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Big Bosses’ Nationwide Assault on Schools… Aim – More Racism, Bigger Lies
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- 26 May 2011 290 hits
Every time workers turn around, it seems we face a new attack from school bosses who claim to promote students’ interests. Closing schools, firing teachers, imposing more high-stakes exams, making graduation more difficult--all these are fed to us as part of a recipe to “improve” education. Even budget cuts that savagely reduce resources are put forward as opportunities to help our young people!
Republicans and Democrats across the country, from Obama down to local boards of education, are united in a coordinated effort to cut budgets. NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s attitude typifies the billionaire mindset that guides policy in the US: “ In fact, it’s healthy to go and say let’s cut a little bit and force the principals and the teachers and the administrators to say, ‘Is this program worth it?’ “
Bloomberg’s dismissive tone is disgusting enough on its own. Coupled with the fact that he’s speaking of a city where over 85% of the students are black or Latino, the racism he exhibits is criminal and at the same time infuriatingly typical. And this was the bosses’ attitude before the recent economic crisis hit. Since then, expanding imperialist war and evaporating paper wealth has driven the U.S. ruling class into a frenzy of budget cuts. Forty-four states out of fifty anticipate budget shortfalls for 2012, totaling $112 billion (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2011). Meanwhile, roughly a trillion dollars has been spent on Mid-East wars since 9/11.
These cuts are about more than money. They are about fear and control. When teachers see their job security eroding, they are more easily whipped into line to peddle and defend the bosses’ lies. This fear can intimidate students, parents, and teachers from fighting back against the school system’s racist neglect and miseducation.
Working class unity is vital to our defense. One key to bosses’ “education reform” strategy is the shutting down of “failing schools” so that they can open new or reorganized ones: old wine in new bottles. This amounts to a cover for firing teachers and shuffling kids around so nobody takes responsibility for them. Workers and youth must shut down these failing school systems with mass walkouts and strikes. With the leadership of PLP, these struggles could become schools for communism by turning defensive fight-backs against capitalism into an offensive class war for the future that our children deserve — communism.
Let’s look at why the bosses’ schools can never provide what the working class needs.
Public education, like all institutions under capitalism, is set up for most students to fail. Those who can afford private schooling get small classes, one-to-one tutoring, and excellent facilities. The public schools provide such amenities only for the few students that they are funneling to help perpetuate the ruling class.
The system will not devote resources to students who will graduate into an economy that has no jobs for them. Capitalism’s inability to provide jobs for all workers means that most working-class students sit in over-crowded classrooms with out-of-date textbooks and few if any science labs. These schools have two purposes: to develop workers for the massive low-wage sector of the 21st-century economy, and to produce the foot soldiers for the bosses’ 21st-century wars.
Good teachers find these working conditions revolting. Some quit in frustration; others are driven out by administrators who defend the status quo. And many who remain come to accept and reinforce the message that a certain percentage of their students just won’t “make it.”
It’s no wonder, then, that cynical politicians exploit this crisis and mobilize mass anger against “overpaid” teachers. Even so, there are effective, pro-student teachers in every school. These teachers must choose between allying with the anti-student ideology of the teachers unions and their Democratic Party bosses or uniting with students and parents to struggle against the system that sets them up to fail.
Within the world of education reform, even bourgeois theorists admit that measures like “data-driven planning” or “differentiated instruction” will fail if students’ individual needs are not consistently addressed. It’s common sense that racism and poverty, the by-products of capitalism, increase children’s needs at school. But as capitalist institutions, schools will never be able to fully address these needs for all students, despite the best efforts of dedicated teachers. Any child can learn, but capitalism is not designed to teach every child. Under these conditions,an angry child is showing signs of consciousness, not a “behavioral problem.”
When students don’t succeed in their schools, they need communist leadership to learn to blame the system. They need to reject the ideology of capitalist culture: that if you don’t succeed, it is because you weren’t smart enough or didn’t work hard enough.
Schools form the foundation for the structure of capital’s domination over our lives. Teachers can choose to side with students and parents and resist this domination. As war and economic crises intensify, the bosses’ attacks on the schools will also intensify, making learning and teaching harder. PLP has a long history of organizing struggles small and large against racism in the school system and building a base for communist revolution. Join us.J
Other Big Lies That The Bosses’ Schools Help Defend and Promote:
The 20-year, intensifying U.S. war in the Mid-East is about stopping terrorism or spreading democracy--about anything except control of oil.
“Shared sacrifice” will fix the economy.
Women are slowly but surely moving toward equality with men.
Past communist revolutions have led to the greatest catastrophes in human history.
Racism has been defeated and is a thing of the past.
My introduction to PLP was through a professor at my college. She is the faculty advisor of a student club called “Pizza and Politics”. One time, during a heated discussion, I adamantly proclaimed, “Capitalism doesn’t exist anymore, capitalism was over when slavery was abolished.” I was enlightened when they cleared up my misconception. Later, the same professor introduced me to PLP’s ideas. I considered capitalism to be slavery. When I learned about the inner workings of capitalism I realized that it is very similar to slavery — wage slavery. More importantly, like slavery, I knew that capitalism is a system that has to go. Becoming a member of PLP enables me to join the fight against capitalism. We must end this cruel system and replace it with a better alternative: communism.
Secondly, when I began reading PLP’s literature, my outlook on politics changed. I saw that the two-party electoral system and everything it entailed was a sham. When I became well versed in PLP’s ideas, I began to discern vague rhetoric from substantial dialogue. “Globalization” translated into imperialism. “Education reform” meant “budget cuts,” and “law enforcement” meant “the fascist state”. It was like learning a second language, which guides my thought process now.
Finally, communism is a system I can wholly defend. The only other system I tried to defend in the past was Christianity, because I was indoctrinated to the bone! I grew up in a Caribbean home where religion was fed to me for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As I grew older and started to read about “Christianity and Colonization,” I realized that my ancestors were enslaved in the name of Christianity. It was not important for me to defend Christianity anymore. Communism is something I see as imperfect but logical and progressive. PLP’s political line is indeed what the workers of the world need to smash a system that cannot provide real solutions for unemployment, urban violence, poverty, and lack of healthcare, etc.
The more I have become involved with PLP by planning events, leafleting, organizing class struggle, and simply raising awareness about communist ideas, the more I feel empowered to know that I am involved in a very important struggle. Having PLP responsibilities helped my practical work to fight for a workers’ society instead of simply looking at communism in an abstract, philosophical way.
I urge you to join us in the fight for communism, for all of the above reasons. Be assured that you would be making one of the best decisions of your life!
New Comrade
Construction and landscaping bosses have sunk to a new low in hiring day laborers in New Jersey. Four or five times a year immigrant workers will put in weeks or even months on a job without receiving any money whatsoever! If they call their boss, they’re told: “If you complain, you will get deported.”
Near one muster zone, a non-profit organization provides families with information, referrals, parenting classes and general advocacy. Many concerned people have met there — including two organizations, a church and several attorneys — to be ready to do whatever it takes to get the workers their pay.
We had a phone conference, divided up the names of various bosses, and called them individually. In reaching out, we found that some folks were willing to go beyond phone calls and pay these bosses a visit— even to go in front of their houses and churches with picket signs.
This capitalist system allows freedom, but only for the bosses. They hire and fire at will, and pay below minimum wages (or at all), and contract under unsafe conditions for both “documented” and “undocumented” workers. They threatened to take one boss who owed over $2700 to court!
Because of our phone calls, the three workers received over half the money due to them. One worker came to our meeting the next week. He was promptly invited to May Day and given CHALLENGE so that he and his friends could know there is an alternative to the international wage slavery system. Meantime, we don’t intend to give up our fight!J
Jersey Red
Spain — Hundreds of thousands of young people have taken to the streets protesting the effects of capitalism, almost half of whom are unemployed. Capitalism is causing the crisis in Spain. The socialist government did what every capitalist/socialist government does: betray the working class and make the rich richer. Socialism has never and will never be able to meet the needs of the working class or lead to Communism. It was the socialist government that carried out the austerity program. The International Monetary Fund (the world’s ruling class’ main mouthpiece) demanded these massive budget cuts that attack the working class. The Socialists are planning yet another attack in August.
The protests are coming within the context of antagonism to Spain’s elections and are directly influenced by the “Arab Spring.” This is the moniker that the bourgeois press has dubbed the uprisings and protests that have engulfed North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Asia. In sharp contrast to Yemen and Syria, when the Spanish government declared the protests illegal, and the working class stayed out in defiance of the law, Spain’s ruling class did not use violence on the protestors.
The Western European ruling class needs to preserve the illusion of democracy and free speech for now. These protests do not threaten the ruling class’ hold on the working class, but they are inspiring to the world’s working class. Workers from Spain that immigrated to other countries organized workers in those countries to protest at the local Spanish embassies.
The protests are saturated with reformist politics, demanding democracy, and are organizing assemblies that are attempting to create a place where politics can be worked out and the protests can be organized. Instead of condemning capitalism, the root cause of the problems affecting the working class in Spain and around the world, the list of demands are all based upon the illusion that the problems are caused by a mismanagement of government and some greedy bankers. These protests can move to the right or the left, as the working class is angry and lacking mass communist leadership.
It is inspiring to watch young people parallel the events at Tahir Square and sleep in various city squares in protest of the effects of capitalism. But, these protests alone will not threaten the root cause of the cancer infecting the world, causing unemployment, and threatening to bring even more attacks. PLP in Spain is doing what it can to bring our ideas to these protests and build a fighting Party that will advance past the reformist politics promulgating the working class.
Progressive Labor Party maintains that the primary contradiction in the world today is inter-imperialist rivalry, forecasting a period of increasing conflict among the world’s imperialist powers.
This analysis has been corroborated by a surprising source, Radio Canada’s scientific news program, “Les Années Lumière.” On April 24, University of Quebec professor Yves Bélanger revealed that Canada has changed from a defensive to an offensive military policy.
The key evidence is the government’s decision to replace its F-18 fighters with ultra-modern Lockheed Martin F-35s, at a cost of $16 billion. The decision remains top secret.
“It’s quite difficult to establish Canadian [military] policy,” Bélanger said. “We observe at present…a tendency to buy materiel that is conceived for combat,..not…for the defense of Canadian soil, and also conceived to be deployed.”
“I presume that the Canadian government’s intention is, ultimately, to give itself the capacity to intervene…in international missions…possibly… contributing to world stability.”
But dialectics teaches that the world is constantly changing. In the present context, “contributing to world stability” is a euphemism for preventing change. In particular, it means preventing rising imperialists like China from threatening capitalism’s established world order, or preventing occupied countries from resisting NATO forces.
“In the near future,” Bélanger continued, “Canada is going to buy close-combat….armored vehicles that are midway between the armored personnel carriers that Canada presently has, and tanks. These are vehicles…able to penetrate cities and to conduct combat in cities…likely to be equipped with cannons…to obtain a higher level of precision, [and] accuracy in terms of firing...”
“The result,” Bélanger said, “is that Canada will…[have] a capacity which better corresponds to the kind of combat configuration…in a city like Kabul or Kandahar.”
He also said, “It requires big transport planes, and the Canadian government has just purchased [Boeing] C-17s, which…should make it possible to participate in rapid deployment operations.”
So, Bélanger said all this shows “that the government’s intention is to permit Canada, today, to stand out…in intervention missions...”
To make all this clear, Bélanger added that, in “the case of re-establishing peace, you intervene, and you impose, by force, a settlement of the conflict.”
Obviously, whether the bosses “maintain peace” or “re-establish peace, that “peace” is always synonymous with the exploitation of the working class. Nevertheless, there is now clearly a qualitative difference in the military role Canada intends to play in the future.
So why has the Canadian government decided to change its military orientation? No belligerent dictator has seized power, nor has there been any internal change that explains this development. The answer must lie in the evolution of the world imperialist system. Canada’s ruling class does not want to be left out in the coming re-division of the world.
The Radio Canada program also indicated that Canadian “democracy” bars any citizen input on military policy. Interviewer Janick Tremblay said, “We just tried to find out more about the…F-18s, and it was not possible to get an interview. So…it is improbable to speak about strategic orientation, especially in an electoral period.” [Canada had a general election on May 2.]
“This is a very sensitive subject,” Tremblay said, “including in academic circles, where one finds many research chairs financed by the federal government, specialists who are usually available, but who refused to be interviewed.”
