Up here in Boston, just days ahead of July 4th, someone hit Christopher Columbus with a big bucket of blood.
Or what looked like blood.
Local media stations were all over the story. But no one on TV would say the word.
Paint, said reporter after reporter, Paint.
Lack of Transparency and People's Participation Hallmark of the Boston 2024 Effort
There is an old children's story about a vain Emperor who hires two weavers to make him a grand outfit. The weavers swindle the emperor, claiming that they have made him an outfit of invisible fabric. When the weavers finish, the emperor parades before the court and his people wearing the new outfit. However, the emperor's subjects are too scared to say anything and keep up the pretense that he is wearing a magnificent suit.
The midterm elections are over. The right-wing Republicans delivered a massive defeat to the floundering Democrats across the board, regaining control of the US Senate and grabbing governorships and statehouses across the country.
To revolutionaries, and I'd imagine many others too, anniversaries are when we remember past events and struggles, discuss their significance and what lessons they may hold for us in the current moment. Although I hold to the reflections I gave on the previous two anniversaries of the Occupy Movement (see here and here), that still leaves the question: what do we say now?
“Change" in India, just about 6 months ago, was represented by the Aam Admi Party (AAP - The Common Man Party), a new political formation that emerged out of a public movement in India against corruption. Their party/election symbol, the common Indian reed broom (the “jhaadu”), stood for various things, but prominent among those was the “sweeping away” of the rampant corruption and malgovernance that had increasingly plagued the country.
"Democracy" is a contested term, so anything I write about union democracy is bound to be controversial. And this is as it should be, because one vital characteristic of democracy is the positive, creative role it allots to disagreement. If we desire democracy, it is because we believe that no individual or economic or political elite has a monopoly on truth. The "correct" policy is simply the one we can get most people to agree on in the face of opposition.
My tie is too tight and I can barely breathe. I gag as I loosen it a little. Even though the waiting room is plush, immaculate and air conditioned, it still feels unnaturally hot. As one of the corporate suits walk by, I quickly straighten out the collar, making sure that the tie is perfectly centered. He doesn't see me and walks past, carrying a bunch of reports and talking about profit margins. Once again, I have to gasp for air. It is like this at every job interview.
On Saturday, May 9, the 1200 or so delegates to the Massachusetts Teachers' Association (local affiliate of the National Education Association) Annual Meeting elected as their new president a member of the insurgent MTA caucus, Educators for a Democratic Union. Barbara Madeloni, a contract (adjunct) faculty member from UMass Amherst, will assume the presidency of the MTA when the term of the current president expires in mid-July.
A good chunk of the debate on l'affaire Donald Sterling seems to be focusing on the legality of the taping of the conversation between Sterling and his girlfriend. This debate turns around issues of privacy - the private nature of the conversation - and whether something spoken between two people, in manner of a confidential exchange, can be subject to criticism of a public nature. Set aside for a moment the laws against and the ethics of secret recording.
