E Wayne Ross – Page 71 – Critical Theories in Education

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum No Blood Oil web page is updated. As of this writing, the wars have cost $541 billion.

Of particular interest is Joe Lucido’s idea of visiting Teacher Stores, now, where teachers are stocking up, meeting them with petitions to urge opt outs from the NCLB-driven high stakes exams. Here is a link to one of many petitions.

Chicago students are being urged to conduct a school boycott on the opening day of school, time to be spent applying to schools in the well funded suburbs. Perhaps this action will set the stage for a year of resistance, something well beyond what the organizers now foresee.

In Detroit, the FBI is investigating DPS finances while chaplains invade the schools seeking to pray their way out of one of the most profound social and economic crises in the US (see the comments on the articles as well as those on Susan Ohanian’s web site.

In Kansas City, educators are already picketing for a contract
.
This is Stephen Krashen on Reading First: Hooked on Phailure .

Here is Chalmers Johnson on the emergence of fascism, militarism, mercenaries, and the promise of endless war. Besides Johnson’s Nemesis Trilogy, people might want to review his early, 1960’s book, Revolutionary Change and, for an update on the many uprisings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Central Asia, see Rashid, Descent Into Chaos.

And Ravi Kuman reviewing, in brief, the state response to uprisings in India.

The Rouge Forum Steering Committee will meet in Detroit, the weekend of September 27. Suggestions for our work can be sent to rumbagarden@ameritech.net

And don’t forget the spectacular Last Chance to Eat Before School Starts And the Sky Falls PotLuck Dinner in Southern California, at our house, on August 9. Be there or be square, and RSVP!

Thanks to Wayne, Kevin, Amber, Susan, Sally, Steve, Ash, Ravi, Dave and Dave, Perry, Shelly, Paul (especially for the correction) Candace, Bob and Tommie (don’t forget to send that stuff), Connie and Doug, John and Mary, Paul and Mary, Sandy and Van, Victoria, Eva, Chris, Toby, and Sharon.

If you’re on Facebook, join the Rouge Forum group.
All the best,

Richest Americans See Their Income Share Grow

Wall Street Journal: Richest Americans See Their Income Share Grow

By JESSE DRUCKER
July 23, 2008; Page A3

In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation’s adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group’s share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income.

The figures are from the IRS’s income-statistics division and were posted on the agency’s Web site last week. The 2006 data are the most recent available.

The figures about the relative income and tax rates of the wealthiest Americans come as the presumptive presidential candidates are in a debate about taxes. Congress and the next president will have to decide whether to extend several Bush-era tax cuts, including the 2003 reduction in tax rates on capital gains and dividends. Experts said those tax cuts in particular are playing a major role in falling tax rates for the very wealthy.

Sen. John McCain has proposed extending the lower tax rates of 15% on long-term capital gains and dividends that apply to most taxpayers, while Sen. Barack Obama has said he will seek to raise them to at least 20%, the rate before the 2003 cut, and possibly higher.
[Go to poll] QUESTION OF THE DAY

• Vote: Do the rich pay their fair share of taxes?

According to the figures, the richest 1% reported 22% of the nation’s total adjusted gross income in 2006. That is up from 21.2% a year earlier, and is the highest in the 19 years that the IRS has kept strictly comparable figures. The 1988 level was 15.2%. Earlier IRS data show the last year the share of income belonging to the top 1% was at such a high level as it was in 2006 was in 1929, but changes in measuring income make a precise comparison difficult.

The average tax rate in 2006 for the top 1%, based on adjusted gross income, was 22.8%, down slightly from 2005 and the fifth straight year of declines. The average tax rate of this group was 28.9% in 1996, and was 24% in 1988.

As the wealthiest Americans’ share of income has risen, so has their share of the income-tax burden. The group paid 39.9% of all income taxes in 2006, compared with 27.6% in 1988. In the most recently reported five years, however, the share of income reported by the very wealthy has risen faster than the group’s share of income taxes.

The IRS data look only at so-called adjusted gross income, which is reported on tax returns, and focus only on income taxes. A report by the Congressional Budget Office late last year, which used wider definitions of both income and taxes, found similar trends.

Joel Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan’s business school, said that some portion of the increase in income for the top 1% could stem from the increasing shift to entities such as partnerships, which means some income previously reported by businesses is now reported by individuals. Larger factors likely include changes in trade policy and other aspects of the increasingly global economy, he said.

As if we didn’t already know this, but…Scott McClellan Exposes Fox Network

From Daily Kos:

Where Obamaism Seems to be Going

Here’s a piece by Adolph Reed, Jr., that is one of the best analyses of Obamaism that I’ve yet to read, from blackagendareport.com. Here’s a key idea from Reed:

To be clear, I’m not arguing that it’s wrong to vote for Obama, though I do say it’s wrong-headed to vote for him with any lofty expectations. I would also suggest that it’s not an open and shut case that – all things considered – he’s that much better than McCain. In some ways Obama would be better for us in the short run, just as Clinton was better than the elder Bush. In some ways his presidency could be much worse in the longer term, again like Clinton. For one thing, the recent outpouring of enthusiastic support from all quarters – including on black academic and professional list serves and blogs and on op-ed pages – for his attacks on black poor people underscores the likelihood that Obama will be even more successful than Clinton at selling punitive, regressive and frankly racist social policies as humane anti-poverty initiatives. In a way, I suppose, there could be something useful about having a large strain of the black petite bourgeoisie come out as a militant racial class for itself. Maybe that could be a prelude to a good fight, but unfortunately there’s no counterweight. And the black professional-managerial strata, despite their ever more blatant expressions of contempt for black poor people, continue to insist on speaking for the race as a whole.

Reed’s piece in the May issue of The Progressive is also worth a read: “Obama No”
http://www.progressive.org/mag_reed0508

Rockin’ graphics

My buddy Perry got me interested in rock posters a couple years ago and tipped me off about groups like TRPS and web sites like Wolfgang’s Vault. Since then I’ve started dabbling and now have a very modest collection.

My main source for posters has been Neptoon Records on Main St in East Vancouver, but I recently bought some posters directly from one of my favorite rock poster artists, Gary Houston of Portland. You can check out Houston’s work at his website Voodoocatbox.

Here are some of my latest, all by GH.

Chris Whitley

Vic Chesnutt

Dwight Yoakam

Steve Earle

Los Lobos, John Hiatt, Wilco, Luther Russell

Rouge Forum Update

The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page is updated. There you can find key articles, dating back to 1999, on education, war, the economy, and whatever there is of the left.

Of special interest is this note from a Rouge Forum organizer who attended the recent Brecht Forum on the state of the antiwar movement. Here is a short excerpt: “now I can understand how they have taken a movement with millions in the streets at one time to a “movement” today that can’t muster even a few thousand people…”

Substance News covered the NEA and AFT conventions this year. While both unions’ leaders sought to restrict press passes for Substance journalists, no other resource can come close to the coverage Substance gave to the most unionized sector of the US, education workers.

On the whole, NEA and AFT bosses got what they wanted from the conventions. They deflected nearly everything into the electoral arena, dodged around on Iraq and other wars, and ducked on the crux of NCLB while they criticized NCLB….and they all got raises to boot.

However, there was a little surprise about one thing from each convention. From NEA, it was a surprise that Dennis Van Roekel remained a nonentity. Many people expected DVR, who is not utterly inept like past NEA boss Reg Weaver, to be far more assertive and, to some degree, militant. They felt he had been biding his time inside the bowels of NEA and that the “Real” DVR was far to the left of the one that had slogged along being number two and three for all those years. It is pretty clear that AFT’s Randi Weingarten will, if DVR does not change fast, eclipse the NEA (again) in the national spotlight, and that DVR will not be the stealth militant so many people hoped he would be. NEA is, by the way, about three times the size of the AFT and is the largest union in the USA.

From the AFT, it was a bit of a surprise that outgoing president McElroy called for abolition of NCLB. The Rouge Forum, Substance, and others created the pressure for that. Of course, he is lying. AFT is doing merit pay, stealing money from members wherever they can. Local leaders are attacking one another out of sheer opportunism. AFT continues to work with the reactionaries in the Business Roundtable, and the National Endowment for Democracy, and is going to go right along with the Obamagogue project to continue the regimentation of schooling through high stakes exams and to offer national service as a middle class offset to the draft.

Here is Street in Z on the demagogue, Obamagogue And more to come from his hometown, Chicago, in Substance.

On a cheerier note:

An invitation to all to an August potluck in lovely San Diego:

Who: Anyone interested in getting together
Where: Rich and Amber’s house in San Diego
When: Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Why: Socializing and fun
How: Call us at 619-287-2322 or email rgibson@pipeline.com for directions and then bring yourself and something to share

The Rouge Forum Steering Committee will meet on September 27 in Detroit to plan our coming year. Suggestions and comments always welcome.

And we will host a social gathering at AERA in San Diego in 2009. Be there or be square.

All the best

Teachers 4 Social Justice 2008 Conference

Save the Date!
Saturday, October 11th, 2008 – 9am-5pm
8th Annual Conference

“Teaching for Social Justice: Building Power, Making Change”

WORKSHOPS, RESOURCE FAIRE, LUNCHTIME NETWORKING, KEYNOTE SPEAKER

San Francisco, CA
Registration available in June, 2008 For more information, email us at teachers4socialjustice@yahoo.com

Download an application to present a workshop here.

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the new folks, from all over the world, on our Rouge Forum list. For newcomers, the Rouge Forum home page is at
www.rougeforum.org</a . There you will find current updates on education, the wars, and those good-for-the-rest-of-our-lives Rouge Forum posters on sale at cost.

Substance News won a small victory after the paper of the education resistance was denied a press pass for the American Federation of Teachers convention coming up soon. After Rouge Forum members and Substance readers let the AFT leadership know that Substance is indeed a “legitimate” news source, the AFT leaders changed course. Here is one sentence from their recent response: “”By the way, could you please let your subscribers know that you will be covering the convention so that they’ll stop e-mailing and calling?”

Substance is carrying live online updates from the National Education Association Representative Assembly right now at
http://www.substancenews.net/ and will have even broader coverage of the AFT conference soon. A subscription to the hard copy of Substance is just $16, a good way to spend a small portion of the hush money Bush is sending to people in the US.

Here is a short, 4 minute piece from George Carlin on Who Owns Education, and US?

Bill Moyers’ Journal on Post Civil War Slavery (Moyers and his guest seem to have forgotten that W.E.B. Dubois broke the ground on this)

Ten years ago, Osama bin Laden demanded that oil should be priced at $144 a barrel. Now it is. Where is Osama? For those who want to follow events in Central Asia, see the bourgeoisie nationalist Ahmed Rashid, “Descent into Chaos.” While his standpoint makes him as unable to see a way out as Bush, his presentation is detailed and worth the candle.

An overview of world military spending is here.

My own checking suggests that the US military is the most excessive user of oil and gas in the world, using about 160 million gallons of gas a month, and that sets aside oil used for other military purposes: tires, plastics in weaponry, etc. While the subprime crisis, a result of the mastery of the US economy by finance capital, surely is related to the acceleration of oil costs, as speculators shifted away from the US dollar, the massive US military increase in using oil products has to be considered—in the context that oil moves the military of every nation in the world and no nation is prepared to convert to anything else. Oil and empire are intertwined. Thus, oil and war.

Nations that promise perpetual war on the world will make peculiar demands on their schools.

Rouge Forum updates will be sporadic through the summer. Next, among other highlights, a review of the Obamagogue/McWarcriminal dogfight and the nature of capitalist democracy—and education.

For those in Southern California, we will host a Rouge Forum potluck in early August, heading back to school.

All the best,