Vol. 25, No. 2                                                 September 14, 2005

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE

Here at The Patriot Returns, we never have planned an illegal strike. But we're worried that the PSC's Dear Leader, Battlin' Barb Bowen, has spent so much time dreaming up her proposed "job action" that she's lost whatever remained of her political sense.

Case in point: yesterday's primary election. Surely, union officials ready to violate state law by striking would lay the groundwork for their law-breaking by reaching out to city and state elected officials?

Not the Dear Leader and her PSC minions! They have adopted their own, typically bizarre, strategy. They want to alienate as many political leaders as they possibly can before walking off the job.

In the weeks before the primary, the PSC stepped up to the plate and made an early endorsement for Public Advocate. The union couldn't even get the job's title right: the endorsement page called the position "city advocate." Didn't CUNY's Queen of Released Time-the Unsinkable Susan O'Malley-have enough time to proofread the announcement?

Anyhow, who did the Dear Leader and her allies pick? Incumbent Betsy Gotbaum was endorsed by the editorial pages of the Times, the Daily News, and Jewish Press Weekly. She had the backing of all five borough Democratic Party organizations, all four Democratic borough presidents, former mayors Koch and Dinkins, liberal luminaries like Congressman Jerry Nadler and Assemblyman Scott Stringer, and no less than 12 major unions, including the UFT. In short, she was a shoo-in.

In addition, Gotbaum is the city's highest-ranking female officeholder. Given the PSC's celebration of "diversity," Gotbaum would have seemed like the obvious choice.

But, remember, Battlin' Barb and Friends wanted to prepare for their illegal strike by losing friends and alienating people.

We here at TPR already have shown (Vol. 22, No. 2) how on "diversity" issues, the Dear Leader talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. So we probably should have expected the PSC to endorse a white male instead of an incumbent female or the other Public Advocate candidate, a minority.

Here's how the Daily News described the PSC's choice, Norman Siegel: he's "downright loony," someone who "promises nonstop protests on the City Hall steps, regardless of how nutty the message." That sounds like the Dear Leader herself!! Maybe she should run for Public Advocate instead of leading CUNY faculty over the cliff by threatening an illegal strike.

So, the PSC, alone among major city unions, backed a "downright loony" candidate who had no chance of winning, and alienated the city's highest-elected Democratic officeholder. Does anyone in alternate-reality headquarters on 43rd Street believe that Gotbaum now will do anything but oppose the Dear Leader's illegal strike?

Add Gotbaum to the PSC's list of alienated politicians-which by now includes just about everyone who's important to CUNY. In the 2001 mayoral primary, the PSC endorsed Freddie Ferrer. (Ferrer lost.) In the fall, the PSC supported Mark Green. (Green lost.) In the 2002 gubernatorial election, the PSC enthusiastically backed Peter Vallone. (Vallone lost.) And then the Dear Leader is amazed when Mike Bloomberg and George Pataki don't back the PSC agenda for CUNY.

Maybe the PSC considers Siegel's share of the vote a moral victory. After all, Siegel did much better than PSC executive committee member Stanley Aronowitz in his crazy run for the state's highest office. The "guv'nor" himself can't wait for the illegal strike to begin: he told the New York Sun, "I'm ready to go to jail." And surely the Queen of Released Time has enough released time to continue to be paid for even the longest jail sentence.

What politician will the Dear Leader and friends alienate next? The registrar of deeds? The local dog catcher? One thing's for sure: this Keystone Kops crowd isn't competent to run a strike, whether or not it's legal.

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