Much of Lebanon is in ruins. About 750,000 people are displaced. Nearly 400 Lebanese are dead, about 20 of them Hezbollah fighters. Perhaps 40 Israelis are dead.
In Iraq, where the US failed invasion is prompting real barbarism, about 100 people a day are being killed. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is finding a new base among the population, war lords and drug dealers (often US allies, but always allied only to themselves) rule the country-side and the US backed president cannot travel without American guards.
The US invasions fail, not so much because of operational stupidity (although there is plenty of that), but because the people of the countries the US invades quickly realize that, despite the soccer balls given to kids, and the English language books placed in libraries, the US is there to rob and exploit them and their land. That is impossible to hide. So, they resist, because they must resist to live.
The term “world war three,” is commonplace in the US press.
Gas prices leaped to nearly double their previous highest levels, creating sensible fears of inflation. GM and Ford stock now stand at junk bond status, as they lay off tens of thousands of their workers, with the full cooperation of the UAW.
The Representative Assembly of the National Education Association voted, about three to one, not to discuss the war. The American Federation of Teachers convention voted to support the Democratic Party’s position on the war, which is merely more war, better. The US union movement supports these wars.
Issues are sharpening, differences sharpening, because events grow intense.
Most of us are, in one way or another, connected with schools, education, and organizing. Our task, it appears, it to construct reason, to fight for it, by connecting reason to power. Power lies in organization.
The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page is updated, with incisive articles from the likes of Juan Cole, Robert Fisk, Bill Blum, and many others.
We would like to call attention to our (unfortunately) classic “US Out of the Middle East” poster, for sale at cost, here. This poster was made first during Gulf War One.
This is a link to an exchange about school workers, our unions, and the current wars.
And this is a link to a critique of Jonathan Kozol’s Education Manifesto. Rethinking Schools, whose work we have always supported, refuses to circulate it, sad to say.
It is time to take direct, principled, yet militant action against perpetual imperialist war.
And perhaps you would forward news of the Rouge Forum to friends and colleagues.
Follow
