Retiring General Counsel’s Shocking Admission: The NEA Is a Union!
A YouTube video that catches Bob Chanin, retiring general counsel of the National Education Association, calling right-wing groups ”bastards” for attacking his soon-to-be-former employer has recently been making the rounds. Not surprisingly, some right-wingers haven’t been too happy about Chanin’s retirement speech, not caring for the “bastard” label. I, however, want to thank Mr. Chanin for his salty valedictory.
Why? First off, because his pugnacious presentation has a certain Teamsters feel to it, furnishing almost visceral confirmation that the National Education Association is a labor union pure-and-simple — not the high-brow “professional employee organization” it bills itself as — ready to slash tires or do whatever else it thinks necessary to get its way.
But I’m especially grateful because Mr. Chanin all but declares that the NEA is a power-obsessed, hyper-political union that serves not children, but adults. Of course, anyone who has followed the NEA knows that — indeed, its exactly what we should expect considering that it’s the adults who pay the dues — but it’s a shocking admission from someone so high in the association, and a reality the public all too often misses.
What follows is my transcription of the speech’s most revelatory section. Of course, if you would prefer to catch all the inflections, hemming and hawing, and crowd reactions, you can just watch the video. If you’re going to do that, either start at the beginning for the whole address (obviously) or go to about the 15-minute mark to hit the really revealing stuff. And maybe, when you’re done either reading or watching, send Mr. Chanin a retirement card with a little thank you note in it. After all, giving this honesty-filled speech could very well be the best thing he’s ever done for children or the public:
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Government and Politics
NEA Asks President to Nationalize Industries
The NEA demands that “a dying laissez faire must be destroyed,” and calls on the president to nationalize the credit agencies, utilities and major industries (see AP story at right), and we hear hardly a peep from the punditocracy. Strange.
Well, okay, I’m not actually surprised. This is a real story that actually ran on March 1st… 1934. I tweaked the image to refer to president Obama rather than FDR.
It’s taken three quarters of a century, but the NEA’s plan to nationalize the credit agencies and major industries seems to have finally gotten under way, particularly given the recent assertion of federal control over GM.
One advantage of the delay is that we now have generations of experience with another state-run industry, education, as a guide for what to expect from the latest state takeovers.
And since the president (Obama, not FDR) is starting with GM, it seems only fitting to take a look at the public schools of Detroit. Rather than give you the typical statistical wonkery, though, I thought I’d point readers to this compelling photo essay.
After flipping through it, do you think the Detroit auto industry would have worked better over these past 75 years if it had been run like the Detroit public schools?
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