Mike Klonsky, a longtime political activist in Chicago, warns that the rise of Trumpism in the US and Europe signals a dangerous white nationalism that threatens the fabric of civil society.
The rise and seizure of political and military power by a narrowly-based clique of white supremacists and neo-fascists, in the U.S. and much of Europe, combined with an inadequate response on the part of liberal democrats, is plunging the world closer to a global conflagration than it’s been since World War 2 and Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. The Trumpists are too weak and their base too narrow to rule primarily through diplomacy and negotiation. Their strong suit is their control of military (including nuclear capacity) and police powers (including an apparent willingness to use torture)….
Then there’s the Trump’s war on the press; trade war with China; Betsy DeVos’s war on public schools; Trump’s war on science; Trump/Pudzer’s declared war on labor unions; Trump/Perry/Tillerson’s war on the environment; Sessions’ war on civil rights; and so it goes….
As for teachers and educators, we have a significant role to play in resisting the Trumpists drive towards war and in defense of civil society. War is the enemy of education, families, children, women, and democracy. Resistance to Betsy DeVos war on public education will be a key part of the opposition movement. Defense of public space and of public decision-making, teaching students to think critically and to become shapers of their own future, are some of the essential pieces of the resistance movement based in the schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“War is the enemy of education, families, children, women, and democracy.”
And US foreign policy of invading and/or bombing countries is that war and both Dims and Rethugs, and the Lame Stream Media cheerlead us on to more death and destruction. USA #1, yee hah!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry for starters.
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Duane,
You are right about WAR being the enemy of education, families, children, women, and democracy. Thanks.
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The political establishement of this country seems to be preoccupied with WAR. War this, war that, war, war, war. Terrible. It’s easy to destroy. It’s harder to build.
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“It’s easy to destroy. It’s harder to build.”
Quite correct, Yvonne.
Unfortunately the USA seems to have figured out how to make a killing (double entendre intended) off of building weapons.
And the population of this country continues to bemoan “too many celebrity deaths”. Self blinded idiots. Ay ay ay ay ay.
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While we’re on the subject of making a killing on weapons manufacture and sales, it would behoove citizens to look into their own investments — be they personal or pension — and see exactly from where/what their dividends are paid.
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Let me save you the trouble. Our retirement funds are invested in mutual funds that include Walmart, Microsoft, Netflix, and all the other monopolies whose CEOs and founders use the money to fund the war on public education. There are funds that avoid investing in alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. There are funds that avoid investment in Big Oil. But every fund I’ve seen is an investor in Gates, Walton, Broad… products. We are all paying for the war on ourselves.
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LeftCoastTeacher
BINGO
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Unfortunately, war is “good business” for many. In addition to our troops, there are many private contractors hoping we get entangled in another conflict. Who can forget Cheney’s relationship with Halliburton?
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I posted a quick link to Mike’s actual blog. Great essay Mike.
Thanks for posting it Diane.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-specter-of-war-on-civi-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Civil-Society_Civilization_Decision-making_Future-161230-717.html
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I am reading a fascinating book “The Worth of War”, by Benjamin Ginsburg. In the book, he describes the benefits: medicine, technological, political, sociological,etc. which are the result of war. The ambulance was developed in the War between the States, the helicopter medical transport, during the VietNam war, etc.
It is a fascinating read.
“God tends to favor the side with the most artillery” – Napoleon
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Duane,
You got me. War is bad, and Trump didn’t start the fire.
I blame this all on Billy Joel!
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It’s all Putin’s and the Ruskies’ fault.
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Is this from K-Tel Records?
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Trump the ignorant bigoted narcissist does not bother me.
Trump the willing tool of his fellow right wing Oligarchs is terrifying.
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Both Trumps bother me
He is Putin’s president, not mine
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One is a mental illness the other creates policy.
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Joel,
There’s an axiom in DC: personnel is policy.
Can we trust the CEO of ExxonMobil–who never worked anywhere else in his 41-year career–to act in the interest of the US or of his corporation?
Can we trust Tom Price–who opposes government healthcare–to safeguard the public trust as head of HHS?
Can we trust Ben Carson to lead HUD, about which he is clueless?
Can we trust a climate change denier to protect the environment?
Can we trust Betsy DeVos to improve our public schools?
Trust Trust? I don’t think so.
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So where are we disagreeing.
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We are not disagreeing.
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“I’m the most militaristic person.”
-Donald Trump
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Chicken hawk
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I don’t like the thrust of so much writing coming out on our side re. Trump’s assention. There is this underlying assumption that we are off the historical grid and that we are fumbling in the dark for a response. Klonsky gets it, I think, but should be more forthright. Here’s what I mean:
A) Trump represents the assention of fascism in our society. No question about it.
B) This was predictable and legible for the past decade (I would argue 2 decades), as the drift of the right went continually unchecked by the right. In fact, the left, in many ways, enabled the rise of fascism by 1) not calling it out by name, and 2) affirming and consenting to an economic program (neo-liberalism) that is a superhighway for right wing thinking and desemenation. 3) the abandonment of labor.
C) There is a known, effective, and time tested antidote to fascism and its pathology: a left based and footed by a strong, creative, broad labor movement. The New Deal economic and social agenda was labor-based and was, make no mistake, the true counter to the rise of global fascism…..and it won. It was the defacto economic, social, and political environment for most of the world through the 1970s, and remains so in most western societies, aside from the US.
I just find the discussions on our side about this missing the above points. This was predictable: so I find it tiring to hear all of the “this was a shock to our society” talk. BS. It was predictable and quite readable. This is not without precedent. In fact, the 1930s give us a very clear picture of how this works. And finally, there is an answer and response. Labor. This fight will not be won by hippy-dippy, “teachers and citizens have to model democracy” and whatnot. This will not be answered via individual acts of lefty-ness. Just like our side in the education wars won’t win that way. A massive expansion and investment in labor unions is the real beginning to any real response to the rise of Trump. The 30s teach us that….in fact the 1930s scream that out.
I believe there is reluctance on our side
to fully acknowledge and embrace that because 1) it’s a heavy lift. Labor is in hospice care right now, and it needs to be Rocky Balboa in very short order. It’s depressing and possibly not possible. 2) so many folks on the left still cling to this idea that a left can exist without labor. It can’t. So many of my contemporaries find actual working people, their language, mores, behaviors, and opinions reprehensible. I would argue that that gritty (real use of the term), honest, blunt, posture, including its proximity to violence on some level, is where the 30s left had its real power. Now, it would be great to make that less racist, sexist, etc…..but that is our work. Don’t forget, the New Deal, ever the teacher, addressed this as well. Re-educating and broad communication fought the tendency of working and poor folk to become racist, etc. New Deal lefties saw that as one of their tasks. Lefties today want their fellow travelers to show up already molded into their ideal. That is soooo wrong.
Anyway, I could go on.
(And before anyone gets all “you are too focused on the past” etc., noooo, I imagine a new new deal with the progress of the last 50 years on individual rights folded in. But that takes real work.)
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NYSTEACHER…thought provoking and well written as usual.
I like the fact you focus on history….and love the phrase “hippy dippy”….when was the last time I heard that?
I wonder how the changing nature of work in our economy fits into our take on this? (Globalization, robots. etc….etc….) I don’t have an answer, really….just curious….
Bookmarked this post. Lots of links in the Klonsky piece.
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John,
Thanks.
Agree. There is a big elephant in the room here. The relationship between labor and the new economy/workplace of automation.
I would say this:
1) the idea that technology creates its own arc and trajectory is bullshit. It’s an equivalent to the “black hand of the market.” Technology doesn’t progress according to some organic path. It moves forward based on choices made by people. “Moore’s Law” is a specific derivative of this idea. Technology, like markets, advance through time based on choices…..certain paths are chosen, others ignored. People and their agendas and ideas are behind those choices.
2) Fundamentally, labor and unions’ role….philosophically…..even before organizing….is to influence and even “disrupt” (using the term properly here, not tech-people-like) the choices made by people “driving” the decisions of the market and technology. Today, technological choices are being made by capitalist-corporate-technocrats and there is no union balance at that table. So, we see what is essentially deeply anti-union and worker agendas informing technological choice.
I suggest folks read the work of the wonderful historian of technology Eric Schatzberg.
I think the modern workplace and its automation is evidence of unions that have lost their most fundamental purpose. To resist and oppose those myths of the “black hands” of the market and technology.
Automated shop floors are at once an expression of modernity but also of deeply human, agenda-ridden choices. I certainly am not arguing for hand built Toyotas, but rather for a fundamental back to basics rethinking of these things. When that happens seeing the role and importance of unions becomes even more obvious.
Now, am I hopeful about the future of labor? No.
However, we need to read and think very deeply on all of this stuff. Buying into myths aren’t helping us.
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NYSTEACHER
One does not have to have hand built Toyotas for the fruits of productivity to be shared more equitably . The object of a shorter work day and week was not to work less hours for less pay but rather to work less hours for the same pay .
So the question is who does technology belong to and how the fruits of technology are to be shared. Chomsky likes to point out that a vast portion of today’s technology is the direct result of Government spending on research and development for the defense industry . Or the NIH, …. …
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Joel,
I agree with you deeply and you articulated a big part of the point I was trying to make but was fumbling through.
Also trying to spread the word that the idea that is pretty baked-in to most people’s consciousness about technological determinism is BS and a myth. The bigger picture there, in Ed, is that the drift towards “technology in the classroom” is being bought hook, line, and sinker by many on our side precisely bc they but into the technological determinism mythology.
Thanks!
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Interesting piece on Moore’s Law, NYSTeacher.
You wrote, ‘”Technology doesn’t progress according to some organic path. It moves forward based on choices made by people.”
Actually, I’ve been thinking the past couple days about human choice in the 21st century…….the phrase that keeps running through my head is the “illusion of choice”. I’m not exactly sure what that phrase means, where I’m going with the thought. LOL. But I have to wonder if the astounding array of choices we are presented with on a day to day basis actually ends up limiting our freedom to choose. Like “school choice”…. What are people really choosing? In essence, might the illusion of school choice actually lead down the very same road (destroying, for example, democratically elected school boards.)
Humans program computers but at what point do we lose control of what those programs do?
For example, launch on warning computer systems that would respond to a perceived nuclear attack….such a system would take a fateful decision out of direct human hands, right?
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Jacques Ellul in his book “Technology” contends that technology is a force that moves forward regardless of human wishes.
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Historian of Technology Eric Schatzberg contends otherwise quite strongly in all of his work.
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If I may, the shock talk has much to do with the person of Trump, and all that entails, and with all of the pollsters and spin analysts and genuine journalists getting the predictions so wrong.
We in education have seen the corporatist agenda and its backlash playing out for quite a while.
Yes, something has to be on the horizon regarding jobs and families. Otherwise we all become a mass service class in an Orwellian world of some sort. Not Big Brother, for now; more like Crazy Great Uncle.
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NYSTEACHER
I am not going to disagree with anything you said .
The problem is getting there . Those of us who have been active in the labor movement know that there are internal structural problems within the labor movement that impede being effective, on the local level as well as a unified movement.
Changing this is possible but it is going to be a long haul. Some of these problems go back over a hundred years .
A much broader more radical movement which encompassed much of labor was responsible for forging or shall we say forcing the change of the 1930’s . A movement that was purged from labor in the 50’s .
Trumka sought a couple of years ago to turn the AFL CIO into a much broader umbrella group.Encompassing groups from the NAACP to the Sierra Club as voting members. The plan was rejected by certain member Unions. So concerned about giving up power at the same time as most were suffering defeats.
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Today union membership is under 12%. That is the main reason labor lacks the type of clout it once had. I agree with Joel that the problem is getting there. Unless there is a way to unionize the many low paid service workers, labor would have a hard time making the type of impact it needs to get management to acquiesce.
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NYS TEACHER: Right on. I have always thought that Reagan’s policies were a pusillanimous response to the spectre of globalism: initiate the untying of all the legislation that previous admins put in place to protect us from another Depression, so as to make us competitive w/rising 3rd-world nations; turn the spigots of $ & power upward so we can manipulate global finance & devil take the hindmost [middle & working classes]– sell it by whatever political meme works [‘trickle-down’].
The sad thing I never predicted in the ’80’s is that the Dem party would buy in via their own [‘Third Way’] version of neo-conservatism. Thus there was never a true national dicussion [such as is facilitated by a true 2-party system] — no innovative ideas fostered re: how to maintain a viable middle class– no debate where one side holds out for public good– no incentivization of innovative job creation to save the labor sector. It was all smoke & mirrors. I remember discussions w/my boss [in an engrg/ constr firm] re: the trumpeted ‘service economy’; we were wondering what the hell you can ‘service’ in the absence of a nat’l mfg base…
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1. NYSTEACHER December 30, 2016 at 11:58 am
I don’t like the thrust of so much writing coming out on our side re. Trump’s assention. There is this underlying assumption that we are off the historical grid and that we are fumbling in the dark for a response. Klonsky gets it, I think, but should be more forthright. Here’s what I mean:
A) Trump represents the assention of fascism in our society. No question about it.
B) This was predictable and legible for the past decade (I would argue 2 decades), as the drift of the right went continually unchecked by the right. In fact, the left, in many ways, enabled the rise of fascism by 1) not calling it out by name, and 2) affirming and consenting to an economic program (neo-liberalism) that is a superhighway for right wing thinking and desemenation. 3) the abandonment of labor.
C) There is a known, effective, and time tested antidote to fascism and its pathology: a left based and footed by a strong, creative, broad labor movement. The New Deal economic and social agenda was labor-based and was, make no mistake, the true counter to the rise of global fascism…..and it won. It was the defacto economic, social, and political environment for most of the world through the 1970s, and remains so in most western societies, aside from the US.
I just find the discussions on our side about this missing the above points. This was predictable: so I find it tiring to hear all of the “this was a shock to our society” talk. BS. It was predictable and quite readable. This is not without precedent. In fact, the 1930s give us a very clear picture of how this works. And finally, there is an answer and response. Labor. This fight will not be won by hippy-dippy, “teachers and citizens have to model democracy” and whatnot. This will not be answered via individual acts of lefty-ness. Just like our side in the education wars won’t win that way. A massive expansion and investment in labor unions is the real beginning to any real response to the rise of Trump. The 30s teach us that….in fact the 1930s scream that out.
I believe there is reluctance on our side to fully acknowledge and embrace that because 1) it’s a heavy lift. Labor is in hospice care right now, and it needs to be Rocky Balboa in very short order. It’s depressing and possibly not possible. 2) so many folks on the left still cling to this idea that a left can exist without labor. It can’t. So many of my contemporaries find actual working people, their language, mores, behaviors, and opinions reprehensible. I would argue that that gritty (real use of the term), honest, blunt, posture, including its proximity to violence on some level, is where the 30s left had its real power. Now, it would be great to make that less racist, sexist, etc…..but that is our work. Don’t forget, the New Deal, ever the teacher, addressed this as well. Re-educating and broad communication fought the tendency of working and poor folk to become racist, etc. New Deal lefties saw that as one of their tasks. Lefties today want their fellow travelers to show up already molded into their ideal. That is soooo wrong.
Anyway, I could go on. (And before anyone gets all “you are too focused on the past” etc., noooo, I imagine a new new deal with the progress of the last 50 years on individual rights folded in. But that takes real work.) Reply
On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 7:01 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Mike Klonsky, a longtime political activist in > Chicago, warns that the rise of Trumpism in the US and Europe signals a > dangerous white nationalism that threatens the fabric of civil society. > The rise and seizure of politic” >
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Your point is spot-on. You don’t need the rationales re: grittiness racism or whatever of the labor class. That crap disappears when there are enough living-wage jobs to go around. In fact, I’d even like to see the knee-jerk term ‘labor’ disappear, cal it what it is: JOBS. Focus on the need for living-wage jobs & we might even see the term ‘liberal’ — that post-McGovern anathematic term which Billary spurned via neoliberalism so as to get Zdems back in power but then forgot where the goal post was– to disappear.
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bethree5
Everything that you describe about the economy is true . Everything that NYS is calling for is correct . The question is how do we get to where we want to be.
Before I recently retired, I spent 42 years as a member of one of the most successful, powerful trade unions in the country. Never an officer but always an active member with close friends in the inner circle . I have seen from the inside the ups and downs of the American labor movement . I worked with(for) one of the titans of American labor who was a prime force behind the formation of the UFT. Was also a prime mover in the push to integrate the construction trades. To the dismay of many of his members marching arm and arm with King.
This Union was and is delivering for its members even now while under tremendous assault , far more than any of them could dream of earning with out it. It is a thoroughly autocratic benevolent monarchy with power being passed down since the early 1900’s . The way it maintains power is by delivering for its members as best it can . Be that in wages and benefits attained or work sharing schemes during periods of unemployment. I will say the leadership works tirelessly on behalf of the membership.
But there are failures, the the greatest of which is the political education of the vast majority of members. Politics is power, “politics is who decides who gets what” (Laswell 1936). Getting for its members is the function of a Union. It is not for lack of trying. Be it a Labor college sponsored by the Union or a retreat where members could spend a paid week and participate in seminars while vacationing in South Hampton or the constant speeches at the various fraternal organizations . The majority of members are not getting the message.
I shiver to think of the percentage of members who voted for Trump.
Their wages, healthcare and pensions being tied to the future of unions.
These are not your suffering working class they are some of the most empowered workers in the Nation(possibly not much longer), whether they believe it or not. With most perhaps working more hours than a down state NY teacher but earning far more.
The failure to reach its members is structural. Note the Chicago Teachers Association an example of bottom up unionism. I doubt many in the CTA voted for Trump. But with that educated and involved organization autocracy flies out the window,for better or for worse. So as I have said to NYS and others, the leadership gets the membership it deserves and the membership gets the leadership it deserves. If members become active the siege mentality at many unions will dissolve as the inner circle becomes the entire organization
Again getting there.
The second greatest problem again is structural and also has a history . The AFL model pioneered by Gompers was not a workers movement but sought to garner wages, benefits and power for its individual unions.
Many times at the expense of other workers. Even noted by socialist Jack London in “The Iron Heel” in 1908. Recommended fictional reading for today, either we haven’t advanced much or history repeats itself.
So we have the specter of Unions spending far more time fighting each other than fighting the oligarchy.We have those low wage workers in hard to organize industries like fast food, basically ignored. We have private sector workers fighting public sector workers for the scraps, We have the NYC Construction Trades Council contributing to the advertising campaign that attacked public worker pensions (to which the head of my Union voted no, to no avail.) The quid pro quo from Cuomo the Tapanzee Bridge project.
Again getting there
So yes, to NYSTEACHER we both have read Lufgrin:
” it would be rare to find that worker in the 1920’s who did not know who was screwing them”. How do we educate our workers today. .
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American hero:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydailynews.com/amp/news/national/mormon-singer-performing-trump-endorsing-tyranny-article-1.2928801?client=safari
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American embarrassment (read that two ways):
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/amp/sissies-bristol-palin-blasts-celebrities-who-refuse-perform-trump-s-n701521?client=safari
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NYCTEACHER: The shorter version of my thoughts about your note is this: For whom you call “labor,” it seems: without a clear understanding of the spirit of their own political ground, they/we are bound to lose it. If WE are to keep our democracy vibrant and alive, then WE have to know what it is, what it took to get here, what threats to it look like (fascism), and how to keep it strong. The longer version is below:
I have lots of questions about your note that I probably shouldn’t ask here. But what came to me first in reading it was that the present imbalances of labor (namely, people who have fulfilling occupations, and “fulfilling” on many levels, including but not reduced-only-to economic fulfillment) is probably one albeit-heavy thread in a multi-threaded garment that we name American culture.
(Your focus is labor, but you also might agree with that?–labor is not the only lens around–like the lens of anti-feminique or racist?) Also, that culture includes those who work (or not) but who DIDN’T find it important to cast their vote. Though I could guess, who knows what they are thinking?
But then I thought: second, somehow (ha!) and over time, the right-wing propaganda machine, accompanied by, in a word, the “oligarchs” (who know what’s good for everyone and so think they have a right to control all including education) has successfully targeted and rained constant lies on that loosely-named labor-group (et al). The outcome was that they (1) knew but didn’t care (or even were thrilled) that they were voting for a lying, small-minded, vindictive, moral degenerate who admires fascists and dictators and (2) didn’t know he was a fascist-in-the-making (as you rightly say about Trump in your note). (Do any of them even know what fascism is?)
The third insight that came to me (intimately related to “labor” but different from it) was that perhaps (1) and (2) above are directly related to what we can refer to as “absences” or even “failures” in the writ-large educational background of those involved though, of course, in different degrees and ways. (For instance, they voted against their own interests.)
Of course, a focus on the education of the electorate or, more broadly, the American people, is not the only significant lens either. However, also buried in your note is that (perhaps?) the electorate is and knows lots of things; but knows little or nothing about (a) history (political or otherwise) or (b) what fascism is or how it arose in history and, as you rightly say, how it can be recognized as arising now; nor about (c) the significance of their own moral comportment and civility in the democracy they live in. Presently, many seem to be saying that they are oh-so-tired of having civility “forced down their throats” (PC?). “Don’t tell me I cannot be racist” or sexist (ad infinitum). (gag)
My take on it–in terms of education? I read here yesterday that the oligarchs want to “blow up” education departments. (They think they got where they are from the get-go without teachers?) But I think there is some truth in focusing on those departments and, before that, the requirements of a four-year formal education and, before that, K-12.
It seems to me that, besides other cultural institutions, those departments and that background can best carry the seeds of filling those knowledge absences and curing those “failures” (including a moral education)–and they apparently haven’t done so well with that. That is, through that background and ed departments, we can explicitly reconnect teachers with their political ground–the one they already stand on (democracy small-d); so that they can integrate it into their own teaching methods and the curricula they teach. Teachers are already (mostly) well-meaning. And if that’s what’s missing, then let’s put it in.
And if a good number of “The People” don’t attend college, then, at the very least, the responsibility of rendering a political education falls on K-12 teachers and the curriculum. Again, if THEY know it’s significance, then they can teach to it; and if not, then naught. It’s not indoctrination–it’s teaching to an awareness of its dangers. But an indoctrinator/sophist doesn’t know the difference or, if they do, they are dangerous indeed. Unfortunately, political education is probably part of what oligarchs want to finish off as they blow up departments of education. Such an education is dangerous to the consolidators of power.
Again, the labor argument is important; but underneath that, for a long time (generations now) we have reaped the rewards of, and so have become complacent (and ignorant) about the significance of what, politically, we have already–and are most probably now posed to lose. Again, for those you call “labor,” it seems, without a clear understanding of the spirit of our own political ground, we are all bound to lose it.
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Catherine Blanche King
You and NYS Teacher are on common ground. Who is labor ? Perhaps not the 99% but certainly a vast swath of the American people . But as Jay Gould once said :”I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half” .That is certainly the goal of oligarchs or more correctly what they hope to avoid having to do yet still maintain power and wealth.
That is where education and labor (the movement) intersect . The STATED goal of oligarchs is to control education and the media so as to control the populous, the workforce.
The greatest failure of Labor has been failure to educate its own members and by extension the general workforce . A shame given the early history of Labor where Gompers knew the importance and had apprentices reading to workers as they preformed their tasks.
Superficially some trade unions have have included a labor studies as part of their apprenticeship, yielding an Associates degree at the completion of the program. But the effort is not serious enough nor extensive enough for the task at hand.
I arrived at Diane’s site recognizing that Labor and Education were being attacked by the same forces for the same reasons . An educated workforce and Oligarchy can not co exist. The assault on k-12 is literally child’s play as compared to the massive attack on University education.
So exquisitely and simply detailed in the 2012 documentary film.
“Heist; Who Stole the American Dream”
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Joel,
The assault on public schools and unions is intertwined. We understand that the Waltons are anti-union. So why not spend $200 million a year to open thousands of non-union charter schools?
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Joel: I’ve heard of that before somewhere in my background–of reading the classics to workers as they worked on “mindless” tasks. I thought it was wonderful then, and still do. Too bad the basic insight behind it doesn’t live on in our Great Pretender Oligarchs. Everyone, even the oligarchs probably, would be happier if they did.
But I’m always trying to get adult education programs into the conversation–they are (it seems to me) the stepchild of the educational system in this democracy. And the inter-generational transfer of education, with the research in that field and in other fields, is a given/no-brainer now.
But as I try to tell them on that side of things, regardless of research, and sometimes BECAUSE of it, we cannot assume THE powers’-that-be assumptions are OUR assumptions about what’s good for the country and “the people” in it; and that the oligarchs want students and adults to do well, but not TOO well.
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dianeravitch
I am not disagreeing with with your statement .
There are many goals in the assault on K-12 . I would guess that the original Walton involvement has morphed from aligning with Religions Right segregationist forces in a political alliance. An alliance designed to magnify Walton political influence, to at the same time aligning Public Schools with a University system that is to become a glorified trade school. With Gates calling for more certificate programs vs degrees.Of course taught in MAOCs with the Walton’s or Koch’s choosing the professors .No need for those pesky social sciences especially at Public Universities attended by the peasantry.
Of course at the same time eliminating the Nations largest Union would be a bonus . Now that the Walton’s will probably be rolling back wages to the federal minimum. If it still exists, as Trump attacks Unions.
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Am I just dense? I am having a hard time understanding the nuances of both your & Catherine Blanche King’s arguments. To me, the situation is simple: in the US today, we do not have sufficient living-wage jobs to support thriving middle class/ working class sectors. We have lost most of our mfg sector– & are swiftly losing the white-collar sector which supported the mfg sector– to the wage-depressing effects of global trade, compounded by automation of what mfg jobs remain.
Our present paradigm (as near as I can figure as the mom of 20-somethings) is a thriving financial sector, w/ some middle-class clerical hangers-on, & the rest of the population [including my college-educated sons] arrayed in various low-wage/ no bennies services to the financial sector.
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Just so things are clear: there used to be a time when labor unions were all about focusing on education. In fact, the ideal of a good “mechanic” (the term was used for any tradesperson who was competent at their craft) was one who was skilled and well-read and versed. Unions and workers groups worked very hard at this, seeing it as imperative. One must rise above simple self-interest and have some philosophical grounding to be a truly useful union member.
Take a gander at the history of this place:
http://generalsociety.org/
Again, the answers are all out there. It’s not a new thought, this “we need to focus on educating workers so they better understand unions and everything!” Duh! Workers and unions knew that a century or more ago. We are now seeing that its also necessary as the only antidote to the decent into racism and sexism etc. When I talk about 1930s labor, this is what I mean. They got the whole picture.
As far as Trump goes and the reasons HRC lost, well, lots of folks point to the racism, sexism, etc etc of many undereducated working class folk. Well DUH! We think that’s an answer! It’s actually a goddamned indictment of the left and we don’t know it. The left, in its broad abandonment of labor, walked away from ever working with those people and trying to not allow them to descend into the pits of cave-person-like racism etc.
Like my flight instructor when I was a teenager always told me: when you run into a problem, first ask yourself what you did wrong, then correct it. (…..what YOU did wrong. First examine thine self)
So many on our side are not getting this basic message. The left lost to Trump, and shitty racists and sexists and homophobes are maybe a big part our fault on the left. We’d rather just think those awful inhumane attitudes somehow just grew out of Appalacian and Kansan and Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania dirt. Wrong.
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NYST,
We are at fault. We think we are saving the world child by child. In the meantime, people with motives far more nefarious than ours are poisoning our communities with false narratives. The less their knowledge about education, the greater their expertise. Our solution is to tune out the dissonance and carry on with our mission. Our methodology of dealing with the omnipresent threats is highly ineffective.
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NYSTEACHER says: “Again, the answers are all out there. It’s not a new thought, this ‘we need to focus on educating workers so they better understand unions and everything!’ Duh! Workers and unions knew that a century or more ago. We are now seeing that its also necessary as the only antidote to the decent into racism and sexism etc. When I talk about 1930s labor, this is what I mean. They got the whole picture.”
It may be a “duh!” to you, but apparently it hasn’t stuck–and I’m not so sure about the race thing, from what I DO understand about the unions of the past. Also, my understanding of the history of the labor movement is “lite.” (So much to learn, so little time.) So if what you say is true–that labor unions had educating workers as a part of their mission, then (correct me if I am wrong or say “duh” again) we just have another, not “reason,” but “motivating factor” for big business/oligarchs, under their hoarding mentality to want to kill that movement big time. (Probably another “duh!” for you.)
Good grief–don’t let workers learn how much they are being manipulated aka screwed; or how much tax money is being diverted away from anything even vaguely associated with the common good. It’s a bit less defined here in the US, for many reasons, but it’s the same thought dynamism that was in the heads of Che Guevara and Paulo Freire in their time. (At least most of us had indoor toilets.)
The idea also puts the “Make America Great Again” slogan in a different light–that is, if it weren’t so much a part of The Big Lie.
But that’s my point in my earlier post which originally drew from the concrete events of the election, and the numbers of Trump-voters. THAT was my question: Why did presumably-educated workers vote for Trump in such great numbers?
Basically, many of those voters are quite smart in their own fields–doctors, lawyers, women (gag) and so many others who can legitimately claim they are not “ignorant” by the common meaning of that term. First, they are all not “labor” any more, as in manufacturing. In many cases they are independent, college educated, and working in their fields, often belonging to professional groups and organizations that are not their employer but who are focused on movements in their field intelligence and not on “labor” issues?
But what kind of history or political education could they have possibly gotten if they voted (1) specifically for Trump with all of his frightful moral and political flaws, and against a woman (on principle); and (2) more generally, against their own interests? <–it may be a “duh” to you, but WHY didn’t THEY know THAT? Who in their right mind would vote against their own interests?
It’s way beyond partisan. It’s about the maintenance of a constitutional democracy. I saw it; many here saw it; why didn’t THEY see it? Even some of the Press didn’t see it. And do the oligarchs think everything on the ground is going to stay the same for them if they keep digging it up?
So I take it that a good number of Trump voters are smart, but woefully ignorant politically and, again, they didn’t give a hoot, and even reveled in, the walking-talking moral degeneracy of the person they voted for.
But if big-business leaders look at “workers” merely as defective and costly machinery; and if Congress won’t set policy to better-condition equity, then it’s up to The People–and we cannot do what needs to be done without first understanding what is happening to us–education. Duh, indeed.
I think that set of insights are coming post-election, however, quicker than we think.
Finally, this is exploratory for me, mostly. So hit me if you want.
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NYSTEACHER
I am going to recommend what I have found to be one of thoroughest documenting of American power structure an assigned reading I had in 1971 . One that covers far more than labor . It has been infinitely revised over the years till the present and is available free online .
Who Rules America. by G. William Domhoff
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/history_of_labor_unions.html
“During the 1920s, unions lost strike after strike as employer opposition to unions reversed many of the wartime advances by organized labor. Due in good part to a union-breaking campaign led by the NAM, union strength dropped from about 20% of the nonagricultural labor force in 1920 to less than 10% at the beginning of the New Deal. Over the course of these lean years for organized labor, union membership declined from five million in 1919 to just under three million in 1933”
“Roosevelt’s decision to establish an automobile labor board, in conjunction with the watering down and forthcoming defeat of the 1934 version of Wagner’s bill, was deeply disheartening to militant unionists and gave activists inspired by Marxism their opening. The result was a series of violent strikes that broke out in April and May in San Francisco (where Communists joined with syndicalists and independent radicals to lead the way), Toledo (where small Marxist groups sparked the confrontation), and Minneapolis (where Marxist-Leninists who followed Leon Trotsky had the lead role). At the same time, the Senate, under enormous lobbying pressure from the corporate community, rejected Wagner’s attempt to codify the practices and case law developed by the National Labor Board (see Brecher 1997, for a detailed discussion of these strikes that gives a full accounting of leftist leadership and police violence). The fact that the corporate community and the Senate rejected the first version of Wagner’s bill at a time of high militancy does not fit with the frequent claim that the corporate leaders were quaking in their boots by this point…. …
For all the tensions and calls for repressive forces by the ultraconservatives, Roosevelt was able to deal with all three of these serious upheavals when they reached the boiling point that summer by sending special mediators to bring the two sides to the bargaining table, where temporary arrangements acceptable to them were hammered out after several deaths, scores of injuries, and hundreds of arrests (Bernstein 1969, Chapter 6). Despite all this violence and the militancy of the striking workers, Roosevelt might have put aside labor legislation entirely except for a problem that could not be easily handled, the threat of an industry-wide steel strike in mid-June, which might slow economic recovery as well as lead to more violence. The strike was first proposed by a small group of leftist labor leaders who had taken over several moribund locals of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. It was then agreed to by the union as a whole in mid-April as a last resort if the steel companies would not bargain with it. As the steel companies prepared for physical conflict by stocking munitions, putting up barbed wire fences, and hiring extra employees, the top AFL leadership was able to head off the strike, which the union almost surely would have lost, by convincing Roosevelt to set up an impartial committee to mediate the dispute (Bernstein 1950, pp. 76-77). Once again, leftist activists, including Communists, had forced an issue that top labor leaders and Roosevelt did not want to face.”
But Domhoff disputes that corporate America was shaking in its boots and that is why the Wagner act finally passed .Rather he asserts that it was a Grand Bargain in the Democratic Party that removed Southern obstruction. The mostly agricultural south could careless about Industrial unionization in the North as they were agricultural states. Farm workers and domestic help were excluded from the NLRA (the Wagner act.) case closed . 1932 10% unionization rate . 1950 35% – 5.5% today (private sector )
Truth be told it was probably all of the above and the threat from international communism . That dragged the nation forward . However the Oligarchy never gave up by 1947 not only did Taft Hartley limit Unions ability to organize by banning the Secondary boycott , It allowed states to essentially opt out of the Wagner act with Right to Work.Assuring a safe haven for American industry to move to in the non union South decimating the union movement in the Industrial North with state after state passing Right to Work under the guise of keeping or attracting jobs. . And perhaps even more critically insisted on loyalty oaths from American labor leaders purging communists and socialists from the movement , the same radical elements that had dragged it forward. Followed by the Landrum–Griffin Act 1959 which essentially allowed labor violence to be treated as racketeering holding Labor Leaders and their Union treasuries criminally responsible for acts of individual members.
. You may discover that what you see as the AFTs refusal to be militant and binding itself to a political party has a history rooted in the early AFL. where Gompers a Socialist rejected that movement seeing the more viable path to be working with Oligarchs and politicians for the benefit of his workers but possibly at the expense of all workers .
“Its complicated” , as I said a long haul
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care less
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Joel: Thank you for the Dornhoff reference.
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bethree5 writes: “Our present paradigm (as near as I can figure as the mom of 20-somethings) is a thriving financial sector, w/ some middle-class clerical hangers-on, & the rest of the population [including my college-educated sons] arrayed in various low-wage/no bennies services to the financial sector.”
Who are the “takers” here? But I just responded above to NYSTEACHER, in part, the following: “if big-business leaders look at ‘workers’ merely as defective and costly machinery; and if Congress won’t set policy to better-condition equity, then it’s up to The People–and we cannot do what needs to be done without first understanding what is happening to us–education.”
I think, basically, it’s continue to wring our hands, or take up political action. And we know what happens when the people do that without first being well-informed and, as part of that, knowing what we really want.
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Stimulating thread.
Love this from NYTeacher:
“Just so things are clear: there used to be a time when labor unions were all about focusing on education. In fact, the ideal of a good “mechanic” (the term was used for any tradesperson who was competent at their craft) was one who was skilled and well-read and versed. Unions and workers groups worked very hard at this, seeing it as imperative. One must rise above simple self-interest and have some philosophical grounding to be a truly useful union member.”
I gather this union-instigated education was not supposed to be mere pro-union propaganda. To get a “philosophical grounding” –rather than just talking points — one needs a liberal arts-type education. We should ask if this plan really worked, or was it just a noble effort that failed. I’d like to know more about this –what exactly was the conception, how was it implemented, what was the curriculum and methodology? Was it just offering a library to “mechanics” (there’s a Mechanics Institute in downtown SF) and not coursework per se? How many blue-collar workers today would avail themselves of such a program if it were offered? Have the intellectually-inclined laborers migrated to other industries by this late date?
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ponderosa: I want to hear what NYSTEACHER says; but your “To get a ‘philosophical grounding’ –rather than just talking points — one needs a liberal arts-type education” was music to my ears.
I catch myself thinking “right-wing conspiracy” sometimes, and usually put a check on it right away. But if there isn’t one, then there IS a common thread concerning money and power that is evident in history–any history. You see it addressed in the Greek philosophers, for instance (Plato and Aristotle). And then there is Jesus.
But again, your note reminded me (currently) of adult education programs and their constant begging-relationship with federal funding–I started paying attention to AE around 20 years ago; and I remember when the programming became aimed at and even named “Workforce Training” (see the history and literature of the National Literacy Association and NCAL–National Council for Adult Learning and other Adult Education organizations). I thought it was strange even then to think of adult learning as ONLY having to do with workforce training. (Of course, in reality they have remained diverse and much broader than that reaching deep into “family literacy,” prison education, etc.)
And then there are the “hits” on “too-liberal” colleges where teaching for an informed openness of mind coupled with developing critical consciousness–able to see through, for instance, corporate propaganda– is considered “left-wing propaganda–let’s blow it up and/or take it over;” and teaching to self-reflection and self-critique is a “merely subjective” waste of time and, worse, an attempt to feminize education and culture.
I’m thinking: If it WERE a long term and concerted conspiracy with a formal mission, they’d do what has been happening over time anyway. Please correct me if I am wrong in this.
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Catherine, I agree that the concept of adult education is very much worth thinking about. Some questions I have: let’s be real –is it too late? I suspect not, but maybe it’s strategically dumb to put a lot of energy into beefing it up before K-!2 gets improved. I often think that I would never have made the strides (such as they are) in my own education if I hadn’t had five years of true leisure in college to read, think, talk and digest. Doing my old school liberal arts education on weekends and evenings is unimaginable for me.
One of the funny things about our skills based curriculum is that it defers the actual learning of stuff until adulthood. For 12 years the focus is on acquiring reading skills and “learning-how-to-learn”, not learning any content in particular. This seems to presume an explosion of learning later on, in adulthood. It’s always seemed to me that if this model were to make any sense at all, there would need to be a lot of leisure time in those adult lives. I don’t see it.
Taking a break from computers now…
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ponderosa says about adult education programs: “. . . but maybe it’s strategically dumb to put a lot of energy into beefing it up before K-!2 gets improved.”
Well, the research kills on inter-generational learning; and we keep pointing back to parents and caregivers as the key to a child’s readiness for the more formal K-12? It follows (?) that if we are to see education as basically a long-term cultural good (again, as comprehensive) it cannot be either-or, but both/and–both chicken and egg, and in order to “form a more perfect union.”
Is it too late? Not as long as we are free to think, speak, write and teach.
On the other hand, how many here have NOT already self-censored or just thought about it, when writing something with political content. That can turn around for many reasons; but if not, it’s a beginning moment in the formation and power of fascism. If I am on target here, that makes our time in history quite critical indeed.
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It was some of the above but as in any mass movement those who participated in that movement attained the education through various means as they entered and participated in that movement.
Example, How many of those involved in the Vietnam anti war movement were educated about any nuance of American foreign policy when they entered the movement . Or did they attain that knowledge after becoming involved from many sources formal and informal once involved. Be it by attending rallies, reading papers or taking courses in political science or sociology.
Courses that could then be put to use in later life . The Domhoff book I read in my junior year for a Sociology or Polly Sci course in 1971, I only fully appreciated, when I revisited excerpts from it 20 years later. The early union movement also coincided with th Socialist movement and Marxist movements. How many newspapers and journals were in print at that time that became a source of information. I would liken it to today, with the internet providing a source of information. But the internet is an individual journey as compared to a worker attending a Union rally and then walking home to have the Socialist daily handed to him on the journey..
When Diane says the emails show little (I might disagree) the fact is that they did not have to show much . The headline does all the damage with most never reading the article as is the case with most Social media posts. If that gets reinforced by oligarchical ownership of the few newspapers we have left , Or it gets reinforced by talk radio, or it gets reinforce by the right wing Television Media . We arrive at where we are today.
Name me one left!!!!! Wing television network. Most of the progressives have been thrown off MSNBC. For not towing the corporate line .
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