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“All of your allies are coming to our plan, so what’s the point
sticking to [your plan]?” Jones asked Casey, as dozens of protesters
behind him began chanting that they would not walk out. “The NAACP is
going to be inside with us. Why are you going to be outside?”

Brian this is what Casey was trying to say to you!

Answer: We at the UFT leadership are impotent collaborators. It does not pay for us to joint parents students and teachers who care about community schools. We pretend to care about school closings. We always say to all of you, that is the “best we can do under the circumstances”.  

I know Leo Casey. He was my mentor when I was Chapter Leader of the Cobble Hill School of American Studies (’03-’09). I respect some of his hardcore stands. I saw him slice and dice Senior Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky at an E4E panel. In sum, when he’s good, he’s very good, but his soul belongs to the corrupt Unity gang that cynically sold out brother Bill Thompson at the Delegates Assembly among many other treasons.
One keen example: in 2007 I asked Leo to help me fight a corrupt SCI report that overruled OSI’s substantiation of my allegations of Regents tampering and cover-up at Cobble Hill. He discounted my 142-page, point by point annihilation of SCI’s ludicrous re-investigation, but when I pressed him to explain, he refused to cite a single objection.
His cold, sour refusal to admit Richard Condon’s obvious fraud was stupefying. Condon claimed that Cobble Hill’s principal did not cover up my allegations even though the principal failed to report them to SCI as required by city law. Instead the principal conducted an illicit internal investigation with the connivance of LIS Kathy Pelles. No surprise, no Regents cheating was found. This breach of the law disturbed Leo not at all. “Principals conduct investigations all the time,” he said with a straight face. “Not criminal investigations in their own schools,” I replied. “They can’t even investigate corporal punishment without OSI’s okay.”
What was behind Leo’s intellectual dishonesty? Randi gave the order to stonewall me because she owed Condon a favor for crushing Klein smear campaign against her when she was still in the closet.
 

If reformers really wanted to bash the UFT, a tell all bio of the history of the Unity Caucus r would do just the trick. Like many members, I love my union. I’d do almost anything for it. But I despise Unity as it has existed over the past 10 or so years. I usually just keep my mouth shut about them -they’re too snooty and stuck up to reason with anyway- but this dirt-bag trick of accusing criticism of Unity with an attack on the Union in general is just over the top. I mean I’m not surprised, they do it all the time (it’s actually a very important part of their repertoire), but to do it in front of a camera on an open street with the press watching is just unacceptable. And the fact that Unity hasn’t once complained about E4E but would take this stance against GEM (of all groups) is just sickening.Whats more, Leo Casey is no dummy. He knew exactly what he was doing by making that remark. He outta apologize and then -in the future- just shut up. Unity’s antics are going to rip this union apart one of these days.

“At the DA anyone who proposes anything that Unity doesn’t like is always shot down by Unity people, and that fellow member is often humiliated by leadership in front of the entire assembly. ”

I’ve seen this happen at DA meetings in the past and it’s disgusting. I once saw Randi motion to someone in the crowd (probably another Unity person) as a delegate was speaking. It looked like she was seeking to evoke boos from the Unity members, which were very much invoked while the member was speaking. What was she speaking about? The member speaking was expressing concern over no longer being able to grieve a letter to file. Not worth any books in my book. But Randi et al didn’t like to hear it, so the person was shamed and humiliated into shutting up.

“Many people don’t even understand that there are various caucuses within the union”Exactly! And this is precisely the way Unity wants it. When you talk to these guys, you find that they have this particular narrative of the DOE that they give everyone they speak with. You’ll hear them use words like “WallBloom!!” and “KleinBerg!” a lot. This is partly because that narrative excludes ANY talk of ANY point of view other than Unity’s. NO mention of other caucus’ within the union is permitted either. They’ll interrupt, raise their voice and yell something like ‘Handle internal politics on your time, pal! I’m speaking to you on Union time!”. It’s so pathetic. This tactic tends to leave people scratching their heads, but they achieve their aim of squashing any differing points of view on the spot like a grape. BTW, they’re also protective -to the point of paranoia- of that narrative that they’re giving. They don’t want any of their interactions (with anyone) to open up to to conversational topics that they find uncomfortable, so they tend to monopolize all of their conversations. As a result, they really have a hard time connecting with members whenever they meet them. This is why I have found them to follow to George W Bush approach when visiting schools; only visit places that you know in advance are going to be friendly.

It’s so gross.

“Union activists butt heads over protest tactics at PEP meeting
assumes an equality of activists between Leo Casey and Brian Jones. That very concept is a joke. Like comparing a flea to a lion.
Yes, Casey knew exactly what he is doing trying to blame me and ed notes for the schism when in fact his purpose is to try to get people to put pressure on me to turn off the exposure of Unity Caucus complicity with the ed deformers. He has tried this tactic before and it didn’t work and it won’t work now.

This article/video does NOT tell the whole story. In fact, the UFT leadership
ditched their plan to hold an alternative, so called “People’s PEP,” and
REMAINED at the PEP. At least one UFT official was seen abandoning his
stack of UFT walkout fliers and distributing Occupy the DOE fliers. And
Michadel Mulgrew did, in fact, take the People’s Mic. The neutralization
of the UFT leadership’s efforts to divide and undermine the Occupy the
DOE action, and its decision to remain at the rally should be seen as a
victory of that movement.

Overall, the Feb. 9 action was at worst a stalemate and at best a
qualified victory, not a defeat. While it’s true that the DOE retained
its control over the sound system (with Occupy the DOE failing to
contingency plan for the acoustics in that tremendous auditorium) and
thus thwarted the People’s Mic, the huge mass of protestors effectively
rendered most of the PEP’s “hearing” unintelligible, thus calling into
question the legality of its major political victory, the closure of the
schools. But, on our side, over 3,000 anti-closing teachers, students,
parents and allies mobilized and left the DOE isolated and
delegitimized,in spite of their technological advantage, which as so
often is the case in our society, serves as a substitute for a popular
mandate. The nature of our victory was manifested, first when virtually
the entire auditorium voted “no confidence” in the PEP by raising a sea
of green cards, and again, when the protestors marched out of the
auditorium leaving ~40 people in that huge space.

Media magnate Bloomberg and his PEP won the technological battle,
but lost a battle for hearts and minds and — above all — legitimacy at
that PEP. They walked away with their pre-ordained decision to close
the schools, but more isolated than ever.

Leo Rules! Bababooey!

I’d be interested to know whether the Unity Caucus ever apologized for intentionally mistaking a criticism of the Unity Caucus as an attack on the entire Union. Any word on that?