Unity Think Tank

"Let's say Kit is a socialist."

"But I'm a socialist, and you're a socialist, and everyone involved with the union movement in this country was pretty much a socialist."

"I know, but how many other people do? We could call him a militant socialist, and then people will think he walks around killing people and stuff."

"Like a terrorist or something."

"Yeah, that's good. Do you think people would get mad at us for this?"

"We'll send it out without our name on it, and we won't put a return address."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Who's gonna know? We'll send out 145,000 copies, and use our first class bulk-mail permit."

"Do we even have a bulk-mail permit? It's illegal for political caucuses to use the UFT bulk mail permit. And how much is this gonna cost anyway?"

"Don't worry about that. It's all taken care of, and no one will suspect a thing."

"A socialist, huh? With all the socialists and communists that have run and worked with Unity over the years, isn't that kind of like the pot calling the kettle black? Don't we have socialists and communists on the ballot right now?"

"Who's gonna know? And let's say he wants to cut beginning teacher salaries."

"But he never said that."

"Who's gonna know? As long as people are thinking about what a bad guy this guy is, no one's gonna think about the things we don't want them to think about, like the 05 contract."

"Well, we got a better one."

"Actually, we got an extension of the last one. The teachers are still doing hall patrol, they're still coming in in August, they're still not guaranteed placement when their schools get closed, they're still teaching six classes, they can still be suspended without pay for 90 days on trumped-up charges, and their pay still doesn't compare with that of suburban schools."

"But does anyone remember that?"

"We'll tell them what to remember. Let's say Kit's only solution to every problem is strike."

"But they've got years of position papers on the internet. Shouldn't we be threatening management with strikes instead of rank and file?"

"When we threatened rank and file in 05, we passed that stinker of a contract, didn't we? Let's go all out. No one needs to know who sent this thing, no one needs to know who paid to print it, and no one needs to know who paid to mail it."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Who's gonna know?"