Labor's Lessons

Cusco in April

2011-11-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

A shot from Cusco in April of 2011 when Teresa and I did our fist visit there. What an amazing place and time to be there (Holy Week).

From 4-18-2011

Connecting the Dots...

2011-11-10T06:04:00.001-08:00

...is what makes it all worth while for me. The various aspects of my life have some meaning when I see them related to each other.

5/3/2006

View my article on Teacher Vision in the New Media Classroom- it states my purpose for teaching and using new media to instill democractic values in students.

Read article: http://www.elfrank.com/articles/iste/iste1.pdf

Why do they hate us?

2010-04-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

The U.S. military has just produced an Al Qaeda recruitment video. Paid for by the U.S. taxpayer and numerous Iraqi civilian lives.

Circulated worldwide is video evidence of what we have all too long known what was going on over there. The immorality, callousness and stupidity of the American military personnel involved make me ashamed to be an American. Why didn't they stop to ask why insurgents would casually hang out in an open square with their attack helicopter overhead? Shouldn't that have put a question in their heads about if these were indeed insurgents? Most weren't carrying anything that could be construed as weapons. The soldiers just wanted an excuse to kill. Like Vietnam, this kind of thing has happened dozens and dozens of times over there.

Warning - you will see innocent civilians being massacred, not for the faint hearted. http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/04/05/watch-u-s-military-shooting-down-civilians-in-iraq/

See coverage by Democracy Now with an interview of the co-founder of WikiLeaks who leaked the video.

Also see an MSNBC story. According to MSNBC the group leaking this video WikiLeaks, have a reliable track record.

But, don't take my word for U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hear it from U.S. veterans themselves:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/14/hundreds_of_veterans_of_iraq_and

OBAMA to Unions - F YOU!

2010-03-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

I didn't vote for Barack Obama, although I said I was glad he won. I think it was good for the nation in general to help move us ahead on the racial issue. However, I knew he had morphed into a corporate flunky as he ran for president. I knew also that he was not the best candidate for education, buying the corporate rhetoric on so called "accountability" and charter schools. The community organizer chose a community destroyer in Arnie Duncan for Education Secretary, who prided himself on firing the entire school staff and starting a new school. Often times in Chicago this meant sending students across town through dangerous neighborhoods to their new schools. Just Google the so called "Chicago Miracle" and you'll find out it has gotten very mixed reviews, even from Chicago's own business community.

So when President Obama applauded the mass firing of our union bothers and sisters in Central Falls, Rhode Island last month I was appalled. These are people who served an extremely poor community, with an median household income of about $28,000. These kids came from dirt poor households. With it, as any community organizer should know, are all the problems of poverty. These problems produce children less ready to learn than their middle-class suburban counterparts.

Studies have shown how children from lower socio-economic neighborhoods are read to less, talked to less, don't eat as well, and are physically punished much more often. All of this produces high need students. And in Central Falls, I'm confident, this was the bulk of students in that district.

Should there be any surprise that these students have high dropout rates? Obama decided to join the bandwagon of blame the teachers. Teachers are the largest population of organized labor in the country. The agenda to privatize much of public education in this country is premised on busting these urban unions like the AFT.

Obama is a corporate stooge. He has sided with the enemies of working people. Organized labor needs to consider its options in building a labor party; as the corporate Democrats have for too long used the labor vote in this country while backing the corporate agenda of privatization.

It's class warfare. And until labor leaders in this country realize this they will continue to lead us to the slaughter. Teacher union leaders need to stop fraternizing with the corporadoes. They need to educate the American working class about the benefits of solidarity and collective bargaining. They need to turn the tide of this class war in favor of working people. There's no more appropriate group to take the lead than teachers.

A Great Loss - Howard Zinn RIP

2010-01-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

I will never forget, as a brand new social studies teacher in Brooklyn, being told of Howard Zinn's A Peoples' History of the United States by veteran teacher Jack Urlich at Sarah J. Hale High School back in 1986. Jack emphasized that this was the seminal work and could easily be used in the classroom.

I was already familiar with voices of dissent like Noam Chomsky, but Zinn's book help me put it all together. It provided me with the chronology and overview of our history in a way that help me contextualize Chomsky and others. What's more is that his work was useful in my teaching of U.S. History, Economics and Government. My students always found the readings refreshing compared to the stale textbooks. I continue to use A People's History in my classroom today.

I had two occasions where I had the honor of meeting Howard. The first time he came to our school, Murry Bergtraum High School, in Manhattan around 1992. He was persuaded into coming by Margo Mack, a teacher there and old friend of his. Howard spoke to an assembly of students in our library. I was struck with his tall stature, broad smile and sense of humor. The second time, when living in Boston, I attended a lecture and spoke with him afterward. He reminded me so much of my father, also a substantial figure, in that I could sense the generational characteristics. He told me he knew where Murry Bergtraum High School was, as he helped organize the tenants across the street in the Smith Houses. Our nation, indeed the world, are blessed with his gifts to us.

Thanks Howard!

Tragedy in Haiti

2010-01-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

We are all stunned by the developments in Haiti. With a .7 earthquake massive devastation has come to Haiti's capitol Port ua Prince.

MSNBC has a link on organizations that are helping. See if you can donate:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/?ns=world_news-americas

image source (see slide show)

BloomKlein's DOG (Dept. of Graduation)

2009-10-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter from a colleague at Murry Bergtraum High School:

Dear Editors of the New York Times,

re: No Gains by New York Students ... -- NYT 10/14/09 -- I know this is too long but the Times should be immune to sound bites. Your education reporters should really get real and start to address reality and not just what the Bloomberg machine shovels out to them (in spite of the prodigious and corrupting power of his advertising monies).

It is not surprising that a serious, longitudinal observer like Diane Ravitch indicts the Bloom-Kleinberg's cynical and self-serving educational policy (if you keep changing the guidelines you can't be judged on your guidelines) with a pithy and accurate statement like "What this amounts to is a fraud."

Under the watch of these two, the Department of Education (DOE) has morphed into the Department of Graduation (DOG). As always with political entities the emphasis falls on the last word in the departmental aim: Graduation trumps Education. The Bloom-Kleinberg mob have altered their original lip-service concerns about the education of our students into a more statistically convenient focus upon the graduation of students. They have very little concern about the education of our students if it gets int he way of the graduation rate of students. They don't really care about educating; they mostly care about graduating.

Let's face facts. If we are talking about college bound students with a hope of graduating within 4-6 years, only about 30% of them make it. The "it" here being the track toward a reasonable stability in their life styles and/or upward mobility. So it doesn't really matter if the high school graduation rate is 90%, 70%, or 50%, because only about 30% will make it through college anyway. The current mania about graduation rates is a result of NAFTA and the "global economy." We no longer have abundant unskilled and marginally skilled jobs to employ enough of the roughly 70% of society who cannot cut it and get through college. There simply are no jobs for about 40% to 50% of high school graduates other than those in the food service and retail industries. It's all about the politics of denial.

High School as presently constituted and funded is totally inadequate and unprepared to address these issues.

Allow me re-phrase Ms. Ravitch according to my take on the situation: What all of this bogus focus on graduation rates amounts to is a defrauding of the middle class and a power grab by the entitled oligarchs in allocating scare resources to the advantage of their entitled spawn.

The oligarchs gravitate toward the limited space in charter schools, or more traditionally (like Mayor Bllomberg, and ironically, Al Sharpton as well) isolate their spawn from the "riff-raff" in private schools.

However anyone cares to slice it we are engaged in class warfare for scant and diminishing resources.

Basically under the likes of a Bloom-Kleinberg DOG (Departmant of GRADUATION, in case you have forgotten the sole focus), we slap a sham sheep-skin (dumbed so down to insure that all can leap a hurdle set so low as to be almost ground level) into the hands of an untutored neophyte and pretend that it is his/her fault if he/she can't make it the Social Darwinian Jungle out there. How short-term cynical and politically self-serving is that?

Remember, many of you, so many, voted for this ticket once or twice; but need we deny our own self interests a third time before the cock crows?

In the words of Diane Ravitch, "What this amounts to is a fraud."

So many frauds in so many ways. Ineptitude attempts to hide its mistakes by constantly altering its stated conceits.

-- Wil Hallgren

Wil Hallgren is an English teacher and Poet.

"Mr. President...

2009-10-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

...you will be elected by only about 25% of the membership. Isn't that a bad thing?"

What I was hoping to hear in response at the "Meet the President" dinner in Chinatown last week was... "You are right, John. It's not a good thing and this union (UFT) has to do something about member apathy and low participation in union elections. Let's put together a study group." That's what Randi Weingarten would have said anyway.

But instead I got the old- Whatta gonna do??? Michael Mulgrew asked the crowd, "How many of you get more than 50% at your chapter elections?" Some hands went up (obviously they missed their cue). He was resigned to the fact that dismal member turnout (about 30%) for union-wide elections was a problem beyond our control.

Some would argue it's by design. That the Unity Caucus, the political machine that runs the UFT, doesn't want broader participation. Otherwise, their candidates might not get elected.

But, Mulgrew assured us we are a democratic union. After all, the membership was surveyed about what their concerns were about the contract. That information was passed to a member negotiation committee. Nothing wrong with that. But, it seems the UFT did this the last time and the union was quietly running focus groups on the new contract while the negotiating committee was toiling away in the dark (unaware that a deal had been cut for a renewal of the 2005 contract with money between 6 and 8 percent). I know. I was in one of those focus groups. So was a surprised member of the negotiating committee.

This brings up the question: Why doesn't the UFT endorse Thompson for mayor? Instead, it is all very quiet. Was there a deal already cut by Randi on her way down to Washington with King Michael Bloomberg? We won't oppose you if...

One thing is for sure, they won't come to our school for a focus group anytime soon. At least we have better member participation in our school elections.

A Union that Believes in Nothing

2009-06-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

...will settle for anything.

That's our predicament in the UFT. Political expediency rules the day, and has for decades. No wonder we have no vision at the UFT, no proposition about what the future could look like. It's one contractual jujitsu maneuver after another. Like with merit pay; we will turn it into school bonuses. Better than direct merit pay? Yes, but still accepts the premise that we do what we do for money. That we can be bought just like the money grubbers on Wall St. That we don't stand for something greater.

The provision for no layoffs has paid off considerably. That I must concede. However, it came at a great cost: loss of seniority transfer, and grieving a letter in the file. These two provisions have made this system a living hell. Fear reigns in schools. A teacher can no longer escape a belligerent principal and find a place of mutual acceptance. They can be (and have been) pummeled with letters, of a dubious nature, in the file which can be used to U rate these teachers. Except under very limited circumstances, these letters cannot be challenged and generally must remain in the file for at three years (plenty of time to go after a teacher's license). It should have come at no surprise that the Chancellor created new budgeting rules shortly thereafter that charges schools more for experienced teachers compared to new teachers. We have painted ourselves into a corner.

I know our union leadership thinks that the members will never strike, and they are doing the best they can regarding this reality. This would be more plausible if the leadership demonstrated some level of commitment to principle, the kind that made this union. This union membership actually said "no" to former President Sandra Feldman to a contract offer, sent her back to the table. She came back with something better.

Instead we have had leadership that accommodates, or at best, does a jujitsu on the moves to dismantle the union. While I am myself a student of martial arts, I do think there's a limit to how far you can go rolling with the punches. There comes a time for direct confrontation. To do so, you need an alternative vision of the future that motivates your members to make the necessary sacrifices. Without such a vision, you have to appeal to your members' lowest motivations: their pocket books. The UFT constantly hails its (below inflation, BTW) "raises" their teachers have gotten as their success. All at the price of an increasing loss of control over their professional practice, a culture of fear and intimidation from corporate-style control over the school staff.

Take into account the crisis of democracy in the UFT that no one is talking about. Less than one third of the membership bothered to vote in the last union-wide elections. Union vice presidents are elected "at large" rather than from their direct constituencies (e.g. elementary school teachers elect the high schools vice president). District representatives are no longer elected by the school chapter leaders, for whom they serve, but are appointed. Should there be any surprise that a union, which is increasingly adopting a corporate-style bureaucracy itself, embrace such a system to govern schools?

The political machine that runs the union, Unity Caucus, has at its core a culture of secrecy and political favoritism. This explains the erosion of democracy and the selling out of the membership for politically expedient ends. If you believe only in feathering your nest, you won't make the hard choices that could put you at risk of going jail for a while why your membership goes out on strike. Loyal Unity members get first pick of paid after school positions and executive appointments. These caucus members may not speak publicly about union issues without getting clearance from the caucus. It's part of the agreement to be in the caucus. They go to the delegate assembly with their marching orders on how to vote on any given resolution. It makes the DAs a foregone conclusion.

Only leadership that can offer an alternative vision of the future for public education has any hope of survival for the union. Right now the Mayor's vision is driving the system, and it's in line with the broader, national, neo-liberal vision of a private school system, feeding at the public trough. It's a vision that sows the seeds of our destruction as a union and democratic society. The labor movement has an opportunity to fashion an alternative vision. Time is running out.

On Mayoral Control

2009-06-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

I felt this worth the repost. In shock and awe that my union leadership is stumping for reauthorization.

Originally Posted: 12/06

In NYC it has been a corporate-style takeover; with wiping the slate clean (of personnel they could fire) and starting from scratch. It was recless without regard for human relations, insitutuional memory and professional communities long in place. If you were part of the past system you had nothing to offer and needed to be expunged. This is Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klien's "Zero Year".

Chancellor Joel Klein also used public relations techniques with those he couldn’t outright dismiss. He visited our school, Murry Bergtraum High School, shortly after regime change in 2001 with a “town hall meeting”. It was run Bush-style, no questions taking by the Chancellor; one-way communications. Then they broke up the meeting into focus groups of parents and teachers. In these breakout sessions DOE underlings listened and took notes like they were interested in what we had to say. Nothing ever came of our comments; no analysis or reporting back. It’s like they took our feedback, and with our backs turned, chucked it into the garbage.

Things have been run that way ever since. Principals now look over their shoulders in fear, as managers do in the corporate world, for who is going to get the axe next. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Klein have a mechanistic and reductionist view of education. That is, you can micromanage and script teachers, whose measure of success can totally be assessed by the standardized test scores of their students. There has been mass demoralization of educators, while parental involvement in our school has plummeted.

Such management style comes from the Theory X view of human motivation you will find in the organizational theory literature. In the early 20th century a social scientist named Taylor developed a theory premised on the belief that workers were basically lazy and stupid. They responded only to external motivations- rewards or punishments. Hence we have the mayor’s “merit pay” for teachers and “accountability” for students that makes learning not fun but serious business, supporting the “feel bad” education environment. Why else would Klein recruit the likes of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, who boasted of creating a climate of fear for his employees, to set the standard of leadership for the DOE’s principals' institute? Mayor Bloomberg demonstrated just how committed he was to an openness to ideas by creating the Panel for Educational Policy, only to fire some of them when they were going to rule against his anti-social promotion scheme. That’s the kind of bureaucracy management we used to see in the old Soviet Union and dovetails with the poisonous pedagogy of the No Child Left Behind Act. At least with the old Board of Education, there were some members you could reach and convince to advocate for your school or a special program you were involved in. They didn't view veteran teachers a pariahs but conveyers of experience and institutional memory. Now there’s an unaccountable corporate bureaucracy in the DOE, wanting to implement the Zero Year.

On the other side of the spectrum Theory Y states that people have an inherent tendency for growth and creativity. This theory came out of the humanist school of psychology. It’s the premise this teacher operates on in his class. Democracy is taught as a value in and of itself; that the exercise of freedom allows one to create meaning and engage in and shape societal change as a natural right. The primary accountability is to oneself, premised on the view of Socrates that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Only an educational system true to the ideals of democracy, where individuals take responsibility for their freedom; to learn what they will and how they will, with the guidance of a teacher who has only the student’s interest in mind, not a salary increase, can serve a free society. Such a system will put the students, teachers, parents and local administrators as equal partners in the driver’s seat with the standards of success to be determined by and for the these stakeholders.

Albert Einstein, a charter member of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “It’s the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” Einstein had the audacity to consider that the motivation for learning could be intrinsic and that teachers should become expert at nudging it and creating opportunities for such joy to come alive and grow. Our educational systems must become democratic and not remain bureaucratic to nurture such joy. Corporate dictatorial bureaucracy is to joy of learning as a straight jacket is to dance. Bloomberg's experiement is a failure, it's time for something different.

John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
http://www.elfrank.com/

Don't Blame Me... I voted Nader '08.

2009-02-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

Let me be clear- I'm glad Barack Obama won. I think it was a good thing for the nation overall, am proud a majority of Americans voted for him (although it should have been a landslide, not just in electoral votes). However, living in NY I knew Obama didn't need my vote. That's why I voted for Ralph Nader, again.

I knew Obama would not be able to take on the plutocracy; the oligarchs that he has just bailed out with TARP. The Democratic party has too many ties to Wall St. and Obama's selection of Timothy Geitner, a protege of Robert Rueben (neoliberal economic policies under Clinton) who helped dig this economic hole we are in is evidence to the point.

To hear moderate economist Simon Johnson of MIT say: "There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that - they say - will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?" then to see the bailout without a dime going to help people stay in their homes it's apparent from the bailout that answer to Simon's question is "NO!".

An interesting conversation on Democracy Now! gives two damning perspectives of the TARP bailout from respected economists Robert Kuttner and Michael Hudson.

Nader's plan. outlined last fall, would fix the situation.

Immediate Changes Required for Any Bailout

- No bailouts without conditions and reciprocity in the form of stock warrants

- No more lobbying for any company that is bailed out

- No golden parachutes and get out of jail free cards for guilty executives

- No bailouts without public hearings

Changes to Housing Market

- Reduce the moral hazard in U.S. mortgage markets by introducing covered bonds for the majority of mortgage products as they do in Western Europe. That gives institutions that finance mortgages an incentive to be prudent, because they cannot just unload them and wipe their hands clean of the liability, but are instead on the hook if the homeowner defaults.

- Maintain neighborhood stability and housing security by passing a law with a sunset clause allowing below median-value homeowners facing foreclosure the right to rent-to-own their homes at fair market value rates.

- Avoid future housing bubbles by removing implicit government guarantees for new mortgages that exceed thresholds of greater than 15-20 times the annual fair market rent value of the home.

Structural Changes to Financial Markets

- Make the Federal Reserve a Cabinet Position, so it is accountable to Congress, as well as making sure all Federal Reserve Bank presidents are appointed by the President and answerable to congress.

- Reduce conflicts of interest by taking away power for auditor and rating agency selection from companies and placing it in the hands of the SEC to be administered on random assignment.

- Implement a securities speculation tax, starting with derivatives to deter casino-style capitalism.

(source: http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/09/16/meltdown/)

My only trepidation for a Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich presidency (as unlikely in our corrupt election system as that would be) that would actually stand up to the banksters would be that they wouldn't be long for this world. However, it's the kind of free thinking and dedicated service that we need now.

When Hope Comes to a Halt...

2009-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

Obama falls in line on Israel/Gaza

Today President Obama reiterated what was for the most part the same old Bush policy on Israel and Palestine ignoring the core issues that prevent a lasting peace. He started off claiming Israel has a right to defend itself. There's no argument with that. However, it's void of any context. The fact that Israel had non-violent means of stopping the Hamas rockets, by continuing to obey the ceasefire it broke on Nov. 4, 2008 (see prior post), and/or ending its illegal blockade, was not considered by the new president. International law requires nations to exhaust non-violent means first in their self-defense. Even this is a bit gratuitous since Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire on Nov4.

To listen to Noam Chomsky explain it go to:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/23/noam_chomsky_obamas_stance_on_gaza

2009-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

GAZA – If the Truth Matters

Read All About It in the Israeli Media…

Because I stand for Israelis' and Palestinians' right to live in peace and prosperity with their neighbors and, becuase, after careful study and long thought, that the occuaption of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza are the two biggest obstacles to such a peace coming to those people, and becaue of my conviction that only non-violent struggle can truly free a people, I am compelled to share with you the following:

Israel Broke the Ceasefire – Not Hamas: see- Haaretz (Israel's newspaper of record):
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034284.html

You have to read past the headline to the 2nd paragraph which states:

The rocket barrage [from Hamas] came a day after an Israel Air Force strike in the southern Strip killed at least five militants and wounded several others.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians Guardian U.K.

and

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-mideast17-2008nov17,0,2341094.story LA Times

Which should be no surprise since: Israel Planned Attack Last Spring: see- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html

Why would Israel want to do this? Hamas Accepts ’67 Border and Truce Sept. 08.
Thus, recognizing Israel see- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035414.html or could it be Labor trying to redeem itself before the election for its botched invasion of Lebanon. At this writing Labor and Kadima have gone up in the polls as a result of this attack.

Connecting the Dots- Israel’s invasion is a response to the Palestinian Peace Offensive: See Dr. Norman Finkelstein’s debate with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel at-
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/8/former_amb_martin_indyk_vs_author

We Americans are subsidizing this massacre of Palestinians.
The only way to peace for Palestinians and Israelis is to end the occupation. See what you can do: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/

My Salute to the Fraud of Frauds

2009-01-01T19:35:00.001-08:00

Teachers - the Perpetual Scapegoats

2008-07-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

In response to the "if only the teachers would cooperate, our schools could improve crowd" ala Chancellor Klein and Rev. Al Sharpton...

Teachers don’t create over-crowded schools and classrooms.
Teachers don’t ask for education budget cuts.
Teachers don’t advocate parents not read to their children.
Teachers don’t advocate corporal punishment of small children.
Teachers don’t support social welfare cuts that target children and make parenting more difficult.
Teachers don’t support economic policies that force parents to work two or more minimum wage jobs.
Teachers don’t emulate a media culture that romanticizes violence, is anti-intellectual and promotes a culture of frivolity.
Teachers don’t support health insurance policies that deny basic care to millions of our students.

What teachers do is, in spite of enormous obstacles, try desperately to help their students create their own futures, while fighting off being scapegoats for the racial injustice that is poverty.

Disaster Captialism (The Shock Doctrine) Meets Education "Reform"

2007-11-17T04:58:00.000-08:00

Jack Welch, Klein's selection for leading new principals, was proud of and known for creating a climate of fear at GE by firing 10% of employees to keep the others on their toes. This kind of culture is the exact opposite of what we need in our schools. The fact that Klein chose Welch to set the tone for the principals' training school should have sent alarm bells throughout the school communities.

As a social studies teacher I make it my business to study larger trends of societal transitions. There’s a new book called the “The Shock Doctrine” by journalist Naomi Klein (http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine) that may be informative regarding the goal and intentions of the NYC DOE's plans for the schools. While the goal in The Shock Doctrine theory is to create a new order, it must do so by placing the population in a state of shock, much as a psychiatric patient is through electro-shock therapy, to make him/her pliable to change. The shocks can be contrived or provided by nature. An example of the former would the coup in Chile, and the destruction of the Soviet economic system to introduce radical free market capitalism (referred to as "Disaster Capitalism"). Hurricane Katrina provides and example of the latter, allowing the push through of charter schools and gutting of the teachers union there. Klein goes on to mention in her book numerous other examples.

I think it’s plausible that what Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg are trying to do is an adaptation of that Shock Doctrine light policy on our schools. Welch setting the tone for fear and intimidation, teachers losing due process rights and seniority transfers, new budgeting rules that will discriminate against experienced teachers, the summary firing of BOE staff to erase institutional memory, the movement toward merit pay schemes (currently in the school bonus phase); when taken collectively have put teachers in a state of shock. For the kids we have seen the end of social promotion, increased testing in the name of “accountability”. Parents have never seen an education regime that was as unresponsive. Add to this an effective PR machine of the DOE of cooking graduation numbers and having phony town hall meetings where the Chancellor is not taking questions and parent/teacher feedback is ignored and you have the softer side of this policy of destruction.

It’s apparent to this teacher that a new education paradigm is emerging for NYC kids. Not all kids, as those in the elite schools will be protected. It’s a paradigm that fits a nation with a shrinking middle class; where the new schools system of scripted teaching temps and test-driven curricula are to produce citizens without the capacity to think critically but instead follow orders and carry out narrow specific tasks to fulfill the roles of: clerks, ground level law enforcement, military and other lower-level technical jobs. You won’t see such a paradigm shift in the affluent suburbs, nor for our elites in Stuyvesant High School or the other institutions elites send their children to.

What will be interesting to watch is if the new regime that will take over from where the Mayor has left it will continue this march toward developing a lower caste educational system; where the assault on the teachers union and weakening of the public school system will produce a mechanistic and reductionist “free market” model of education. Could this happen under a Democrat mayor?

I think this leads us to the obvious conclusion: Mayoral control cannot be "fixed" (as the AFT tries to call for NCLB), it must be replaced with a democratic system of control.

Proposition: NYCDOE is implementing a form of the Shock Doctrine

2007-11-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

Only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change. Milton Friedman

It's the premise of Naomi Klein, in her new book, The Shock Doctrine, that radical change can be applied to whole societies or communities when they are in a state of shock, much as an individual reacts from electric shock therapy treatments. The subject, individual or community, is reduced to a pliable state in which they are highly suggestive and can be manipulated. This Shock Doctrine has been a method employed by governments for decades.

Its techniques on the uses of shock to gain compliance from prisoners have been documented in a CIA handbook. Radical "free market" economist Friedman's "shock treatment" was applied to Russia under Yeltsin to push through radical economic changes. Other similar applications include: in China after the Tienanmen Square massacre to prepare it to become the world's sweat shop, Sept. 11th to push through Bush's neoconservative agenda, the invasion and devastation of Iraq to put that nation and its resources under U.S. control, and to push through charter schools in post-Katrina New Orleans. In either case, the shock producing event could be contrived or just taken advantage of when the opportunity presents itself.

Have the faculty, students, staff and parents of the NYC public school system been put under a similar shock pattern to pave the way for "culture change" as Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein want it?

Is the No Child Left Behind Act of the federal government designed to create a crisis? Surely, we know that this unfunded mandate, with its unrealistic expectations represents a new form of federal intervention in school districts designed to wreak havoc and pave the way for privatization (see Alfie Kohn, Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow, in the Phi Delta Kappan, April 2004).

What of the impact on kids with the increasing number of exams and discontinuance of social promotions? You can see how the experts are advising parents and kids to cope with the stress: http://www.nymetroparents.com/newarticle.cfm?colid=7334 if you aren't convinced.

Take a look at how teachers' professional lives in NYC have been shocked:
1. Loss of due process rights in grieving a disciplinary letter in the file.
2. Hundreds of teachers put into limbo status (known as Absent Teacher Reserve) when there are no jobs for them.
3. Loss of seniority transfer, forcing more experienced and higher-paid teachers to have to compete with younger and cheaper teachers for jobs under new budgeting rules.
4. Numerous school closings that dislocate at least half of the faculty of the school.

Add to this two massive school reorganizations in four years and you have the recipe for putting the NYC school community in a state of shock.

Naomi Klein says the resistance to such shock treatment is to gain information about what is happening to you and why, then pass it on.

School "Progress" Reports: An Excuse to Wreak Havoc

2007-11-06T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here are some interesting numbers I was able to crunch out of the Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein's school "progress" reports for NYC schools:

80% of the schools that got an F or D on the progress report were rated "profecient" or better on the quality review.

37% of the schools rated unsatisfactory in the quality reviews got an A or B on the progress report.

10.5% of “proficient” or better schools got an F or D.

This only highlights the unreliable nature of using "improvement in test scores" as the sole measure of a school's performance. With the mayor threatening to fire principals and breakup schools over this it shows just how loose and free-wheeling these guys are.

And what of the children of the failing schools who are doing well? It can only diminish their accomplishments. Where are they going to go when there's no room at the inn? Our school is already at 130% capacity.

The UFT needs to fight the breakup of any more schools. Maybe it's Bloomberg's excuse to wreak more havoc (ala The Shock Doctrine of culture change, brilliantly illustrated in the book of the same name by Naomi Klein- I hope no relation to you know who.). After all, too many of our kids' parents are oblivous. All we have are pundits and the few good parent organizations out there fighting.

Uncommon, Yet Essential Courage on THE ISSUE

2007-08-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's better late than never to put it out there. But, global warming is, in my mind, by far the most important issue we face. So much so that I think it important we put aside whatever else we are working on, create a significant space address this problem, then allocating the remainder to our other causes.

What I have done personally is adopt a ad-hoc series of behavior changes. They include: busing and training to Manhattan every day for work, flying no more than once a year, eating vegetarian, refitting all of my appliances accordingly, being hyper-vigilant about saving electricity and brining the issue to the forefront of whatever I teach in the classroom. All of this in addition to engaging in activism whenever possible.

All of this pales in comparison to what many of you are doing. This space is a salute to one of those individuals, an old colleague in the struggle, Ted Glick.

Ted Glick is the Coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and is in the leadership of No War, No Warming, which is planning mass nonviolent civil disobedience on Capitol Hill this October http://www.nowarnowarming.org/ ). He can be reached at indpol@igc.org or at P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.

No Time for Activism as Usual

By Ted Glick

"The Weather Makers," a book by Tim Flannery, is one of the
best sources for those who want to understand the global
heating process that is seriously destabilizing the world's climate. In it, Flannery explains the three main 'tipping points' "that scientists are aware of for Earth's climate: a slowing or collapse of the Gulf Stream; the demise of the
Amazon rainforests; and the release of gas hydrates from the sea floor. . . There is some geological evidence for all having happened in Earth's history. . . Given the current rate and direction of change, one, two or perhaps all three may take place this century."

A climate 'tipping point' is a point beyond which it will be very difficult if not impossible to prevent catastrophic climate change, truly apocalyptic climate change.

We may be seeing one unfolding right now. That is how serious the climate crisis is. And that is why, a month from now, on September 4th, the day Congress returns to D.C., a Climate Emergency Fast will be launched which will see some of us go without food for weeks. For me personally, it will
be open-ended; there is no set ending date.

A July 24th news story by Geoffrey Lean in Britain's Independent newspaper, "A disaster to take everyone's breath away," underlines why some of us are taking this admittedly dramatic-some would say extreme-action. Lean reported that "severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second
successive year. And that would be ominous. New research suggests that one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction. . .

"The consequences would be awesome. The wet Amazon Basin would turn to dry savannah at best, desert at worst. This would cause much of the world to become hotter and drier. In the long term, it could send global warming out of control, eventually making the world uninhabitable."

The New York Times management was clearly concerned by this news. One week later they carried a major story, "Brazil, Alarmed, Reconsiders Policy on Climate Change," on page three. They quoted a Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Amazon Research as saying, "Obviously the uncertainty range is huge, but the momentum is pushing us in that direction, and the fact that it is close is important, because the process is like steering a big ship. People on the Titanic saw the iceberg, but they couldn't turn in
time."

As I write this column it is four years after one of the most disastrous single climate events this century -the death of 35,000 people in August, 2003 in western Europe as a result of a summer heat wave. Something of this magnitude had never happened before in recorded history. It was this
event which forced me to undertake serious study to understand what was happening as far as global heating, which in turn has led to my full-time activism on this issue for the last three years.

In that time I've seen a lot of positive developments. There is no question but that there has been a political sea change on this issue here in the USA. Large majorities of the population, Democrat, Republican and independent, support moving rapidly to a clean energy economy. As a result, there is some movement on Capitol Hill involving mainly Democrats but also a handful of Republicans toward the possible enactment of global warming legislation this
fall.

The problem is that it is unrealistic in the extreme to expect this Congress, under normal circumstances, to adopt the kind of legislation needed, given the power of the coal, oil and automobile industries over legislators of both parties.

We need to make this fall a very UNNORMAL circumstance.
We need a deep and wide, grassroots political uprising demanding a major course correction on energy policy, a rapid shift to energy conservation, efficiency and clean, safe and jobs-creating renewable energy.

We need to demand that we fight climate change, not wars for oil!

Literally, we need our government to act as if the country was in mortal danger, on a war footing, declaring nonviolent war on behalf of our threatened ecosystem, joining forces with peoples and governments all over the world who will welcome us with open arms if we do.

The U.S. could go from the most hated country on the planet to a very different reality in just a few short years.

This is an issue that transcends politics, and there are many concrete examples of how this understanding is growing among our peoples. One of the most recent is a statement, "Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation," released in January of this year and signed by 30 prominent
scientists and religious evangelicals, including conservatives. It stated:

"We declare that every sector of our nation's leadership-religious, scientific, business, political and educational-must act now to work toward the fundamental change in values, lifestyles and public policies required to
address these worsening [climate and environmental] problems before it is too late. There is no excuse for further delays. Business as usual cannot continue yet one more day."

But in a war, including a morally just nonviolent war for survival, troops are needed who are willing to make sacrifices, willing to disrupt business as usual, willing to get in the faces of those who have their hands on the levers
of power. Those hands must be reversed or removed to enable a great turning of our Titanic-like system which is moving rapidly toward that dangerous iceberg, that tipping point which we must do all in our power to avoid.

Can we do it? Is it too late?

Hard questions, very hard, because a sober assessment of the odds against us is not encouraging. It's not just the power of the corporate interests dragging the whole world toward the precipice; it's the uncertainty about if we have enough time to make the dramatic changes necessary, if the global
heating process is so far advanced that we have little chance to reverse course.

There are days when I despair over these odds, these realities. But then I remember that there is really no one who knows for sure what the future holds. The vast majority of scientists believe that we do have enough time to avoid climate catastrophe if we move quickly now.

And I think of the lesson of history that, all of a sudden, seemingly from out of nowhere, massive uprisings of the people have ended laws allowing segregation that had been in place for centuries, or overthrown apartheid, or brought down a hated wall dividing the people of a country.

Mahatma Gandhi, probably the greatest nonviolent revolutionary of the 20th century, once said that, "Fasting is the sincerest form of prayer." Beginning now, deepening on September 4th and for some of us for weeks afterward, let
us pray and act not just for future generations but for those living right now.

"There is no excuse for further delays. Business as usual cannot continue yet one more day."

To join or for additional information about the Climate Emergency Fast, go to www.climateemergency.org.

Speaking of Class Size

2007-07-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here I sit at the DOE hearing on the new Fair Student Funding scheme in the Project for Excellence (or something like that).

I made the following statement, facing the parents in the audience, which required me to turn my back on the Chancellor's panel (no disrespect intended).

Statement for Hearing on NYC Dept. of Education Contracts for Excellence

Millennium High School

75 Broad Street

New York, NY 10004

7/11/2007

Good evening parents, students and colleagues. My name is John Elfrank-Dana. I am a social studies teacher at Murry Bergtraum High School, UFT Chapter Leader, Adjunct Professor at Fordham University and Carnegie Scholar. I am here tonight as a matter of conscience. I am here because I believe the success of the public school system is essential to preserving and extending our democratic society. And I am here especially because I am concerned your children are being systematically disenfranchised.

I came to teach at Murry Bergtraum in 1986. What I saw there was a vibrant educational community; a community to which I was hoping to send my own children some day. However, I am sad to report to you that it is no longer the case. My own children now attend school in a suburban district with class sizes of twenty-five or fewer students in buildings not over-crowded. My children, as did the children of many of the corporate bureaucrats who now run this City’s education system, have an educational advantage over my students at Bergtraum. This disparity is immoral and undemocratic.

The result of this injustice has landed Bergtraum on the No Child Left Behind’s hit list of failing schools. Once a model school, recognized nationally for its business program, Bergtraum is now a holding pen for large numbers of students the DOE doesn’t know what to do with as a result of the its rushed and reckless move to create small schools. As a result of this imposed injustice on our school we are required to take corrective action. We are told to evolve into a complex of “Small” Learning Communities. At Bergtraum we are taking on this challenge full steam. However, the prospect of successfully carrying out the required cultural change is not auspicious, as we are a school of 3500+ students and staff, in a building designed for 2400, with class sizes remaining at 34 and hallways swelling with students in the heart of a three-session school day. The term “small” is meaningless for us.

At Murry Bergtraum we demand a chance to succeed. The Mayor is obligated to provide the means for us to do so. The overcrowding must stop and class sizes must be brought down to levels comparable to surrounding suburban districts. We parents, students and educators, must continue to combine forces and mobilize using the methods of the great civil rights struggle against the corporatization of the school system. Over-sized classes are one component of a broader injustice taking place in our school system. It’s class size reduction that is the first and essential step in wresting control away from Mayoral tyranny over our schools and brining the “public” back into public education here in New York City.

Thank you.

Speaking with the Chancellor on the Budget

2007-07-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Below is my e-mail to the chancellor after our school's budget meeting last month.

Dear Mr. Klein,

I was in "shock and awe" at our last school budget meeting. We are held harmless for over $200,000.00 and are expecting increased austerity for the next two years - all of this in a post-CFE world? It's hard to believe that we are not feeling any of the trickle-down from the CFE money. We need smaller class sizes for our freshman and advisories as a fifth (not sixth) class. Mr. Klein, we want to succeed and demand a chance to do so. ....Can you explain where our share of the CFE money is going, and when we will feel it at the school level?

For great context and analysis, check out Leonie Haimson's comments at:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/search/label/failing%20schools

The Rotten Apple, Inc.

2007-06-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

"I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Steve Jobs, Founder and CEO of Apple, Inc. From: http://www.nysun.com/article/48971

Steve Jobs seems to have had an epiphany regarding what ails education. It's the slacker teachers who enjoy tenure and seniority through union contracts. They stifle innovation and creativity; the kind we would see in the great Man of the Century, Albert Einstein, whose image Apple has exploited in its "Think Different" campaign.

However, there are a few things Mr. Jobs doesn't know. 1. Albert Einstein was a founding member of the Princeton, New Jersey chapter of MY UNION: The American Federation of Teachers. He believed strongly in unions and thought intellectual workers especially needed to belong to them.

"I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field." Albert Einstein

The second point of Mr. Job's ignorance is that he presumes teachers are so coddled that they remain in the profession for a lifetime. The truth is that the job is so stressful teacher turnover is rampant. As this story shows the teacher supply problem is a myth. The challenge is keeping them in the classroom. http://ednews.org/articles/24743/1/Teacher-Retention-a-Critical-National-Problem/Page1.html

Add to this the poor environmental record of Apple. While its laptops are as toxic as the next guy's or worse, their labor record also leaves a lot to be desired. Apple scored lowest on Greenpeace's rating system for environmental record.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press/releases/apple-scores-lowest-on-greenpe

If that's not enough, with the release of the new Apple i-Phone you have to subscribe to AT&T for your service. The same AT&T that turned over your telephone records to the NSA without a court warrant. The same AT&T that helps the U.S. government spy on us by providing the technical infrastructure to do so. http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_06.php

As an educator who was using the Internet in the classroom years before the WWW, one who has published in the area of new media in the classroom and works as an adjunct professor helping new and in-service teachers develop their practice along these lines, I take personal exception to Mr. Job's remarks. My teaching tenure allowed me and others in NYC early on to blaze a trail on using the Internet as an instructional tool; all at a time when bureaucrats were discouraging us to do so. Today we have corporate bureaucrats (like Jobs) with a plantation mentality running the NYC educational system. As a result, there's even less freedom of experimentation than there was in the early days (early 1990s) of our use of the Interent in the classroom.

Don't buy the hype. Apple projects a hip liberal-friendly image. In reality, they're just another corporation out to maximize profit, throwing principle to the wind. Educators and other freedom-loving people should think twice before doing business with Apple.

Unity Caucus Red-Baiting Ironic

2007-03-15T02:46:00.000-07:00

The Unity Caucus red-baiting of opposition candidate for president of the UFT, Kit Wainer, is sadly ironic. They criticise Kit for being a socialist. They are counting on the membership to forget, or not know, that UFT founder and AFT President Albert Shanker and longtime UFT/AFT President, Sandra Feldman were socialists themselves. Oh yes, there's one more AFT member who was an avowed socialist:

Albert Einstein, socialist and founding member, AFT Chapter, Princeton, New Jersey.

Oh yes (not an AFT Member but another socialist) don't forget...

A Primer on Mayoral Control of NYC Schools– Where Dictatorship Trumps Democracy

2006-12-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

In NYC it has been a corporate-style takeover; with wiping the slate clean (of personnel they could fire) and starting from scratch. It was recless without regard for human relations, insitutuional memory and professional communities long in place. If you were part of the past system you had nothing to offer and needed to be expunged. This is Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klien's "Zero Year".

Chancellor Joel Klein also used public relations techniques with those he couldn’t outright dismiss. He visited our school, Murry Bergtraum High School, shortly after regime change in 2001 with a “town hall meeting”. It was run Bush-style, no questions taking by the Chancellor; one-way communications. Then they broke up the meeting into focus groups of parents and teachers. In these breakout sessions DOE underlings listened and took notes like they were interested in what we had to say. Nothing ever came of our comments; no analysis or reporting back. It’s like they took our feedback, and with our backs turned, chucked it into the garbage.

Things have been run that way ever since. Principals now look over their shoulders in fear, as managers do in the corporate world, for who is going to get the axe next. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Klein have a mechanistic and reductionist view of education. That is, you can micromanage and script teachers, whose measure of success can totally be assessed by the standardized test scores of their students. There has been mass demoralization of educators, while parental involvement in activities in our school has plummeted.

Such management style comes from the Theory X view of human motivation you will find in the organizational theory literature. In the early 20th century a social scientist named Taylor developed a theory premised on the belief that workers were basically lazy and stupid. They responded only to external motivations- rewards or punishments. Hence we have the mayor’s “merit pay” for teachers and “accountability” for students that makes learning not fun but serious business, supporting the “feel bad” education environment. Why else would Klein recruit the likes of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, who boasted of creating a climate of fear for his employees, to set the standard of leadership for the DOE’s principals' institute? Mayor Bloomberg demonstrated just how committed he was to an openness to ideas by creating the Panel for Educational Policy, only to fire some of them when they were going to rule against his anti-social promotion scheme. That’s the kind of bureaucracy management we used to see in the old Soviet Union and dovetails with the poisonous pedagogy of the No Child Left Behind Act. At least with the old Board of Education, there were some members you could reach and convince to advocate for your school or a special program you were involved in. They didn't view veteran teachers a pariahs but conveyers of experience and institutional memory. Now there’s an unaccountable corporate bureaucracy in the DOE, wanting to implement the Zero Year.

On the other side of the spectrum Theory Y states that people have an inherent tendency for growth and creativity. This theory came out of the humanist school of psychology. It’s the premise this teacher operates on in his class. Democracy is taught as a value in and of itself; that the exercise of freedom allows one to create meaning and engage in and shape societal change as a natural right. The primary accountability is to oneself, premised on the view of Socrates that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Only an educational system true to the ideals of democracy, where individuals take responsibility for their freedom; to learn what they will and how they will, with the guidance of a teacher who has only the student’s interest in mind, not a salary increase, can serve a free society. Such a system will put the students, teachers, parents and local administrators as equal partners in the driver’s seat with the standards of success to be determined by and for the these stakeholders.

Albert Einstein, a charter member of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “It’s the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” Einstein had the audacity to consider that the motivation for learning could be intrinsic and that teachers should become expert at nudging it and creating opportunities for such joy to come alive and grow. Our educational systems must become democratic and not remain bureaucratic to nurture such joy. Corporate dictatorial bureaucracy is to joy of learning as a straight jacket is to dance. Bloomberg's experiement is a failure, it's time for something different.

John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
http://www.elfrank.com/

On Saying "No".

2006-11-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

I had come under some criticism from our guests for speaking my opinion to you about the contract. I told them that first of all, you all are adults and capable of making up your own minds, and secondly, that I was elected to chapter leader partially because of my outspokenness on important issues. As you know I also make available to you other perspectives on the contract including the Unity piece I had put in your mailboxes. Indeed, members, as myself, should be at liberty to speak ahead of union staffers.

I feel I got an answer on the Art. 3 question from Randi at the Chapter Leader’s training, that there will continue to be a free health care option available, although it alone probably won’t meet the needs of most of our members. But there still seems to be a general haze about what's coming down the road with regard to health care, especially with the GHI/HIP merger. Our Art. 3 provision, if I read Randi right, won't provide any significant protections. So, one can assume it's likely premium deductions are inevitable.

With the health care issue aside for now, I have four certain problems with the new contract.
1. It institutionalizes the givebacks (loss of seniority transfer, days in August, and grievance of unfair letters in the file), perhaps once and for all.
2. The money doesn’t even keep up with inflation. The social security administration just set the cost of living adjustment for 2006 to 4.1 percent. If we only had that, the two year contract increase would come to 8.2 percent, not just 7.1 percent as this proposal offers. What’s more is that inflation in the New York City area is always higher than the rest of the country.
3. There’s nothing in this contract for our students and to improve working conditions in our school. We all know the primary reason teachers leave the profession is over working conditions NOT salary. We have an opportunity with each new contract to strengthen our relationship with the parents, without whom we could not win a strike, buy showing we care about the kids and not just pensions and salaries. This contract makes us look totally self-serving.
4. We agree with this contract that the DOE can throw in the towel on a thousand of our ATR colleagues. How would you feel if someone said to you, “How much will it take to make you go away and not come back?” It’s voluntary, for now, but the question still hurts. I would be ashamed to authorize it being asked to my colleagues.

Our union lacks a vision for a better future. We have been told repeatedly by supporters of this contract, “The membership won’t strike, so this is the best we can hope for.” But, it doesn’t always take a strike. If necessary we could rise to the occasion given the proper planning, discipline and leadership. But by responding to fear tactics we are being lead down the path to our ultimate demise. With each new contract we lose rights, control over our profession, and suffer worsening working conditions. We are told by the union that you have to stay out on strike “long enough to get the parents from being angry at you to become angry at the city. “ But, that’s NOT true if we are going out for things that will also benefit our students (their children) like an end to overcrowding, smaller class sizes and/or improved safety. Under these demands with proper outreach to the parents, you’ll have their support from the start. Striking for money alone is foolish, but add just and equitable conditions to learn and work and restoring control over our teaching practice, then we have something to believe in and something the public can support.

Forty percent voted against the last contract. You won’t be alone if you vote “no” this time either. Saying “no” to this contract can be the beginning of saying “yes” to a new movement for building a better future and supportive community for ourselves and our students. Let’s send Randi back to the table.

In solidarity,

John Elfrank-DanaChapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School

AFT Mistake on Israel / Lebanon

2006-10-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

Middle East Resolution- an AFT Shameful Blunder 8/6/2006

Israeli children write greetings on bombs to be dropped on Lebanese children. (Source: AP & Jerusalem Post).

The AFT - UFT resolution on the Middle East crisis ( http://www.aft.org/about/resolutions/2006/terrorism.htm ), passed last July, at the annual convention will go down in our union’s history as one its worst moments. As someone who believes in Israel’s right to exist in peace and prosperity with everyone in the region, I find it disturbing when my union endorses actions by Israel that only serves to undermine this right in the end.

You can see where the resolution is going right from the start:
“terrorism is the use of violence to impose the will of a minority on society…”
As a social studies teacher I am embarrassed by this definition. It sounds like something out of Fox News. If you look at the U.S. Code, the definition of “terrorism” mentions nothing about minority groups as a necessary precondition. This loaded, and presumably off-the-cuff, definition by the AFT may be intended to protect the U.S. and Israel; albeit that might be giving the authors of the resolution too much credit. Look at the U.S. official definition and you’ll see:

“Whoever, involving conduct transcending national boundaries and in a circumstance described in subsection (b)—
(A) kills, kidnaps, maims, commits an assault resulting in serious bodily injury, or assaults with a dangerous weapon any person within the United States; or
(B) creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to any other person by destroying or damaging any structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the United States or by attempting or conspiring to destroy or damage any structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property within the United States; “ From: § 2332b. Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries

By this criteria the U.S. and Israel (as well as our official enemies) have actively engaged in terrorism against other nations: hiring the mafia to kill Castro in the ‘60s, indiscriminate and carpet-bombings causing many civilian deaths, destruction of civilian infrastructure, collective punishment (bulldozing of homes), “targeted assassination”, are to name but a few and a variety of contexts over the years committed by the U.S and Israel, all in the name of fighting communism and now, ironically, “terrorism”.

The resolution continues with more misconceptions and mythical history. It lumps Hezbollah in the same ball of wax as Al Qaeda. This sort of simplicity one would expect from the Neocons. Granted, both qualify as “terrorist” organizations under U.S. code. However, Israel has bargained with Hezbollah in the past for prisoner exchanges (hence, part of the motivation for Hezbollah taking the Israeli soldiers, the other part showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza). Israel holds thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners it has “detained”. It also tortures many of them. But, don’t take my word for it, check it out with B’ Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization (http://www.btselem.org/english/Torture/Index.asp). You can check Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well. Either way, a bargaining partner is something Al Qaeda is not. Such oversimplifications are what has been driving U.S. foreign policy under Bush.

The resolution says Hezbollah was the group that blew up the barracks where “241 U.S. marine peacekeepers were murdered”. While it might be true they committed this deplorable act one needs to put it in context. It was only after the U.S. abandoned its peacekeeper role in Lebanon in 1983 and started shelling (bombing from the USS New Jersey) Syrian and Palestinian positions in support of one side in the conflict that Hezbollah attacked. If you want to call that bombing of the Marine barracks under these circumstances “murder” then to be consistent you must call the Israeli or U.S. bombing of anyone who kills their soldiers and/or civilians “murder”.

The resolution goes on: “on July 12, 2006, armed Hezbollah terrorists supported by Iran and Syria and based in Lebanon crossed the internationally recognized border between Lebanon and Israel and killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two others back across the border to Lebanon;”

Actually, there’s some debate about where the soldiers were abducted. The original AP report says they were take IN Lebanon, subsequent reports were more vague. Again, it does not change the fact that BOTH SIDES kidnap and hold prisoners; the Israelis with greater veracity than Hezbollah. The Israeli Supreme Court even legalized the taking of hostages in 1997, saying Israel had a right to collect “bargaining chips”.
See: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/05/guantanamo-exported-illegal-combatants.php There’s a link to the decision (in Hebrew). That ruling was later overturned. Again, knowing the context helps to take the energy out of the UFT's jingo.

On to Gaza.
The time line assumed by the resolution starts with the taking of the Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants (Hamas automatically assumed responsible). But, could the real reason for the invasion of Gaza be that Hamas recognized the State of Israel earlier that same day, thus Israel needing an diversion to get that fact off the headlines? See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5121164.stm Or, is the timing of the Gaza invasion merely a coincidence? Again, for a country that holds Palestinian and Lebanese (prisoners without charge or trial, in effect “hostages” or “bargaining chips”), the invasion of Gaza and mass killing of civilians is way out of proportion. The same applies to Hezbollah; the argument that the killing of hundreds, probably thousands in the end, of Lebanese civilians because of the kidnapping incident is very implausible. It’s not the rocket attacks on northern Israel, for if you check the time line, Hezbollah rockets come after Israel started its bombing of Lebanon.
The resolution concludes with calls for the international community to support Israel’s right to defend itself. It seems that if one really wants to support Israel, he had better take a more honest look at the history surrounding the situation. So long as Israel continues to break international law through the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine, it will not know peace. Many of my Israeli friends agree with me on this point. Indeed, it’s their opinions that have helped shape mine.

Toward the end of his life Albert Einstein wrote:
“…my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain…” Out of My Later Years, p. 263 (Einstein in his own words, available through Amazon.com).

I hope Einstein was wrong. As an American I cannot support, through financial means and military equipment, Israel’s behavior; just as I denounce all forms of violence, including that against Israel. Support for Israeli brutality (terrorism?), as with the AFT resolution, does damage to Israel by supporting an “ends justifies the means” principle. I hold out hope for a peaceful resolution to the problems of the Middle East. However, the killing must stop from all sides, the disenfranchisement and illegal occupation of Palestine must stop and an honest facing of history must begin to build such hope.

Speaking for myself,

John Elfrank-Dana
Murry Bergtraum High School
http://www.elfrank.com

Fellow Travelers

2006-03-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

Fellow travelers
A collection of quotes from individuals I feel have made difference in my life.

Tom Fox...
Holding his family and those responsible for his death in the light. Please read from CPT: http://www.cpt.org/Iraq/response/06-10-03statement.htm

I'm afraid his death makes this situation look more and more like El Salvador in the 1980s. See below:

Tom Fox was most probably killed by PRO-Occupation agents. That's what seems to be implied on the BBC tonight and what I have thought all along. [His body was found in a Shia stronghold; not a place where anti-US (Sunni/AlQueda) can move about with any ease, especially to dump his body.] There is no way anti-occupation forces benefit. Only those willing to frame them and intimidate other effective peace activists would advance their cause by killing him. Stay tuned... the Iraq Interior Ministry will emerge as the object of study. Perhaps it was the CIA's idea? Sound far fetched? Remember El Salvador?

3/11/2006

Albert Einstein:
"If I were not a Jew I would be a Quaker." And in an interview with Professor William Hermanns, he said: "I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar." Einstein: the life and times by Ronald W. Clark, World Pub. Co. , NY, 1971, p. 622

3/11/2006

Connecting the Dots...

2006-03-10T10:19:00.000-08:00