Dear Friends,
The Rouge Forum Conference, 2009, will be at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti the weekend of May 15. Please begin to plan accordingly, prepare workshops, set up travel, etc. It appears we will have quite a few low cost dorm rooms available. EMU is close to Detroit Metro Airport. Thanks to Joe Bishop for his great work on this conference already.
As we suggested two years ago in considerable specificity, finance capital trumped itself while overproduction and de-industrialization sabotaged the North American work force with plenty of help from liberals, conservatives, union leaders, post-modernists, the profit-media, and many people who, in the last 15 years, refused to use the terms: Capitalism, Imperialism, Crises, Collapse, and Class War–and worse, attacked those who advanced those ideas.
The bi-partisan $700 million robbery last week was a clear instance of, not just class rule, but the domination of capital itself, the giant sucking pump of profits, over whatever anyone thought of as capitalist democracy, which bears as strong a relationship to democracy that the Pope does to “do unto others.” Surely, if reality has any connection to reason, many people can see the government is an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich. Inside, they work out their differences, then let us choose who will oppress us best.
The economic crisis is, in part, summed up in Monthly Review, here and here is a shorter piece from the Globe and Mail: “The end of the American order”
The debilitating credit crisis has knocked the U.S. from its perch as the supreme economic power. The climb back up will be steep.
What is next? Hard to predict as if a dozen cue balls were driven into a hundred racks, the only guarantee that no balls could stop. The crashing will continue. Good bet over time: Steep inflation (war costs plus minted money for bailouts) and a ferocious attack on working people to pay for it. Teachers are likely to be next in line.
But it is not merely an economic crisis. It will result in a terrible extension of tyranny into every aspect of life. It is not a dime that people will fight and die for, but social justice, summed up in the movements of history as: Equality and Freedom! It is the tyranny of daily life that prompts upheavals for social change. Again, here is a classroom exercise on the historical critique of tyranny.
When ruling class commentators come on “Marketplace” on National Public Radio (bossed by the hustler who ran Radio Free Europe) and announce that nobody trusts the government, everyone is outraged at the Wall Street bailout, and that the politicians are “pygmies,” who cannot get anything right, when the PBS economist Solomon admits, “everything my colleagues and I knew was wrong,” (but cannot bring himself to say, “Marx was right”), and he goes further to say, “this is socialism,” but cannot be clear and say: National Socialism; then we know something profound is afoot.
But there is no Left (yet) over any size that is able to conduct Grand Strategy, Strategy, and Tactics in order to face down the system of capital and its personifications. In education in North America and much of the world, the only Left is the Rouge Forum.
The anti-war left in the US managed to take a movement that quickly put a million people on the streets six years ago, to one that cannot put a hundred thousand people out now–and in the interim taught people nothing important (those responsible? United for Peace and Justice, above all–here is our analysis from a year ago, by Tom Suber: http://richgibson.com/wheremovement.htm ).
The education resistance movement has been largely derailed by those who want to disconnect education from social crisis, or who want to teach their way out of capitalism. This is how we sought to set that right: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/TestingSchoolReformDebate.htm
So, we head into what may well be a very dark era. Still, the few cannot rule the many without considerable consent won, admittedly, through fear and bribes, but consent that has to be disconnected from reason. Our project remains: Connect reason to power.
Part of that is recognizing good work. Here is Jeffrey Perry: The biography, Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918, by Jeffrey B. Perry, is being published by Columbia University Press and is scheduled to be in bookstores by November/December 2008.
And Monthly Review on the deepening crises in education.
The Rouge Forum Steering Committee is working on several projects: A MySpace Page, a Teacher Certification Program, our conference, and more avenues for publication (remember to subscribe to Substance, the hard copy voice of education resistance in the US). If you want to help, let us know and we will set you up with the work group leaders. Suggestions for projects always welcome.
As things stand today, we have about 4600 people on our email list. All volunteers. Will you share some of the Rouge Forum’s thoughts with friends and ask them to sign on?
For some cheer, here is Professor Louis’ rap on Corporate Power!
Thanks to Joe B, Amber, Adam and Gina, Wayne, Paul and Mary, Joe L, Katie and G, Sue H, Teeyah and Moshe, Bob and Tommie, Joe C, Bill of OP, Donna, Candy, Carol O, Agopian, Dan, Melissa and Josh, Isiah, Jules, Breisach, and Weird Eric.
Down the banks!
Up the Rebels????
All the best
r
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