Dear Friends,
The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil web page is updated.
Please note we have several new posters for sale (and even a paypal account) at or below cost.
Of special interest is the opening of the film, Sir, No Sir!, a documentary on the GI’s opposed to the Vietnam wars. The web site contains a great deal of material school workers should find useful.
Mayday!
In a period when many educators and activists felt we were at a low ebb of education and activism, the people marching on Mayday have shown that the class struggle and class consciousness are always on, no matter how submerged it may seem. Indeed, many of us may need to rethink our viewpoints, as what has been submerged to us has been daily work life to others.
The Mayday marches involved millions of people. We marched because imperialism and the processes of capital made it necessary to fight back. Imperialism made life impossible in people’s homelands, and capitalism made life nearly impossible in the US. Treated worse than commodities, the mass of people marching face more problems at international borders than auto parts.
Despite the infinite problems of the marches, like the concession to US flags, most people in the marches knew that capitalism cannot solve the problems we face. Just as the US cannot win in Iraq, because Iraqis know the US troops are really their to rob them, yet the US cannot leave Iraq because it must have the oil and social control that Iraq represents, so the incessant drive for cheap labor, and to rule through divide and conquer maneuvers, will not be stopped by any of the bills in Congress. US bosses cannot live without cheap labor, and cannot live with the struggles cheap labor produces. Only the long struggle against capital itself, involving direct actions like on Mayday, can address our common crises.
Indeed, since Mayday is recognized in Mexico as an international workers’ holiday initiated by anarchists and communists in the US, most people on the marches knew of the political significance of the Mayday action. People marched as in a wildcat strike, against the directions of their sellout union and church leaders. And hundreds of thousands of marchers were, in fact, involved in what amounted to a massive general strike.
Moreover, the structure of the marches, including people of all ages, all job classifications, all nations, all races, all sexes, offer clues of how organizing for the future could be done—beyond the narrow confines of unionism.
The perplexing problems of how we get from what is, to what should be; from a society that is united via systems of communications, technology, production, and transportation, yet sharply divided by nation, race, and sex/gender—and at perpetual war—to a world where people can become reasonably free and creative in collective communities—the gap between one and the other is what we must seek to fill with education and action. We make our own histories.
With Mayday, and the coming of spring, we all may find some good cheer in the future. Look for extensive coverage in the hardcopy editions of Substance.
Survey Responses
We are still in the process of evaluating the survey responses that came in. In general, some people think we should focus even more on the connections of the wars, segregation, and schooling. Others felt we should focus more on the NCLB and the daily lives of education workers and students. One good bit of advice: The way we do fundraising will demonstrate how we envision a society of the future—and idea we are still grappling with.
In addition, several people asked that we re-initiate our Rouge Forum Institutes and to make the Rouge Forum News hard copy editions either annual or bi-annual publications.
We are also working on updating the look of our web page.
Volunteers to all that work are welcome.
IRA Censors Opposition to NCLB
Here is one key item taken from Susan Ohanian’s web page.
LA School Board Takeover and the Broad Foundation
Whole Schooling Conference Portland, May 11
Many of us will be at the Whole Schooling Consortium Conference in Portland, Oregon.
All the best, r
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