Disunion of the teachers union is the city’s last hope (NYC teachers sponsor Sharpton's anti-police rally)

[mountaineer]

Disunion of the teachers union is the city’s last hope
By Michael Goodwin
New York Post
August 20, 2014 | 1:26am

Look for the union label — right there in the garbage can. Where it belongs.

The decision by the teachers union to sponsor Al Sharpton’s anti-police rally isn’t just another day in the rubber room. It is absolute proof that the union has severed its tenuous relationship with reality.

Boss Michael Mulgrew and some other labor leaders don’t see themselves as citizens of New York with a stake in its future. They’ve gone radical, bonding with the Occupy rabble in an anti-social binge that aims to kill the golden goose. Left unchecked, they’ll poison the well and salt the land to finish off Gotham for good.

Theirs is a race to the bottom, without rules or restraint. They denounce wealth, but their greed makes Wall Street look like a gathering of Mother Teresas.

Aren’t there any adults left in New York? Won’t somebody stand up and scream, STOP?

Apparently not. Like much of America, the city has lost confidence in its values and history. Spoiled by success, too many now threaten destruction if they don’t get what they claim to deserve.

They forget how New York got here, how close it came to absolute ruin. The brush with bankruptcy, the stampede for the exits, the crime wave that almost sunk the ship of state — these are recent events that must not be ignored.

Those who survived it know “The Rotten Apple” was real and the city was saved only because enough people and the right leadership refused to let it die. Yes, there were scum among us, and always will be. But they were marginalized by an establishment that had the courage to fight for its convictions.

The real change, the loss, is in the quality of that establishment.

The political class now only panders to the lowest common denominator, the leaders of the business community are too busy cutting deals for themselves, and advocates sell their souls for a government contract.

There is no center to hold, so the playing field is dominated by agitators from the margins, including hustlers and their elitist enablers, some of whom still think graffiti is art.

These are the types who once celebrated the Black Panthers, and who now believe Occupy Wall Street is a legitimate protest movement and that the arson, looting and gunfire in Ferguson, Mo., reflects grass-roots anger.

Grow up. Genuine protesters don’t smash a culture they care about or a city they want to improve. It’s the anarchists who loot and pillage and try to kill cops because they destroy, therefore they are.

They don’t want to fine-tune society. They want to burn it down.

The distressing part is that too many supposedly smart people can’t tell the protesters from the anarchists and honest people from criminals. So, against all good sense, New York is actually having a debate about whether crime is really crime and whether we should really enforce the law because doing so ends up snaring too many people of a certain race.

In the process, we’ve made the best and most professional police force in America bear the brunt of our lunacy.

Mayor de Blasio hasn’t figured out yet which side he’s on, so the city goes wobbly under a leader who looks to Sharpton for direction. His latest gee-whiz theory for preventing crime without cops involves paying people to hug a thug. Good luck with that.

It seems odd to say, but maybe the last, best hope for New York involves the rank and file of the unions. Their bosses are fat cats already, but the members’ collective future depends entirely on the city’s health. Their jobs, their children’s schools, their retirement depends on whether the city thrives or dies. As New York goes, so go the men and women who work for it.

In that context, The Post report that hundreds upon hundreds of teachers are rebelling against the Sharpton-Mulgrew axis is reason for hope.

But do these unionists of good will have the guts to lead? Can they tell the bosses that, hell, no, they won’t destroy the city that gave them and their families a foothold in America?

Heaven help us if they don’t.

[mountaineer]

Not all teachers are pleased.

Outraged teachers tell UFT PAC: Count us out
By Joe Tacopino, Jamie Schram and Bruce Golding
August 19, 2014 | 8:49pm
NY Post


The UFT will pay a heavy price for sponsoring the Rev. Al Sharpton’s anti-cop rally on Staten Island — as a growing number of teachers vow to cancel their contributions to the union’s political action committee.

The United Federation of Teachers’ Committee on Political Education, or COPE, raked in more than $6 million between Jan. 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

But ever since the union announced its support last week for a protest over the police chokehold death of Eric Garner, hundreds of members have used the UFT’s own Facebook page to publicly sever ties with COPE.

“I would like a refund on my COPE contributions,” Jaime Russo Sclafani wrote. “It makes me sick that I donated money from my paycheck to support and provide transportation to march against the very people who keep us safe.”

Other posters listed contact information for the COPE office and a form letter to cancel payroll deductions that fund the powerful lobbying organization.

The UFT didn’t return requests for comment.

Tuesday’s announcement by Staten Island DA Dan Donovan that a special grand jury would hear evidence in Garner’s death had no impact on plans for Saturday’s protest, and law-enforcement sources said the NYPD was working hard to ensure it remained peaceful.

A high-ranking source said the recent rioting in Ferguson, Mo., over the police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown “is on the minds of everyone.”

“It’s of definite concern what’s happening down there . . . We don’t want another Ferguson on Staten Island,” the source said.

The source also noted that “Sharpton is bouncing back and forth from Ferguson to the city and now he’s having this rally on staten Island. So we’re going to be ready.”

As many as 15,000 protesters are expected to show up, and merchants along the march route said they were preparing for the worst.

Ebdo Ali, manager of the Wedyan Food Deli on Stuyvesant Place, said he planned to close the store once he saw marchers approaching, which will likely cost at least $1,000 in receipts.

“You never know what’s going to happen — the windows could get broken, people could come in and steal, or take things and throw them at the cops,” said Ali, 36.

Lori Honor, owner of Honor Wines on Bay Street, said she also planned to close her store, despite the fact that Saturday is usually the busiest day of the week.

“Even if it goes smoothly, there’s no access for our customers,” she said. “We may have to re-open Sunday to recoup our losses.”

Meanwhile, outraged educators plan to wear NYPD T-shirts on the first day of school next month to show support for New York’s Finest.

“I will be wearing a NYPD shirt proudly,” said Raymond Cottrell, 54, a science teacher at IS 24 in Manhattan. “I do not agree with my union supporting the march.”

[mountaineer]

Rewriting the Rev. Al Sharpton’s history
By Post Editorial Board
August 20, 2014 | 11:59pm

How utterly perverse. The Rev. Al Sharpton was given center stage yet again Wednesday, this time at an interfaith meeting to address police-community relations — and he used it to rewrite history.

Mayor de Blasio blithely helped in the effort, introducing Sharpton as a man who sought peaceful solutions “since the days of Martin Luther King.”

Oh, really? From the Tawana Brawley case to the Crown Heights riots to Ferguson, Mo., Sharpton’s usual role is to pour gasoline on the fire.

Sharpton asserted that he doesn’t believe in a “rush to judgment” when cops are accused of police brutality. Yet his agitation, both here in the city and in Ferguson, even before the facts have become clear in either case, puts that to the lie.

Perhaps most disgusting was Sharpton’s claim that he scheduled his march against police brutality for Saturday because it’s the 25th anniversary of the death of Yusuf Hawkins — the 16-year-old black youth beaten and shot to death by a white mob in Bensonhurst.

With the Tawana Brawley fiasco still fresh, Sharpton led multiple marches back then through Bensonhurst, even though those responsible for the death were properly tried and convicted.

What the reverend took pains not to note is that this week marks another anniversary: 23 years since the Crown Heights riots.

There, too, Sharpton played a cynical role, fueling rage after the tragic vehicular death of 7-year-old Gavin Cato and helping to stir up three nights of rioting that left Jewish Australian Yankel Rosenbaum dead.

Sharpton had no place at that meeting on Wednesday. De Blasio had no grounds to give him one.