Fred Klonsky’s PREA Prez Blog

A couple of words about the two previous posts.

First, I couldn’t be more pleased if the teacher union leadership will enthusiastically support Barack Obama in the upcoming historic battle with John McCain. As a member of the NEA, I wish my own union had done it already.

Frankly, I received the e-mail from UFT President Randi Weingarten with mixed reactions.

Mostly I’m happy about her assurance that her union will energetically support Obama when he is finally formally nominated or when Hillary drops out.

But, Weingarten’s claim that she never said anything negative about Obama seems to be parsing words.

Clinton’s campaign against Obama, particularly in recent weeks, has been repugnant, war-mongering and racist. What of Clinton’s threats to “obliterate” Iran? What of Clinton’s making use of racism in her warnings that Obama would be rejected by white working voters because he is black? Other Clinton supporters rejected this kind of talk.

What was my crime? I reprinted a post from a NY school’s activist (”slimy” according to the wordsmith, Casey) who has a blog that I read and sometimes agree with and sometimes don’t. I reprint a lot of postings and I will continue to do it, even if Leo Casey doesn’t like it. Interesting that he didn’t get so outraged when my anti-war essay was censored on the very site that printed his essay the day before mine was scheduled to run. In fact, not a peep from Casey.

No, Casey’s outrage is limited and targeted. Gerald Bracey writes an article on the Huffington Post about NCLB, and Casey says Bracey’s right-wing critics are justified in their outrage.

Someone from the union opposition speculates about what the AFT’s position might be in the aftermath of the Clinton collapse, given their leadership’s close ties to the Clinton operation, and Casey is outraged. In Leo Casey’s world you are not allowed to speculate about the political dealings of the union leadership, because as we all know, they are always open and above board. I reprint a portion of a post, and in Leo Casey’s world, civil debate is calling me “sleazy” and “shameful.”

But the candidate that they support runs a cheap-shot, Karl Rove-like campaign, and Casey’s outrage disappears.

Casey’s hysterical rant suggests that maybe there’s something to the speculation. A reasonable response would have been, “There’s nothing to it. The UFT will enthusiastically support the Democratic nominee in the race against McCain.”  Because all the name-calling aside, that’s what I’m going to do.

By the way, I don’t know Norm Scott. Never met him. He’s never written to me. Never called me a name. Casey’s finger-pointing about how I joined Norm Scott in some exercise is not true. The only one who I join in exercising is Ulysses, my sweet Wheaten Terrier. And Ulysses is neither slimy, sleazy, divisive or blindly critical. On the contrary, he is blindly accepting of everyone. We need more like him.