Pre-School Initiative in California

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

> Perhaps to the surprise of some, I am going to vote for this thing.
>
> Some people will be surprised that I am voting at all. I rarely vote, 
> feeling that it sets a bad example and only encourages people to believe 
> that they can gain something from participating in a government which is, 
> clearly, just a weapon of the rich---hardly a neutral body settling 
> disputes with some fairness, but an executive committee of the rich, 
> settling their differences (as in the current struggle between old and new 
> money--Rockefellers vs the Bush's, with the Rockies gaining ground now).
>
> Participating in this government is, mainly, just creating our own 
> oppression---choosing which ways we want to be oppressed. Voting is a 
> physical act which unites people with those who they should be fighting.
>
> Moreover, voting is a clear admission of how alienated we are from 
> exerting control over our own lives. Nobody is going to take care of us 
> but us.
>
> In that landscape, (government) schooling is just capitalist schooling, 
> and teachers are, for the most part, just missionaries for capital.
>
> The church/school metaphor is remarkably apt, especially with the sexism 
> that still rules the upper levels of schooling, but also in regard to the 
> fear of knowledge spreading, the contempt for work, the fear of sexual 
> pleasure that is written into every curricula, and the abhorrence of 
> freedom that dominates education and teachers (school workers)  today.
>
> That much I think is largely true--with a very few exceptions. Most really 
> good teachers are in trouble most of the time.
>
> I note that there have been but no protests from those who want to support 
> or defend All "public" schooling, ie, not only the capitalist schools, but 
> also by logical extension the exploitative social relations that make most 
> capitalist schooling rotten, few protests against those who are voting NO 
> on the kiddie school referendum because it will lock little kids into bad 
> schooling , when the logic of that is to get All the kids out of the bad 
> schooling that dominates the terrain in all public schools, ie, segregated 
> schools that mostly perpetuate class rule, where the "professional" work 
> force is mainly moved by opportunism, racism, ignorance, and fear.
>
> So, if I think that voting is mostly an error, that (segregated) public 
> schooling is merely capitalist public schooling (with all the implications 
> of capitalism having shown its hand with a world at perpetual war, a 
> ruined environment, rising religious irrationalism and its natural 
> outcome---more racism---, segregation, and inequality, demolished hopes 
> for young people, etc) and if I agree that most kids trapped into 
> preschool school will not be very well served by their immediate 
> experience, why would I go vote at all, and , worse still, go vote in 
> favor of such a thing, when I have said so often in the past: Don't Vote, 
> Revolt.
>
> And, even worser and worser, I have argued that schools closed by civil 
> strife are better than open schooling conducting the usual abusive routine 
> of school life---especially if that strife is backed up by some kind of 
> freedom schooling (see Kathy Emery's www site for examples)
>
> Well, I am going to vote for the proposition because I don't think it is 
> useful to take what is largely a principle (opposition to the capitalist 
> state and its schools) related to most of reality, and to force it down 
> onto all of reality, when things are sometimes more complex. I am going to 
> vote for this thing because of some complexities.
>
> Here are a few:
>
> 1. "School is better than cow shit." That is a quote from an old book that 
> most people have forgotten, Letters to a Teacher from the School Boys of 
> Barbiana. In that passage, a youth describes life as a peasant, and makes 
> the comment quoted. For many kids, school is better than home, almost no 
> matter what. This is also true for many parents, in a variety of ways: 
> some parents should not be allowed near their kids, other parents really 
> need that day care that the school will provide (and I grant that this may 
> be just a massive publicly funded day care maneuver by many low wage 
> employers).
>
> 2. Staying away from school does not cause people to create the conditions 
> that change school or society. Staying away from school, avoiding the 
> unifying factors that draw people together because of their connections 
> with school, leaves things more as they are than changes things in the 
> sense that the conditions are created to organize people to make school 
> and social change.
>
> 3. It is possible that good people will get some jobs in the kiddie school 
> programs and actually do something worthwhile, even though the best of 
> them will probably in constant trouble, will be swimming upstream, and 
> given current conditions they will probably be driven out in a few years. 
> Even with that, the chance to construct reason and connect it to power in 
> those kiddie schools may exist.
>
>         I worry, of course, that school workers in these kiddie schools 
> may be just as easily be bought off (and dragged into the utterly 
> reactionary NEA) as the rest of their counterparts, but I point out that 
> the ability of US capital to buy people off is diminishing, fast (which 
> is why a draft is looming, and why grocery workers go on massive strikes, 
> why students are storming Navy vessels in Washington state, and why 
> Librarians are now heros fighting back against the FBI and the fascist 
> Patriot Act) and that the connections people fashion with the smallest of 
> the kids are sometimes more profound, and less easily corrupted, than 
> with older, say high school, kids.
>
> Such is my best guess. I think if this thing passes, it creates better 
> terrain for social change.
>
> Would I then work to shut down preschools,(all capitalist schools) on 
> strikes, boycotts, etc. >
>
> Yes, I surely would, but the process of that work would take place on a 
> new and more organized ground, one that would draw people even more 
> together, making us stronger, perhaps fashion greater solidarity.
>
> Do I think I might be wrong, and that those who are voting NO might turn 
> out to be right?
>
>  Yes.
>
>  best r