Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

by

Michael Kendall

MEMORANDUM

TO:  All Millennials and Other Bernie Supporters

FROM:  A Baby Boomer Bernie Supporter

SUBJECT:  Getting Power in a Democratic Election    

DATE:  Sunday, 21 February 2016, the Day After the Nevada Caucus

Today is my wedding anniversary date.  And although my wife and I are Democratic Socialists, we’re in our 60’s (as opposed to “in the Sixties…”) and we intend to exercise our “Convivial Rights” today over wine, gin, and tonic!  So tempus fugit; and I’ll get right to the point. 

Yesterday we lost a close race in Nevada we thought we might win.  Today is a good time to reflect on how we got this far and where we go from here.  Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our campaign and Lifetimes. Tomorrow is when we finish what we started and win the future for our Lifetimes.  In the words of that philosopher-king, Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” 

Bernie and Your revolutionary Movement have won and are winning.  Nevada is a bump.  More bumps are coming before victory. But we have the Ideas, People, and Money needed to win. No one else has the Ideas and People.    

The Ideas of the Oligarchs, Conservatives, and Liberal Capitalists have turned our America into the Land for the One Percent. (FYI:  A “Liberal Capitalist” is a quasi-liberal in good times, a moderate in bad times, tells you what he or she thinks you want to hear, does something else if it suits him or her, and believes more and better welfare is a palatable, compromise, substitute for economic equality.)  Democratic Socialism is the Idea whose time has come and is attracting the People and the Money which reflects that fact. 

Now is the time to double down on Your future.  Understand how strong You are and how the Movement got to this point.  Ideas, People, and Money are the ingredients and any two are enough to make the smell of victory.

In 1968 California Democratic House Speaker, Jesse Unruh, supporter of Robert F. Kennedy, and proponent of the mass-based political ideas of the New Left, summarized the three forces at play in a democratic election.  You need at least two of the three to win and you need at least one to start and get at least one of the other two.  The three forces are:  (1) Ideas; (2) People; and (3) Money.  Bernie started with the first, which attracted the second, and led to the third.  He and the Movement now have all three and that is why we are winning, and not waning.

IDEAS:  First, You are winning the revolution for the battle of Ideas.  Conservatism is dying and Liberalism has failed to regain the throne.  You, Bernie, and the Movement have made Social Democrat and Democratic Socialism more respectable identifiers than Liberalism and Liberal Capitalist.  The political debate in America will never be the same and neither will the Democratic Party.  From 1912 to 1968 the Idea of Liberalism became the dominant philosophy and prevailing language of America.  Liberal philosophy dominated political thought, policy, and speech. From 1968 until Occupy Wall Street, the Idea of Conservatism replaced Liberalism to become the dominant philosophy and prevailing language of America.   After 1972, Conservative philosophy replaced Liberalism, and was enshrined by Reagan in 1980. Neither is dominant now because they have failed the People and America.  You are winning the battle of ideas because you have established Democratic Socialism as the Idea whose time has come to dominate political thought, policy, and speech.  That is why you have the People and Money needed to bring about Your democratic, socialist, revolution now.  Carpe Diem. 

PEOPLE:  Second, You are winning the battle for the People.  Nevada, and perhaps South Carolina, notwithstanding, 50% of the voters in Iowa, 64% of voters in New Hampshire, and 48% of the voters in Nevada felt the Bern.  A majority of voters polled now favor Bernie over Hillary and over any potential Republican opponent.  The electoral battle will go back and forth to the end. Super Tuesday, California, New York, and many other states are up for grabs between now and the Democrat Convention.  The proportionality of the delegate awards versus winner-take-all ensures a close race and a run to the Convention, where the nomination will ultimately be decided. And significantly, where the first openly Democratic Socialist Platform since 1944 under FDR can emerge, and long-range control of the Party be taken by Social Democrats.  Carpe Diem. 

MONEY: Third, You are winning the battle for Money.  Millions of small contributions from You and others allow Bernie to organize and fund the Movement.  California Democratic Speaker Unruh also said, “Money is the Mother’s milk of politics.”  (Today, see the Koch Brothers.)  The amount and nature of the Money make Bernie and the Movement independent, powerful, liberated, revolutionary, and deadly to Conservatives, Big Capitalists, and their Liberal fellow-travelers.  The Money allows Bernie and the Movement to reach and mobilize voters with Ideas that move more and more People to support, vote for, and fund him and the Movement. Carpe Diem. 

It won’t get easier, but only rougher, as the inevitability of the revolutionary Movement Bernie’s parented looms larger and closer on the horizon to the ruling Oligarchic and Political Classes (Establishment).  They will fight harder and harder once they realize what’s happening.  Bumps like Nevada give them a false sense of security and postpone their personal awakening.  For You it should be a window of opportunity to see the real landscape and the shape of things to come.  

By the way, this can be exhilarating and transcendental, in short, fun.  I’ve had the opportunity to run for Senate, coordinate Congressional, State, and Presidential campaigns, and get elected to office.  The more you work the more you learn.  The more you learn the more you win.  When you lose you learn even more.  The key is to keep your eyes open, your beliefs intact, and your heart…well, feeling the Bern.  (Besides, who wants to tell their kids that in the political revolution of 2016, they were so dispirited after the Nevada Caucus, where Bernie “only” got 48% of the vote, they dropped out, turned on, and tuned in to a loop of The Revenant for 40 days and nights?)

If you aren’t more motivated than when you started this Memo, try this.  A Friend on Facebook posted today that she pronounces a person’s name and adds “Attorney at Law” to see if it sounds professional.  Although meant to be self-deprecating about her ‘so-called life,’ I think it is quite profound.  Say the name of everyone running for President, and add “justice,” “equality,” “liberty,” “income equality,” or “leader” and see if it sounds like the future you really want in your Lifetime.  If you don’t feel the Bern then, good luck.

We are armed with the Ideas, People, and Money to win in our lifetimes today, the American promise of justice, equality and liberty, in our Lifetimes and  children’s Lifetimes, to come.  Another chance may not come again.  Don’t make the mistake we Boomers made after 1968 and 1972. 

Seize the Day.  Seize the Election.  Seize the Power.          

The Truth About Teachers Unions and Why the Indiana GOP Hates Them
by Teresa Kendall

1970s High School.

My first teaching job was the fall of 1977 in a small town in northern Indiana.  I was hired the same day as a nice young man, about my age (21).  He was a Social Studies teacher, I was Art.  This new guy was just down the hall from me.  He appeared to have the same number of students as I had; we both had extra duties before and after school.  He was married and a new dad, so he always left as soon as his contractual duties were done.  Being single, I had no other obligations at home, so I would stay an hour or two later and prepare for the next day.

Two weeks after the start of school I received my first pay check and I was excited.  In the late 70s it was hard to find a teaching job and I was as grateful as I was thrilled to be teaching and getting paid for it.  I can remember my summer meeting with the administration about the contract, and the odd phrase at the top near my name that described me as “a single female.”  But my name was on it and there was an amount that I didn’t quite comprehend and I signed.  With my first paycheck, I realized that not only was I making $5300 per year, but I was being paid less than my fellow hire, the man who was married with a kid.  The Social Studies teacher and I compared checks at lunch.  His salary of $7650 was over $2000 more than I made.   I taught at the school for one more week, but the reality of making $200 per week hit when I had no money to put gas in my car to drive to work and I resigned.

At the next school system I worked in, two women that became pregnant during the school year were made to leave.  That same school system fired a highly regarded female teacher for vague reasons, when it was revealed that she lived in the large neighboring city with a man and the two were not married.  Teacher friends, mostly women, have been fired for wearing slacks, having a part-time job at a bar, or dating a male colleague.  A fellow art major with me at ISU lost his job when a coach was hired and demanded the art position go to his wife.

All of this occurred in the late 70s and early 80s.  The teachers unions or “associations” as they were called then, didn’t have large numbers in the schools yet, and administrators were used to getting their way with teachers and their contracts.  By the mid-80s teachers and their unions were getting strong.  It was obvious that there were many inequities not only in pay, but in the treatment of teachers based on their subject matter, their age and their gender.  More union members meant schools had to correct the inequities and provide the type of educational environment that was beneficial to the teacher and the students.  Administrators railed against negotiating with union teachers, but their efforts brought about things such as, all teachers had to be licensed, and teach their certified subject (hard to believe, but I was made to teach a science class once in 1978).  Unions negotiated smaller class sizes, demanded that teachers be fully licensed in their subject area, that students have a daily recess and teachers get a half hour lunch.  Yes, we actually had to negotiate to get lunch. 

So fast forward 40 or so years and our state legislature is doing all they can to dismantle public education and break the teacher’s union all under the guise of fixing the teacher shortage.  The latest attack is HB 1004, a bill disguised as a way to fix the shortage, but in reality it is way to make one more deeper cut in the teacher’s union.  Not only does this bill change teacher retirement so that it will destroy the retirement system, but it allows for teachers to negotiate their own contract for higher pay outside of the union-bargained contract with a school corporation to fill subject areas of high demand.  And guess who pays for that higher salary – the teachers.  We all take a pay cut so a few can make some extra pay.

 

HB 1004 is not intended to do anything to entice teachers to come to work or stay in Indiana.  It is a tool to diminish the ISTA and AFT so that the state legislature can sell off our public schools and relieve them of any responsibility to educate our children.  Teachers’ unions advocate what is best for the school; teachers’ working conditions are the student’s learning conditions, so this is about more than money. 

There are state legislators that want to privatize public education.  The only thing standing in their way is the AFT, ISTA and a whole lot of parents and public education advocates.  The teacher’s union is not the bad guy, it is the delusional members of the legislature, mainly Bob Behning that will do anything, including destroying public schools, to dismantle the union.   Help stop HB1004, contact your legislator.  Don’t allow these people to take away your public school and your public school teachers.

THE BEST OF TIMES AND

THE WORST OF TIMES

By

Mike Kendall

Charles Dickens’ 19^th Century novel about London, Paris, reform, revolution, and justice, A Tale of Two Cities, speaks to our state’s 21^st Century politics, reform, and justice as if it were written yesterday.  “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times,” the novel begins.  Why?  Because the cause of liberty, fraternity, and equality was breaking out all over Europe and still tyranny, fear, and loathing were rife trying to impose the good cause by the evil Madame Guillotine. 

Today is our best of times and the worst of times.  Today the Senate Republican leadership lopped off the head of S.B. 344.  They said it was because there aren’t enough votes among 40 out of 50 Republican Senators to have any hope of passing this all-Republican-sponsored reform bill, voted out of committee with seven Republican votes.  They said a week ago it was the best of times because S.B.  344 would advance civil rights for lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.  It would advance religious freedom and matters of conscience for all people of good will.  And it would advance the reputation and esteem of Indiana nationally, showing ‘Hoosiers don’t have a prejudiced bone in their bodies.’  But today is our worst of times because the Republicans lack the ability to govern, the courage to lead, and 26 votes for reform, justice, and political comity.

The bill was amended in, and reported out of, a Republican-controlled committee last Wednesday night by a majority of  Senators and a minority of supporters who spoke and testified that S.B. 344 had serious problems but needed to advance to the floor of the Senate to allow a full, public debate by Senators representing all citizens of Indiana, the full airing of the still-conflicting views of the LGBT and religious community, an opportunity for developing a consensus, and second reading amendments from floor of the Senate.  No one who testified out of about 28 speakers, nor the bill’s sponsors, thought the existing bill was great.  22 people testified against the bill.  Six testified for it, critiqued it, and said let’s keep it moving and work more on it in Senate and eventually the House to improve it by further debate.  The Republican Chair of the hearing (Speaker Pro Tem Long), the bill’s sponsor, and the witness for Eli Lilly all supported this rationale, recognizing that only one person from the LGBT community testified in favor of the bill, one Republican Senator and four Democratic Senators voted against it, and 22 citizens and organizations representing the LGBT and religious communities testified against the bill. 

How, when, and why did the Republican Senate leadership, especially the Speaker Pro Tempore, come to the realization today it was the ‘worst of times’ in Indiana, because the bill was imperfect, unpopular, and in need of further change? Why did he guillotine his Republican vehicle this week because it was not likely to get 26 votes Wednesday, but supported putting the bill up for full Senate deliberation, debate, and amendment knowing full-well it was a bill in search of salvation the week before?  Instead, today, Tuesday, February 2^nd, 2016, he halted the democratic process of debate and consideration he himself put forward as the reason to swallow hard, keep the bill in play, and allow the people to decide how to improve it. 

The power of the people in Indiana moved our state through LGBT marriage rights, past a collision with RFRA I, hitched a ride on RFRA II, and to the open debate seeking resolution and comity on freedom of sexual orientation and identity with religious freedom.  The power of one Republican Senator, posing as a leader of  the one-party Republican rule in the Senate and a champion of personal and religious freedom and reform, thwarted the will of the people, rotted from within the underpinning of our elected, representative legislature, and ran from the duty his job demands. 

Dickens’ besotted hero and Barrister in A Tale of Two Cities cast aside his worldly cynicism for the life of an unrequited love by risking and ultimately losing his human life, but not his dignity and soul, saying before the guillotine, “It is a far, far better thing I do today than I have ever done before.”  The Speaker Pro Tempore of our Indiana Senate can still redeem his political soul without losing his human life by a far easier act requiring far less courage.  The Speaker Pro Tempore must    reconsider his abandonment of all he’s said for more than a year and promptly recant today’s cowardly betrayal of the power of the people.  The Republican leadership must move their imperfect bill, knowingly voted out of their committee, to a free debate in an imperfect legislature that is 80 percent Republican, in the hopes of improving sexual and religious rights as they promised in an imperfect world.

Don’t kick civil rights, religious freedom, sexual freedom, and reform to the curb, Mr. Speaker.  If you don’t recant, then it’s just going to be “the worst of times.”