On Feb 15, 2012, at 7:19 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Doug Henwood writes: "It's possible to have more than one goal. What about,
> you know, the kids?"
>
> One can think about all sorts of things at the same time. But it is
> profoundly and disastrously wrong, flat wrong, to assume this carries over
> to political action.
I can understand the use of simple slogans for agitational purposes. But really, just one thing at a time. You will get absolutely nowhere agitating around school issues by just defending teachers. If you can't make the (totally accurate) argument that the interests of teachers and kids coincide, or could coincide, then you should just stay home and watch reality TV.
> And of course the primary consideration in political
> action is the availability of forces. We have an embryonic left movement in
> the U.S., thanks to Wisconsin and the Occupations. In some local areas those
> Occupations are generating independent activity, often of great promise. But
> there is no way whatever that this movement (or these movements) at the
> present time or for some time in the future could have any impact whatever
> on the selection of teachers or on the criteria upon which that selection is
> based. This is entirely in the hands of our enemies. It would make more
> sense to focus on electing a socialist governor of Alabama. At least that
> would not shatter every principle of working-class solidarity.
There's a active and growing movement in NYC against Bloomberg's grotesque educational policies that's a spinoff of Occupy. Thank god the participants think they can do more than one thing at a time. It's even attracting a few teachers (on their own - the union is at best uninvolved).
Doug