There IS an Alternative

When Michael Moore -- hardly the face of Bolshevism, as witness his hero-worship of the 14 Wisconsin Democratic legislators -- came to Madison to speak this weekend, the AFL-CIO refused to allow him to speak under their sponsorship, claiming that he "might go off message". So some of the prominent local labor, media and community activists set him up under their auspices on the other side of the Capitol. Sixty thousand showed up to hear him. He remained in town for several hours afterward, and the AFL-CIO leadership was again contacted. Again, no interest in promoting his message. (The following day, when he was safely out of town, the AFL-CIO leadership made a positive reference to his speech on their web site.)

Moore did have something to say that the labor bureaucracy does not want to promote: Workers ought not and need not be making "economic concessions". This society remains fabulously wealthy -- but corporate and individual wealth is using the fiscal crisis of their own making as grounds for scapegoating and punishing working people. The labor bureaucrats echo Gates, Duncan, Obama, Jerry Brown, Andrew Cuomo et al. in repeating the Margaret Thatcher mantra: "There Is No Alternative" to deeply cutting essential services while simultaneously reducing overall compensation (directly, and by 'furlough days' and by increasing taxes on working people, and ...)

If we don't recognize where the money is and aggressively go after it by demanding prioritizing human needs and human rights first, then the banks, the war machine, the health insurance / pharmaceutical complex, and Big Oil will continue to devour us. If it wasn't clear before, by now it ought to be evident that one big part of the war against public education and the accompanying scapegoating of teachers has been to set up and go after not just education but all essential public services, and not just teachers but the basic rights of all public employees. We have a job ahead: developing an antidote to the "There Is No Alternative" Kool-Aid, convincing people that there ARE alternatives and the money IS there and WILL be available -- IF we fight for it.