California/US movement to defend education

international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Tuesday March 02, 2010 23:32 by john throne - labors militant voice loughfinn at aol dot com

Strikes and actions in over 100 US locations and 28 states to fight for education.

Capitalism has looted California. the state is banrupt. they are attacking education to try and balance the budget. Read the heroic story of the students and workers fight back.

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010

March 4th. Getting close. Already building to a great success.

The struggle in California is building towards the state wide day of strikes and action on March 4th. It is already a tremendous success. Between 100 and 200 locations throughout the state will have strikes or days of action of one kind or another. A state wide movement and network has been built. And not only that. But actions in solidarity are taking place from New York City, to Boston, to Detroit. The possibility of a country wide movement in the medium term now exists. Already we have a great success. Congratulations to the young people who took the lead and built this movement. They refused to take the advise of the union leaders and the capitalist politi cians who told them that nothing could be done and they have been vindicated. Thank you.

We need to use our imaginations. What is happening in California alone is that in 100 to 200 locations there is organizing being done and organizing bodies taking action. And more than that, many many of these have come into existence for the first time around this struggle. So thousands of young people and workers have moved into struggle and begun to work together collectively for the first time. What a great step forward! We must register this advance in our consciousness. We have a new movement which is bringing tens of thousands of new people into collective struggle.

This means that tens of thousands of young people and workers are no longer isolated, instead they are linking together collectively and are becoming aware that they have the ability to organize and take action, that they do not have to be passive in the face of events. This is the first step of a new movement. It also means that as this movement has built, those in it have come into contact with new ideas, not only the general idea that the attacks on education are part of the attacks of capitalism in general, but also the ideas of how best to fight these attacks, how best to fight this capitalist offensive. This is also an important step forward. Political consciousness has been increased for tens of thousands.

But it is more than that. There has been a struggle within the movement. There will always be a struggle within any living movement. This is how a movement develops and learns. This struggle has taken place along some general fault lines. The union leadership and their supporters do not believe the battle to defeat the capitalist offensive can be won. They believe there is no alternative to capitalism, they have personal perks and privileges from capitalism, they are politically tied to the capitalist Democratic Party so they see the new movement from this point of view. They do not believe it can win. Because of this they want to confine the March 4th movement to tame rallies after work, afterwards make the movement dissolve, and then smooze with their Democratic Party friends and then at best shave a tiny margin of the degree of cuts and claim this as a victory. This is a disgrace. It has to be rejected and condemned.

This point of view, this political position is what we see coming from the trade union leaders in the developing . It threatens the movement from the right. This is very damaging. The trade unions contain millions of members in California. The leaders of the trade unions should have taken their stand unequivocally with the March 4th strike and day of action committees. They should have come out clearly for a strike on March 4th. They should have put their full resources to convince their members to strike on March 4th and take actions in the streets and communities. The mood is such that the state could have been closed down with a massive general strike and thousands of actions on that day. The capitalists offensive would have been dealt a major blow and thrown back. The capitalists would have had to reconsider. Instead the trade union leaders have refused to mobilize their forces in this way and instead tried to undermine the work of the March 4th strike and day of act ion committees and prevent strikes on March 4th. Once again the trade union leaders prevent the working class movement from taking action that could throw back the capitalist offensive and open up an offensive of its own.

Unfortunately there are some left groups who are going along with the union leaders. These are a combination of groups. Some want to get their members into full time positions in the unions by going along with the union leaders. Some which themselves, as the union leaders do, do not believe this movement can win and so think the best can be done is have some actions on March 4th and not commit themselves to building for a strike on that day and not commit themselves to fight for overall victory. Some of these groups also see the movement just as a place to recruit a member or two to their ranks and put this ahead of the interests of the movement and the working class. This is left sectarianism and to the degree it has an influence it is very damaging. These groupings do not want to fight the union leaders so when the chips are down they tend to support the union leaders and oppose the most combative forces in the movement. They end up part of the reactionary wing of the movement and their approach has to be condemned.

The largest numbers of the most combative forces are in the March 4th strike committees. These committees were proposed originally by those of us who were clear that the union leaders would try and channel the movement into their structures and squeeze the life out of it. We saw the March 4th committees as independent of the union bureaucracy, that they would lead the fight, and in doing so would draw together in united action the student movement, the workers in the schools and colleges, the rank and file and the combative forces in the unions as a whole, the parents and the community organizations. After an initial battle these March 4th committees drove off the efforts by the union bureaucracy and their supporters to undermine and dissolve them. Not only that but they have become stronger and are growing and spreading. This is a great success a great victory against major forces in the trade union leadership.

These March 4th committees are the basic foundations for the most healthy and combative forces and they are leading the movement forward. The March 4th committees should be built all over the state and strengthened where they already exist and drawn together in a state wide network. This is already being planned with two regional conferences, one in the Bay Area and one in the LA area later in the month and one state wide one in early April. The movement is strengthening and unifying itself. What a great example the youth are giving.

The big issue facing the movement now is on what program should it go forward. It is not excluded that March 4th can see many tens of thousands of youth and workers on strike and on the streets. This will give the capitalists, their stooge in the governorship, the regents and their stooges in the Democratic Party and Republican Party room for pause. But it will not stop them. What is needed is an even bigger and more combative movement and from this a program which will show a way out for the crisis of the state's finances which does not do this at the expense of the working class.

First on the program. California has been looted by capitalism for decades. Most recently capitalism has succeed in getting propositions which have make it almost impossible to tax the rich and it has prevented oil and gas from being taxed at the point of production. California is the only oil producing state which does not have such a tax. One of the ways it does these things is that it has the undemocratic law which demands a two thirds majority to pass any law which increases taxes. This is utterly undemocratic. It is used by the capitalists to loot the state and is one of the things that has led to the present budget crisis. This should be put front and center of the struggle after March 4th.

The movement should explain that it recognizes the state's finances have to be dealt with. But that it also recognizes that they are in the crisis they are in because the rich have been looting the state. And they have been doing this partly by the undemocratic two thirds law and partly because they have a monopoly of politics through their two capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans. And on top of that they have their mass media and their state apparatus, the cops and the army.

At present there is a movement in California to enact the California Democracy Act. This act proposes to get rid of the two thirds law. The movement to defend education, the March 4th movement should support this. But not only support it but approach it and seek to bring the two movements into struggle together. Then we could have a movement on the program already agreed upon and being fought for by the March 4th committees and this linked to the call to oppose the undemocratic two thirds movement which has been used by the capitalists to loot the state. This would draw a whole new layer of forces together with the March 4th movement widen its appeal and strengthen it.

But the March 4th movement should not just take up the call for an end to the two thirds law in its approach to the California Democracy Act movement. It should seek to discuss with this movement the need for it to take up clear economic demands that it would wish to have enacted when it would get the undemocratic two thirds law repealed. It weakens the call to repeal the undemocratic two thirds law if this is not linked to how by doing so this would help the working class and middle class people, that is the majority, of the state.

The March 4th committees should discuss with the California Democracy Act people the recent developments in Oregon. An initiative was put on the ballot in that state which called for an increase in taxes on the corporations, an increase in taxes for those earning over $250,000 per year and a decrease in the taxation on the unemployed benefits of 270,000 people. The unions, especially the teachers unions mobilized their members and campaigned door to door and this initiative was passed. The March 4th movement should propose joint action, a united front with the California Democracy Act movement along similar lines.

The March 4th movement should propose a specific set of unity demands. It should keep its own program which it has developed and continue to fight for this. But also it should suggest to the California Democracy Act Movement that there should be agreement on a set of demands similar to Oregon. Perhaps an overall slogan of Save Our State. Flowing from this demands which identify the forces who have looted the state's finances and demand that they pay to solve the crisis. This means a main demand: Make the Rich Pay. But make this precise. Increase the taxes on the corporations and increase the taxes on those earning over a certain yearly income. Perhaps $250,000 a year as in Oregon is correct or perhaps as California is more expensive those over $300,00 per year. Then bring in a tax on oil and gas where it comes out of the ground. This is the way to deal with the state's taxes. Link these demands to the demand to end the undemocratic two thirds majority and the March 4th m ovement can develop a united front with the California Democracy Act movement and a movement of millions can be built.

And this is what we are talking about. A movement of millions. The trade union leaders do not think the capitalist offensive can be defeated and so seek to make a few gestures and give in. But there are also left forces in the movement who do not have a perspective for victory. They think some big demos on march 4th and in the months ahead will suffice. Of course these will be good. But the forces around this blog, the forces around Facts for Working People, the forces around Labor's Militant Voice are not in this for posturing like the union leaders, nor to organize small events and be part of glorious defeats like some left groups do. We are in this to win. To defeat the attacks on education in California and to defeat the attempt to solves the state's crisis on the backs of working people. We are laying out here a strategy to do this. And this involves a program and a strategy which will bring millions, yes millions of people actively into the movement.

Build after the March 4th events for the two state wide conferences in the end of March and from there to the April conference.

Make clear to the movement that we are in this struggle to win, and this means we are aiming to mobilize millions upon millions of Californians, with supporters country wide and internationally to defeat the capitalist attacks and to win.

Simultaneously discuss and clarify our program and strategy to take the movement forward from there.

Propose a program for a united front or coalition to the California Democracy Act movement and the Union movement based on getting rid of the undemocratic two thirds law and for increasing the taxes on corporations, on those earning over $300,000, enacting taxes on oil and gas where it comes out of the ground.

In this way we can build a united front, a coalition which can bring millions into action against the capitalist offensive. This will be the most progressive and important development in working class consciousness in the history of California. This movement must not think small. it must have as its objective victory and it must see that it can attain this but that to do so it must bring millions of people into action and this means millions who have never been involved before.

This perspectives should be the basis on which day to day tactics are based. Recently there has been some events in Berkeley which raised debate in the movement. These involved some street rioting. Some of those involved and some observers said they had a right to do what they wished and some justified their actions. We need to be clear. Such actions make it more difficult to get the millions we need to take action. When families are deciding to get involved and see riots and fighting on the streets they will be less likely to do so. The state will try and provoke such violence and riots to drive people away from our movement. Sections of the movement should not do the work of the state for it. Such actions as rioting in the streets at this time in the movement is entirely counterproductive. It is much more positive to work to convince a neighborhood, a factory, a union local, a high school to come out on March 4th.

In relation to the argument that people have the right to do what they like. Well if they are part of a collective movement which March 4th is then they are part of a democratic decision making process. It is their duty to respect the democratic process and not act unilaterally and say they can do whatever they wish. If we all did this there could never be a movement.

Please consider the ideas in this post. If you think they are positive please contact us and let us work together. And check our blog, see address below for more information.

Sean

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