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The Final Assault on Public Education is On in Earnest

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During the halcyon days of the Trump transition period, the Education Committee confirmation hearing of Betsy DeVos stood out as perhaps the most jarring example of the craven cynicism that defines the new regime.

The headlines said it all, with nearly every major media outlet noting DeVos’s scant qualifications and terrible performance with extreme skepticism. The New York Times expressed “Big Worries About Betsy DeVos” while the New Yorker outlined “Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools.” Over at the Washington Post, they wrote “Six Astonishing Things Betsy DeVos Said—and Refused to Say—at her Confirmation Hearing” as Esquire opined that “The Betsy DeVos Hearing Was an Insult to Democracy.” The Los Angeles Times editorial, “Betsy DeVos Embarassed Herself and Should Be Rejected by the Senate” pithily observed that “what disqualifies her is her lack of understanding of existing law and policy, and her inability to address them thoughtfully.”

But, of course, the new leader of the free world was undaunted by all of this as he signed a stack of executive orders, one of which was his formal nomination of DeVos for Secretary of Education, saying simply, “Ah Betsy, Education. Right?”   [Read more…]

Where Do We Go From Here?: Lessons from Martin Luther King Heading Into the Trump Era

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“A nation or a civilization that continues to produce softminded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   The Strength to Love

A few years ago, I made use of this space on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to discuss my favorite speech of his, “Where Do We Go From Here?” and ponder its relevance to the present…   [Read more…]

Big Questions for Local Labor in 2017

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2017 awaits us fierce as a tiger with major assaults looming on multiple fronts. As I have written here quite recently, it is not an overstatement to say that we face existential threats. With so many things to worry about in the near future, what should labor and progressives be focusing on in anticipation of the coming storm?

Let me start by saying that our first order of business should definitely not be whether you are with or against the imperiled San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council President. It should also not be about which side you choose in a toxic internal struggle between factions inside of the San Diego labor movement. As I have said elsewhere, the honorable and prudent course of action would be for labor leadership to take these issues off the table because they will prove to be fatal distractions if we allow them to stop us from confronting a long laundry list of crises to come after inauguration day.   [Read more…]

My New Year’s Resolution for 2017: Abandon Hope

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The era of hope is over. We are done with the messianic rhetoric about the arc of history bending toward justice and the false notion that, despite all signs pointing to the contrary, we were making real progress toward the grand goals of addressing the deep inequities in our society or moving toward a more sustainable future and becoming more just. We weren’t.

We bought hope and got polite neoliberalism with some padding on its sharp edges, and the delusion that we were better than we are.

Now the gloves are off and the wolves’ teeth are bared. There is no pretty bullshit to mask the fact that the future is grim and the worst are full of passionate intensity. Being responsible and respectable won’t save us; neither will looking to make a deal with the devil.   [Read more…]

Censored 2016: Underreported Stories of the Year

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In my final column of 2015, I wrote about the most underreported story of the year according to Project Censored’s annual list: “2016 will be the year when half of the world’s wealth will be controlled by the top 1%.” After reporting the dismaying details of that story, I ended with the following analysis:

So putting this all together, we are just about to end a year where we learned that global plutocracy is becoming more and more firmly entrenched and that the beneficiaries of that very system are not just responsible for an immoral level of economic inequality and human suffering but also for speeding us toward an apocalyptic end to the climate crisis.

Why this news appeared as a blip on the radar screen rather than dominating the media landscape is no accident. When the same oligarchy that benefits from our rigged system own the corporations that run our mass media, it is not surprising that bad news for the vast majority of us is not worthy of occupying the heaven of the spectacle for more than a fleeting moment.

  [Read more…]

Progressive Stocking Stuffers for the Impending Trump Era

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A Handful of the Most  Important and Interesting Books of 2016

If you just can’t bring yourself to give up on the sordid consumer frenzy and go all in for a Buy Nothing Christmas, then perhaps getting your loved ones a few good books to help them navigate the dark near-future is the next best thing.

Here is my annual list of a handful of some of the most instructive stand-out books of 2016:   [Read more…]

San Diego Labor Opposes DAPL Pipeline

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The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the heroic struggle against it have ignited a big battle inside of American labor. Earlier this fall an excellent article in Common Dreams outlined the split over DAPL at the national level with key trades unions and AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka backing the pipeline and criticizing the protests while other large national unions were issuing statements supporting the Standing Rock resistance.

Here in California and elsewhere, Trumka’s letter in support of the pipeline received strong condemnation. For instance, a response to it that I penned as chair of the California Federation of Teachers Climate Justice Task Force challenges the AFL-CIO leader in the strongest possible terms: “In sum, your statement is factually inaccurate, morally suspect, politically inept, and does not stand for the values that should guide a progressive union movement worth being a part of in an era of stark threats to the future of our children.” I have yet to receive a response.   [Read more…]

Will the Trump Presidency be an Extinction Level Event for Labor? We Better Hope Not

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Last week in the bluntly titled “Trump Presidency Could Kill Labor Unions,” distinguished journalist Harold Meyerson ponders the possibility that the 2016 Presidential election was “an extinction-level event for American labor.” Noting the sad fact that a high percentage of union households (about 43 percent nationally) went for Trump, Meyerson wastes no time in outlining what the costs will be for working class folks in America:

Now, Trump, the Republican Congress, and the soon-to-be Republican-dominated Supreme Court are poised to damage unions—and the interests of working people, both union and not—even more. Indeed, within the GOP, the war on unions engenders almost no dissent. Since Republicans were swept into office in a host of Midwestern states in the 2010 elections, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin have all effectively eliminated collective-bargaining rights for public employees and subjected private-sector unions to “right-to-work” laws that enable workers to benefit from union contracts and representation without having to pay their union any dues. Previously, such laws were largely confined to Southern states, whose respect for worker rights has improved only somewhat since they were compelled to abolish slavery. As the GOP has become steadily whiter and more right-wing, those Southern norms have become national.   [Read more…]

From Mission to Microchip: An Interview with California Labor Historian Fred Glass. Part 3

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It seems like a million years ago now, but back in my Labor Day column, I gave a shout out to Fred Glass’s seminal new labor history of California, From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement.

To learn more about this story and what about it is most important, I am pleased to present the third and final installment of my three-part interview with Fred Glass, author, teacher, union member, and long-time Communications Director for the California Federation of Teachers.

The entirety of this interview was conducted before the election which brought disastrous news for the American labor movement that will surely be dealing with a multiple-front assault from the Trump administration and an unchecked Republican Congress bent on imposing right to work nationally, overturning Obama’s pro-labor executive orders, threatening the very existence of public sector unions in particular, and stacking the Supreme Court with anti-labor judges for a generation. In light of this dire outcome, I contacted Fred to see what he thought of labor’s chances of surviving the onslaught in California. The interview ends with that answer.   [Read more…]

It Really Is the End of the World as We Know It

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A little less than two weeks before the election, the Guardian was one of the only media outlets to note the release of a devastating report by the Living Planet Index that outlines how, “The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.”

One might think that such stark news would have trickled into the Presidential race, but, given the debased nature of the contest and the pathetic state of the national corporate media, it was nowhere to be seen in the slime fest that was the 2016 election.   [Read more…]

You Want It Darker: Why Trump and What Next?

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I spent the days after the election, one that I too had hoped and predicted that Clinton would win, mourning and comforting despairing friends, colleagues, and students afraid of what the future will bring. Where I teach at San Diego City College, the majority of the students are part of the America that Trump hates. There is terror at the thought of family members being deported, unease at the prospect of discriminatory policies based on religion, race, gender, and sexuality, and fear of a cynical climate-denying opportunist bent on sealing the fate of the endangered natural world.

Most of all, there is grief and rage over the murder of hope.

Somehow it was fitting that Leonard Cohen died this week after penning one last shout: “You Want It Darker”   [Read more…]

Some Good Things Procrastinating Progressives Can Do Down Ballot

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Greetings procrastinating progressive poll voters! After you are done voting against Donald Trump and attending to all the high profile races that have received plenty of attention elsewhere, there are a myriad of other issues to decide. Here is my list of good things progressives can do down ballot:

*Vote to Fund Education and Elect Actual Educators to School and College Boards: Of course, the central statewide ballot measure to vote for is Proposition 55, which extends Proposition 30’s taxes on the wealthiest Californians while leaving the sales tax behind. If you value public education, this is an obvious vote.

And while you are at it, vote for actual educators for education board seats, not corporate education reformers or political opportunists with no real education experience or expertise. There are several key races in our region where you have a chance to really make a difference on this front.   [Read more…]

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