NYC Educator: Neutered Action

NYC Educator: Neutered Action:

Neutered Action

by NYC Educator

One of my favorite fables is The Pearl by John Steinbeck. In it, Steinbeck writes of how the common people are cheated. They go to sell their pearls, from one buyer to the next, but each buyer is just an arm of the one true buyer--they actually commiserate to keep prices down, rather than competing for the pearls they buy.

That's how I feel every time New Action drops another ridiculous paper in my mailbox. We oppose this and that, but it's all good because we support that and this. The implication is that any actual opponent would be a contrary nitwit who reflexively opposed everything for no reason whatsoever.

The other implication, of course, is that New Action is an opposition. In fact, New Action was once an opposition, and I've voted for them more than once. Knowing little, but sympathizing with the underdog, I voted for Mike Shulman for VP, and he actually won. This put UFT leadership in panic mode. First they challenged the election, and if I'm not mistaken he won bigger the second time. Finally they changed the voting rules so that all officers were elected at large--the elementary and middle school teachers, more reliably Unity, now help us choose a leader so that genuine opposition voices will not prevail again without Unity pre-approval. This is akin to having Alaska and Texas help NY to pick a US Senator.

New Action decided to give up and sell out. They get a bunch of their people cross-endorsed, and in return they