There is a war on......

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

Sometimes it seems like education workers forget that what 
encapsulates all of our every day work is the system of capital and 
its birthplace in imperialism, which necessarily means perpetual war, 
though the Bush open promise for nothing but that is quite striking. 
It is the only thing he is not lying about.

The US elites CANNOT leave Iraq, and cannot afford to lose, neither 
in the Middle East oil regions nor in the Caucuses oil fields. The US 
cannot allow imperial rivals like China, Japan, Russia, or Europe to 
inveigle their way into that region, cannot afford to abandon the 
social and geographical importance of that region. The US bosses 
cannot openly display a military that is so incompetent, so cowardly, 
that it becomes obvious to rivals that the US really is what Ho Chi 
Minh used to call a "paper tiger."

The US ruling class CANNOT become energy independent. And it cannot 
halt its thirst for oil as every military in the world runs on oil, 
and the militaries are absolutely necessary to maintain the profits 
won from imperial adventures.

There is now a direct pipeline from the oil fields to war, and 
importantly, from schools to war, where education workers are 
expected to provide soldiers and civilians so witless that they are 
willing to go fight and die for what are really the enemies of their 
real enemies.

That the regimentation of the curricula and racist, anti working 
class high stakes tests are so frequently taken up apart from this 
overarching process of war and profiteering, especially in these 
times of emerging fascism, is troubling, but perhaps not surprising. 
The fog that is the media today may have a lot to do with that, and 
school workers remain relatively privileged in the working class, 
and, importantly, all the leaders of all the significant reform 
groups, like the unions, are corrupt to the core.

So, here are two pieces, one from Chalmers Johnson, whose work on the 
books Blowback and Sorrows of Empire, has been remarkably presicient, 
and one from me, taking up the question of what to do.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16260.htm

http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=6831

The demonstrations this weekend were heartening in many ways, 
especially here in San Diego where what little antiwar action there 
was seemed to be slipping away. Nobody, however, is going to save us 
but us. No politician, no movement hero, nobody but our own actions 
on the job and off is going to halt the rush toward expanded war, 
bankruptcy, and fascism.

Up the rebels.

best, r