Michigan Teachers Vote to Unionize

By Salvatore Cipriano and Jordan Nicholson
Detroit

In a time of vicious attacks throughout the United States on students, teachers and working people’s unions alike, the teachers of an unlikely school, a small charter school outside of Detroit, have taken their rights into their own hands and have become unionized. The teachers at Arts Academy in the Woods in Frasier, Mich., with a vote of 20 to 1, approved their union in a teachers’ meeting, making the Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff Union (Michigan ACTS), the working representative of their school. Michigan ACTS is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers Michigan.

The school, with only 276 students currently in attendance, has been in existence for 10 years. Despite massive attacks on arts education and creative studies in public education around the U.S., the Arts Academy in the Woods balances academics and artistic learning, and is home to a number of specialized art departments such as Guitar and Bass Guitar at all levels, Jazz Band, 2D and 3D Art, Vocal Arts, a large dance program, and Image Design.

However, in the last four years the Drama and Orchestra departments have been cut and the teachers have been forced to take large pay cuts. Eric Higgley, a teacher at the school, spoke to Workers World about the teachers’ move for unionization. “We can all have a voice in making the school better for the students that attend,” he said.

Arts Academy is the second charter school in Michigan to unionize and is overall only a small section of the 14 percent of unionized charter schools.

The writers are 2011 graduates of the Arts Academy in the Woods and founding members of Detroit FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together), a revolutionary youth organization.

John Parker: "Pushing Forward The Class Struggle"

Excerpts taken from a talk given by John Parker, of the Los Angeles Workers World branch, at the Workers World Party National Conference in New York City on Oct. 8-9.

California is waging a war on the working class and is targeting public sector unions, blaming them for the economic crisis because they “greedily” want to hold on to decent health care and don’t want to lose a month’s pay. Also, they’re targeted because these workers don’t want the children and elderly whom they serve to be denied health services or educational opportunities that could provide them with more of a chance of surviving in a state whose Black unemployment rate has climbed to more than 19 percent.

Gov. Jerry Brown can’t find a budget that cuts deeply enough into the working class, especially hitting public sector workers, and which puts further regressive taxes on workers, not corporations, not the rich.

Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa’s budget proposals didn’t even hint at going after the richest, the corporations, not even the oil companies. He didn’t mention the upside-down tax structure that allows California’s richest to pay less tax than the poorest.

Studies show that if the richest families paid the same proportion of taxes as the bottom 50 percent, $490 billion would be generated nationally. California’s figure would be $40 billion. It would cover the $28 billion budget gap and would erase Los Angeles’ $1 billion budget deficit that’s mostly being squeezed from public sector workers.

By going after the richest families’ tax loopholes and balancing out the unfair effects of regressive taxes, there would be enough money to end all budget cuts and fund a real jobs program. California could generate $10 billion by requiring the highly profitable oil companies to pay an oil extraction tax that every other state collects. Interest payments could be withheld from the banks that ripped everyone off, and that are still stealing homes and profiting off that theft, while getting government bailouts.

There is no reason for the cutbacks.

This isn’t just about winning the fight over budget deficits. If it were won, it would only be a temporary victory if a fundamental reason for the shortfalls — the capitalist crisis of overproduction — were not addressed by exposing what this system really looks like. Capitalism doesn’t need a major overhaul; it needs to be replaced by socialism.

We need to break through the view, even held by some who oppose the budget cuts, that capitalism must be saved.

The ruling class aims to divide the workers and is scapegoating immigrants and Black youth in California, criminalizing and incarcerating many. The reality that prisoners face is little known.

Let’s enumerate the strengths of our class: As witnessed by the courageous Pelican Bay prisoners who began a hunger strike to protest torture and horrific conditions, many of our class are fed up and starting a new era of fightback in California. This motion is affecting the many who are in progressive, anti-war, union, national liberation, women’s, lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer and student organizations.

This new fightback is shown in the gigantic anti-war marches after Sept. 11, by the one-and-a-half million immigrants and their supporters who joined the 2006 boycott, and by the many rallies against bank bailouts, corporate greed and foreclosures throughout California. The number of those willing to fight for change is great, and it is growing.

Our party has earned the confidence of the most active and militant organizations representing these ranks. We can be key in unifying these forces to create an unconquerable force ready to go on the offensive and wage real class warfare.

Our challenge in California is to help unify and win activists to this movement. Many are new to politics and activism. We must make sure they aren’t railroaded into supporting Ron Paul, to settle for the Democratic Party, or to cave in to nonstruggle, apathy and demoralization.

Our party and our closest allies in California have too much experience in the struggle and are too strong to allow that to happen. Our strength is already shown in motion around the country,

We’re in the California Wall Street occupations. Our Marxist, pro-struggle literature is getting a tremendous response. We’ll make the most of this new era of class struggle and bring it as far as it can go — and then build on that.

The overwhelming strength and courage our class possesses against the ruling class is exemplified by Troy Davis. On his way to death, he could have focused on himself, but he said we must not stop fighting until victory is won.

Florida Graduate Employees and SDS Rally Against Student Fees

By Fernando Figueroa

From: Fight Back! News

Gainesville, FL - The Graduate Assistants Union (GAU) and allies from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) rallied against student fees leveled upon graduate students at the University of Florida, Aug. 16. Volunteers began by leafleting and talking to teaching assistant employees about the importance of banding together and fighting for the union that provides them with healthcare and pay stipends. Many graduate students are surprised to learn that without the union, fees would go up every year like other campuses. Now the GAU union hopes to eliminate the fees, making graduate school more affordable for everyone. Most graduate student employees understand how poorly the administration treats them, despite teaching almost 50% of all undergraduate courses.

Halfway through the University's orientation for new teaching assistant employees, GAU Chief Steward Jose Soto and volunteers from SDS delivered an in-depth presentation about the importance of the GAU's current campaign – eliminating all student fees for graduate students and providing more accessible education. Hundreds of students and teaching assistant employees began chanting “No more fees!” in spite of university administrators sitting uncomfortably in the front row of the assembly room. “Workers at Wal-Mart and McDonald's don’t pay to work there, so why do employees at UF pay to work here?” Soto asked. During the next break period, many students signed up to be union members at the GAU table.

Then at a GAU lunch outside the assembly hall a spontaneous rally came together. The GAU’s Jose Soto delivered an empowering speech urging teaching assistant employees to fight for the elimination of student fees. Richard Blake, a member of Gainesville SDS, said, “It's great to rally with the graduate employees who teach our classes and educate people about the benefits that a union brings to their workplace.” SDS will continue to lead the fight for education rights, for accessible education and support the struggles of working people for better pay, benefits, and a good quality of life.

White Supremacist Principal Runs Catholic High School in the Bronx

From: NY Daily News

A firebrand educator with ties to a white supremacist group is running a Bronx Catholic school where most of the students are black and Latino, the Daily News has learned.

Frank Borzellieri, 48, was quietly promoted to principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School two years ago - despite a history of controversial writings and campaigns, including a push to ban a biography on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2004, Borzellieri wrote the book "Don't Take It Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies," in which he declares "diversity is a weakness" and says the rising black and Hispanic populations in America will lead to the "New Dark Age."

He has also written frequently for the white supremacist publication American Renaissance, with which he is still "intimately involved," the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center says.

Borzellieri declined comment.

Mount Carmel pastor, the Rev. Eric Rapaglia, said he knew of Borzellieri's views, but didn't "see any cause for concern" when he hired him to run the 200-student elementary school.

"I knew of him from my last parish," he said. "Do I agree with all of it? No. But I think much of it is valuable and logical and reasonable.

"A lot of his ideas would actually benefit minorities," he added.

Borzellieri, who unsuccessfully ran for state Assembly in 1994 and City Council in 1997, previously made headlines as a school board member in District 24 in Queens, where he lives.

During his board tenure, from 1993 to 2002, he tried to:


# Ban literature he labeled "anti-American" from school libraries. His targets included books on different races and culture, and a biography of King.


# Remove an openly gay teacher and gay-rights activist from the classroom at Public School 199 in Sunnyside, and ban school employees from making any references to homosexuality.


# Introduce a resolution calling for students to be taught that U.S. culture is superior.

Borzellieri's views rankled teachers at St. Barnabas School in Woodlawn, Bronx, where he taught English from 2006 to 2009.

"You can't have someone with those beliefs or who writes that kind of stuff working at a Catholic school," said Annemarie Zagaglia, principal of St. Barnabas School during Borzellieri's time there.

When Rapaglia was the pastor of St. Barnabas, Zagaglia warned him that teachers had legitimate concerns about Borzellieri. She said Rapaglia "dismissed the whole thing, and that was the end of that."

Rapaglia became pastor of Mount Carmel - in Fordham, Bronx - in 2009 and hired Borzellieri as principal that year.

A former teacher at St. Barnabas said she alerted the Archdiocese of New York in 2007 that students had complained Borzellieri was using them as "research" for his books, but the teacher never got a response.

Archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said there is no record of a complaint against Borzellieri, but said the matter is under review.

Zwilling added that sweeping changes in hiring parish principals went into effect in 2009 - right after Borzellieri got the gig.

"Previously, pastors had great leeway and discretion in the hiring of principals," Zwilling said. "That practice usually worked well, but we saw room for improvement."

Parents of students at Mount Carmel voiced concern after the Daily News informed them of Borzellieri's past.

"I've heard kids say they don't like him," said one mother, a Jamaican immigrant. "I was wondering where the heck he came from. He shouldn't be teaching here. He could look at kids differently because they're black. It's not fair."

Public Education Struggles Rooted in Anti-Racist Legacy

By Stephen Millies
Published Jul 14, 2011 10:45 PM

The right to education is under attack across the United States.

The American Association of School Administrators estimated “227,000 education jobs are on the chopping block for the 2011-2012 school year.”

College has become even more expensive. Since 2007 the University of Arizona’s tuition has doubled. It has increased by 40 percent at the University of California since the 2008-2009 school year. Racist Georgia politicians have prohibited undocumented immigrants from attending state colleges.

Taking advantage of Hurricane Katrina, and the horrible damage caused in New Orleans, government officials have privatized most schools there and turned them into charter schools.

The wealthy and powerful have declared war on public education. Billionaires aim to privatize schools under the name of “education reform.” Teachers are their first target.

One “education reformer” is Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who according to Forbes magazine is worth $56 billion. That’s almost twice the gross domestic product of Ghana’s 24.8 million people.

William Henry Gates III attended Seattle’s private Lakeside School with a tiny pupil-to-teacher ratio. But he doesn’t think class sizes of 35 students or more are a problem. Gates urged school administrations to “[identify] the top 25 percent of teachers and [ask] them to take on four or five more students.” (Washington Post, Feb. 28)

This is just like factory owners demanding employees operate more machines or hospital administrators ordering nurses to care for more patients. Bosses always push workers to produce more at less pay. Teachers are workers, too.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spent $373 million on education in 2009; $73 million was for “advocacy.” This “advocacy” was really anti-union propaganda and lobbying. It helped finance “Teach Plus,” which got supposedly rank-and-file teachers to testify in Indiana and other states in favor of eliminating union protection as a way to stop layoffs — a lose-lose proposition. (New York Times, May 21)

Abolitionists fought for public schools

The struggle for public education in the U.S. was linked to the struggle against slavery.

It was a death penalty offense in most Southern states to teach enslaved people to read and write. The slave masters viewed literacy as dangerous as handing out weapons on a plantation.

Horace Mann was an abolitionist congressperson from Massachusetts who is often credited with establishing the state’s public school system.

The Horace Mann School in the wealthy Riverdale section of the Bronx defames this anti-slavery leader’s memory by charging yearly tuition of $37,275. Real education reform means fighting for South Bronx students to attend this exclusive prep school.

Thaddeus Stevens fought almost single- handedly in the 1830s to defend and build Pennsylvania public schools. Racists still hate him for his support in Congress for Black freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction. As Ways and Means Committee chairperson, he demanded arms and the right to vote for enslaved people. He also urged the break-up of plantations and giving the land to formerly enslaved people and poor whites.

Black struggle for schools in U.S.

Black people had to fight for centuries to get into U.S. schools. When the African Free School was established in 1787, it may have been the first free school in New York not tied to a church. Three formerly enslaved people opened the first school for Black students in Washington, D.C., in 1807.

Racists attacked northern Black schools. In 1833, racists in Canterbury, Conn., tried to burn a school for African Americans. Two years later, a white mob used oxen to drag a Black school into a swamp outside Canaan, N.H.

By the start of the Civil War, there were 32,692 African-American students enrolled across the country. Black churches had formed Wilberforce University in Ohio, explains Lerone Bennett Jr. in his historic work, “Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America.”

Formerly enslaved individuals built schools and hoped that teachers would come. Black parents in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore struggled to establish high schools named after the great poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Among the Black institutions founded was Langston College in Oklahoma. It was named after John Mercer Langston, who was Ohio’s first African-American lawyer and Virginia’s first Black congressperson. He was Langston Hughes’ great-uncle.

How can this history mean anything to Gates? Microsoft has a record of discriminatory hiring practices. It took a civil rights lawsuit to reveal that just 2.6 percent of Microsoft’s 21,429 employees in 1999 were African American. (http://www.faceintel.com/relatedclassactions.htm)

Billionaires need skilled workers, but they’re afraid of poor and working people who get an education. Their attitude is like that of Prussian serf-owner “Frederick the Great” more than 200 years ago, “If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks.”

Education in socialist Cuba

Colonial regimes are among the worst examples. After 300 years of Dutch rule in the early 1900s, there were just 70 college graduates in Indonesia.

“Illiterates with the right attitude to manual employment are preferable to products of the schools,” declared Kenya’s British rulers in 1949, when three Kenyan high schools admitted only 100 African students annually.

Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba was barred from college and forced to take correspondence courses. His assassination on Jan. 17, 1961, was ordered by President Dwight Eisenhower. (Guardian, Aug. 20, 2000)

The Russian and Chinese Revolutions, and the liberation struggles that swept the planet, finally opened up some school doors. African students were allowed to attend U.S. colleges in hopes they wouldn’t enroll in Patrice Lumumba University in the socialist Soviet Union.

The first battle of the Cuban Revolution was to wipe out illiteracy. Conrado Benítez García, a Black teacher, was lynched by CIA-backed counterrevolutionaries for teaching peasants to read and write.

After the Soviet Union’s overthrow in 1991, Cuba lost most of its foreign trade. Despite this tremendous economic blow, not a single Cuban school was closed. Cuba saved its schools because of socialist economic planning. Today its Latin American School of Medicine trains thousands of doctors from around the world, including from poor U.S. communities.

Cuba has what we need.

Capitalism and Self-Esteem: The Psychology of Oppression

By Caleb T. Maupin

A new breakthrough in modern psychology has been discovered by the mainstream voices of modern finance capital: “Youth like themselves too much!”

At first, I figured this was only a talking point of the far right-wing. For example, Sarah Palin’s book contains a section about how the bad performers on “American Idol” are victims of a “self-esteem movement” that never allowed them to see how bad they were.

Glenn Beck’s rant at the Conservative Political Actions Conference (CPAC) included a tirade against how “every kid gets trophy, no matter what.” The rant also included him stating that his abandoning of drug use was because he was “allowed to fail” in order to see how the drugs weren’t helping him.


But then, I saw the liberal economist Amy Chua, with her new autobiographical memoir, in which she dubbs herself a “Tiger Mom” mouthing such things as well, and getting praise from Bill Maher, a figure who now is attempting to call himself a “socialist.”

A False Talking Point

What is the essence of this new, non-research based psychological argument, being thundered from the various pulpits of capitalist punditry, as if it is the undisputable truth?

It is this:

The means of punishment, “correction”, and other hardships facing youth, have been greatly reduced. The result is that young people have no desire to achieve, because they have never been confronted with punishment or disapproval from parents, educators, and society.

The reality of this generation points to the opposite.

One of the number one illegally used drugs on college campuses is Adderol. Adderol, it should be noted, does not induce a “high.” Adderol, marketed as a prescription drug for ADD and ADHD, is used in order to enable its users to spend days without sleep. It is used by college students to stay up for days prior to tests and examinations.
This is hardly a lack of “desire to achieve.”

In the public schools, youth face all kinds of opportunities to fail. They have a standardized test nearly every year, which their teachers, whose jobs depend on the results, are happy to work them up into a panic over.

This allegedly overly self-loving generation has produced numerous instances of murder-suicide such as Columbine and Virginia Tech. Do people crack and begin randomly murdering their peers at rates historically unheard of because they love themselves far too much? Is mass murder a side effect of overconfidence and lack of pressure?
Compared to the rest of the western world, the U.S. is far “ahead” in terms of means of punishment and other methods of making youth feel like they have failed.

20 U.S. states still allow teachers to legally beat students with wooden boards.

Additionally, not a single U.S. state has ever dared infringe on parents ability to do so, and statistics show that something like 80% of U.S. parents are frequently hitting their children as punishment. This is far more constant reminder of failure than any other “western” country. (http://www.corpun.com)

Are child beatings on a scale unheard of in the rest of the western world a cause of increased confidence?

If youth have too much self-esteem, why are they prescribed anti-depressant drugs at a rate higher than any generation prior?

How much “self-esteem” do the millions of youth, higher than any generation before, locked up in prison feel? The reality of daily strip searches, confiscation of personal property, exposure to rape and constant brutality by guards, and lengthy periods in solitary confinement is hardly the kind of thing that creates “self-esteem.”

I wonder if walking through a metal detector on your way to “learn” each morning is conducive to self-esteem? Or what about having police officers, who the ACLU reports frequently “curse at students” and “confiscate lunches”, is conducive to thinking one has no need to advance and is “special.”

The Psychology of Resistance

It seems very apparent what this capitalist war on self-esteem is rooted in.
As capitalism is in a global meltdown, a world of low-wage jobs, poverty, and a huge police state is being cemented as what has been dubbed: “the new normal.”

All across the world, in places like Spain, Britain, Greece, etc. it is the youth who are on the vanguard of the fight against these conditions.

Youth everywhere are saying what was said by generations before who refused to be sent to Vietnam, or took over their factories in Sit-Down strikes, or filled streets with barricades and red flags. They are saying loudly “we deserve better than this!”
Saying such a thing requires self-esteem. It requires the basic knowledge that the conditions created by modern capitalism are unworthy of any human being, themselves included. It requires knowledge that in fact, you have value, and are not deserving of a lifetime of unemployment, misery, and such.

So, naturally, the powers that be have pointed their cites at the evil of “self-esteem.” To achieve their goals, universal self-hatred must be accepted, and built-in to the psychology of every working class victim of their system.

So, this gives revolutionaries a new, psychological task. It is Communists who now must take up the banner of reminding the workers of the world, youth most definitely included, that this world of prisons, unemployment, police, endless wars, and other horrors is not something they must accept.

It is something that is built into the capitalist system. But because we are humans, with dignity and value, we are most definitely “entitled” to something. We are entitled to overthrow it!

Mass youth revolt shakes Spain

By Ben Carroll
Published May 25, 2011 3:44 PM

Drawing inspiration from the fighting spirit and determination of Tahrir Square and the peoples of Egypt, Tunisia and the Middle East, the peoples of Spain took the struggle against capitalist austerity, mass unemployment and the conditions of the economic crisis to a new level this past week.

Demonstrations and occupations of city plazas erupted across the Spanish state beginning on May 15 and, as of May 23, show no signs of faltering.

On May 15, a week before regional and local elections were to take place, protests started up in cities throughout the country against the government’s austerity program and mass unemployment, as well as to demand a number of democratic reforms of the political system.

The officially reported unemployment rate sits at a staggering 21.3 percent, the highest in Europe. For young people, the statistics are even worse, as 45 percent of people aged 18 to 25 are unemployed. The situation for youth is so dire that they are referred to as the “youth without a future” or “the lost generation.” Many have begun referring to themselves as “los indignados” (those who are “fed up”).

Tens of thousands were in the streets that day. Following the demonstration in Madrid, young people and workers took over and began an around-the-clock occupation of the central plaza there, the Puerta del Sol. This bold action inspired numerous other occupations of plazas in major cities throughout the country; people demonstrated in more than 166 cities during the week. At least 10 occupations of city squares were also being reported in Italy, and there was a protest outside the Spanish Embassy in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

While the capitalist-owned press has heavily focused on the role of social media in these demonstrations — and it is undeniable that those sites have been an important tool among many used by organizers — it is the objective conditions of the capitalist crisis, the austerity measures and anger over the bank bailouts that have driven masses of young people and workers into the streets throughout the Spanish state, from Galicia to the Basque Country to Catalonia, as well as in the capital city.

“I’m here against the system, against everything, the banks, the government, the Popular Party, unemployment. You name it. Nothing works,” journalism student Sabina Ortega told the Christian Science Monitor (May 20). “It’s against a two-party system. And my goal is to feel represented. I want politicians to know they are not listening. I’ll stay here as long as I have to.”

Despite a ban imposed on the occupations by the Spanish government on May 20, two days ahead of the scheduled elections, tens of thousands of people in Puerta del Sol and elsewhere around the country defied these orders and continued to hold the encampments. Some plan to stay until the following weekend.

Aerial photos of the Puerta del Sol in Madrid show a number of large banners that were raised in the square. One of the most prominent reads, “La crisis es el capitalismo” (“The crisis is capitalism”). Tents and other structures — offering medical, legal and food services — have been established and demonstrators have constituted various assemblies to carry out the many tasks required to maintain the occupation and to vote on different political objectives.

Many of the different communist parties and organizations active in the Spanish state have issued statements of support for the wave of occupations, dubbed the 15-M (May 15) movement, and have been active participants in these demonstrations. They view their main tasks as helping to develop and deepen the working-class consciousness of the protests and to unite the various sectors that are in motion against the capitalist austerity in order to open a broader, worker-led political struggle against the Spanish state and the two ruling parties — the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and the People’s Party (PP).

Spain in context

In the elections held May 22, the governing PSOE was dealt a defeat by the PP, even in strongholds the self-styled socialists have held since the end of Franco’s fascist dictatorial rule in the mid-1970s, at which time a number of democratic reforms were introduced.

Despite what its name might suggest, the PSOE is a historically social democratic party that currently occupies a position similar to the one the Democratic Party holds here in the U.S. At its congress back in 1979, the PSOE renounced Marxism and the revolutionary struggle of the working class and is now one of the two main capitalist parties in the country.

The other, the People’s Party (PP), is a right-wing party formed in 1989 as a result of the merger of various reactionary parties. Many in the leadership of the PP have connections going back to the Franco regime, with some even having served under him during the fascist rule over the country from 1940 to 1975.

Spain has the world’s twelfth-largest economy. Spain also has the European Union’s third-largest budget deficit and may, like Ireland, Greece and Portugal, be forced to accept a devastating IMF austerity package if it cannot satisfy the banks with its own austerity measures soon.

Within the Galician, Basque and Catalonian regions of the Spanish state there are movements for national self-determination.

Of the three main countrywide trade union federations, only one, the CGT, has continued to wage an open struggle against the state around the austerity programs. The other two federations — the UGT and the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) — granted concessions to the PSOE government following the country’s first general strike in more than 10 years last Sept. 29 and agreed to stop future mass actions of workers. Most regional unions in the Basque Country, however, support the workers’ struggles.

Capitalism to blame

Although the current demonstrations began one week prior to elections, this revolt is directed not merely against one capitalist party or the other, but is an uprising against the miserable conditions that have been forced upon young people and workers by capitalism and the global crisis, which is now four years old.

The workers, the unemployed and the young people of the Spanish state are following the heroic example of the peoples of Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere throughout North Africa and the Middle East as they take their destiny into their own hands and fight back.

The May 22 elections came and went, but the occupation shows no signs of giving up. Organizers have continued to hold the encampments in Madrid and elsewhere throughout the country and have set May 28 as another major day of demonstrations.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Boycott campaign gathers momentum

By Dianne Mathiowetz
Atlanta
Published May 27, 2011 11:55 AM

Immigrant rights activists in Georgia have stepped up their visibility campaign against discriminatory legislation, particularly HB 87, an Arizona copycat law that legalizes racial profiling.

Scheduled to take effect July 1, the law empowers local police throughout the state to arrest and detain anyone not carrying proof of legal residency. It also requires employers to use the federal E-Verify system before hiring a worker. HB 87 also criminalizes anyone transporting an undocumented person.

Several Georgia counties are already involved in the 287(g) program, which authorizes local law agencies to enforce immigration policies. Thousands of undocumented workers from around the world have been deported from Georgia in recent years for minor traffic offenses under this program.

Corrections Corporation of America operates several for-profit prisons in Georgia. It has been revealed that its lobbyists played a major role in writing Arizona’s SB 1070, and similar charges are being made about its influence on the Georgia legislation.

On May 7, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education conducted a banner drop focusing on another anti-immigrant piece of legislation at the commencement ceremonies of Georgia State University, held at the mammoth Georgia Dome. This act bars undocumented students from attending the top five schools in the university system, no matter their qualifications.

The next weekend a large rally was held in Gainesville, Ga., the home of several of the most anti-immigrant Georgia politicians, including Gov. Nathan Deal. It was organized by students at Gainesville State College and a number of community and faith-based groups from this rural county.

On May 15, banners opposing HB 87 were dropped during the Civil Rights baseball game played at Turner Field in Atlanta, where Grammy-winning musician Carlos Santana publicly denounced the legislation.

Hundreds of women and children marched in downtown Atlanta on May 22 to protest the implementation of HB 87. Organized by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the mothers’ protest is part of a series of public rallies and actions building to a day of “No work” on July 1.

A national campaign to boycott Georgia is gathering momentum, with the AFL-CIO announcing it will not schedule any conferences in the state as long as HB 87 is law.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Student, Labor, Community Unite, Confront Wall Street and Austerity

By Caleb T. Maupin
New York
Published May 23, 2011 9:11 PM

A broad coalition of teachers, students, labor and community organizations showed a high level of militancy as 20,000 protesters took to the narrow streets of New York’s financial district to oppose cuts in education and other social programs. New York City’s organized labor turned out in force for the May 12 action.

The United Federation of Teachers, representing all the teachers in New York City’s public schools, had some 6,000 members in the streets to oppose billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed layoffs and cutbacks. Other unions that mobilized included Transport Workers Union Local 100, Service Employees Local 32BJ, Communication Workers from both Verizon and the public sector, as well as New York Nurses United. A number of labor leaders spoke during a rally, along with City Council member Charles Barron.

The unions collaborated with the New York Coalition Against Budget Cuts, which mobilized thousands of students and people from community groups. The NYCABC organized a march from City Hall to Wall Street March 24, in which the largest component was youths and students.

Larry Hales, a key organizer of the March 24 action, told Workers World, “The massive outpouring on May 12 had its roots in the success of the ‘Day of Rage’ held on March 24. That action inspired many rank-and-file union members, who pressured their union leaders to call and endorse the next large action of forces opposed to massive cuts in public services.”

Community, student groups fired up

Community organizations were there. Parent associations and tenant organizations marched, as did the Coalition for the Homeless. Contingents from local childcare centers, which also face cuts, joined the march. Hostos Community College faculty and students, along with part-time faculty and Professional Staff Congress members participated.

Thousands of high school students were encouraged by their teachers to participate, and they joined them in the streets to defend their education against cutbacks and privatization.

Some sections of the march emphasized opposition to the massive spending on war. Others loudly opposed cuts in AIDS research and treatment. A large contingent raised the demand for a national health insurance plan.

The march stepped off at 4:30 p.m., and despite the efforts of the police, the marchers were soon out in the streets. As the march continued, traffic and business halted as the many thousands of people wound their way through lower Manhattan to Wall Street, the center of world finance capital.

Slogans proclaimed “Make the banks pay!” and “Solve the budget crisis: End the wars, tax the rich!” Chants of “Tax the rich!” and “F**k Wall Street!” were heard by all.

Employees of Wall Street firms gathered around windows and looked down at the massive crowd of working-class people demanding justice.

When the march reached Water Street, police attempted to disperse the march and return to “business as usual” on a Thursday afternoon by pushing a contingent of youth. But when they suddenly moved to arrest two youth in the street, the crowd poured into the street, physically preventing the arrests, amid roars of “Let them go! Let them go!”

Soon, several hundred youth took the corner of Water and Wall streets, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” The police pushed to clear the streets, using orange nets and metal barricades. The crowd pushed back.

Police shoved the faces of the young people with their hands, and struck youth who were pinned between the crowd and the nets. Despite this brutality, the confrontation continued, strengthened by the huge numbers of youth who were intent on carrying out an “occupation,” despite calls from more moderate march organizers to pull back.

The cops were attempting to defend the “private property” of Wall Street against students and youth who face cutbacks, unemployment and an insecure economic future. The standoff between the youth and the cops lasted 45 minutes. Some youths attempted to appeal to the police with chants used in Wisconsin, such as “Your job is next!” More radical sections chanted, “Wall Street thugs! Wall Street thugs!” Truckloads of police and metal barricades were used in the attempt to retake control of the area.

In other parts of lower Manhattan, police attempted to prevent people from joining the protest by blocking off entrances to march areas. Lucy Pagoada, a teacher and UFT member, told Workers World, “The police were giving people false directions, and not letting people get anywhere near the march. They had the streets blocked off.”

Most participants in the action could see that sentiment for a popular uprising against the capitalist drive to impose austerity on working and oppressed people was widespread. The desire for a more militant resistance movement exists not only among radical forces, but among countless youth who face extreme economic hardship caused by the current crisis.

Given the strength of the May 12 action, some organizers suspect that this summer will see an escalation of the struggle. On one side are labor, students and community organizations. On the other is the capitalist class, which seeks to strip away anything close to a decent life in this time of economic crisis.

Larry Hales and G. Dunkel contributed to this article.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

New York march demands good contract, education

By Workers World New York bureau
Published May 15, 2011 10:37 PM

>A picket line of university faculty, staff and students outside City Hall on May 5 was boisterous and militant. Seven hundred protesters then marched from City Hall to a rally at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where they spoke truth and bitterness about conditions at the City University of New York.

The state cut CUNY funding by $107 million this year and billionaire Mayor Bloomberg wants to cut $63 million more. These recent cuts and years of underfunding guarantee overcrowded classrooms, fewer full-time faculty positions, less time for student mentoring and guidance, abuse of hard-working but underpaid adjuncts, and reliance on tuition instead of public investment. Meanwhile, wealthy New Yorkers are scheduled to receive $5 billion in tax breaks.

At an opening rally in City Hall Park, Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen told other protesters, “We’re rallying to puncture the myth of economic austerity, used by Albany and City Hall to justify massive budget cuts. If we let politicians continue to say ‘we’re broke’ with one side of their mouth while they promise tax breaks for the rich with the other, millions of ordinary New Yorkers will pay the price.” The PSC represents faculty and staff at CUNY, which is jointly funded by the state and city of New York.

Angry, Unemployed Youth & Police Have "Shoving Match" on Wall Street

Reflection: Trying To Talk To A Tea Partier

When I was a high school student in the year 2004, I sat next to a young woman in Math Class who was a devoted member of the Apostolic Church, a branch of fundamentalist christianity. One day, as we were waiting to be educated, she informed me that she would never drink alcohol, even when she was 21 and legally allowed because all who drank alcohol would "go to hell."

I asked, mistakenly, "Didn't Jesus turn water into wine?"

She responded: "It wasn't wine, it was simply grape juice."

I said "If the Bible is the literal word of God, why would he be so confusing?"

She then began to sob.

The math teacher than gave me a detention for "making fun of her religion."

That was in a small town in rural Ohio.

However, things haven't changed that much. Below is my recent conversation with an old college friend via facebook. This 'friend' has recently been proclaiming herself to be a supporter of the Tea Party Movement.

As this movement is currently abolishing the right to collective bargaining, seeking to destroy medicare and social security, and doing things I am fully aware she disagrees with, I simply wanted to discuss it with her.

The following conversation ensued.

Erich Fromm's work "Fear of Freedom" seems highly relevant. This friend was unwilling to go beyond reciting a few slogans, as she supports a very violent and extreme political movement.

It is one thing to have political opinions. It is quite another to go about spouting talking points, and then accuse anyone who wishes to engage with you of bullying.

The reason the right-wing is so strong in the U.S., is because there are millions of children who grow up home schooled, never exposed to leftist political thought, and terribly, terribly afraid of engaging with it, because all their life they have been taught it is "Satan."

If every time I was confronted with Anti-Communism I simply accused the Anti-Communist of "bullying me", I would be laughed at.

However, in rightist discourse, any exposure to leftist views is "persecution" for the right-wing. That is why the call to purge college campuses of "radical professors", and the demand for mandatory prayer in public schools has so much merit.

You can see how ----- accuses me of "violating her rights" by trying to engage with her about why she supports the Tea Party movement.

To her, any questioning of her beliefs or comments that force her to reconsider them is "oppression."

-Caleb T. Maupin

-------





-------,

You mentioned that you oppose government spending, and that this is why you support the Tea Party.

This does not logically add up.

Less than %1 of the budget goes to help poor people with welfare.

The military budget is a huge part of government spending. Why don't you go and protest Obama's new war in Libya and Bush's Iraq and Afghanistan things? They Cost a lot of money.

The U.S. has thousands of troops in other countries, just sitting there.

There is a whole fleet of navy ships patrolling Latin America to intimidate the people there who are embracing socialism.

The U.S. also has AFRICOM in Africa, with troops threatened governments there.

The U.S. gives billions to the government of Uganda where they are trying to implement the death penalty for gay people.

Where is the Tea Party on all of this?

Legalizing drugs would end 90% of the money spent on prisons. (Though, this is mostly at the state level.)

The federal highway system is the biggest waste of money ever. We used to have trains all across the U.S., but the oil companies bought the railroads, tore them up, and then bribed congress to build highways.

Let's build high-speed rails.

Let's end subsidies for oil companies and banks.

These are all things the Tea Party doesn't focus on.

The Tea Party focuses on a racist lie, that the "debt" and "spending" is all just going to poor people who "don't want to work."

This is just objectively not true.

Right now, all across Ohio, teachers are being laid off by a Tea Party governor who hates "spending" on education.

Even though my parents and I have paid into social security our entire lives, now the "Tea Party" wants to take that away.

Under the guise of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Ron Paul's "Free Market" non-sense, they are creating a slave labor capitalism for the rich.

The Tea Party doesn't represent you.

You don't have to be a Communist/Socialist to see this.

These people are looking to destroy the future of our generation.

Don't be duped.

-Caleb




Hey Caleb,
I must ask a favor. Let me make my own political decisions. I'm moving toward Libertarianism faster than you can say Karl Marx, and I came to that conclusion of my own ability. I do my own research and find my own reasons. I appreciate that you are so resplendent in your political knowledge, but please do not attempt to administer to me any longer. Thank you.
Yours,
-----



------,

If you are making your own political decisions, why can't you defend them?

If I am so dead wrong, why can't you refute my points.

I'm not telling you what to do. I am simply begging you to look at certain facts.

Why can you simply not engage with me?

Being a human being is about struggling to find truth. Perhaps I am wrong. Tell me why.

If you really believe in what you are saying, you'll have reasons for it, and furthermore you'll want to win me to those reasons.

Politics is not a dinner party.

You've happily reminded me on numerous occasions about the reality of Hitler's regime.

Would it be correct for someone in 1933 to say "I support Hitler."

And then when you told them about the horrors of his so-called "National Socialism" to just say:

"------, I make my own decisions."

Politics, especially in a Democratic system where people have the ability to vote and exercise free speech, has serious consequences.

I personally have always been fascinated by politics, because I want to be on the side of right in the world.

I think my politics are right.

You think I am wrong.

Let's engage.

Let's struggle to find the truth.

This is not religion where its a matter of faith. These matters affect everyone's daily lives.

"Let me make my own political decisions."

That is what I want you to do!

I don't think you are currently doing that.

The fact you are resisting discussion beyond repeating a few cliches that don't even make sense shows you aren't making your own decisions.

Christians are always happy to witness to me on the street about why I should give my life to Jesus.

Anarchists are always willing to engage me about the need for a "stateless world."

Many of the libertarians I have known in the past are happy to tell what they believe.

But you can only toss me cliches and words.

You are full of compassion and concern for others.

You are a supporter of Lesbian and Gay People's Human Rights.

You cannot even tell me what the "socialist values" I allegedly believe in are!

How can you say you are making "your own decisions."

I don't want to make any decisions for you.

I just don't want fear of struggling for truth to allow you to blindly support things you clearly disagree with.



Caleb, what you don't understand is that I don't wish to engage with you. I find debating with you pointless, boring and anachronistic. Perhaps in high school I might have wished to listen to you and debate, but what you don't understand is that as an adult I'm flexing my right to my beliefs.
Your constant inability to let me be in the political field has led me to the decision that you and I can no longer remain in any type of contact. You cannot understand that I do not want a debate and deliberately attempt to engage me by spitting phrases meant to inflame my sense of anarchy, which I assure you, is low and sparks few embers. After this message, any contact from you will no longer reach me. I wish to be left alone politically, and I hope you may understand that.
Take care, and good luck trying to get others to see your points.

Marxist author, students discuss capitalism, globalization

By Workers World Los Angeles bureau
Published Apr 20, 2011 4:49 PM

Fred Goldstein, author of “Low Wage Capitalism,” spoke about capitalism and globalization to an audience of more than 130 students during a two-and-a-half hour meeting in a packed lecture hall at Long Beach City College in Southern California on April 13.

Students at this two-year community college are almost all from working-class families. In this part of Southern California this means they are also from Latino/a, white, and some Asian and Black families.

The students were well aware that besides being the author of a book their instructors were using in their one sociology and three history classes, Goldstein is a Marxist and a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party and a lifelong fighter for socialism. This information was prominent in the publicity for the April 13 assembly.

Goldstein spoke for a half-hour on how “globalization” is a benign word designed to cover up the reality of spreading capitalist sweatshops around the world using the latest technology to seek the lowest labor costs and boost profits. This was followed by two hours of questions and answers, during which everyone remained in the room and many asked questions or added comments.

The enthusiasm and preparation of the students was a sign that the two professors that had organized the session, Julian DelGaudio and Janet Hund, had created an atmosphere that encouraged open discussion of the most difficult topics.

Since this was a new kind of experience in a period when such an audience is searching for answers in a genuine way to break out of a capitalist mode of thinking, Workers World thought it would be worthwhile to ask Goldstein, who also spoke at a public meeting of the Los Angeles branch of Workers World Party, some questions about what happened in Long Beach.

WW: What were the questions that seemed to interest these students most?

FG: If you think they were asking how to get a job for themselves, you’d be wrong. This might have also been on their mind, but they were asking general questions about how capitalist society is organized. How does capitalism exploit workers? How do the corporate media create false consciousness? How would people learn to live cooperatively when they have been trained from birth to compete? What do we do to change things?

Many of the students were easily persuaded of the evils of capitalism and were sympathetic or at least open to a discussion of socialism. Because it is so unfamiliar to them, they were searching for an understanding of the concept. Examples of Cuban socialism, its free medical system, its free education, affordable housing, all in a poor country, helped to clarify things.

One openly Republican student, because he was well-prepared and ready to engage in discussion, also wound up asking lots of provocative questions that opened up topics. When we were discussing hospitals — many of the students are studying nursing or other hospital employment — he defended the capitalists’ right to profits by arguing that the administration deserves some of the wealth provided because they buy and maintain the building and the equipment, and organize the tasks.

WW: Did you give a Marxist viewpoint on this?

FG: My intervention took a while to clarify the point, with its subtleties. The short answer was that ownership as such is not necessary for the performance of those functions. Most of the real owners don’t have anything to do with actually running the place. Workers and administrators chosen by the workers can run it.

WW: Did you discuss how capitalism works?

FG: I said that under capitalism, everything that’s produced — from the students’ clothing to the building they’re sitting in to a Boeing 747 — is produced not because it is needed but because some capitalist can make a profit out of it. The only answer to this private property is to socialize it and organize production to meet people’s needs.

The students also engaged in back-and-forth discussion. My comments on socialism led to an earnest exploration by the students about what socialism would be like and how people could work in a society that emphasized social solidarity and cooperation when they have been conditioned to be individualistic and everyone seems so isolated.

One student got up and asked what would keep a socialized administration of society from leading to a situation where the higher ups started taking advantage of most of the people all over again. He gave as an example that the media would be controlled and the authorities would use propaganda on the people.

Another student replied that the media are already controlled now by a handful of rich owners, and the only thing that comes through is their message. Many of the students agreed with this.

WW: That only seems to answer part of the question.

FG: I added to this discussion by saying that under capitalism the government administration, whether it be the White House, the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission or the other organs of the government, is controlled by the capitalists who are exploiting people and stealing their wealth. These capitalists have a class interest in putting forward propaganda to mislead the people.

In a socialist society, where the revolution has abolished capitalism and exploitation and where the goods produced go to the people for their own needs, there is no intrinsic antagonism between the administrators and the people.

WW: What was the central point of the discussion?

FG: There were a lot of questions about people’s attitudes. How could people go from being individualistic to being socially cooperative? You see how people are today, they would say. How can people change?

One student answered, “Everyone thinks they’re alone and responsible as individuals for everything. We have to explain that it’s not the individual, but the system, and we have to cooperate and break down the barriers between people, because we’re taught to think individually.”

I added that revolutionary transformations of society from capitalism to socialism don’t happen overnight. They are made by people during a process. Only by the sacrifice of workers and students can they bring about socialism. By the time there is a socialist overturn, many, many people will have changed from an individualistic mentality to having attitudes of social solidarity because of the revolutionary process itself.

Because some of my comrades participated in the occupation of the state Capitol in Wisconsin, I could bring up their description of how masses of workers changed their mentality even during that two-week occupation. And it’s only the beginning.

Regarding the discussion, I don’t know if there was one central point. But one of the most important questions was, “How do we get out of it?” The vast majority of students seemed to be of the opinion that the profit system was no good and hurting everybody. It was a natural question to ask, then, “What is to be done?”

I said that in the short run they had to get together to fight back. But the only ultimate solution is to get rid of capitalism and private property and make all the property of society belong to people collectively. That’s a socialist system, where production is planned and things are produced for use.

One of the students had her own view on it that is worth repeating. She said that she saw the problem of how to get out of it — capitalism — as a generational problem. “Much of the older generation,” she said, “still acts according to the conservative old ways. We in our generation have nothing to look forward to. It’s up to our generation to start fighting back and to change the system. We have to do it ourselves.”

Revolutionary Students Attack A Bank - Video from London

Notice the Camera Man shouting "I'm press, I'm press!" as the police converge to protect the "private property" of the bankers, as workers and students take the streets to defend their "personal property", i.e. jobs, education, wages, etc. They have no police to do it for them.

Students occupy Arts building to protest budget cuts

By Elena Everett and Peter Gilbert
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

March 20 — Students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are entering their fourth week of the occupation of their Arts building, protesting the proposed 90 percent cuts to the theater program, the attacks on public sector workers in Wisconsin, and all the proposed cuts to education and programs for workers.

Students from the theater program and members of the UW-Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society chapter have completely taken over the Peck School of the Arts. Large signs across both entrances declare the building “OCCUPIED!!!”

The students have held out so long largely because of the key support from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 82, which represents the custodians, clerical workers and other campus workers, and the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association, AFT Local 2169. Gilbert Johnson, the AFSCME local president, visits the occupation daily and is planning an April 2 forum on the budget cuts and union-busting bill, to be held onsite at the occupation.

Students are demanding:

• The right to continue the occupation for as long as it’s needed — until the budget repair bill is overturned and cuts to education are off the table.

• That all UW schools stay public institutions — no privatization of public universities.

• No tuition hikes and no cuts to university faculty and workers’ pay or benefits.

Peter Adamczak from UW-Milwaukee SDS said: “We occupied the theater building because the theater and arts program are going to be the first on the chopping block ... and we’re looking at up to a 26 percent increase in tuition that would push a lot of working people out of UW-Milwaukee. They are trying to chop from the bottom — they need to be chopping from the top.”

On March 9 Gov. Scott Walker and the state Legislature illegally pushed through a modified “budget repair” bill that attempts to destroy collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, a fundamental human right as recognized by the International Labor Organization. The union-busting bill is currently blocked from taking effect by a court injunction that reflects pressure from the hundreds of thousands of workers and students who have taken to the streets.

Walker is additionally calling for massive cuts to the state budget, which would destroy BadgerCare, the Wisconsin state health insurance program, with $500 million in cuts to Medicaid. The proposed budget would also cut over a billion dollars from state education, including $250 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin, the possibility of privatizing the UW-Madison, and $900 million in cuts to K-12 education — completely eliminating K-8 arts education.

Students at the occupation worry that not only is their degree program on the chopping block, but also, once they graduate, no jobs will be available in their field as teachers in the arts.

Jenna Pope, one of the student leaders, came immediately from the occupation of the state Capitol in Madison. To her the struggles are one: “My mother and sister are both educators — if my mother’s salary goes down and my tuition goes up, it will make it very hard for me to afford tuition and stay in school. This last month has changed my life 100 percent; we are willing to continue this occupation for as long as we need to be here.”

Actions like this occupation and the earlier walkouts in Wisconsin; the recent mass walkouts by high school students; and the arrests of youth and students at the state Capitols in Michigan and Georgia, have inspired other students across the U.S. also facing budget cuts and supporting workers against attacks on collective bargaining. Students everywhere are mobilizing for March 31 and April 4 days of action.

To support these courageous Milwaukee students, solidarity is needed from activists, workers and students across the U.S. Solidarity statements to the Milwaukee students can be sent to UWMoccupied@yahoo.com or the UWM Occupied page on Facebook.

Women & The Right to Education

By LeiLani Dowell
Published Mar 23, 2011 9:52 PM

Taken from a talk to a Workers World Party International Working Women’s Month forum in New York City. Dowell is a Fight Imperialism, Stand Together organizer and WW managing editor. Listen to entire talk at www.workers.tv.

At Hunter College women make up 70 percent of the student body — a trend that is being reproduced throughout the country, with more and more women attending college. This makes any struggle for education a women’s issue. Almost half of the women attending my school — 48 percent — are women of color.

And yet in the halls of my school today, posters created and posted by students in women and gender studies classes at Hunter are demanding a Women and Gender Studies Department.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who campaigned on a promise to bust up the unions — is now trying to cut funding to the City University of New York system, of which Hunter is a part, by $95 million, as well as the State University of New York by $100 million and community colleges by $62 million. The schools will respond by raising tuition and fees for students, making it harder and harder for poor, working-class folks to attend.

Free tuition at CUNY was a reality during some of your lifetimes. I can’t imagine going to college for free now.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous and economically most powerful state in Germany with more than 25 percent of Germany’s student population, the regional parliament just abolished tuition fees. An activist in this struggle stressed that “only huge waves of protests over a long period of time could take us to this kind of rollback.”

A series on public education has been running in Workers World newspaper written by retired teacher Gene Clancy. He discusses what public education meant to the capitalists in the beginning of the 20th century: a means to train the next generation of workers. A century later with the onset of imperialist globalization, the capitalists no longer have a need to train skilled workers. Moreover, they’ve found they can profit from it, rather than giving it away for free. That’s what the charter school movement is all about.

School remains a place where students are trained in the ideology of capitalism. It’s where we’re taught that capitalism is the best system, the only sustainable, logical system. That’s a bunch of lies, essentially. Therefore, it’s so very important that we engage with students, that we provide an alternative to the propaganda they’re force-fed in the classrooms.

Students interacting with and showing solidarity with workers is a momentous step forward. The fact that an alliance of students, community and labor has been formed can be decisive in turning back austerity budgets, but also in fighting, in general, against sexism, against war, against racism and anti-lesbian/gay/bi/trans/queer bigotry, against the system itself. Being involved in the battle against austerity in alliances will sharpen all these forces politically.

We’ve recently seen the effects of the student movement on a global level. The student movement was the first sector to rise up in response to the attacks on the public sector, both here in the U.S. and in Ireland, Britain, Italy, Pakistan, France, Greece and Puerto Rico. Students continue to play important roles in the anti-imperialist revolts sweeping the Middle East. And of course there’s the role of students in Wisconsin — another beautiful instance of unity among students, labor and the community. At Hunter students recently waged a successful campaign to save childcare there.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Adam Gluntz Calls Out the College Liberals

Marxist-Leninist activist Adam Gluntz gives the trendy, academic left a piece of his mind, along with a schooling in facts not found on CNN, MSNBC, or even "The Daily Show"


Dear College "Liberals",



I have a serious bone to pick with you. Several, actually. I am growing sick and tired of college pseudo-left liberalism that seems to predominate on campuses across the United States. I find that most college liberals championing causes and candidates whose agendas are actually quite right-wing and personally, I find it quite revolting. I find the college liberal movement condescending, bourgeois, elitist, and all around detrimental to actual leftists who seek crazy things like equality and the liberation of humanity.



1. Trendy International Causes



One international cause has predominated the college liberal movement and another is growing. The first is the Save Darfur movement. I'm not going to stand here and pretend that the Sudanese government is not seriously problematic; it is. However, there are several major problems with this movement that are right-wing in their political nature. There are many repressive dictatorships around the globe. Moreover, there are many in the continent of Africa. Sudan can certainly be counted among these dictatorships. However, there are several major difference between Sudan and other dictatorships in the area. First, Sudan has oil, particularly in the Darfur region. Second, Sudan, unlike other dictatorships around the globe, does not support or trade with the United States. Third, Sudan does not support the U.S.-endorsed state of Israel, which has garnered a great deal of criticism around the globe as an instrument of U.S. imperialism. The Save Darfur movement's goal is to raise money to lobby congress and the white house to use military force to invade Darfur to "liberate" the people therein (and the oil) from the evil Sudanese government who won't give the oil to the U.S. Oh wait, it's actually about genocide, not oil. My mistake.



The other more recent issue is one that the U.S. government has acted upon. That's the situation in Libya. Again, no one is going to pretend that Gadaffi is a saint, but let's look at some facts about Libya. The uprisings are taking place in oil rich regions. Gadaffi considers himself a "socialist" (although the socialistic nature of his policies are questionable) and opposes the U.S. Gadaffi opposes the state of Israel. Is anyone noticing a trend here? I know that I didn't publish this article in a glossy magazine that I can afford to hand out to college students, so I'll venture no one is listening, but, to review, I see presence of oil, anti-U.S. foreign policy, and criticism of Israel. These are the reasons that I oppose both movements, but the bone I have to pick here is not just that the movements are right-wing and supportive of U.S. imperialism.



The thing that pisses me off is that pseudo-left college students act carry around this smug pretentious attitude of "We're standing up for something while everyone is just to self-involved to support us. We're taking a stand on issues that matter. We're really showing the system up." Do you know what would really constitute taking a stand and showing up the system? TAKING A STAND THAT OPPOSES THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. I mean, for god's sake, are you all just that hypnotized in your political self-importance to realize the things that the U.S. government is doing? Saudi Arabia is another brutal dictatorship under a monarchy. The penalty for homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is death. Oh, did I mention that the U.S. supports it so that we can partake in the country's oil reserves. How about the state of Israel, where anti-Muslim racism borders on fascistic (if it's not already well over the line)? The U.S. sends millions, maybe billions in military aid. Why don't you grow some gender respective gonads and take a stand where you don't have the support of the democratic party and Exxon Mobil behind you? The U.S. is behind some of the most brutal regimes worldwide and has historically funded Nazis (and I use that word to mean National Socialists, as in racists and anti-Semites who supported Adolf Hitler) to overthrow regimes that did not support U.S. interests (and by interests, I mean economic interests). Thanks to the United States, lives are lost every day around the world. Why don't you all stop being such god damn fucking cowards and take a REAL stand for once?



You know what, forget U.S. foreign policy for a second; why don't you actually take a stand on domestic policy for once too? If anyone has found the time to follow domestic politics between sips their fair trade coffee that costs twice as much as one that doesn't have that pretty label on it (which I'll get to in a moment), you might notice that U.S. citizens are facing a few political problems. Has anyone here heard about OH Senate Bill 5? In case you've missed out on the news because you've been too busy figuring out which conflicts in Africa the U.S. needs to referee (which the western world created, FYI, in a time known as the "Age of Imperialism"), the statehouse is passing (or has passed) a bill that strips public workers and teachers of their collective bargaining rights and moves to give the executive the ability privatize state prisons. In Michigan, there is a bill that would allow the Governor's administration to declare a city or town in a fiscal crisis and then appoint a financial manager to dismiss local elected officials. The union busting measure in Wisconsin was passed. There are people in U.S. borders who are suffering. Ever heard of police brutality? Well, that didn't just happen to Rodney King; it happens constantly. But I'm sure you missed out on Oscar Grant (executed by the Oakland Police) or even the Cleveland cases like the Whitbys or the Brounaughs because you were all too god damn busy reading up on obscure African history from your favorite pro-imperialist source.



2. Economic and Environmental Justice



This pisses me off to the nth degree like you just don't know. I'm a communist. I advocate a system called socialism. Communist, socialists, and anarchists were the original champions of economic justice. Do you know what those people did? They staged strikes trying to protect the workers from poverty level wages, unsafe working conditions, and absurdly long hours. Do you know how these strikes ended time and time again? Federal troops came in to break the strikers. Now, even though you would never know this because you're all too god damn stuck up to ever go to a real protest, but those weren't like modern protests where the cops stand there looking at you to see if you screw up. People died. People were arrested and executed for crimes that they didn't commit just for opposing the status quo. So how did this great tradition of American activism that won us things like the 40 hour work week, weekends, workers compensation, disability insurance, unemployment benefits, and pretty much everything else that makes working actually livable and reasonable boil down to spending twice as much money on coffee with a fair trade label? It thoroughly baffles me. Since when is buying fair trade coffee and lecturing me about why I should spend by hard earned (poverty level) paychecks on coffee that is supposedly grown with humane treatment of workers (BTW, I ain't buyin' that story) in a real fancy bag that looks so handmade that it just.......... couldn't......... possibly have been designed by a marketing guru somewhere that figured out that cheap-looking, rustic containment sells to students who act like they're buying something that was just brought to a local market by some nice farm worker who carried it on their donkey or whatever animal is commonly used for transportation in that area.



Also, getting back to this whole domestic policy thing, why is it that everyone seems so god damn concerned with the farmers in central America (which U.S. trade policy is responsible for fucking over) while showing little to no concern for workers in U.S. borders, especially undocumented workers. I'm not saying that having concern for the international working class is a bad thing (by no stretch), but there is some level of disconnect where we spend spend $25 for "fair trade" coffee and take little or no interest in the economic issues confronting us at home.



Then we have environmentalism. Most of my complaints are similar to the fair-trade BS. How did fighting to keep human living sustainable turn into spending tons of money on eco-friendly products to sooth our collective environmental guilt? My favorite: take time that you don't have as you're working two jobs to keep food on the table and spend it sorting out your plastics and metals for an underfunded recycling facility. The other thing that bothers me is that it seems absolutely absurd to me that one could be an environmentalist and a capitalist. I mean, this to me seems like a no-brainer: it is more profitable to carry out production in environmentally detrimental ways, so business owners screw up the environment to protect their bottom lines. But somehow you have it in your minds that it's really the fault of these stupid coal miners who do the work of the coal companies because their just too god damn stupid to realize that it's bad for the eagles. It couldn't be because that's the only realistic (a word that you may not understand growing up in privilege) option that they have to pay the bills. And it certainly isn't the coal company's fault. Or if it is, the workers are just as bad. And about greenhouse gasses, why do you seem to think that all we have to do to fix this is ride our bikes or walk? Does it not cross your privileged mind that some people drive because THAT'S THEIR ONLY REALISTIC MODE OF TRANSPORTATION? We don't have transit, thanks to the money that you raised for the Seize Darfur's Oil campaign, which I'd venture a guess finds it's way to lobbying congress to keep the population needing petroleum. No, it must be because of all of our bad personal choices.



This is one of the reasons why people who should, by all accounts, be left-wingers become right-wingers. Liberal in the United States has come to mean "self-important snobby student who tells me I should spend twice as much money that I don't have on fair-trade, eco-friendly, super-special-awesome everything" instead of "people who believe in fighting for those who are being repeated fucked up the ass by the system". College liberals and new leftists have procured this via their self-important BS. Thank you for making it that much harder on actual leftists to organize.



3. The Democratic Party



Okay, so it's like all super-special-awesome that you're into political organization and stuff. You are probably also legitimately feminists, pro-LGB, pro-trans, and all that other good stuff. That's terrific; so am I. Guess what: Obama isn't. Not was/is Clinton (either one), or Johnson, or Kennedy, or Sherrod Brown, or Al Gore, or anyone else really. My favorite pro-choice argument from Ms. Hilary Clinton is "legal, but rare". I'm sorry, but where does dominion over one's body factor into this? If you want to make it "rare", then you must be admitting that there is a moral problem with it, so why not just make it illegal and join the Republican party and call it murder with the rest of the anti-choice crowd. Repeal Don't Ask - Don't Tell? Was this really the best we can do for LGB rights is give LGB people the right to fight for an imperialist country that allows hate against them at all levels? I mean, yeah, it's a good thing, but seriously, the name of the democrat game is "how conservative will the Democratic party base let me get away with being?" and guess what, college liberals; you all support them. Do you even know history? The Civil Rights Act of 1965; you know who signed that, right? Lyndon Baines Johnson, a.k.a. Lynching Baines Johnson. The Democratic party was still notoriously the party of the old south and LBJ knew exactly where his political base was. I doubt he just "saw the light"; the movement made him sign the Civil Rights Act. So now "grassroots" activism has been almost completely replaced with the Democratic party astro-turf. So when are we going to do something crazy like actually telling the DEMs what WE WANT instead of letting them tell us what THEY CAN GET US? I mean, seriously, are you all (the Democratic party base) that fucking desperate that you'll support anyone who shows any chance of being anything less that an openly jingoist, racist, sexist, classist, ableist, anti-gay, anti-trans, pro-every-other-kind-of-oppression, anti-every-other-kind-of-oppressed-person asshole? News flash: the Democratic party is not against racism, sexism, etc.; their against OPEN racism & co. It's all just a big talk about what's the best way "to make sure that we maintain oppression and let these rich fucking bankers keep taking all these fucking dumb bastards' money". That's not say that I never vote democrat; I do. Kucinich is my representative and I am so proud of him right now, but I am god damn sick of college liberals repeating the Democratic party line instead of taking Democrats to task. We all know that only Republicans wage bad wars; Democrats wage good wars, like Vietnam (sarcasm).



Thank you for taking time to pretend to read my letter. I expect a series of offended responses about what a brainwashed jerk I am. I mean, I must be brainwashed because I'm doing something crazy like actually questioning the status quo and I'm a huge jerk for calling all y'all out for not doing likewise. I'm not saying that I want everyone to be a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, but I'll say that blue sheep are just as ovine as red sheep. Of course, no one will actually read the content of what I'm saying because you'll be too worried about their precious ego as the saviors of humanity. Everyone enjoy your expensive coffee.



Sincerely,

Adam Gluntz

British Socialist Youth Group Advertises Upcoming Demonstration

Walkouts Launch Nationwide Resistance

by Caleb T. Maupin
Published Mar 10, 2011 9:39 PM

Students in high schools, colleges and universities throughout the U.S. walked out of classes, mainly on March 2, to help launch a month-long protest against cutbacks in public education, including the closing of schools and mass layoffs of teachers.

These walkouts represented student resistance against the bankers’ drive to gut public education in response to the alleged “budget crisis.”

The scene of one mass action was Lincoln High School in South Dallas, Texas when 200 students left school without permission of administrators. By the end of the day, hundreds more students had joined their classmates.

“We can’t wait until June, July, August. The time to start is now in March,” said Damarcus Offord, president of the Lincoln High Student Council who led the protest outside the school. He linked the massive cutbacks to the growing dropout rates, proclaiming: “Losing our teachers is losing our students.” (http://tinyurl.com/4spyv7k)

Eight different high schools organized walkouts near Phoenix, not only to protest cutbacks but against a proposed law requiring schools to report undocumented immigrant students. The rallying cry was “Education, not deportation!” referring to the local war on immigrants. The national attacks on public sector workers and the cutbacks in education were also condemned. (Huffington Post, March 4)

In Boise, Idaho, 130 students walked out of South Junior High School. After rallying outside the school, they proceeded to the Capitol building where they joined high school students from around the state. They were eventually escorted out of the public building by police officers and forced to rally outside. (Idaho Statesman, March 2)

In Berkeley, Calif., 1,000 classes at the University of California were canceled by sympathetic professors who opposed tuition hikes. Nine students were arrested, including four who occupied the fourth-story ledge of a campus building, refusing to leave for hours. When they finally left, they were “greeted with hugs and cheers” from their fellow students. (KABC, March 4)

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee took over Peck Theater, a large campus building, on the morning of March 4. The action was in solidarity with the workers and students who occupied the Capitol building in Madison and protesting assaults on public sector unions by Gov. Scott Walker. Like their comrades at the Capitol, they are refusing to leave until their demands are met.

Three hundred students at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania occupied a campus building March 2 to demand an end to the tolerance for sexual assault by the administration, which has created a hostile environment for women. They are demanding that the college remove students guilty of sexual assault from campus — a promise made a year before but still to be enacted.

The myth that youth in today’s U.S. are a “video-game generation” with no drive to challenge authority is being refuted daily as students rise up in nearly every corner of the country. Students are not limiting their defiance to blog posts or tweets, but occupying the very institutions responsible for their insecure future.

“Wisconsin fever” is spreading across the U.S. — the condition is particularly infectious among the youth.
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