LBCC full-time teacher's union President DeWayne Sheaffer said, "The purpose of the rally is to let people know that public education in California has taken enough cuts."The union has sent e-mails to LBCC faculty as well. The action is billed as a push to "Stop the CUTS," and outside agitators from CSU will be on hand, not to mention AFT and LBUSD activists. A roundup of local actions is here.
The "Stand for Schools" page is here:
The CTA action is part of the larger radical "Occupy California" mobilization, which I've covered previously. See, "'Mobilizing Conference' for Public Schools Revives '60s-Era Campus Radicalism."
CTA activists have announced solidarity with the anarcho-communist "Occupy California" cadres. See, Duane Campbell at Choosing Democracy Blog, "CTA Joins Statewide Protests on March 4." The screencap shows students with faces covered and armed raised in the militant closed-fist salute to international solidarity. See also, George Ciccariello-Maher, "Occupy Everything! Behind the Privatization of the UC, a Riot Squad of Police."
Campbell links to Californians for Democracy, an allied organization chaired by Berkeley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff. Julian DelGaudio, a Marxist Professor of History in LBCC's History Department, is listed there as well.
Some of the promotional materials sound all sweet and wonderful. Educate for the Future, for example, argues that radical mobilization is necessary for a "Truly Sustainable Democracy."
But take a look at "Reoccupy," and the discussion of property rights there, at "Occupation at Hibernia Bank, San Francisco":
And here's the statement on the March 4th mobilization from "Occupy Boston":We will no longer take this lying down. We will no longer wait for a political solution to homelessness and affordable housing that the ruling class will never deliver. We seek not reforms, but a new reality. If we need real housing, we must take it ourselves. If we need real education, we must create it ourselves. If we need a new society and economy we must build it ourselves. We reject the disenfranchisement of our society and recognize that we must take the power back – we must begin by creating realities from our dreams. We must take back the power and the control of our lives, no longer will it be left to the international corporations, local business interests, and governments to decide how our lives will run from their cozy boardrooms and country clubs.
The actions of students in California have so far been contained in the Universities but it cannot remain that way; the conditions in the schools are inseparably tied to the conditions in our communities, across the state and across the world. The privatization of schools and social services parallels the privatization of our society. Our current social reality tells us it is unacceptable to demand more money and resources for schools as that money must come through the decimation of other social services. We recognize it is futile to demand action from a removed, alien body. We will become that action we want and we will build and create those resources we need. We seek new spaces and unheard of relations. We will begin to create our own realities and our own services. We must find real freedom in thought and action, not this manufactured lie that is spit out to us in every living moment. We seek the creation of new forms of life, built upon common understanding and solidarity instead of competition and alienation.
We seek to overcome the false separation of the student struggle that keeps us from realizing our common reality with all sectors of society. We are all denied a creative life by the global powers, denied the possibility for the exploration and elaboration of new forms of being besides this exploitation and oppression they force us to endure. We now join comrades across the state who have already begun this struggle – the people who fight against the criminalization of life. Our path to liberation is bound with theirs, we all share an absent future and the possibility for a new life. If they take our means of survival, rights to housing, education, welfare, union jobs, and other public services, we will take their banks. It remains for the people of this state to seize what is rightfully theirs.Occupy Everything!
In order to break the illusion of this future that is laid out before us we must to take matters into our own hands. To break the illusion, we must take what we need. No more asking politely. We are to take and appropriate. We are to occupy and live.Given all of this, I am requesting a formal statement from CCA President DeWayne Sheaffer. Where does CCA stand? Demonstrably, the March 4th union action is the spearhead of a national revolutionary movement. Top leaders in the state labor movement are speaking "truth to power" through their calls for hardline mobilization. And clearly, these radical militants don't want "more funding" for schools. They want power and expropriation.
March 4th is not just a National Day of Action to Defend Education. It is also the National Day of Action to Stop Police Brutality. It is also the National Day of Action Against Capitalism. It is also the National Day of Action to Fight for Our Lives: To Fight for Our Futures.
We are with you California and New York and everyone else (you know who you are).
Occupy Everything for Everyone
See you March 4th
But the state crisis is an opportunity for people of goodness and truth. Will local union members join their campus vanguards in fomenting revolution? Do the rank-and-file really endorse this union alliance with America's domestic enemies. Or will teachers of gentle heart and warm spirit repudiate their leadership, who are literally working to topple the state?
These are the issues being raised this week.
We'll see how events play out on Thursday. Check back here for full coverage.
RELATED: Sol Stern, "How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools."
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