Red

ROUGE FORUM UPDATES

For the last couple of months, the Rouge Forum Updates have been arriving to me in the form of link to a blog run by Rich Gibson. Thus, if you want to check out further Rouge Forum Updates whilst here, please go to: http://www.richgibson.com/blog/

I have also put a permanent link to Rouge Forum Updates in the Blogroll here at ‘All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski’. Just scroll down to see this.

Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Encircled

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 28^th AUGUST 2009

 

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends

This will be the last update until after Labor Day. This one should hold up for readers until then.

Action Oriented Links:

Please note and try to attend the Freedom in Education Meeting in Fresno this weekend:
http://www.susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=399

Call for Papers, the Rouge Forum News Number 15: http://therougeforum.blogspot.com/

The Rouge Forum Immortalized at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_Forum

Deadline For Nominations to the Rouge Forum Steering Committee is September 1.

We recognize with sadness: the doors at Room 101, an incisive radio program on KZUM hosted by Michael Baker, are closed. Mr Baker’s long run on the radio included interviews with key radical and progressive voices in education from Noam Chomsky to Wayne Ross and liberals as well. Congratulations to Michael Baker on a great run. Two, three, many Room 101s!

There are, at the beginning of the school year, 4,516 on our email list. Wish it was more? Send it along. Invite a friend.

Endless War:

Obamagogue Spins War News With the Best of Them: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64348

Holy Cow! The Afghans are Not Helping: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/world/asia/23marines.html?_r=1&hp

Double Holy Cow! The CIA Threatens and Beats People! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/us/politics/25detain.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

“General Pickett, send more men.” “But, General Lee, I have no more men.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/world/asia/24military.html?hp

Warlord Dostum Joins Karzai: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/73809.html?storylink=omni_popular

Council on Foreign Relations: Afghanistan is NOT a War of Necessity: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/21haass.html?_r=1

and Oh Yes it Is, It’s The Pipelines, Stupid: http://prorev.com/2009/08/why-is-afghanistan-so-important.html

William Calley: Sorry About That: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/21/us/AP-US-My-Lai-Massacre.html?scp=1&sq=calley&st=cse

Mercs Outnumber US Troops in Afghanistan: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/22-0

Aghanistan’s Rigged Election: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57E0D620090823

Brother Can You Spare A Dime?

Unemployment Uber Alles: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNaqecavD9ek
html?_r=1&hp

California Unemployment Hits Post WW2 High: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-caljobs22-2009aug22,0,6343107.story

Detroit Unemployment at 28.9% http://www.freep.com/article/20090827/NEWS01/90827037/1320/Detroit-jobless-rate-a-record-28.9 -

Nope, But if You Are A Banker, Here is $12.9 Trillion, No Strings, No Kidding. It is Yours. Woo hoo.

Video–Where is that Tarp? What Tarp? What Me Worry? “I have to tell you honestly, I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the Inspector General, is keeping track of [the unaccounted for trillions].”
http://www.examiner.com/x-6495-US-Intelligence-Examiner~y2009m5d22-Federal-Reserve-Inspector-General-hedges-on-trillions-missing-in-Congressional-hearing

The Stim is Definitely Working? Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/25/christina-romer-stimulus-consumption-peter-rupert-opinions-columnists-thomas-f-cooley.html?feed=rss_opinions

The Education Agenda is a War Agenda:

Ohanian on Duncan’s Merit Pay Schemes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/obamas-awful-education-pl_b_266412.html

The Education Stimulus is a Merity Pay Stimulus:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/education/17educ.

Ravitch on Obama’s Awful Education Plan:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/obamas-awful-education-pl_b_266412.html

The State As an Executive Committee and Armed Weapon of the (Corrupt) Rich:

Holy Double Dog Cow: Hillbillary’s and Obamagogues Pals are Crooks: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/nyregion/26fraud.html?hp

Notorious Friends of Hillbillary: http://prorev.com/hillaryfriends.htm

John Pilger on Brand Obama: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=56998&s2=16

Yes, We Told Them So: The Demoagogue

It is probably not all that helpful to announce that we told you so, but….Yup, we told many people so.
        The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded inequality and the emergence of world war met by the potential of a mass, class-conscious resistance.
        These are not “public” schools we see. They are capitalist schools in a society where capitalism trumped whatever vestiges of democracy existed a decade ago. They are segregated schools. That’s not merely the result of bad people doing bad things, exploiting others (though they surely are bad people) but also the consequence of a social system dependant on exploitation—meaning inequality.
        The education agenda is a war agenda. It is a capitalism in crisis agenda, a Regimented National Curriculum agenda, mostly to promote nationalism.
        Such a curriculum necessarily sets up anti-working class and racist high-stakes tests. Both teacher unions, the NEA and AFT, helped design both the national curriculum and the high-takes exams. They are in no position to stop the next step. The professional organization, from NCTE to AHA to NCSS and all in between, proved more than impotent, they too collaborated.
        Those tests necessarily and logically lead to merit pay which already exists in the deep divide in, say, Detroit and suburb pay and benefits.
         Militarization of schooling is part of the war agenda.
        To some degree, privatization and charters are part of the war agenda. Privatization serves some sectors of elites, and others not. Why fully abandon a huge, tax supported, funnel for war, ignorance, and inequality; missions for capitalism and their unwitting, ever so nice, missionaries.
        Restoring hope is part of the agenda, but it is false hope. The future is war, inequality, unemployment, horrible options for youth and it will not change without a mass social movement for equality.
        All of these interconnected attacks on life and reason have already happened, all over the western world.
        Merely opposing any one of these factors, like merit pay, but not the rest just reinforces the entire project. As we see, NEA now dishonestly speaks out about merit pay, but NEA backed the regimented curricula and high stakes exams, sharply attacked people like Susan Ohanian who spoke against them, and dumped the students who suffered most from them.
        Too late for NEA which is merely trying to keep the rubes sending dues money, but there is now nothing much NEA can do. Only direct action strikes, boycotts, etc., can halt the drive to the factors described above.
        NEA has done nothing at all to prepare for that, and is not likely to do so. The union leaders are completely corrupt and their structures don’t unite people. They divide people: city from suburb, students from teachers, teachers from other public workers and private employees—as easily seen in the California Teachers Association’s effort to pass off a tax on poor and working people just months ago, a project that cost dues-payers millions of dollars and failed miserably, convincing the public, again, that educators want to pick their pockets.
        What would be helpful is to wonder about the analytical and critical mistake that led to all that support for Obama, a demagogue.
Several things led to that.
        1. A misunderstanding of capitalist democracy which is now sheer capitalism and little democracy. There was no significant difference between the Bush/Obama/McCain or even Clinton policies. Obama has betrayed, if we take his consistency as a betrayal, nearly all of his liberal supporters who, for what have to be psychological reasons, still support his personification of the reign of capital which has, among other things, failed in every important arena of human life.
        2. A misunderstanding of the gravity of the current situation vis a vis the war of empires. The US is in rapid decline in relationship to Russia China and even Europe and Japan—economically and militarily, and the US has lost any ability to promote itself as a moral nation, internally and externally. This puts extraordinary pressure on elites who need soldiers, Boeing workers, prison guards, and teachers too.
        3. A misreading of the real internal crisis inside the US; the rapid rise of segregation and inequality–which has not, yet, led to civil rebellions. But everything is in place to lay the ground for those uprisings, except a left which can make sense of why things are as they are, and what to do. Lost wars. Collapsed economies. Immoral leaders caught with dozens of hands in a thousand cookie jars, war without reason pulling 1.5 million people into direct action—and the wreckage of their lives. All that should, and more, should mean massive resistance. But that has not happened? Why not? No draft. No left. Spectacles. Divide and Rule. Carrot and stick. The education system.  The same ways tyrants always ruled.
        4. The continuing appeal of racism and nationalism.
        5. Acceptance of the division of labor inside academia which means, for example, historians talk to historians and write books while literacy people talk to literacy people and write books, and few academics seriously organize anything at all, as the state of the campuses (and open willingness of the overwhelming majority of faculty to abandon their academic freedom in favor of standards) now. This also means historians, as in AHA, don’t pay much attention to teaching while too many education personnel don’t know much history.
        6. A general public so mindless about history and social processes that it can rightly be called hysterical, potentially dangerous. Steeped in spectacles and consumerism for more than a decade, so vacant about their location in the world that Chalmers Johnson says they cannot connect cause and effect (as with the endless wars, but in regard to schooling as well). Fickle to the core, they howled for Bush, abandoned him when things went wrong, then another bunch howled for Obama, and now we see a new crowd howling about health care–all leaping for thousands of forms of selfishness that keeps the the war of all on all that is the system of capital alive and well.
        Not recognizing the historical moment, rejecting the real whole of the situation, capitalism in decay everywhere, shatters analytical and strategic capability, meaning many people cannot tell left from right, muddle along looking for someone else to save us when no one but the collective Us is going to save us.
        This, written months before the election and originally published in Workplace, online, is now floating around the net.
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/08/229885.php Those who are not angry and screeding a bit these days may not be witnessing the ravages of war, hunger, unemployment, and unreason itself.
        Yup. We told them so. Big deal. Those who have not made a big mistake in life can be absolved. We are all lambs among wolves. But we do not have to be lambs among wolves if we recognize, and act on, the role of class consciousness.

Good luck to us, every one.

Congratulations to Sharon, Amber and the gang at a wonderful new school. Thanks to Adam, Wayne, Gina, (Good health to Bob), Donna, Erin, Taylor, Jody, That Great Family, Irene and Tom, Della, Emily W, Sherry, Marc, Mary and Paul, Joe L, The Susans (always), Lucita, Marisol, Vincente, Arturo, Allen, Greg, Carrie, Harv, Norm, Frank, Teeyah, Glenn R, Dave (happy wedding), and Candace.

RICH GIBSON

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Red Once More

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE AUGUST 16 2009

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends

Remember the closing date for nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee is September 1. Email nominations to RF Community Coordinator Adam Renner at: arenner@bellarmine.edu

Our No Blood For Oil, complete with those good-for-the-rest-of-your-life No Blood For Oil and Pyramid of the Capitalist System posters is updated at: http://www.rougeforim.org and the latest Rouge Forum News is now on our blog at

The core issue of our time is the relationship of rising color-coded social and economic inequality challenged by the potential of mass class-conscious resistance.

On The Perpetual War Front:
        

* Afghan US Commander: The Taliban is Winning: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124986154654218153.html
“Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come.”

* McClatchey: More and More Mercs to Af-Pak: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/73407.html
        

* Dave Phillips Gazette on War Criminals Here and There: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqBZLTUPKcM
http://www.gazette.com/articles/iframe-59065-eastridge-audio.html
        

* How do they get that way? “Kill the pig, Cut her throat, Spill her blood. … “
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/08/1n8train002856-doomed-pigs-used-teach-first-aid/?northcounty&zIndex=146179

On The Social and Economic Collapse Front:
   

* Posner: It is a Depression and it is Not Over: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/08/its_not_a_reces.html
   

* In Michigan, Jail Means Jobs:

On The Education Agenda is a War Agenda and the Education Stim is a Merit Pay Stim Front:

* WSJ on the “Race to the Top, Who’ll Blink First?” The Stimulus Package is a Merit Pay Package, and a War Package
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574308442726348678.html
        

* Both the liberal NY Times and the slightly less liberal LA Times have editorialized repeatedly for merit pay. The demagoguge, Obama, who has betrayed every promise made to his sometimes hysterical believers, set up this equation: Education Stimulus=Merit Pay=More Reliance on Anti-working class high-stakes exams=deeper segregation=gutting educator pay=uneducated kids=war+bad jobs.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez9-2009aug09,0,6840948.column
        

* Stimulus Summary County By County: http://projects.propublica.org/tables/stimulus-spending-progress
This is not a crisis, not a crisis, not a crisis:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/09/us-us-afghanistan-080909/?politics&zIndex=146654
        

* McClatchey: Nobody Knows Where the Tarp Dough Goes: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/73212.html
        

* The Corporate State Behind Goldman Sachs:

On The Maybe Foucault Was on to Something After All Front (and don’t forget Debord):

* Surveillance Files: TSA is Watching You: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090810/BIZ/908100303/Airlines–travelers-prepare-for-more-stringent-ID-rules
        

* This is fascism: a liberal analysis: http://www.alternet.org/politics/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism/?page=entire
        

* Fascism and the Academy: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shame-of-Academe-and/47938/
        

* What is fascism? A radical analysis and another tied to schooling:http://www.richgibson.com/fascism.html
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/article/view/47
        

* Town Hall Spectacles Everywhere on all Sides:

On the Coming Soon–the End of Detroit Front:
        

* Michigan’s Democratic Governor appointed Bob Bobb a Broad Foundation employee active earlier in Oakland and D.C. to run the finances of the Detroit Public Schools, awash for decades in corruption and incompetence. Bobb interprets his mandate as, “everything.” He’s fighting with the inept but elected School Board over who holds power while the district collapses around all of them. Bobb is surrounded by small crooks at every level, true, but the bigger crook is Bobb, whose job is to restore some sense of order, get the books in line, and to fashion a black school system that will produce children fit and willing to fight in imperialist wars or accept bad jobs, no jobs, or jail. Still, Bobb has some ethical problems of his own. He awarded his former employer a near $1 million no-bid contract.

More on Detroit’s collapse soon. http://www.freep.com/article/20090811/NEWS01/90811035/Officials-knew-Bobb-would-hire-old-firm

On the Fight Don’t Starve Resistance Front:
        

* Pasadena Kids, “We ain’t got the do-re-mi” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEqir1Mh7Pk
        

* French Workers Actually Fight Layoffs: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-workers9-2009aug09,0,7784068.story
and resistance pays.
        

* Chino Goes Up:

Please Note This Important Education Resistance Meeting:
        

* Resist Taking the California Star Test. Freedom in Education Meeting. Fresno State. 11 to 6 on August 29th. Lunch and Dinner Provided. Contact Joe Lucido: 559-225-1888. Join Us!

Thanks to Susan, Adam, Gina, Amber, George and Sharon, Tina, Bob A, Tommie, Donna, Linda, Candace, Della, Teeyah, Victoria, Bill B and G, Sandy and Van, MrJ, Wayne, Perry, Steve, Marc, Curry, Melinda, Sherry, Elvira, Patsy, Ricky, Chuck, Joey, Johnny B, Kim, Kelly, Marisol, Enrnesto, Keenan, Reggy B and Ina Y, Denny, Bruce, Debbie, Alan, Jim, Arelia, Jim O, and Dr. Divine.

Good luck to us, every one.
Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

John Brown

THE ROUGE FORUM

 

UPDATE 6^th AUGUST 2009

US Becomes Coalition of One In Iraq 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html 
 
Senate May Drop Public Health Care Option: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56M0HE20090729 
 
And what has The One done for the rubes, saps, and hysterics who poured out for him? Expanded wars. Bombed Pakistan. Gave $12.9 trillion to the banks with no oversight. Abandoned public health care. Regimented education via a merit-pay stimulus. Gave about 1.4 million of them joblessness. 
 
Afghan War Spreads to Residential Areas: http://www.reuters.com/article/unitedNations/idUSTRE56U1MC20090731 
 
$78 Billion For War Crimes: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gi-bill4-2009aug04,0,6453699.story 
 
Detroit Public Schools Gutted, 1/3 of Staff Fired (including DFT leaders), 17 Schools go Private on Public Payroll: 
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090804/SCHOOLS/908040342/1026/Central-High-s-method-of-change-questioned 
 
December 2 this year will mark the 150th anniversary of the hanging of John Brown. From his last speech: “Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case), had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.” 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Meltdown

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 3 AUGUST 2009

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends 
 
The Rouge Forum News #14 is linked as a pdf at http://blogs.ubc.ca/ross/files/2009/08/rouge-forum-news-issue-14.pdf 
 
As this outstanding issue which includes important pieces from Staughton Lynd, Greg Queen, and many others will keep readers busy for a bit, we’ll limit this week’s update to one other thing, a lighter piece by Walter Trout, “They Call Us the Working Class.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTdiq61-VOQ 
 
Thanks to Joe Bishop, Adam Renner (editor of this RF News edition), Gina Stiens, Amber, Wayne, and all those who made the Rouge Forum Conference in Ypsilanti such a great success. We remain the only education based organization in the US that recognizes the need to organize, educate, and agitate in an atmosphere of an international war of the rich on the poor. Our ideas can play an important role in changing that reality. 
 
Good luck to us, every one. 
Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Real Financial Literacy

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 28 JULY 2009

Dear Friends

Health and work delayed the update of the Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page at: http://www.rougeforum.org. There you will find those good-for-the-rest-your-life nifty No Blood For Oil posters on sale and more.

Plus, you will get a chance to see The Great Parade at the End of the Rouge Forum Conference in Ypsilanti this year:
http://richgibson.com/rouge_forum/2009/Parade.mov

On the Education for Irrationalism Front:

In a death by a thousand cuts, some one or some place may have to be first. It could be Detroit where between 1/3 and 1/4 of the teaching staff was notified that they had three days to find a new job in the school system as they were “reconstituted” by test scores. This announcement came from Bob Bobb, appointed Czar of the school system by the Democratic governor. What did the Detroit Federation of Teachers do? Less than nothing. They called a building rep meeting (not a mass meeting, too risky) for tomorrow, Tuesday, and then threatened a small group of teachers who tried to take up a petition opposing the firings, saying the petition had nothing to do with the DFT. This may be the end of what was once the finest school system in the western world. The end of the schools would mean, literally, the end of Detroit.
 

DPS Vacates 2600 Jobs, Schools Reconstituted:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090722/SCHOOLS/907220369/DPS-vacates-2-600-jobs-at-41-schools

The Obamagogue’s Stimulus Money for Schools is Merit Pay: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers24-2009jul24,0,6767455.story

How Will the UC Survive? http://laprensa-sandiego.org/editorial-and-commentary/how-will-the-university-of-california-survive/

California Faculty Association’s Narrow Vote For Furlough/Concessions:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/24/us-california-university-cuts-072409/?dsq=13291864#comment-13291864

The American Federation of Teachers Sees Charters as a Cash Cow; NEA Next?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/education/27charter.html?hp

Calpers/Sters Lose $100 Billion: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calpers22-2009jul22,0,5416427.story

On the War They Are Not Going to Win (Long supply lines, difficult communications, no moral standing, huge country to invade–can anyone remember the US Revo?) Front:

Payoff For War Crimes:New Gi Bill: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090721/SCHOOLS/907210345/1409/METRO/A-surge-from-bunker-to-dorm–New-GI-Bill-takes-battle-out-of-higher-ed

Hedges: We are Losing the AFPAK Wars: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090720_war_without_purpose/

On The Hoo-boy There Goes the Economy Again Front:

Wall Street Jacks up Pay After Bailouts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203687.html

But US Manufacturing at 2/3 Capacity: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/72485.html

And, of course, people fight back, even if we have to look for them at a distance:

In France: More Bossnappings: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009517317_apeufranceworkerunrest.html

In China, Steel Workers, Angered by Inequality and Layoffs, Demonstrate and Kill a Boss:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE56P09620090726

Remember, nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee close August 15.

We note with sadness the death of Ken Macrorie, an honorable man, a great teacher and writer:
http://www.webfh.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=254464&fh_id=11112

Thanks to Susan H and O, Amber, Kelly, Sandra, Sally, Joan, Donna, Eric, Carol, Sherry, Peter M, Don A, Bill A, Terry Schaeffer, Ramona, Sharon, Ken, Echo, Beau, Daniella, Candace, Bob, and Della.

Good luck to us, every one.
Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Red

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 20 JULY 2009

 

A Message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends

The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil page is up and updated at: http://www.rougeforum.org .

Remember, nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee can be made to Community Coordinator Adam Renner by August 15 (arenner@bellarmine.edu)

On the Capitalist Education for War and Inequality Front:

Obama to Schools: Change Tenure Laws or Else: The Ed Stim is Merit Pay:
http://gothamschools.org/2009/07/09/obama-official-to-new-york-change-your-tenure-law-or-else/comment-page-1/#comment-154665

UC System Demands 9% Tuition Hike and 8% Pay Cut While Class Size Booms:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/15/bn15uc-budget-cuts/?california

CSU Boss Wants 20% Tuition Hike: http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2033136.html

Substance News carries the wrap up of the National Education Association Rep Assembly: http://www.substancenews.net

Linda Chavez, a top aide to the American Federation of Teachers’ Albert Shanker, testifies against Sotomayor:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603124.html

On “The Depression can only be a passing fancy” Front:

Paul Craig Roberts: “This should tell even the most dim witted patriot who “their” government represents.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162009.html

Rolling Stone on Goldman Sachs and the Great American Bubble Machine: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print #

Chart on the Waves of California Jobs Lost: http://www.sacbee.com/1232/rich_media/2022115.html

Reuters: Foreclosures Hit Record High: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56F0XK20090716

The International War of the Rich on the Poor Front:
The Bushamagogue Assassination Schemes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/the-democrats-selective-a_b_233708.html

Michael Klare’s Shocker: Iraq as the New Oil Pump
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175095

And the Resistance (bad example/good example) Front:

So Long EFCA: Union Bosses Can Deliver—nothing: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/17union.html

UK Public Worker Strikes Rise
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aw6B8IQyUQME

The many crises grow around us apace. Unemployment and foreclosures mean an eradicated tax base, meaning more demands for cuts on education and services, increased taxation of those who have a little,  more pr to crush hope in the sense that nothing can be done, more police activity to raise funds and tamp down resistance, and more spectacles. On the war front, more war—for oil, regional control, that is, profits, using the children of the poor to fight the children of the poor on behalf of the rich in their homelands.

What stops the madness? Understanding that the core issue of our time is the relationship of rising color-coded inequality to the potential of mass class-conscious resistance. That has been the project of the Rouge Forum, connection reason to power, for more than a decade. Please join us and help lead the fight-backs that will come.

Thanks to Bob, Al, Sean, Amber, Tony, Kino, Marisol, the Dean, Candace, Sally, Sheri, Barb and Ken (yes, that is right), Donna, Brian, Adam and Gina, Koli, Jesus, Ashwana, Bill, Joe, Dariah,  the Susans, and Ann.

Good luck to us, every one

Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 14 JULY 2009

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends

Below is a call for nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee from Community Coordinator Adam Renner–and below that more resources on the system of capital versus education, including analyses of the National Education Association Representative Assembly.

The Rouge Forum is a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice.
 
Needless to say, work toward these goals in the spirit of justice, demands organization.  The Rouge Forum is now more than 10 years old. Over the first decade of its existence, members have built an international network of around 4500 professors, teachers, students, artists, and other social service workers.  We have engaged in actions, put on conferences, written papers, and built the capacity of our community.  We have done these things with no attachment to any hierarchy or any official organizing strategies.  Wanting to keep the horizontal nature of such a network while also desiring to better coordinate our actions, the RF is currently accepting nominations for the 09-10 Steering Committee.
 
Members of the Steering Committee will be expected to actively promote the 2010 conference and attend where possible, help develop and actively participate in Regional RF Chapters, attend the Fall Steering Committee retreat, promote the RF at other conferences, seek out like-minded people and organizations to link the RF with, provide essays for the Rouge Forum News where possible, and build the capacity of our community by support of its members.Please send your nomination to Adam Renner at arenner@bellarmine.edu by August 15, 2009On the Education for Liberation Front:  

In particular this steering committee will be crucial toward the formation of Regional Chapters, mentioned in the list above.  We would like to see regular meetings of the regional chapters and work toward some type of coordinated action (e.g., a one day freedom school, a teach-in, a one-day retreat for teachers, an evening panel/speaker on a coordinated topic, a protest action, etc. as a lead up to the 2010 conference and as a preview of more focused, coordinated, and regular actions in the future). Perhaps in organizing more locally/regionally, we can spend more time face to face, as well as enacting nation/world – wide coordinated actions.

Two great, censored, photos of Arne Duncan, teaching: http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.html?id=601

Detroit Schools May File Bankruptcy, Could Void Contracts–Using the GM Model:
http://www.freep.com/article/20090709/NEWS01/90709050/Bankruptcy-considered-for-DPS
If a bankruptcy judge allows this unprecedented school bankruptcy, it could mean wages slashed in half, pensions and health benefits gutted. If it happens in Detroit, it sets the stage for many others.

Substance News on the Wrap-up of the National Education Association Conference:
http://www.substancenews.net/

Vote: Should 11,000 CSU Faculty (all of them signed a loyalty oath) take a 10% Pay Cut? The Union Bosses don’t know. “NOTE: The CFA Board did not take a position on how members should vote.” http://www.calfac.org/furloughvoteinfo.html

The State of US Unionism:

Union Hacks Slug it Out–Solidarity Forever: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/business/09labor.html?em
but nothing will stop them from uniting for a free lunch with The Obmagogue:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/union-leaders-to-meet-with-obama-next-week/?scp=1&sq=van%20roekel%20obama%20stern&st=cseThe International Scene:

Mediations, a left journal from South Africa, with many fascinating critiques:
http://www.mediationsjournal.org/

Parenti on Obama and the coup in Honduras which sparked a nation-wide school strike:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/08-3

Obamagogue (of  the AIG, Madoff, Enron,  Martha Stewart, etc, USA) lectures Africans on Corruption:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-africa12-2009jul12,0,7755225.storyStiglitz on Auditing the $3 Trillion Wars: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/auditing_the_iraq_war_and_its.html
Thanks to Amber, Brian, George and Sharon, Susan O and H, Joe, Mark, Jesus, Donna, Candace, Lance, Sheri, Ken, Barb, Matthew, Bill, Jane W and friends, Mike L and A, Perry, Kathryn, TC, Tony H, Hilda, Marisol, Brit, Della, and Bill.

Good luck to us, every one.

Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 6^th JULY 2009

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends 
 
The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil (with those good-for-the-rest of your life posters on sale!) is updated at: http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/ 
 
On the Madness and Boredom Front: 
Substance News is carrying reports from the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, running through Monday, here: http://www.substancenews.net/ 
 
On the Educational Miracles Front: 
Substance has exposed the Chicago Miracle, the reason Arne Duncan holds his position as Ed Boss, for years. However, here is another expose, from an unexpected source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/downloads/CPS.pdf 
 
On the What Do You Mean We Had Something to Do With that Coup and What Do We Know About the School of the Americas Front: http://www.soaw.org/ 
 
On the Everyone Can Make it in America Front, the Jobless Rate Hits a 26 Year High: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/02/us-unemployment-june-467000 
 
On the Someone is Actually Doing Something About all of This Front: The San Francisco Freedom School is open for summer: http://educationanddemocracy.org/SFFS/2009program.html 
 
Russian Students are Resisting: http://www.rferl.org/content/Russias_New_Standardized_Exams_Fail_The_Public_Test/1761799.html  
You can do something too. There is one organization in North America, rooted in education, that connects the wars, unemployment, de-industrialization, class struggle, and the crises in schools: The Rouge Forum. Next week we will circulate a call for nominees for this year’s Rouge Forum Steering Committee. We urge you to join us. Please spread the word. 
 
Thanks to all the courageous delegates at the NEA RA who spoke to me and gave me so much information. You’ll see it in print in the coming days. If you are still at the RA and we have not met, please email me asap, or we can talk when you get home. 
 
Thanks too to Amber, Wayne, Adam, Bob, Colleen, Tammy, Christina, Katie and Greg, Bill, Joe, Sally, Sue, Donna, Kathy Y and E, Gil, Tony, Jill, Eric, Marcie, Isabella, Victoria, Donnie, Tally, Shawndre, Teeyah, Pete, and Doug. 
 
Good luck to us, every one. 
Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

THE ROUGE FORUM UPDATE RESTORED TO LIFE

A message from Rich Gibson

Dear Friends

Following the Rouge Forum Conference at Eastern Michigan, health issues interrupted the updates. But we’re restored to life.

The conference was a terrific success with more than 150 people attending, folks of all ages. Thanks especially to Joe Bishop and the EMU gang for pulling together a great conference. Conference videos and papers are linked here: http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/2009/index.html

What follows is from RF Community Coordinator Adam Renner:

• “We are actively working on a site for the 2010 conference (sounds like we might be onto something with Faith Wilson at Aurora) and a location for the fall Steering Committee retreat (sounds like we might be onto something with Joe in Antioch)

• Two calls for papers are out for the RF News. Issue 14 will compile papers and keynotes from this year’s conference (and we are considering, perhaps, turning this in to an edited text). Issue 15 proposals are due August 15.

• We will be sending out a call for nominations for the 09-10 Steering Committee, requesting a paragraph as to why you would like to serve. We will vote on those nominations, subsequently. This call will follow the July 4 holiday.

• This steering committee will be crucial toward the formation of more intentional regional chapters. We would like to see regular meetings of the regional chapters and work toward some type of coordinated action (e.g., a one day freedom school, a teach-in, a one-day retreat for teachers, an evening panel/speaker on a coordinated topic, a protest action, etc. as a lead up to the 2010 conference and as a preview of more focused, coordinated, and regular actions in the future)

• We are working on an online program as an outlet for RF members to help shape/teach

• We are building toward a 15th anniversary conference in Vancouver, BC in 2013 (perhaps with a one day preview in 2011 as a pre-conference session to AERA which will be held there that year).”

I will be covering the National Education Association annual representative assembly here in San Diego beginning on July 2. If you are a delegate, or attending, please email me and let me know what’s up from your viewpoint.

Good luck to us, every one.

Rich Gibson

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

 The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski