Dear Friends,
The struggle for social justice, freedom, equality, reason, and democracy is incessant, even though sometimes it is hard to see. While the term “emerging fascism” probably describes much of the world, as long as work sucks people will fight back, because we must. What is fascism? For a quick analysis see this.
The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil web page is updated.
Earlier in the week, we broke custom and sent out a mid-week notice regarding the uprisings in Oaxaca, much of it initiated by educators.
Narco news is carrying what little journalism is being done of this massive struggle. Here is a link, with photos.
Harry Cleaver at UTexas is carrying updates on the continuing struggle here.
In addition, students throughout Greece are seizing campuses in opposition to the moves to deepen the privatization of education there.
And students in what is becoming known as the “New SDS” are planning a mass mobilization against the Iraq war early this week in New York City.
The documentary, Sir! No Sir, is about the antiwar movement initiated by US soldiers in the Vietnam era, which paralyzed the military. Beginning July 15 the film will come out on DVD, and be offered free to active duty military personnel. Here is the link to the web page which describes when and where the important film is being shown.
And here’s a link to a review of Sir! No Sir.
With sadness, we recognize the closure of the Growing Children Elementary School in Oakland, a school led by our colleague Susan Harman, which was destroyed by the Superintendent who used the results of racist high stakes test scores as a weapon to eliminate joy and freedom in the struggle to gain and test knowledge.
It is trite, but true, to say they can close Growing Children, but they cannot shut down the battle for the truth, and they will not shut down Susan, her colleagues, and kids, either. Susan is an educator extraordinaire who will rise again, and put the empire at risk. And the children who have had even just a glimpse of what real learning can be like are unlikely to forget it.
Capital can no longer solve the problems it creates, from its inability to leave Iraq (and inability to stay in Iraq) to its desperate need for cheap immigrant labor (and its need for those laborers to stay cheap, and get out of the USA when the work is done—and to never assume human form and ask for humane treatment). Everything already exists for everyone on earth to live a fairly good life, if we could just share. So, the task is at once a massive change of mind, and the action to make the change of mind a reality. Maybe one leaflet at a time…..with a nice smile
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