Teachers' Union Fat Cats

.....But it's not just the celebrities who are joining in on the fun. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have spent the past month ginning up their own public relations machines so they can declare their solidarity for the Occupy Wall Street protesters and for all which they stand.

Earlier this month, AFT President RandiWeingarten (who took a few steps out of the union's plush offices on Broadway to join the protests) proclaimed that "we need to get serious as a nation about working together to create economic opportunities for all Americans." Twenty-four of the union's rank-and-file members in Boston decided to politicize their classrooms by holding what they call a "grade-in" in sympathy of their, umm, comrades. And Leo Casey, the union's mouthpiece for its New York City local who never misses an opportunity to use class warfare rhetoric to criticize school reformers, declared that "public education, teachers and unions have increasingly come under attack from the One Percent," including Big Apple Mayor MichaelBloomberg, who has successfully weakened the union's influence.

Meanwhile the NEA's affiliates in states such as Kentucky and Missouri have joined in the protests. The union's California unit has gone even further by offering its members a "lessonplan" so they can teach their students something other than the three Rs. Declared Dean Vogel, the president of the NEA's Golden State unit: "It's time to put Main Street before Wall Street, and for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes."

As with the celebrities, there's something rather hilarious about the appearance of the nation's two largest teachers' unions at a protest against allegedly pampered fat cats. Few organizations have managed to become so influential -- and build such vast coffers -- at the expense of taxpayers and their children.

Democrats Unveil the Weapon of the Future ........."This is an extraordinary series of events, of a type that we haven't witnessed before. Even more singular is the legacy media's insistence on covering the story (with the exception of the siege of Madison, which got the standard "unions unbound" treatment) as if it were commonplace to the point of boredom. It is no such thing; it is an ideological campaign of a magnitude and breadth that we have not seen in quite some time, if ever.

What all this amounts to is the baptism of fire of what I have taken to calling the "liberal superstructure." This superstructure is the vast constellation of advocacy groups, think tanks, single-issue outfits, unions, and various other flotsam constructed by the left over the past half-century or so. There are literally thousands of these groups, ranging from the ACLU and the Sierra Club with their hundreds of thousands of members to the local "Friends of the People's Venezuela" outfit which amounts to a retired feminism professor and her six cats. These organizations are ubiquitous, universal, and networked to a fare-thee- well. They are also liberalism's last great hope of controlling politics in the United States.

Teachers Union Prez Heads to Egypt "American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently led a delegation of union representatives to Cairo, Egypt to meet with “leaders of Egyptian unions that were instrumental in the recent political and governmental changes there,” according to a news release issued by the union.

Whoa. Are public sector unions planning a similar “regime change” here in America?

If not, why would Weingarten be cavorting in the Middle East at a time when American public schools are seeing massive dropout rates, budget reductions and reforms that strike at the base of union power?"....

AFL-CIO Announces Commitment to Promote Large-Scale Infrastructure Investments ....."AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:

We at the AFL-CIO believe that together, with our partners in business and government, we can profitably invest at least $10 billion in workers’ capital over the next five years in public infrastructure projects to make America more competitive and energy-efficient.

AFT President Randi Weingarten and AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades President Mark Ayers will announce the initiative at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting and describe the partnership with investors, the government and businesses."

Obama changes rhetoric to try to sell Congress on transportation spending (new bank)......."It’s a little more surprising that the president would avoid the word “infrastructure,” especially since a key part of the president’s plan would be to spend $10 billion to create a national infrastructure bank.

Obama says the bank would leverage private and public capital and invest in a broad range of projects to improve the nation’s rapidly eroding transportation network.".....

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“The nation[U.S.] has over $2 trillion in infrastructure and social needs, and there is over $3 trillion in public sector pension funds,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and the leader of a group of public sector unions in the A.F.L.-C.I.O. that is studying the issue. “The question is, are there financially prudent ways to invest working men’s and women’s capital to create jobs and rebuild America’s infrastructure?”

................A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials said they also hoped their plan would help persuade Congress to create a National Infrastructure Bank or a program similar to the expired Build America Bonds program, in which the federal government subsidized bonds issued by states and municipalities to finance bridges, airports or other infrastructure. While labor unions and many Democrats support such measures to create jobs, many Republicans oppose them because they will increase federal spending."......[end excerpt] Source

Workers World:

OWS spreads through U.S., makes space for struggle

Parents mourn children killed during protests

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Professors take on role as high priests of activism ..............""I had the good misfortune of taking one of Jensen's classes, and it's the main reason I'm not a journalism major anymore," Kinghorn said. "He used a class after Sept. 11 as an opportunity to denounce America as a terrorist nation and cycle through an imaginary laundry list of evils Americans have perpetrated. It's a shame he's tenured, because he should be fired."

Earlier this week, Buzzanco brought a guest speaker who strongly denounced Israel to a colleague's Middle East history class. Buzzanco passed out fliers he prepared for his mock funeral in front of Brown & Root, and, as he left the class, he told the students, "See you all at the mock funeral. Dress in black and paint your faces black."

"I guess that wasn't the coolest thing I've ever done," Buzzanco said when a reporter asked if he thought that was appropriate." [end]

"Attack the financial centers of the country." "Large scale urban rioting." "Actively target U.S. military establishments within the United States." "Spread the battle to the individuals responsible for the war and destruction of life [.] Hit them in their personal lives, visit their homes." "Use any means necessary." "Do not get caught."

Al-Qaeda? Not quite. The above is from a communiqué by Craig Rosebraugh, former media spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front. The communiqué, entitled "A Message to the Anti-War Movement," was issued and distributed by Rosebraugh's new organization, Arissa. Founded on May 12th, 2003 by Rosebraugh and fellow former spokesman Leslie James Pickering, Arissa aims to "create a political and social revolution in the United States." The group plans to do this by building a "revolutionary consciousness in America," convincing a small group of like-minded radicals that political violence is both necessary and justified, and then organizing to carry out that violence. While they've yet to act, we could be witnessing the emergence of a new brand of domestic terrorism, one tempered by its experience in the ecoterrorist movement and ready to launch an all-out, anti-capitalist attack on America.”……………

Lately, Rosebraugh's been on the road, lecturing on "The Logic of Political Violence" - part of his plan to convince fellow radicals that a new terrorist organization is needed. He sells copies of his lecture on CD from his website, as well as other "revolutionary"-themed merchandise: a history of the ELF, a t-shirt sporting an assault rifle and the slogan "Regime change begins at home," and another t-shirt depicting a plane flying into the World Trade Center towards, with the slogan "Join the fight against the U.S. government." From August 8th to 10th, Rosebraugh attended and spoke at the "Break the Chains" conference in Eugene, Oregon, held by the Northwest Anarchist Prisoners' Support Network. This activists' meeting isn't an ordinary event for Rosebraugh and his new organization. It's relatively separate from the radical environmental groups he grew out of, and places him in contact with representatives of some of the most murderous domestic terrorist organizations of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

"Break the Chains" is no moderate convention for improved prison conditions. The conference is explicitly designed to begin an effective movement against what they call "state repression and mass imprisonment," and most would call "rule of law." The participants in the "Break the Chains" conference aren't just prison reformers, but are dedicated to "eliminating prisons altogether." According to their mission statement, "to struggle against the prison system is to struggle against capitalism." Their own politics vary between anarchism, communism, and nihilism.”……Eco-Criminals

Faculty Lounge - A tale of Sherpas and superstars [Perry's Higher Education Reform] ….”What Governor Perry actually proposed was this: 1) Students’ evaluations and some other information about faculty performance should be made public; 2) The best teachers should receive bonuses, based in part on students’ ratings; 3) The research and academic budgets should be separated, with teachers paid according to their teaching duties and researchers paid in proportion to the funding they attract; 4) Faculty should have to show that they can in fact teach before they are granted tenure; 5) Students should receive a personalized “learning contract” upon enrollment, along with information about the graduation rates and average starting salaries for students with the same major and comparable SAT scores; 6) Legislative appropriations should go to students directly rather than to the universities; 7) The universities should support an effort to develop a new national accreditation program that would evaluate institutions on measurable student progress.

You’d think that No. 6 would be the deal-breaker — it would have voucherized higher education, forcing the universities to compete for students and the dollars they bring with them, rather than treating students like not-entirely-welcome guests who are privileged to be at the party. But the reformers didn’t even make it that far down the list: No. 1 sent academia into fits.”……

The Risk of Revolution Grows ............"Simultaneously, the global socialist movement is organizing "Occupy Wall Street" actions to destabilize America's financial system. The failure of most Americans to accept the visceral hatred by certain elements in the world against any semblance of free enterprise still shocks me. The socialists have openly planned to destroy free enterprise, what they call capitalism, for over a hundred years. Yet most Americans are still oblivious. These enemies may be aligned with foreign movements, but they are internal enemies, and they currently control our government. The Obama regime is a part of the global socialist movement.".........

It's scarcely arguable that, in the political sense, liberalism is on the ropes. Obama spent their last nickel. They have lost the House and will lose the Senate, with little chance of regaining them in the near future. The same is true of the White House once the messiah gets the bum's rush come 2012. Liberalism is on the skids, its programs uniform failures, its ideology barren, its slogans worn out, its long hold on the independents being relentlessly pared down by the Tea Parties.".........

Is that a joke? Younger Americans are increasingly liberal because of the left's control of educations and the commanding heights of culture. Churches and Synagogues are becoming more liberal. What it is to be a conservative keeps moving left. Government is bigger than ever, our culture is in shambles, and we are importing a new underclass thanks to legal immigration.

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