Tag Archives: Rouge Forum

Rouge Forum Update: Sky Falling and More!

[Illustration from Z Magazine]

Dear Friends,

The sky is falling. The good thing, and the bad thing, is we were right about that.

Below is a short synopsis of our current context and reasons why you should plan to be at the Rouge Forum Conference in Ypsilanti, Michigan, May 15 to 17. Bring friends and submit a proposal.

The core issues remain inequality on the one hand and organized resistance on the other hand.

Inequality booms world-wide. In the US productivity went up on a near 90 degree vertical line. But wages remained stagnant, creating classic forms of overproduction (in sum, workers unable to buy products their class produces). Simultaneously, finance capital came to dominate and almost split away from productive capital, allowing the working class to maintain a standard of living by offering endless debt and falsely inflated home values. This is the video, Capitalism Hits the Fan.

Finance companies began to buy on margin inside a massive Ponzi scheme of mortgage securities. Fraud leaped in: Maddoff. Finance capital, became a barrier to itself, as Marx wrote years ago, and now we have real stagnation, banks awash in capital they will not loan, huge companies unable to sell goods, and workers losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands; a downward spiral that appears to have no bottom. GM just announced another 47,000 layoffs; demanded–with Chrysler–a total of about $39 billion from US taxpayers.

The aged millionaire Lady Astor complained bitterly about how finance capital operated. She commented on her 100th birthday, “Everyone became obsessed with money in the 1990’s and went higgledy-piggledy scampering after their fortunes,” she said. “People with money used to often care about the people who had no money. Not always, but often. Now, it is rare to find people with money who care at all about people with no money” (New York Times, March 30, 2002).

We witness the corporate state coming into being, the merger of government, business, and the military. Nearly $3 trillion will go to the banks, another $1-2 trillion to the military soon.

This is, as Foster and Magdoff make clear in their recent Monthly Review book, the Great Financial Crisis, a predicament that cannot be solved for working people within the system of capital. If reforms are to be won, they can only be won by linking immediate reform to profound social change. Every reform will be unsustainable.

Containing populations suffering from inequality will become the prime project of ruling classes everywhere, in schools and out. We have seen massive demonstrations and strikes in Europe already, often initiated by students and teachers.

The large existing organizations that claim to defend working people and students, like the unions, are absolutely unprepared and unfit to meet this crisis. The UAW agreed to the 47,000 layoffs (having already lost a million members) and more concessions still–when concessions never save jobs, other than bosses’ jobs.

In schools, we can foresee a sharpened effort to eliminate freedom, to sharpen the regimentation of curricula, to impose more sophisticated testing, and more militarization as well (perpetual war is real).

Here is AFT’s President Randy Weingarten demanding more national education standards which will invariably tied to high-stakes exams and married to the Obama project of privatized charters.

Criticism of the anti- war coalition United For Peace and Justice continues to flash around the net. Here is one of the latest if not the most troubling, attacking UFPJ’s leadership for abandoning the fight to prosecute war crimes:

Here are two pieces from Rouge Forum members regarding UFPJ:

http://www.richgibson.com/wheremovement.htm
http://www.richgibson.com/icing.htm

The latest Obama Bailout remains mostly a mystery, a secret. But here is a the simple rough outline that we have seen so far, though it makes little sense as a jobs or people stimulus.

And the quick upshot: White recession, black depression.

It is no stretch to see that we are watching the emergence of fascism, which has never solved the problems it claims to solve. Here is Chris Hedges on Inverted Totalitarianism.

Only the Rouge Forum in the US has, in organized fashion, taken up these issues for a decade and translated research into action. We also forged a culture of friendship and mutual respect, among many differing viewpoints, that many people see as the highlight of the conference. Join us!

And for a moment’s relief—Calvin and Hobbes got it a long time ago.

Thanks to Faith, Wayne, Amber, Wendy, Victoria, Tommie, Bob, Gina, Adam, Candace, Sharon Ag…., Della, Kathy Young, Bill, Greg, Emily, Don A., Jim B, Dave S, Gil G, Peter M, Vanessa, Molly, Dave S, SL, Bonnie Macintosh, Nancy S, Steve R and Ricky C, Kelly, Beau, and the Old Mole.

All the best and good luck to us, every one.
R

The Obamagoge and Capital vs The People

The Obamagoge and Capital vs The People
By Rich Gibson

19 million US homes stand vacant today. 600,000 people lost jobs in December, 2 million in all of 2008. The layoff rate only accelerates. Soon, public services will founder and homes will be re-valued, taxes unpaid. Every bit of this is coded with the sharpest end of many sticks aimed at those who were born with the least–but encompassing everyone who must work to live. It’s a whirlwind that is not going to end soon. In schools, we will see more and more kids homeless or moved by foreclosures, more hungry, sleepy kids, more incoherent delinquency, made reasonable only by a grasp of social circumstances.

The One who I named The Obamagogue seeks to use Keynesian measures to solve the waterfall of economic collapse and lost wars. Keynes was an elitist and an active racist who despised working people, who thought only the most favored should rule, but he sought to save capitalism. The myth is that he did.

He didn’t. Henry Morganthau, Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury recognized that in the late thirties when he wrote that all that Keynesian spending had done little or nothing.

What ended the Great Depression was WW 2. Capitalism loves outright destruction. Thrives on that kind of chaos, and as an utterly fickle system, goes off and lets who ever wins at a given moment ride it.

What The Obamgogue’s spending will do is to bring out the lowest forms of opportunism in every sector of society which will, in effect, be saying, “what about ME!” That is why we see, right now, the AFL-CIO backing the most reactionary of the bailout measures, US protectionism.
It is also why we see the California Teachers Association leadership demanding a 1% sales tax hike, the most regressive of all taxes which will hit poor people hard, abandoning school workers’ most valuable allies, parents of children who need those educators the most.

So far, depending on which source one likes, maybe a trillion dollars has been doled out or will be doled out to the banksters by their procurers, the politicians.

That number will double, and another one or two trillion will go to the wars, which the US is going to lose (Afghans drove 300,000 Soviet troops out of their country, with help from the US—are we to think the Russians and Chinese don’t remember?).
There is, as Chalmers Johnson (author of Nemesis) insists, a relationship between imperialist expenditures and the economic collapse, something that few economists are willing to recognize, just as few Obamagogueites in education are not willing to admit that schools and capitalism exist in a relationship.

Arne Duncan is no mistake. He will intensify the three pronged project of most schooling: more curricula regimentation to regulate what is taught and how it is taught, to use high stakes tests to sort kids, and to deepen the militarization of schools. Where privatization is serviceable, Duncan will back privatization. Where he can get the working class to pay, through their taxes, for the mis-education of our children, he will do that. Arne Duncan leads, not public schools, but capitalist schools. Those who did not foresee this before The Obamagogue came to power should see it now, and say so.

Those who now claim The Obamagogue “betrayed them,” after a year of supporting his demagogic campaign and contributing to what only can be called national hysteria, should own up to the fact that their entire method of analysis was wrong, that they betrayed hundreds, maybe thousands of people themselves, and issue a self criticism about exactly why they got things completely wrong.

Is it not odd that nobody in power suggests that the way to halt foreclosures and keep the economy afloat is to just direct-pay people’s mortgages for a time certain, if they can prove they cannot pay?

But that is not how capitalist democracy, which is not democracy but an executive committee of the rich ruling behind populist rhetoric, bearing the same connection to democracy that the Pope does to, “do unto others,” works. Such a mortgage program would send up howls about “personal responsibility,” “welfare queens,” “socialism,” that were not sent up when the banksters began the robbery that continues today behind capital’s new sword and shield: The Obamagogue.

In education, a similar ploy might work. If we are to measure kids’ worth by test scores, and thus the wealth and health of the nation, why not just give the kids the test on the first day of school and simply work on it the rest of the year until everyone passes? But that would be cheating, eh?

But, beyond tongue in cheek measures, what is needed is a mass movement of resistance, rank and filers throwing off the bogus mis-leaders who steer struggle away from direct action, real resistors promoting test boycotts and freedom schools, and driving the Empire’s recruiters from campuses; in communities moving families right back into homes they are evicted from, at work places—no concessions, none, not one step back, in fact we want MORE and we will fight to get it, seizing plants, schools and properties; in the military, simply standing down, walking away from the wars for oil and profits; in sum, against the system of capital itself as it has obviously failed miserably everywhere in the world.

If we do not fight back, we will only see sharpened depression and war. Indeed the depth of that will be determined by the amount of resistance. Besides, the only way to be a truly whole person today, to be more than a loyal servant of Empire, is to protest and to join with like-minded people who, organized, can form a movement to win.

The Rouge Forum Conference is May 14 to 17 in Ypsilanti Michigan, Eastern Michigan U. You are welcome to submit a proposal or just come and join us.

http://www.rougeforumconference.com

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

February 12th is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. Sounds like a good day to remind people about evolution, dialectics, and leaps of change! Have a party! Happy Happy Merry Merry–Charles!

A reminder: set aside May 14th to 17th for the Rouge Forum Conference at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, just minutes from the Detroit Airport. Here is the conference information and call for proposals: http://www.rougeforumconference.org

United Teachers of LA called for a test boycott, perhaps the first large school worker union to do so.

Though the boycott is limited to what many RF activists feel is second-tier testing, the idea could well spread. Messages of support can go to the UTLA leadership at here.

In France, a general strike was kicked off by teachers and students, proving once again our long held thesis that school workers and students are well positioned to initiate, if not fully carry through, action for social justice.

From the EdNotes blog, a video the United Federation of Teachers (NYC) would prefer that we not see (scroll down a bit).

Colleague Chalmers Johson, author of the Nemisis trilogy, weighs in with “The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon.”

We all noticed that Exxon recorded the highest profits ever and military contractors expect no layoffs whatsoever. War, in many instances, means work.

Bill Zucker sets up a shout, “I want some Tarp!”

Those who wonder what their NEA union leaders and staff are paid can check EIA, a right-libertarian site, here (there are instructions on how to check on the LMR 2). Note that NEA past president Reg Weaver took home $554,524 and he probably was able to live on his expense account.

The Rouge Forum blog is up and running; you are welcome to chime in!

Thanks to Eric, Kev, Wayne, Bob, Amber, Tom, Perry, Angie, Stella, O, Donnie A, Jim B, Peter M, Hannah, Beau, Dave, Tommie, Sandy, and Sherry.

All the best, r

Rouge Forum 2008 – Conference update & more

Dear Friends,

An up front reminder on the Rouge Forum Conference, May 14 to 17, in Ypsilanti Michigan. Proposals due very soon.
http://www.rougeforumconference.org

Centered in the key organizing point of North American life, the Rouge Forum represents the only voice of the left, recognizing that at the core of our many crises, economic collapse to perpetual war and all in between, lies the system of capital. This conference represents a gathering of people who have learned that friendship can arch over political differences. Come join us!

From Monthly Review, here is one of the better economic analyses of why things are as they are in the growing depression.

This is the conclusion: “In this sense we are clearly at a global turning point, where the world will perhaps finally be ready to take the step, as Keynes also envisioned, of repudiating an alienated moral code of “fair is foul and foul is fair” used to justify the greed and exploitation necessary for the accumulation of capital turning it inside-out to create a more rational social order. 49 To do this, though, it is necessary for the population to seize control of their political economy, replacing the present system of capitalism with something amounting to a real political and economic democracy; what the present rulers of the world fear and decry most as “socialism.” 50”

What is missing from the analysis is the dual role of war. It was war that ended the last depression, not Keynesian hyper-spending, and it is also imperialist war that lies, in part, at the base of the current deepening collapse.

And from YouTube, here is Noam Chomsky on the election, capitalist democracy (those who spend most, win, among other things) and what is next (part one of three).

The take on election results from the Daily Show

Michael Klare hoping for the unlikely event; that Obama will abolish the Carter Doctrine on Mideast Oil.

Reminder of the March on the Pentagon on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, March 21, Washington DC.

Short update this week, but plenty of reading.

Thanks to Amber, Tom, Bob, Adam and Gina, Karl, Dave, Glenn, Candy, Sharon A, Lucy, Michael, Dell, Mary, Chris, Ruthann, Paul, Zoey, Carl G, Sandy, Van, and Tina.

best
r

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year!

An up front reminder: The Rouge Forum Conference is May 14 to 17, 2009, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, near Detroit. The call for proposals is here: http://web.mac.com/wayne.ross/Rouge_Forum_Conference_2009/Welcome.html

The deadline is February 15 for proposals. Why come?

What’s our current context? A stock market collapse. Massive racist unemployment nearly redoubling each month. Hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and evictions. Police terror (the Oakland murder the most recent example) and immigration raids. Calls for more taxes and cuts in public services met by bankster bailouts in the trillions. Declared US wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq; undeclared wars in Gaza via Israeli proxies, Colombia, and cold wars growing with Russia and China–much of that revolving around oil. In schools all over the world: regimentation of the curricula to promote nationalism, high-stakes exams eradicating freedom, and militarization.

How can this be described as other than class war, an international war of the rich on the poor?

Now comes Obama promising Hope! and Change!

Probably not. His appointees alone say otherwise, all of them beholden to nearly the same oil bosses, war-makers, and financiers who propelled Clinton and Bush. Arne Duncan, education czar, promises privatized charter schools and merit pay—more of the same, faster.

The last 40 years demonstrate the primary role of capitalist democracy, which Obama personifies: An executive committee of the rich where they iron out differences, then allow us to choose which of them will oppress us best–and their armed weapon. Currently, the main result of Obama’s demagoguery is to resurrect forms of nationalism that were becoming exposed by the Bush regimes’ harsh tactics. Now we get the velvet glove over the iron fist, Obamagogue.

Only the Rouge Forum, which includes many voices, has had room for this kind of analysis in the US. We’ve combined this reasoned critique with action: test boycotts, strikes, and backing for resisters. Our publications circulate world-wide. In addition, we created a community of thinking people who can join together in friendly debate, overcoming isolation.

Hope and change rest not in seeking some politician to save us, but through building a mass class conscious base of people willing to fight back, to sacrifice to rearrange the social relations that allow the few to rule the many through ruses like nationalism, racism, sexism, and religious irrationality. Absent that goal, all struggle is mere tactics, lurching from opposing one unrelated form of oppression to the next, never getting to the root of things.

The union executives are no help. Already they prepare to offer concessions (concessions don’t save jobs, they only make employers want more), and to attack other sectors of workers not paying them dues (the California Teachers Association supports a regressive sales tax hike to pay for schooling) and to consolidate their power (NEA President Dennis Van Roekel seeks, again, to merge NEA with the AFL-CIO, SEIU’s Andy Stern moving to take control of the AFL and Change to Win, etc). The very structures of unions divide people by job, race, industry. NEA and AFT spent millions of dollars and thousands of volunteer hours to elect Obama who demonstrated open contempt for educators throughout his campaign. With school workers the most unionized people in the US, the unions are unprepared to resist the attacks on every facet of education ahead.

That’s why it’s important to come to the Rouge Forum Conference and offer your own leadership to a movement for Equality and Freedom in schools and out. The them of the conference, Education, Empire, Economy and Ethics at the Crossroads, offers a wide field for discussion and presentations.

You can add your own voice, right now, to the Rouge Forum blog established by Community Coordinator Adam Renner at
http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com/

The Rouge Forum News deadline is February 15. Send articles, cartoons, art, etc., to Adam Renner (arenner@bellarmine.edu)

Thanks to Katy and Greg, Kerry, Mary, Paul, Gina and Adam, Amber, Wayne, Tommie, Donavan, Sally, Lisa, Sharon A. David, Marty, Gil G, Perry, Marc, Kevin, Shelly, Chris, Candace, Lacy, Anne, Donna, Alan S, Sherry, Tally A, Kim, Sue, Laura C, Lynn S, Stephanie, Colleen, Kelly, and Sarah.

All the best in the New Year,

Down the banks and
Up the Rebels!