The thing about autocrats...

"The time for negotiations is over." -- Rahm Emanuel

A few minutes later, in front of City Hall, janitors, lunch ladies, teachers,  parents, clergy and union officials interlocked arms and sat down in neat rows in the northbound lanes of LaSalle Street. "Save our schools," they chanted. -- WBEZ

Shades of Hosni Mubarak and Dick Cheney.

The one thing autocrats and political bosses world-wide have in common -- they don't give a rat's ass about what the 99% think. Their power comes from a tiny reactionary base of support from corporate billionaires  and they have no tolerance for popular dissent, either from inside or outside their own narrow political machines.

Mubarak

Mubarak, who responded to the Egyptian people's demands for democratic reform with violence and terror, was ousted after 18 days of demonstrations that sparked the 2011 Arab Spring. Now he sits behind bars, most likely until he dies.

When I think of Cheney, I recall his curt  response in the Spring of 2008, to polls showing growing opposition to the Iraq invasion. When asked about polls showing that  two-thirds of Americans opposed the war, Cheney replied, "So?"

"You don't care what the American people think?" ABC News' Martha Raddatz asked the vice president. "You can't be blown off course by polls," said Cheney.

Eight months later, Cheney, Bush and the neocons were swept out of office by a mass movement including millions of young voters, energized largely by their opposition to the war and pinning their hopes on Barack Obama.

Karen Lewis out-polling Rahm 77% to 23%

On a day when thousands of angry parents, teachers, students, unionists and clergy turned out in Chicago to protest the announced closings of neighborhood schools, Rahm took the Mubarak/Cheney road.

At a hastily called press conference, the mayor, whose poll ratings of those strongly approving his policies are now at 2%, declared that "the time for negotiations is over". He spoke at length about the "new process" he said has already allowed the public to weigh in on the proposed closings. CPS and a school closings commission held public hearings over more than four months on the issue, and said more than 20,000 people participated, said Rahm. The district now will hold three meetings for each school on the final closing list before the school board votes.

But a group of a dozen African-American ministers who came to the Mayor's Office with a letter urging him to  put a moratorium on closings asked about the point of additional hearings if Emanuel has already made up his mind.

“If nobody is going to be heard at the hearings, what’s the use of having the hearings?” said Pastor Marshall Hatch of the New Mount Pilgrim Church in West Garfield Park. “If it’s a done deal, then stop wasting everybody’s time.”

Rahm believes that a huge campaign war chest and his links with Obama will be enough to keep him in power after 2014. But growing anger in the black community over these targeted school closings could change all that. Yesterday's mass protest, including civil disobedience arrests of some 150 people, has raised the stakes. The mayor can now talk all he wants about no negotiations but he faces a potential Chicago Spring if he does. Not to mention the dozens of Civil Rights law suits and possible injunctions he and his lieutenant Byrd-Bennett face as they move ahead on school closings.

An NBC News poll (scroll to bottom of the page to vote) yesterday on the heels of the protest, asked: "Whom do you support in the school closing battle, Rahm Emanuel or Karen Lewis?" So far, with some 80,000 people voting, it's Rahm 23% -- Karen 77%.

Expected Rahm response -- "So."

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Brizard to Sun-Times reporter

“How can I help you, without getting in trouble?” -- Sun-Times

Rochester reassesses in Brizard's wake

"Parents and the community need to reclaim the word 'reform,'" said Mary Adams, a parent and education advocate. "Brizard does not represent reform in any kind of authentic way. We have a whole reform agenda that is so much more powerful and real than these business models." -- Democrat & Chronicle

Urbanski on Brizard

Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association. “I am wishing very, very hard that he succeeds in Chicago,… but he is not likely to succeed until he recognizes that he can’t do it alone. He has to collaborate with teachers and parents.” -- CS Monitor

Turnaround schools gets turned around again 

AUSL’s Debbra Lang oversees Orr and two other high schools the group runs for the Chicago district. Lang says AUSL is applying what’s called the broken-windows theory. It’s a way some police try to keep the peace by focusing on low-level offenses like vandalism. Lang says the approach works for schools, too. -- WBEZ reporter Chip Mitchell

My post, " Rahm Emanuel: Not Yet Mayor and Already Got Chicago Schools in a Fine Mess," is re-posted at Beyond Chronicle: San Francisco's alternative online daily. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Cheney on Mubarak

“So he’s been a good man and a good friend and ally of the United States, and we need to remember that.” -- Dick Cheney at Reagan celebration.

Wrong Message

Seething about coverage that made it look as if the administration were protecting a dictator and ignoring the pleas of the youths of Cairo, the president “made it clear that this was not the message we should be delivering.” -- NY Times

Teachers in the cross-hairs

Groups like EAG go after public school teachers through the back door. They lie about who they are. They video tape teacher’s private lives and activities. They make FOIA requests of teacher emails. Then they cry the blues when they get caught and have their slime activities brought to light. In the end they’re all just different wings of the same bird. -- Fred Klonsky's Blog

Wisconsin gov threatens troops against unions

Gov. Scott Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond wherever is necessary in the wake of his announcement that he wants to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from state employees. --AP

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Cheney, Mubarak BFF

'I think President Mubarak needs to be treated as he deserved over the years, because he has been a good friend." -- Former V.P. Dick Cheney at event commemorating the Reagan centennial.

Re-segregating Wake County schools

"We used to be held up as a national model," resident Jamie Dunston said. "Now we're being held up … as objects of ridicule and disgust, and rightfully so." -- L.A. Times

Bachman finds meaning in life

"I take my first political breath every morning with one thought in mind," the Tea Party darling told her audience, the Missoulian reports. "Repeal Obamacare... That's my motivation in life."  -- Michele Bachman

Candidate for president of UTLA 

"Right now we're the big, greedy teachers.... We are not the villains in education; we are the saviors." -- Julie Washington

Good for peace?

I asked an old friend here in Cairo, a woman with Western tastes that include an occasional glass of whiskey, whether the Muslim Brotherhood might be bad for peace. She thought for a moment and said: “Yes, possibly. But, from my point of view, in America the Republican Party is bad for peace as well.”-- Nicholas Kristoff (h/t brother Fred)

Courage

I'm so moved, overwhelmed by the courage and spirit of the Egyptians, I can't even begin to focus on our own school politics today. Maybe later when I'm done plowing.  Best eye-witness accounts are coming on Twitter from NPR's Andy Carvin. Well worth following.