[lbo-talk] Fighting NCLB, etc.

[Carrol Cox]

The first line of defense (and unfortunately for the time being a very
weak one) are the teachers themselves and their unions. But the ultimate
defense must come from a new mass movement in defense of workiing
people. In fact, I would suggest the "conceptual source" of this attak
on the schools is to be found in th '70s: the weakening of the
grocery-chain unins, the wars in East Timor, the assassination of
Bishoop Romero, the presidential declaration that "the world isn't
fair," deregulation of the airlines, the breaking of PATCO, the
appointment of Volcker, and so forth -- the whole tangled story of the
neoliberal assault and the the u.s. becoming the semi-official
'policeman' maintainint through endless wars a global climate  'friendly
to business.'

See Max Boot's op-ed of a couple weeks ago declaring that decent health
care for its citizens was incompatible with the u.s. remaining a global
power. The Austerity DRive being launched by the Obama Administration,
which inlcudes  breaking the teacher unions, is a more flexible
equivalent to that.

Carrol