[lbo-talk] teacher union bashing

[c b]

I recently talked to several liberal Democrats who engaged in teacher
union bashing, expressing variants of the opinion that public schools
are full of bad teachers protected by powerful unions. This has
traditionally been a Repug trope, so hearing this from the liberal
quarters comes as a bit of a surprise. Any thoughts?
Wojtek

^^^^

CB: Isn't this part of the result of 30 years of successful, Reaganist
liberal bashing ?  And the core of the liberal bashing was to force
Democrats to weaken their ties to unions. Dem Presidents used to
attend Labor Day parades I believe; no more. Much privatization, which
is essentially union busting,  has been by Democratic officeholders.
This is part of "neo-liberalism" which is really "ill-liberalism" or
"paleo-liberalism redux."

 My impression is that most Democrats are scared to cop to being
liberal these days. Are these anti-union Democrats calling themselves
liberals ? Even most pro-union Democrats don't call themselves
"liberal" .

40 years ago there were liberal Republicans. Nelson Rockefeller was
one, supposedly. It took a lot of liberal Republican votes to pass the
Civil Rights bills.