Dear Friends,
The Rouge Forum web page is updated at www.rougeforum.org
Of special interest is our upcoming Rouge Forum Conference in Louisville, March 14-16, 2008. Check out the web page to see the many presenters addressing the question, “Education Reform, or Revolution?”
Substance News, the hard-copy voice of the education resistance in the US and North America covered the Bush press conference in Chicago on Monday, claiming “mission accomplished,” on NCLB. Subscriptions to Substance are just 16 dollars a year, perhaps 5% of what many people pay in union dues, to unions that do not represent the rank and file.
We need to write letters to editors of the corporate press, articles in journals, books, for magazines, online, but we also need a commonly understood hard copy voice not controlled by profiteering where the many views of the education resistance can find a space to unite and debate.
Please, subscribe to Substance and help connect reason to power. www.substancenews.net
The wars continue. Even if NCLB is stalled, it is re-authorized in effect if nothing is done. In California, we plan a meeting on February 2 2008 to help build direct action resistance, opt-outs, to the high-stakes exams that strangle freedom in education now. Please try to join us.
Good news. The Rouge Forum motion opposing the Iraq war passed the k-12 section of the National Council for the Social Studies assembly. Wayne Ross has the details, and a great cartoon on the Price of Your Soul, on his blog at
http://migrator.rab.olt.ubc.ca/ross
There is resistance everywhere: 70,000 uprisings in 2007 in China, requiring repression from the “Red” Army. A two week sit-down strike in Leningrad’ Ford Plant was settled just before the holidays, and in another strike in Siberia in BEK plants workers have erected blockades around the factories, demanding an end to privatization and workers’ control of the work place. Mutinies, while limited, began in the US Armed Forces. The direct action of workers in San Diego finally won the right, or reaffirmed it, to picket and hand out literature in San Diego. Iraq War veterans plan to duplicate the 1971 Detroit “winter soldier” investigation in Washington DC in March.
Cultural resistance is alive. Here is our colleague Chalmers Johnson, author of the Nemesis Trilogy, discussing Charlie Wilson’s War: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174877/chalmers_johnson_an_imperialist_comedy
The education resistance, meaning our lives and the lives of our kids, depends on us.
Utah Phillips, troubadour against tyranny, needs our help. His health fades and his insurance is very limited. Perhaps you could buy a Utah CD, or attend a benefit concert.
And remember, you can join the Rouge Forum discussion list here.
Next week, a discussion on capitalist democracy and the fetish of democracy on the left.
“It is not because things are difficult that we don’t dare….it is because we don’t dare that things are difficult.”…….. Seneque
Thanks to Susan, Amber, Cindee, Candace, Nancy, Sue W., Greg and Katy, Bill, Wayne, Beau, Ron, VP, Sherry. Marc and Bonnie, Tom S, Bob, Wayne, Marc, Curry, Dave H., Perry, Kevin, and to all those who helped out at NCSS.
All the best in the new year,
r
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