If you have difficulty reading the newsletter, please go to www.patriotreturns.com to see the latest release.
THE PATRIOT RETURNS |
Vol. 44, No.3 March 10, 2009
THE DEAR LEADER'S
Our Dear Leader, Barbara Bowen, has just made her first---and perhaps most important---campaign promise: if re-elected, she's going to continue her quixotic attacks on U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, even at the expense of continuing to alienate the political allies we need to improve the working conditions for CUNY faculty and staff. In the campaign e-mail that she and the New Caucus leadership recently sent out (a missive, as we noted, that was erroneously issued as an official union statement), the Dear Leader dismissed the widespread criticism that she and her minions care more about attacking Israeli foreign policy than, say, dealing with faculty workload. In a line that won't dampen suspicion that Dr. Bowen suffers from a touch of megalomania, the Dear Leader wrote, "As a representative of 13 million working people, the labor movement takes a significant role in public policy debates. Resolutions passed by the PSC . . . have contributed to the discussion within national labor bodies." If the Dear Leader wants to speak "as a representative of 13 million working people," we urge her to run for AFL-CIO president. Or, perhaps, she can challenge Senator Gillibrand in next year's Senate primary. But, of course, as delusional as the Dear Leader is, even she realizes that most fellow labor leaders and nearly all politicians view her as an extremist nobody, and that she'd have no chance in either contest. So she continues to play-act on our dime, appointing her own "foreign minister" (International Committee chair Renate Bridenthal), or having her executive committee introduce resolutions condemning Israeli national security policy, to be forwarded to Hillary Clinton. The only problem with the Dear Leader's play-acting: we're a public university. We need support from politicians---and from opinion leaders. And the Dear Leader's foreign policy activism (ranging from her obsession with Israel to the time when she was the only one of 42 AFT vice presidents to oppose a resolution supporting the war in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks) only alienates the people whose support CUNY needs. ----------------- FOOL ME ONCE . . . In her campaign e-mail, the Dear Leader said she could produce hard evidence that she doesn't spend excessive time on international affairs. "The PSC is required by law to publish annual reports on the proportion of its expenses that are ‘political' or ‘ideological' in nature. . . the last audited statement, for 2007, shows that only 20 percent of our resources were expended on activities in this category." Sounds pretty definitive---until we remember that the Dear Leader's PSC lost a court case that centered on this very issue. In Seidemann v. Bowen, decided in April 2008, Judge Lois Bloom held that Bowen and her union leadership had "failed to demonstrate the propriety" of their distinctions between genuine union expenses and what the PSC defined as "political" or "ideological" activity. Indeed, the court found that Bowen's union leadership had hidden "political" or "ideological" expenses under the category of "office supplies"! Moreover, the Court held that Bowen "provided no evidence whatsoever to support their determination" of how they determined "political" and "ideological" expenses other than statements reflecting the consistent New Caucus refrain that "organizing" was a legitimate union expense, unrelated to "political" activity. In Seidemann, Judge Bloom found that the Dear Leader's "annual reports on the proportion of its expenses that are ‘political' or ‘ideological' in nature" did not reveal the true extent of the New Caucus' ideological crusades. So, in light of Judge Bloom's ruling, we would humbly submit to the Dear Leader that trusting her misleading reports isn't a wise strategy. ------------------------ THE NEW CAUCUS & ANTI-ISRAEL BOYCOTTS: In her campaign e-mail, the Dear Leader presented herself as a quasi-Zionist, a resolute defender of Israel in face of its academic enemies. The Bowen-led PSC, she said, passed a resolution that. . . contained a clause (!) recognizing a resolution by another union(!!) condemning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust denials. And---after strong criticism from the membership (and, we should note, from TPR)---the PSC passed a resolution rejecting a call from the University and College Union (UK) for a boycott of Israeli universities. That's pretty thin evidence, when balanced against a record that the Jewish Press exposed as anti-Israel. But TPR believes in redemption: since the Dear Leader implied to the membership that she isn't anti-Israel, let's give her the opportunity (once again) to prove it. Will the Dear Leader condemn the recent activities of her old pal Michael Letwin, a figure she named a "Friend of CUNY," the PSC's highest honor? In the name of fighting " Israeli apartheid," Letwin is now reaffirming "support for the international boycotts, sanctions and divestment campaign, including an immediate end to all support for Israel---including that provided by U.S. labor leaders." And will the Dear Leader distance herself from the CUNY faculty who have signed onto a public demand for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel ---people like signatories Anthony Alessandrini (Kingsborough), who has been leading a boycott of the Aroma Espresso Bar (what: do the Jews contaminate coffee beans?) in New York since 2006. Or Ashley Dawson (CSI and GC), who says, like the New Caucus, that "another university is possible"---but one that excludes the Zionists? Or Andrea Khalil (Queens and GC), who is among the 900 American academics who have requested a change in policy from the Obama administration regarding Palestine? All, of course, have First Amendment rights to say what they please. But should not the PSC take as hard a line as possible on academic, and crypto anti-Semitic, boycotts, given that CUNY faculty are now supporting the latter --- especially since, as the Dear Leader implied in her recent missive, she's secretly pro-Israel? ---------------------- STILL WAITING ON NEW CAUCUS In her recent campaign missive, our Dear Leader proclaimed, "We respect the right to free speech, and we welcome honest, open debate about union policies and actions. Free and open debate is essential for a democratic union." Despite that admirable sentiment, the Dear Leader has thus far refused to:
And so, once again, we ask our Dear Leader: if "free and open debate is essential for a democratic union," why has the New Caucus refused to release any of this basic information?
Sharad Karkhanis, Ph.D.
Issues of The Patriot may be accessed at As you know, Susan O'Malley has sought to silence the Patriot by bringing a lawsuit which seeks to limit his free speech and financially bankrupt him. Interested colleagues have weighed in at |