Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

AFT Calls Higher Education Teaching the Wal-Mart of the Professions." That was the headline one delegate wanted to avoid when he offered an amendment to Resolution 29 Â? Addressing the Academic Staffing Crisis. The resolution asserted that more than 70 percent of all college and university instructors are part-time or temporary. The resolution then stated that "this trend makes higher education one of the most extreme examples nationwide of the trend toward decreasing job security and benefits Â? the Wal-Mart of the professions."

A delegate moved to strike that last phrase because he was worried that headlines would compare academe to Wal-Mart. Since I was the only reporter on the floor at the time, I decided to fulfill his prediction.

The deletion was defeated and the original wording was approved by the delegates.

Today's Commie Commentary. Today's excerpt from Challenge: Revolutionary Communist Newspaper of Progressive Labor Party discusses the international conspiracy masterminded by the Council on Foreign Relations and accuses the AFT leadership of complicity with CFR schemes.

"Our previous AFT president was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is a highly significant think tank that hammers out analysis and strategy for the U.S. ruling class. It's such an important think tank that Â? when it decides, for example, that war should be waged against a particular country Â? then most of the key members of the State Department and the President's National Security Council, who are already CFR members, simply follow the plan."

Here we must congratulate the revolutionary communists of the PLP, for they have succeeded where others have failed Â? they have gone so far left they have met the far right. Their views of the CFR mirror those of the John Birch Society.