Category Archives: Rouge Forum Update

Call for Proposals: Rouge Forum Conference 2010: Education in the Public Interest: Teaching and Learning for a Democratic Society

ROUGE FORUM CONFERENCE, 2010: CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Education in the Public Interest: Teaching and Learning for a Democratic Society

Rouge Forum 2010 will be hosted at George Williams College on the scenic banks of Geneva Lake. Located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, the college is nestled between the major metropolitan areas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois. The conference will be held August 2-5.

Bringing together academic presentations and performances (from some of the most prominent voices for democratic, critical, and/or revolutionary pedagogy), panel discussions, community-building, and cultural events, this action-oriented conference will center on questions such as:

Transforming the notion of “saving public education” to one of creating education in the public interest, what does teaching and learning for a democratic society look like?
What does education for liberation look like compared to the more socially reproductive/dominating education we see in many of our nation’s schools?
Are the current crises in the economy as well as educationally in such states as California or cities like Detroit indicative of a turning point in history? Has the rightward shift ebbed or will the economic crisis push the ruling class towards fascism?
What is a public good? Is education a public good? Why is it treated as a private good?
Is climate change a matter to be debated by governments and industry leaders? Has the public participated in the debate on climate change? What roles do educators have in making students aware of the implications of that debate?
Are multi-trillion dollar deficits public ‘bads’?
What debts will future generations, including the students we may teach, carry because our financial, governmental, and military endeavors have not been concerned with public goods?
What are the educational implications of the recent Supreme Court decision to endow corporations with the right of free speech?
How do we learn and teach to get from where we are to where we need to be?
How do we stand up for the correctness of our ideas?
How does change happen (individually, within a school, within a district)?
Can the current system be reformed in order to better serve children, families, and citizens?
If not, what would a new system look like? How would it be implemented? What past models exist on which to work and build?

To learn more about the conference, please contact any of our conference organizers:

Faith Wilson (fwilson@aurora.edu)
Adam Renner (arenner@bellarmine.edu)
Wayne Ross (wayne.ross@ubc.ca)
Rich Gibson (rgibson@pipeline.com)
Gina Stiens (stiensg@yahoo.com)
Doug Selwyn (dselw001@plattsburgh.edu)
Joe Cronin (jcronin@antioch.edu)

Or visit the conference website at: www.rougeforumconference.org.

Submissions
Proposals for papers, panels, or performances should include title(s), no more than a 500 word description, and names and contact information for presenter(s). Presenters should plan on 45 minute time slots to deliver papers. Panels and performances will be awarded 90 minutes.

Review of Paper and Panel Proposals treating any of the above questions will begin April 15, 2010. Please send your proposals to Faith Wilson (fwilson@aurora.edu). As we expect a number of proposals for a limited number of slots please forward your proposal as soon as possible.

Performance Proposals should also be forwarded to Faith Wilson (fwilson@aurora.edu) by April 15, 2010. Please describe your art/performance and how it may relate to the conference topic/questions.

Rouge Forum Update: Strike March 4th To Transform Education

Read the full update here: Strike March 4th To Transform Education

Educate! Agitate! Organize Freedom Schools on March 4th’s School Strike!

On the Little Rouge School Front This Week:

DPS Teachers Sue Union and Boss: “Washington claims the loan violates Michigan’s Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act, which forbids an employer from demanding a gift from an employee as a condition of employment. “Bobb does not have the right to extort loans from district employees, and the DFT does not have the right to authorize Bobb to waive the minimum protections of the law,” Washington said.

The Rouge Forum News Latest Edition is Now Available

The Call For Papers for the Next Edition of the Rouge Forum News:

Teaching Resources on the History of Haiti

Martin Luther King Speech: Vietnam, A Time to Break the Silence

A Surprising List From the CIA: Nations’ Percentage Education Expenditures per GDP (US is 57th)

Chicago Trib Discovers What Substance News Reported for Years: The Duncan Miracle was a Fraud: “ Scores from the elementary schools created under Renaissance 2010 are nearly identical to the city average, and scores at the remade high schools are below the already abysmal city average, the analysis found. The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010 — that displaced students ended up mostly in other low-performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn’t lived up to its promise by this, its target year.”

Stephen Krashen on the LEARN Act: “I do not support the LEARN Act. As described in the Senate Bill, the LEARN Act is Reading First expanded to all levels. It is Reading First on steroids.”

Alfie, “Have They Lost Their Minds?”: “ If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”

If these bright new digitally enhanced national standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century façade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should be doing everything possible to resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it.

Grassroots Education Movement in NYC Protest Jan 21: “We are picketing Bloomberg’s residence because he is in charge of these wrongful closings. We need to bring our opposition to his doorstep.”

Randi Weingarten (AFT) Proposes to Abolish Tenure (as in Detroit)

Joan Roelofs Analysis of the Relationship of Schools and the Military (Click under pages, it’s several pdf files well worth the candle)

AFL-CIO Goons Open a College: “the online college would charge about $200 a credit, competitive with community colleges and far cheaper than most four-year colleges and for-profit schools.”

Rouge Forum Update: On to the March 4th Strike To Transform Education and Society!

On to The Twenty Tens!

“When everyone is dead, The Great Game is finished, not before.” Kim, speaking for Kipling.

On the Little Rouge School Front This Week:

The Rouge Forum News Latest Edition is Now Available

The Call For Papers for the Next Edition of the Rouge Forum News

Louisville Education Dean To Plead Guilty; Those of us who have followed this case wish the dean every bad year he deserves. “…Bryant Stamford, a former faculty member who worked at U of L for more than 30 years and who has joined other former education faculty in criticizing the university for its handling of Felner, said Monday he had “mixed feelings” about news of a plea agreement.… It was good that he was finally caught and held accountable for his actions, but I think all of us still sort of default back to: How is it possible that this man was allowed to operate in such a manner for years? He wasn’t operating in a vacuum.”

The Detroit Federation of Teachers’ Contract–the Worst Ever? “The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded social and economic inequality and the promise of perpetual war, challenged by the potential of mass, class-conscious, resistance. Will we win? The best news is: we do not know. We might if we form trusting communities of care and resistance. If we do not, we can wind up alone disappearing like Johnnie Redding. It is a choice. Community or barbarism.”

Detroit Reading Corps Gears Up (Old South African Saying, “Before the missionaries arrived, we had land but no bibles; now we have bibles and no land”): “Soon the Detroit Public Schools could be overrun with thousands of retirees, former teachers, grandparents, stay-at-home moms, corporate employees and even a student from Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills.”

Charters Blossom in LA: “Even now, there are those who believe that charter schools are private (they aren’t), that they are run by for-profit companies (rarely in California), that they primarily serve affluent communities (the opposite is true) and that they are better than traditional public schools…Nearly 9% of Los Angeles public school students now attend charters, which offer great variety. Ocean Charter, a predominantly white, middle-class school on the Westside, emphasizes “experiential learning” based on the Waldorf model. The Alliance for College Ready Schools, whose 16 schools south and east of downtown mostly serve low-income black and Latino students, use a strict and structured adherence to state curriculum standards.”

No Charges Filed in Attack on UC Boss’ House: “Eight people arrested after protesters vandalized the campus home of the UC Berkeley chancellor have not been charged with any crime and may never be, according to the Alameda County district attorney’s office.
“There is insufficient evidence…”

Dan Perstein on Attack on UC Boss’ House: “I believe that the university administration not only set the stage for a violent turn in protests by acts which have repeatedly raised tensions and undermined belief in its good will, but actually engaged in most of the violence that has occurred… “

Walton’s, Broad, Fund Top Brass in LA United: “Private money is paying for key senior staff positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District — providing needed expertise at a bargain rate, but also raising questions about transparency and the direction of reforms in the nation’s second-largest school system.”

Michigan Signs Up For Ratt: “Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday signed into law a sweeping series of education bills that give the state new power to close failing schools, dump bad teachers and administrators and measure if students are moving ahead… legislation also expects more from students, requiring them to stay in school until age 18, starting with the class of 2016. Students now can leave school at age 16. It allows up to 32 more charter schools to open each year but gives the state the power to close poorly performing charter schools. It also gives professionals from areas other than education an alternative way to become teachers and allows merit pay for excellent teachers and cyber-schools for students who have dropped out.”

Read the complete RF Update here.

The Rouge Forum News, Issue 16 — Call for papers

Rouge Forum News, Issue 16—Call for papers—Deadline: April 1

The Rouge Forum News is an outlet for working papers, critical analysis, and grassroots news. Issue 16 feature articles will be focused on experiences with, pictures of, research regarding, and stories on PROTEST and RESISTANCE. Given the upcoming march in California on March 4, 2010 and the occupation of businesses (Republic Window) and schools (the New School in NY and several in the California system) over the last year plus, we invite your essays, poetry, photos and art that surrounds the theme of protest and resistance.

Along with these feature articles, we invite, as usual, other essays that treat the links between runaway capital, the rabid and rapid standardization of curriculum, the co-optation of our unions, the militarization of our youth, and the creep of irrationalism in our schools.

Review a book, talk about what lessons have worked in your school lately, play with theory, critique theory, give us some highlights on your research, write a poem, etc.

We are interested in work from academics, parents, teachers, and students: teachers at all levels, students in ANY grade, parents of children of any age.

We publish material from k-12 students, parents, teachers, academics, and community people struggling for equality and democracy in schools — writing (intended to inform/educate, or stories from your classroom, etc.), art, cartoons, photos, poetry.

You can submit material for the RF News via email (text attachment, if possible) to Adam Renner at arenner@bellarmine.edu.

Download The Rouge Forum News Issue 15 here.

PLEASE SUBMIT BY APRIL1, 2010.

Rouge Forum Update: Where we have been and where we may be headed

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum Blog is updated here.

However, a quick note on where we have been and where we may be headed:

In mid- 2001, we wrote, “This is the seiche time…From time to time in the St. Clair River, which runs rapidly along the eastern coast of Michigan connecting Lake Huron with Lake St. Clair, a combination of high winds and atmospheric pressure causes the river to split apart, leaving a wet marsh between an onrushing tide of water headed south, and a trailing wave of great power. The locals call this a seiche, and the long moments that pass as the broken water surges to connect with itself, usually accompanied by dark purple skies, they call the seiche time.”

September 11, 2001 followed.

Four years earlier, we argued that schools were even then the centripetal organizing point of de-industrialized North American life (and elsewhere too), that the struggles in schools would mesh ideology and money; sometimes colliding, other times in a perfect marriage.

We said any society engaged in militarism, imperialism, tied to a consumer economy, would surely move to greater control over what citizens know and how they come to know it. Schools would be key.

In schools, we said that six thrusts from elites would come into play:

1. Regimented national curricula (we used the history standards as a model).
2. Anti-working class, racist, high-stakes tests.
3. Merit pay linked to the tests.
4. More militarism.
5. Some privatization.
6. A full blown assault on educators’ wages and benefits.

We argued that the traditional unions and professional organizations would be worse than useless in meeting these attacks as their leaders are flatly on the other side of what is a class(room) war.

We said “an injury to one will proceed an injury to all.” It has, as we indicated, urban districts serving especially exploited populations and rural districts would be hit first, but middle class districts would follow–then even some of the richer public schools would be hit.

We insisted for nine years that a consumer society that has a vanishing productive base, a society rooted in spectacles, massive internal and external borrowing, and financial shenanigans was built on sand–and that the sky would fall. It did.

For a decade, we built school resistance around, mostly, research and action aimed at the high-stakes exams with some success in both wealthy and poor districts while most middle class district school workers muddled along.

In early 2008, we expressed sympathy for those who would vote Democratic, but suggested that relying on Democrats to make fundamental change demonstrated a key misunderstanding of the relationship of capitalism and democracy, the former then trumping democracy at every turn. We insisted that “capitalism has to be named.”

We said, “The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded social and economic inequality and the promise of perpetual war, challenged by the potential of mass, class-conscious, resistance.”

Over more than a decade, our conferences and our resources became community and comfort to educators who often felt isolated in this onslaught.

We claim no special foresight. What is most surprising to us is that in North America the Rouge Forum stands alone as an organized group of people who recognize that what is afoot is an education agenda as a war agenda, a class war agenda, and who seek to construct reason, connected to power, in order to not only push back, but transform our own lives and our society.

The Rouge Forum transcends the divisions of academic and social labor, rather than recreating them as do unions and the “professional” organizations. We include doctors, professors, k12 educators, support personnel, social workers, media specialists, librarians, parents, two principals, truck drivers, custodians, secretaries, retirees, stadium workers, construction workers, unemployed people, soldiers, union staffers, that is, people from all over world, the US to India to England to Grenada to South Africa.

The Rouge Forum News, our Broadsides, videos, and other publications reflect that unity–and our varying critiques of why things are as they are.

We close a horrific decade begun and ended with war heaped upon war—battles where the children of the poor kill other children of the poor on behalf of the rich in their homelands.

We witnessed the greatest theft of wealth in the history of the world, the $12.9 trillion Tarp bank bailout (no strings) and the takeover of the auto industry by the federal government, finalizing what can only be seen as a corporate state.

On the near horizon, we suspect the Democrats will tax the existing health insurance of those who have jobs, dump GM, Chrysler, and Walmart employees into a debased pool of the barely insured, and let the rich off the hook once again.

What is ahead? Surely more wars, intensifying as imperial rivalries grow. China, Russia, Japan, and Europe all desperately need that oil, that cheap labor, that copper, those markets, the pipelines, and those shipping lanes.

The wars will come home in the economy and daily life. Our crystal ball isn’t clear enough to predict deflation, inflation, or devaluation, but the throw of the dice says rampant inflation.

In daily life, the assaults on reason and well being in schools will necessarily sharpen as will political repression, often disguised as protection of the citizenry. If resistance is not successful, all educators could become traveling adjuncts.

We have said persistently that people will fight back as they will have no choice but to fight back—and people will pull back when they see no alternative but to retreat. Will we make good sense of why we must fight? Will the fight be the isolating call of, “Save My Job!” and lose, or will it be, “When They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!” and win?

Resistance is rising as the recent battles in California universities show. However, it remains that retreat is workers’ main move now–as the debacle of the Detroit Federation of Teacher contract ($500 per month pay cut, massive health care cuts, merit pay, teachers disciplining teachers–all as the DFT leadership hugged the employer; teachers ratified at 60% as they were isolated from one another, saw no option).

Justice demands organization. If we are to overcome what can now be reasonably described as the emergence of fascism as a mass, popular, world-wide movement, the Rouge Forum needs to grow.

We need your ideas, suggestions, comments, and criticism. You can post here at the blog or write any member of the Rouge Forum Steering Committee.

We hope you will spread the word, urge others to join our community, so the next decade will not end with the darkness this one has.

Good luck to us, every one.

Rouge Forum Update: Happy Holidays To Us, Every One! And Remember March 4th!

Dear Friends, Here’s to the 4468 of us on the Rouge Forum list who have, in one way or another, sought to fashion reason and connect that to power. Here’s to a decade that lays the foundation for a just and equitable society—fun too!

On the Education Front is a Class War Front This Week:

The Rouge Forum Newslatest edition is now available

National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education:

California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education — but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.

The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that “there is no alternative” to the cuts. But if there’s money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?

We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education — Pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.

Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.

Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics — such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. — as well as the duration of such actions.

Let’s make March 4 an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the re-segregation of public education.

– The California Coordinating Committee

(To endorse this call and to receive more information contact: march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and check out www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com )

Read the full Rouge Forum Update here.

Rouge Forum Update: Class War Comics and Docs Too!

See the full Rouge Forum Update here. Excerpts below:

“Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.” Sun Tzu, the Art of War.

Dear Friends,

It’s an action packed and thought-filled week as we head into what were the holidays, once. Check out the links below to see the brewing wars in education, on the battlefield, and in the economy—and the rising resistance as well.

But first—Fun: Obvious-Man vs Capitalist Democracy.

On the Education Agenda is a War Agenda Front:

In Detroit, hysteria fostered by the Broad Foundation, the Michigan Governor, the Mayor of Detroit, and the Detroit Federation of Teachers’ bosses has the public demanding teachers be jailed for the kids’ NEAP test scores

At the same time, rank and filers prepare for yet another Detroit schools wildcat strike.

Review for yourself the pressure the DFT dishonestly applies on members and the sellout contract.

In Michigan, Low Test Scores Fuel Attack on Educators and Kids with NEA and AFT backing while Detroit News Urges Mayor to Follow Michelle Rhee and the D.C AFT where Randi Weingarten joins Darling-Hammond, The Wretched Caroline Kennedy, and Broad.

DFT President, in Tandem With Broad Foundation and Skillmans, uses NAEP Results to Try to Ram Through Give-back Contract (Merit Pay, Peer Review, wage and benefit concessions, etc.). “The results, Johnson stressed, should not be a comment on the commitment of teachers. And a tentative agreement between the district and teachers calls for reforms like peer review and teacher evaluations that help instructors build in their strengths.”

Meanwhile, In DC where Michelle Rhee hired 900 teachers over the summer, then fired more than 250 senior teachers in October, WTU members claim that the union’s lawyers failed in their duty to represent them when they managed to lose the case. Members demand an appeal.

Reactionary Post Columnist Jay Matthews Touts AFT’s President Weingarten for the next Czar in DC schools. Makes all the sense in the world.

Protestors Attack UC Hack—at Home: “ Eight people were under arrest Saturday after protesters broke windows, lights and planters outside the home of the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. University spokesman Dan Mogulof said 40 to 70 protesters also threw incendiary devices at police cars and the home of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau about 11 p.m. Friday. There were no fires or injuries.”

26 More Students Arrested in California: Campus and city police entered the business administration building and ended the occupation at 3:15 a.m., university spokeswoman Ellen Griffin said. But Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall Remains a Freedom School.

LA’s “Pilot Schools”: Strategic Hamlets? Charters operate independent of direct district control and are free from some rules that govern traditional schools, including adherence to L.A. Unified’s union contracts….Local school officials and the teachers union have reached a tentative deal that would help groups of teachers bid for control of 30 campuses under a recently adopted school-reform plan….The agreement, announced today, would allow the number of “pilot schools” in the Los Angeles Unified School District to increase from 10 to 30. Pilots are small schools where teachers, administrators and community members have broad latitude to establish the rules under which the school operates. Unlike charter schools, the pilots remain closely affiliated with the district, and employees retain their representation by district unions.”

See the full Rouge Forum Update here

Rouge Forum News #15

The latest issue of the Rouge Forum News is available here as a pdf.

Adam Renner, editor of the Rouge Forum News, previews the issue below:

FROM THE EDITOR

In its more than decade of existence, the Rouge Forum has attempted to contribute to the conversation on social justice within national organizations, in union halls, in K-12 schools, in colleges/universities, at work places, and in community organizations. It has attempted to bring a reasoned analysis to contemporary issues using an historical lens, a sense of the total, and, often, pedagogical strategies. It has produced an appreciable amount of scholarship among its members—sometimes award winning scholarship—and has among its membership winners of academic freedom awards.

Undoubtedly, the Rouge Forum has become a relevant voice for social justice, particularly related to education. We hope to amplify that voice and continue to develop its relevance in the days to come. Recent events, tethered to their historical predecessors, indicate there is little time to dither.

One of the best things about the Rouge Forum, particularly those who have been able to take part in conferences and joint actions, is the sense of community. My partner and I remarked a few years ago at the conference in Detroit that we felt like we were home. We were among comrades who, while we didn’t agree on everything, seemed to have a congruent idea that things need to change and a relatively common idea of what that might look like. We could at least outline the picture.

Times together, such as these, assure us we are not crazy—that another world is not only necessary, but possible. Our work is continuing to figure out how we support one another, how we can have a voice in our particular locations, and how we craft and apply a vision of what is more just, more human, and right. Community. Voice. Vision. Connect reason to power, as Rich would say. Go.

And in that go-ing, we need sustenance for the journey—sustenance in the form of community and consciousness (ever-deepening, ever-evolving), but also hope. The hope I/we suggest is not naïve hope. It is hope grounded in struggle, connected to others. It is hope that is participatory. It becomes the essence of who we are. It is a politics of prefiguration that suggests if we want democracy and we want justice, then our actions, to the extent possible, will need to bear these out. It is to understand the journey/struggle not as precise, but as punctuations of imperfections, of hypocrisies that bring us back to the start, such that we can begin again.

This idea of the politics of prefiguration is espoused by a thoughtful theorist on hope: Rebecca Solnit. Her text, Hope in the Dark, pushed me to find hope in the struggle—in fact, catapulting me into that struggle. Solnit has enlivened that sense again in her recent essay in TomDispatch entitled Learning how to Count to 350. Re-citing a history of action in the streets and reasons to hope (in the face of all the reasons to despair), Solnit suggests, “To survive the coming era, we need to re-imagine what constitutes wealth and well-being and what constitutes poverty.” Considering the dismal performance of communism in the 20th century (often more totalitarian and capitalist than liberatory) and the fact that global capitalism was brought to its knees last year, she suggests we’ve got work to do to (re)imagine the world.

And, we—that is, people of conscience—must occupy that void. Else, something else will. The steel-toed rhythm can be heard goose-stepping just inside the ear’s horizon. I submit we’ll need to step into that space sooner than later.

I’ll see you at the barricades.

We’ll have to resist what is more than likely coming next—find a voice, speak truth to power, take to the streets, take over a building. Escalate. Extending Rich’s metaphor from earlier work, we lambs look good to the wolves who regroup in the penthouses of their nearby woods (whose fuel is nearly spent) and in the corporate board rooms overlooking ever-drying creeks (more parts pollution than potable). They’re finished buying what we have, as how much more cheaply can our labor power be had? Now, they plan to just take it.

And, they will use a god to convince you they are right. They will call on him, attempting to scheme us into doing the same (a little deposit of flesh now, and your children’s flesh, for an eternity of made-up bed time stories, “Now I Iay me down to sleep….”).

I’ll keep my soul, whatever is left of it, thank you very much.

I’m looking, instead, for what Solnit calls a moment of creation—moments for which democracy, social justice, creativity, freedom, take one step forward.

Solnit is good at flipping the script, looking at the underside of the paper and seeing the scribbling of possibility. What she submits is an alternative read to the corporate media prophets (or is that profits?). We would do well to listen. Hers is not a naïve re-rendering or postmodern apologetics. My take is that Solnit’s proposition is grounded in the real. The alteration takes into account the work that is being done, often diminished by our popular discourse and corporate media. This alternative understanding helps us realize that others are struggling, voices are shouting, a history of resistance leads us to this moment of possibility.

Revolutionary praxis remains our guide: the simultaneity and dialectic of self change and the changing of society.

We should understand what it’s going to take for that moment of creation. Those moments: when we realize the politics of divide and conquer have gotten the best of us (color/class/gender/sexuality-coded inequalities); when we realize that we that we are killing others (bought and paid for bombs with our signature on them), killing babies, mothers, difference with our own babies barely able to know differently in capital’s schools (the militarization of schools); when we realize that our knowledge has been regulated by corporate interests to keep us docile and ignorant (high-stakes testing) in order to prepare us for jobs we will more than likely hate (alienation) so we will seek pleasure in (fetishize) commodities, that is, things, and our social relations will be mediated by reality TV and video games.

Try Wendell Berry’s recent poem on for size at your upcoming holiday celebration to bring the above into sharp relief. You may not be invited back (which may or may not be a bad thing…)

When we recognize these issues as material reality, a moment will emerge. A moment (consciousness grounded in the real) that must lead to another moment (courage to change) in which we will need to figure out how to live differently (protest, resistance, occupation, freedom schools, sustainable living, new solidarities). Moments in which we own our labor power: the free development of each creates the conditions for the free development of all, since we will all recognize our interdependence and the strength of our difference.

More than likely, these moments will blur–because the barricades will not only be in the streets, but they will be in our work places, in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, in our community centers. Consciousness will merge with courage will merge with consciousness will merge with a more materialist understanding of reality, which will lead to how we can re-imagine wealth, well-being and poverty in the coming era.

We must. The wolves are hungry.

But, the lambs are plentiful. And, we will realize that we far outnumber the wolves when conscious because we will see and do differently.

When we see differently, we won’t be divided so easily. When we see differently, we won’t abide by mystical explanations of injustice; we will see it for what it is. When we see differently, we’ll stop looking at the deadness of the center and instead explore the possibility at the periphery. When we see differently we won’t believe the mythology of national holidays intended to white-wash history and to, more importantly, mark the beginning of a new holiday season of debt and guilt built by the capitalists. Just look on the rez. How did Thanksgiving work out for those who welcomed the newcomers? Can we call it what it is, please: a celebration of genocide. And, we are still killing them (see the December, 2009, Harper’s Magazine article about life on the modern reservation). Christmas could use an RF News issue all its own…

When we see differently, we will note the possibility of solidarity born in moments of creation where we understand richness as fullness (of life and community), in the bread broken amidst laughter AND tears, in the totality discovered, in one more sunrise.

The Rouge Forum seeks this fullness.

Struggle. We must. Eyes open. Spirit fully engaged. Hands ready for the work.

See you at the barricades…

…On the way to the barricades, might I recommend a choral reading of this quarter’s Rouge Forum News? Our 15th issue has another exciting line-up of essays, which are broken up by other provocative reading: poems by Gina Stiens and Colin Ross, Rouge Forum broadsides, an editorial from Paul Moore, and art from Bryan Reinholdt. I’d recommend making posters of it. And T-shirts.

We have two featured essays in this issue, one from Wayne Ross, which takes up the issue of patriotism, the other, a timely piece from Mary Barrett, Maria Hornung, Amber Kelly, and Katy Sutton, which looks at the possibility of medicine as a human right.
In our section on war and militarism, Travis Barrett reports on three aspects of institutionalized oppression, and what we might do about it, and Matt Archibald analyzes zero-tolerance, neoliberal ideology, and the growing militarism of our society.

In our schooling and curriculum section, Rich Gibson sets us straight on the way to analyze/critique the current takeover of US schooling by the elite; Nancye McCrary, Doug Selwyn, and I chronicle various approaches we’ve taken at our universities to promote democracy; and Delana Hill applies Paulo Freire and dialogical action directly to her classroom.

As always, we look forward to your feedback, either directly (arenner@bellarmine.edu) or at our blog: www.therougeforum.blogspot.com.

Adam Renner
Louisville, KY

Rouge Forum Update: An Injury to One is an Injury to All: Detroit and Much More!

http://www.richgibson.com/blog/

Dear Friends,

Check the link above but note that Detroit may be the next centerpiece for education struggles soon. The Detroit Federation of Teachers bosses signed a tentative agreement (TA) with the Broad Foundation’s Detroit Financial Manager, Bob Bobb who now runs the system, that offers DPS $500 a month from each teacher’s check, or $10,000 a year, to be paid back as a no-interest loan when the teacher quits the system.

With about 7000 school workers in DPS (not all classroom teachers), paying the dun for 2 1/2 years of the 3 year contract, that’s a $105 million no-interest loan to a school system that claimed it needed about $40 million in concessions from the school workers. More, DPS claims its on the brink of bankruptcy, which would likely dissolve the debt to educators.

The TA also includes huge give-backs in insurances (eliminating Blue Cross), merit pay, teachers evaluating teachers, and worse.

The contract language is murky on what looks like a union bracero program, selling the labor of members to DPS with a specious promise of repayment on the “loan,” (blackmail for a job). The TA is here: http://mi.aft.org/dft231/ although in the past members have complained about not being told of the full measure of TA’s.

In a meeting of about 2500 of the DFT members at Cobo Hall on Sunday, most rank and filers agreed that 90% plus rose to oppose the TA that was bargained behind their backs, involving the top national leadership of the AFT, like President Randi Weingarten.

No group of organized educators has been on strike in the last decade more than DFT rank and filers who led a huge wildcat strike, against their union, against the law, and against the employer—and they made gains.

But today the DFT is relatively isolated. The union leadership stayed silent in the face of massive corruption and incompetence that infected nearly every aspect of Detroit school life. Citizens turned against the system as a whole.

When Broad’s Bobb arrived, citizens applauded as he rooted out the more obvious small time crooks in the system, but he left aside the contractors who looted the public by stealing millions in no-bid contract during the five year period of the Takeover Board, when the governor wiped out the elected board and replaced them with, mostly, suburban auto execs from the failing Big Three. The Takeover Board left DPS at least $40 million in debt.

Now, there are at least 10 newly built schools that sit empty and stripped of everything of value, schools that were built in the Takeover period–in a system that loses 12,000 students a year.

Bobb “won” a new $500 million bond issue to build more new schools by a 2/3 majority this fall, indicating his newly won clout, and his ability to syphon off more money from a system that claims it will build new schools, but demands blackmail payments from teachers. Bobb has already pulled out millions on no-bid offers to cronies in Broad related companies.

The DFT’s sellout Tentative Agreement will appear in urban bargaining tables everywhere next year, if DPS gets away with this. An injury to one really will go before an injury to all.

Every expression of solidarity in opposition to this TA will matter. More, suburban MEA members need to unite with the DFT rank and file, join with parents and kids to create enough educational civil strife that drives the DFT bosses back to the bargaining table, forces them to report out a TA that makes gains, not concessions.

No union is ideologically or structurally prepared to take on the battles ahead–why we formed the Rouge Forum a decade ago. When they say “Cutback,” We say “Fight Back!”

There is MUCH MORE on the blog linked here.

Good luck to us, every one.

Rouge Forum Update: Sky Falling Fast; Resistance Rising Too!

Full update here: Rouge Forum Update: Sky Falling Fast; Resistance Rising Too!

Dear Friends,

There have been at least 16 occupations seeking to rescue education from the ruling classes in California this month, and more to come. UC Irvine next. Germany, Austria, and France also witnessed fight-backs coming from united students and workers.

To date, the only organized school voice in the US that recognizes the current crises as class war is the Rouge Forum–which may speak well for us, or not so well for others who, so far, hold onto wisps of unfounded hope made up of the shreds of democracy and citizenship in the USA.

The direct action occupations and the defenders outside the buildings up the ante for thought and action in schools and in the streets, demonstrating the violence behind capitalist democracy; overcoming the alienated notion that people other than us will save us.

See the Rouge Forum blog linked above for a more complete update.

Good luck to us, every one,
r