Vol. 46, No.1                                                      April 02, 2009

IS THE NEW CAUCUS
CAVITY-PRONE?

For those under the impression that union mailing lists and list-servs were reserved for official union business, our Dear Leader, Barbara Bowen, operates under her own rules. A few weeks back, she sent out an official union e-mail attacking. . . TPR! And last week, New Caucus delegate David Kritt used the official Delegate Assembly list-serv to demand that the New Caucus adopt a new campaign strategy.

Entitled "Winning the Election," the Kritt missive fretted that the campaign had exposed the New Caucus as "more concerned about a variety of progressive issues than about the most basic issues." In this "ugly economic climate," Kritt worried, "posing as a vanguard for the unenlightened will not get people to like us."

The Dear Leader, her ever-so-humble subject suggested, needed to place aside her outsized ego, at least until after the election: "No matter what your personal feelings, we need to reach out to get votes." And she needed to stress the New Caucus' alleged record of delivering concrete items for CUNY faculty. Among Kritt's suggested slogans: "The New Caucus: We care about your teeth(!!)"

As we all know, the Dear Leader doesn't like second-guessing from her minions. And Kritt's proposed slogan was particularly laughable, given that the New Caucus basically ran the dental program into the ground.

But the Dear Leader decided she can't take chances: after all, an election loss means that Barbara also loses her $40,000 annual bonus. So, following Kritt's advice, the latest New Caucus mailer ignores the Dear Leader's various global crusades. It doesn't mention the New Caucus' bizarre preoccupation with Stella D'Oro breadsticks, or teachers in Oaxaca. Instead, it talks about the Dear Leader's supposed concrete achievements.

We couldn't help but notice something, however: The New Caucus mailing didn't mention the Dear Leader's inability to negotiate contracts whose salary increases managed to keep pace with inflation. Nor did the mailing talk about how Steve London so mismanaged the Welfare Fund that PSC members were forced to bail "Sidekick Steve" out through a massive salary "giveback."

In the meantime, we await the Dear Leader's newest slogan: "New Caucus: Blame Your Cavities on Us!"

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NEW CAUCUS: "LET'S BACK
THE WORKING FAMILIES PARTY"

Even as the Dear Leader sent out a mailer suggesting that she's set aside what Kritt euphemistically described as the New Caucus' "progressive issues," other members of the NC team couldn't keep the movement's extremist agenda under wraps.

The issue: Carl Kruger, a Democratic state senator from Brooklyn.

Kruger, as those of you who follow New York politics know, is one of the 32 senators who give the state Democratic Party a narrow two-seat majority in the state Senate. He also chairs the powerful state Senate Finance Committee.

Given all that we hear about the New Caucus' "political influence" in Albany, Kruger sounds like the kind of person the Dear Leader would have some standing with, correct? Guess again.

Today, the New Caucus will picket Kruger's Brooklyn office. (Because, apparently, the tactic worked so well when the Dear Leader organized a picket of the Chancellor's private residence.) The complaint? The New Caucus doesn't like Kruger's position on tax issues.

Now, the last we looked, the Democrats controlled things in Albany. So is it really a good idea for the PSC to alienate one of the party's key members? Apparently it is, given the New Caucus philosophy: "A significant protest needs to be made in order to shake up the status quo. That is how progress will be made. This thinking, after all, follows the philosophy of the original New Caucus."

Obviously, CUNY members are free to take any position they like on the record of Sen. Kruger or any other member of the State Senate. But we wonder: why doesn't the Dear Leader use her campaign missives to talk about the need to allocate PSC resources for the purpose of picketing offices of Democratic state senators? Instead—almost incredibly—the New Caucus has been attacking its opponents for their "partisan" political positions.

If the New Caucus wants to turn the PSC into an arm of the Working Families Party—with all the minimal influence that such a move would imply—at least the Dear Leader should have the courage to say so openly.

Issues of The Patriot may be accessed at
http://www.patriotreturns.com
Archived editions are available at
http://www.patriotreturns.com/archive.htm

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
www.freespeechcuny.blogspot.com