoguery," and the incoming president of my local, an outspoken supporter of the war, accused me of "aligning with the forces in the world that would like nothing better than to see the USA fail in Iraq.")
In addition to problematic foreign policy positions themselves, it boggles the mind as to why a union faced with so many threats on the domestic front would risk serious divisions within its membership by adopting such right-wing foreign policy positions. Unfortunately, the AFT's insistence on taking such hawkish positions is not new.
A Militarist History
Albert Shanker, who served as the union's influential president for nearly a quarter-century until his death in 1997, was an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War and US military intervention in Central America, as well as a booster of President Reagan's dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race and dramatically increased military spending. He was a board member of the Committee for a Democratic Majority, a coalition of hawkish Democrats founded by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson and professor Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who later served in the Reagan administration. Although outspoken in its criticism of Communist regimes and leftist governments - even to the point of supporting right-wing terrorists attacking Nicaragua - the AFT under Shanker was reticent about criticizing autocratic allies of the United States.
Shanker was also virtually the only prominent trade unionist to join the Committee on the Present Danger, the influential right-wing group that accused President Gerald Ford and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger of engaging in "unilateral disarmament." Shanker and his colleagues claimed that Soviet Russia was somehow getting stronger than the United States and its allies and that the Soviets posed "a clear and present danger" to America's national security when, in reality, the Soviet Union was actually falling way behind the West in its strategic capabilities and its whole decrepit system was collapsing.
Following his death in 1997, Shanker was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who in turn was replaced by Shanker protege Edward McElroy in 2004. McElroy joined AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour as an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) vice president. Although much of the national labor federation had moved to the left since the 1970's, McElroy and LaCour stood out for their unrepentant right-wing agenda, serving as the only members of the AFL-CIO executive council who failed to express opposition to the George W. Bush doctrine of preventative war.
Support for the Iraq War
In January 2003, antiwar activists were scrambling to prevent a US invasion of Iraq by challenging the Bush administration's ludicrous claims about Iraq having reconstituted its chemical - and biological - weapons capabilities, offensive delivery system and nuclear weapons program. In an apparent effort to discredit such efforts and give credibility to the Bush administration's fearmongering, the AFT leadership went on record claiming that Iraq posed, "a unique threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East" and the national security interests of the United States.
This decision to parrot the Bush administration's alarmist and unsubstantiated rhetoric regarding Iraq's alleged military capabilities came in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary presented by UN arms inspectors, independent arms control specialists, investigative journalists, academic journals and analyses by independent research institutes that cast serious doubts upon such allegations. However, the AFT leadership in Washington apparently believed it knew more than arms control experts on the ground in Iraq, insisting that in order to avoid war, "There can be no equivocation. The Iraqi regime must disarm."
Given that the Iraqi regime had already disarmed as required years earlier and was already allowing unfettered inspections inside Iraq to confirm the disarmament, the demand by the AFT leadership appears to have been simply an excuse to back a US takeover of that oil-rich country.
In light of public opinion polls indicating that the only reason a majority of Americans would support a US invasion of Iraq was if they believed that Iraq constituted a threat to the national security of the United States, the decision by the leadership of one of the most powerful labor unions in the country - particularly one representing hundreds of thousands of primary, secondary and university teachers - to go on record making such false claims contributed to the political climate that made the US invasion of Iraq possible.
To this day, the AFT leadership has never apologized for misleading its members and the American public about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) or the alleged Iraqi threat.
Even after US forces invaded and occupied Iraq and the Bush administration admitted that Iraq had not failed to disarm as they and its supporters in AFT executive had claimed, the AFT continued to support the war. At the 2004 AFT biannual convention, the leadership rebuked antiwar elements of the union by passing a resolution declaring, in part, that, "we urge the Bush administration, the Congress and the American people to reject calls for the precipitous withdrawal of US forces." The resolution did not define what "precipitous" meant, and listed no criteria for when, or under what conditions, AFT leaders believed US forces should come back home, a choice of words widely interpreted to mean support for an indefinite US military occupation. This hawkish stance was in sharp contrast to the AFL-CIO as a whole and most of its other member unions, which had gone on record in opposition to the US war in Iraq and in support of an immediate withdrawal of American troops from that country.
There was widespread opposition within the union to the AFT's continued support for the war, however. In addition to rank-and-file opposition to the occupation in terms of its impact on the people of Iraq, including Iraqi trade unionists, there was also concern raised among the membership regarding its economic costs. It was presciently pointed out how supporting such a financially costly war could result in massive cutbacks to domestic programs, including education.
Meanwhile, the AFT leadership backed its hawkish position on Iraq with action: the majority of AFT's political contributions (funded from the dues of its members) in 2004 and 2006 went primarily to candidates who supported the Iraq war.
Although the union later criticized the Bush administration for misleading the nation about Iraq's WMD's, it was far more forgiving of Democrats who had done the same: in a 2002 meeting with McElroy, LaCour and other union leaders, then-senator Hillary Clinton insisted that Iraq had somehow reconstituted its WMD's and constituted a threat to the United States. Union officials later acknowledged her categorical claims played a major role in formulating their January 2003 statement. Despite being misled by Clinton, the AFT endorsed her 2008 presidential bid against Barack Obama, who had opposed the war and challenged the false claims of an Iraqi threat. To this day, Clinton has refused to apologize for misleading union leaders on Iraq's military capabilities or for her vote authorizing the war. The union poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into key primary states in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Clinton's antiwar challenger, with AFT president McElroy insisting that - despite the Clinton-backed invasion having alienated much of the international community from the United States- it was she, not Obama, who would "improve America's standing in the world."
Backing Bush on Lebanon
The AFT has also been eager to endorse the wars of America's allies. The AFT leadership was able to push through a resolution in the 2006 convention defending another aspect of the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East: support for Israel's assault that summer on Lebanon, which killed nearly 800 Lebanese civilians, destroyed billions of dollars worth of that country's infrastructure and caused widespread environmental damage.
As with the decision by the AFT leadership in 2003 to repeat the Bush administration's false claims about Iraq, the 2006 resolution repeated a series of false claims by the Bush administration regarding the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
For example, the resolution claimed that Hezbollah, "proudly takes credit for the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks" that killed 258 US Marines. In reality, while some individuals who later became part of that extremist Islamist group may indeed have been involved in that attack, Hezbollah has repeatedly denied having any role. My repeated requests to the AFT leadership for evidence to back its claim that Hezbollah "proudly takes credit" for the attack have remained unanswered.
In defending Israel's war on Lebanon and its bloody assault on heavily populated areas of the besieged Gaza Strip, the AFT went on record claiming that Hezbollah and Hamas were, "holding the people of Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza hostage," as part of an effort to back the Bush administration's insistence that it was these Palestinian and Lebanese militias that were ultimately responsible for the deaths of their own countrymen, not the indiscriminate bombardments of civilian areas by US-supplied Israeli forces. This was also apparently an effort by the AFT to discredit human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which published detailed empirical reports rejecting the Bush administration's claims that Hamas and Hezbollah used human shields or were otherwise responsible for the large numbers of civilian deaths. The AFT has refused to respond to requests to provide evidence countering the findings of these reputable human rights organizations.
The AFT also went on record claiming that the aims of Hezbollah and Hamas are to, "carry out the agendas of Iran and Syria." Most analysts familiar with the parties, however, argue that the provocative actions by these indigenous Islamic groups were based upon their own issues and that neither the Iranian nor Syrian governments - despite some financial and military support - had any operational control over these militias. Passing a resolution claiming that these militias were somehow being directed by foreign governments - governments that happened to be targeted by the Bush administration for sanctions, diplomatic isolation and possible military action - appears to have been part of an effort by the AFT leadership, despite the lack of evidence to support such accusations, to give credence to the administration's efforts to further its broader Middle East agenda.
Similarly, in an effort to undermine Syrian efforts to reopen negotiations with Israel and the United States, the AFT resolution claimed that both Hezbollah and Hamas were attacking, "Israeli cities and civilians with rockets, mortars and other heavy weapons supplied to them by ... Syria." In reality, the Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel appear to have been almost exclusively of Iranian origin, and the smaller, less-sophisticated Hamas rockets fired into Israel were largely homemade, with components smuggled in from Egypt. Again, the AFT has refused to provide evidence to back its claims that Syria supplied Hamas or Hezbollah with rockets.
While the AFT has done an admirable job of pushing the need to close the learning gap between middle-class white children and low-income children of color here in the United States, the union rejects such notions of equality when it comes to young Israeli and Arab victims of political violence. For example, the AFT has quite appropriately denounced Hezbollah and Hamas for the deaths of Israeli civilians, but at no point has the AFT ever expressed any concerns over the far greater number of civilians, including hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian children, who have been killed in recent years by US-supplied weapons and ordnance provided to Israel during that period. To the AFT leadership, the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza or Lebanon, like the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died as a result of the AFT-backed US war on Iraq, are apparently of little concern.
AFT Under Weingarten
In 2008, McElroy was succeeded as president by Randi Weingarten, who had led the important New York City chapter of the union. Weingarten came into office advocating an agenda that not only pushed for improved benefits for teachers and support staff in the nation's public schools, but advocated increasing state and federal funding for education and making it possible for schools to serve as community centers that could offer health and nutrition services for needy children (both of which are critical for the learning process). Instead, the AFT under her leadership has found itself on the defensive in the face of a right-wing assault on education.
Indeed, her leadership has been seriously damaged by her support for AFT's militaristic foreign policy, as well as her anti-Arab racism and her apparent opposition to the largely nonviolent struggles - labeled intifadas in Arabic - against autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere.
While head of the New York chapter, she contributed to a racist smear campaign that led to the dismissal of a newly appointed Arab-American school principal who had previously worked in an office in which some young volunteers printed out T-shirts which read, "NYC Intifada." In the face of vicious right-wing attacks falsely accusing her of supporting terrorism, the principal - a native Arabic speaker - who had nothing to do with the T-shirts, correctly pointed out that intifada simply means "shaking off" and does not connote violence. However, Weingarten - who does not speak Arabic - writing on the opinion page of The New York Post, falsely claimed that the use of the word was actually an endorsement of "rampant violence and bloodshed" and constituted "warmongering." Such intifadas, according to the AFT president, are inherently, "campaigns or ideas tied to violence" and should be "instinctively denounce[d]."
In reality, the word came into common usage in the West during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987-1993 against the Israeli occupation, which - while it included well-publicized incidents of stone-throwing and several slayings of suspected collaborators - was largely nonviolent, consisting primarily of peaceful demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, tax refusal, occupations, blockades and the creation of alternative institutions. The Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, in a comprehensive study of resistance activities during the first two years of the uprising in the Palestinians' occupied homeland, noted that 92 percent of the actions called for by the popular committees were explicitly nonviolent.
Intifada was also used by the Lebanese in their successful nonviolent uprising in 2005 against Syrian domination of their government and the ongoing presence of Syrian troops in their country. As far back as 1985, the word "intifada" was used to describe the nonviolent insurrection in Sudan against the US-backed dictatorial regime of Jaafar Nimeiri. In more recent years, it has been used in reference to the nonviolent resistance struggle in the Western Sahara against Moroccan occupation forces. And, during the past six months, it has been the term used by pro-democracy activists in their overwhelmingly nonviolent struggles against autocratic regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, the only intifada that engaged in extensive violence was the second Palestinian intifada early in the last decade. Any survey of the academic literature on this topic confirms that the origins and use of the term "intifada" are very different from what Weingarten claimed.
Despite efforts by me and other Middle East scholars to get her to withdraw the statement, however, Weingarten has refused to correct the disinformation, even in light of recent events. By remaining on record that those of us who support these pro-democracy intifadas are endorsing "rampant violence and bloodshed" and engaging in "warmongering" and should "instinctively denounce" them, the AFT president appears to be putting a prominent voice of American labor on the side of dictators and "stability" over freedom and democracy.
Recently, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that those who forced the principal, Debbie Almontaser, from her post as a result of the false claims against her - including claims that "intifada" connoted violence - were guilty of discrimination based upon her Arab background.
Costs to the Union
Now, with teachers being laid off in record numbers and educational rights under assault, the AFT - now weakened by the alienation of its progressive base - is trying to mobilize its membership against the onslaught.
In addition to facing massive budget cuts, teachers - along with allies in organized labor, community groups and university schools of education - are battling "reformers" largely aligned with corporate interests.
There is a growing movement to hand over urban schools to anti-union corporations and to appoint as heads of school boards corporate executives with little to no background in education.
The Obama administration, while not completely giving in to the "reformers," has largely failed to defend the teachers and their allies. The administration's refusal to rescind No Child Left Behind makes it likely that the overemphasis on standardized testing rather than on more holistic approaches to learning - along with the decreasing input allowed by teachers and community groups - will probably continue.
Fortunately, there is a strong and growing progressive wing in the union which succeeded in reversing the AFT's position in support of the Iraq war at the 2006 convention. A number of major locals, and even entire statewide chapters, broke with the national leadership even before that in coming out against the war. In addition, AFT dissidents have been disproportionately represented in US Labor Against the War and other progressive union activities that have challenged the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
These efforts have been primarily supported by the AFT's younger members, however, who - due to their lack of seniority - are now losing their jobs by the thousands.
As a result, until the AFT abandons its right-wing foreign policy agenda, the union's credibility will continue to be compromised, and embattled teachers will be without the kind of leadership they so desperately need.
Earlier versions of this article appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus in 2008 and AlterNet in 2009.