In the middle 1930s, New Deal brain truster Rex Tugwell wrote wonderful  book titled, The Battle for Democracy.  Although Tugwell was never that powerful in the administration(he was way to far to the left),people like Tugwell held important positions in the Roosevelt administration as advisors and administrators.  While there are unfortunately too few of President Obama's adivsors who remind me of Tugwell,  the struggle today is a continuation of that battle for Democracy

This Monday, the forty fourth anniversary of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, the AFL-CIO is sponsoring demonstrations through the country  to connect the struggle against the Republican led right(and vice versa) with the interrelated struggles for labor rights and civil rights(together the two  give us the best definition we have of human rights).

Everyone who reads our blog should check the AFL-CI0 website for the location of demonsrtations and events in their communities. 

Here in New Jersey our Union the American Association of University Professors/American Federation of Teachers(AAUP-AFT) is cosponsoing  with the AFL-CIO a roundtable with Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, Randi Weingarten, President of the National AFT,  Senator Robert Menendez and Congressman Rush Holt,  New Jersey NAACP President James Harris, New Jersey AFL/CI0 president Charlie Wowkanech, and other labor, civil rights and political leaders.  The roundtable will begin at 11 A.M at the IBEW Union Hall at 670 Whitehead Road Trenton.  I and others from our union will be there but the rountable will be webcast and anyone with a computer can see it  by accessing www.workingfamiliesunitedfornj.org.

On the following day there will be a  Fight Back USA National Teach-in on Austerity, Debt, Corporate Greed, and What You can Do About It centered at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City from 2:30.  Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West, who need no introduction will be the cohosts of the national teachin, and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka will be among the speakers.

Along with this teach-in there will be  interconnected teachins acrossl the country.  Here at Rutgers student organizers asked me to speak briefly on the relationship of the national struggles to ours at Rutgers(where the local administration has unilaterally reneged on a memorandum of agreement with all of the trade unions to pay deferred salary increases and has  boasted of its "success" in having a state commission  on higher education recomend the removal of caps on tuition increases for student, i.e., solve the fiscal crisis by freezing salaries, raising tuition for students   Others from the unions, from student organizations will speak and respond to questions at the teach-in.

 Those who would wish to see a webcast of the national teachin should google the fightbackusanational teachin website and follow the instructions for  the webcast.

This events take place at a time that the Libyan intervention is acting as a distraction to the domestic struggle and the Obama administration remains at a crossroads in regard to its relationship to its and our rightwing opponents, who seek to destroy public employee unions and intimidate public employees by demanding the right to spy on their email correspondence on trade union and other political questions.

Some here in New Jersey and nationally seem to think that the best strategy is to do little and wait for the Republican right to overextend and discredit themselves with the wild attacks.  This though is a very bad strategy.  The events scheduled for this Monday and Tuesday call for active resistance and involvement .  That is good strategy and one that can encourage the Obama administration to move in kind of direction that Rex Tugwell called for in The Battle for Democracy.