David Corn

didn't hear the speech.. it wasn't played on MSNBC.. guess it wasn't important enough for them.

As our local school district tries to hammer out a workable budget here in Northern California, it's clear that, even with money from the federal Stimulus Package, we will be facing a significant shortfall.

This will mean making severe spending cuts, including teacher positions, raising the number of children in each classroom, and reducing or eliminating some of the "non-core" programs, like music, art, physical education, library (all of which enhance the learning process).

So, it will be a challenge for local education to implement whatever reforms Obama proposes when they collide with the harsh economic realities of local education funding in this era of the Bush Depression.

If we valued education in proportion to how much it can influence so many lives, teachers and educators would be the ones with golden parachutes and secure financial futures. The issue has become money because the school systems have been starved for dollars for decades (maybe more).

Schools (for the most part) have cut arts and elective classes in favor of spending more time to pass mandatory tests.

We have had some boom years in the country - I don’t remember any of the good financial times rubbing off on the schools.

We should do better by our kids than was done for us. We are a long way from there. Imagine what kind of first class school systems we could have had for what it cost us in Iraq? One is a necessity the other a waste.

"There is another war being fought in America today, a secret war that has devastated the economic world and wrought even more destruction to the American social world. This is the undeclared but ongoing war between American business entities and any kind of organized labor (Unions). It is a war in which business has taken defacto control of the White House, by successfully plotting the rigged presidential elections in 2000.

The roots of this war can be found in the militancy of the American labor movement back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a series of wildcat strikes did great damage to the corporate system and threatened to unleash more strikes from far stronger unions in the future. Business regrouped and managed to elect presidents, like Ronald Reagan, a former labor leader himself who, for money, influence and perks formed a strong anti-union movement in the higher reaches of the American government.

Aside from a flood of governmental orders and court assisted anti labor rulings, the most potent weapon in the business arsenal was the concept of out-sourcing American jobs to much safer foreign countries, countries that did not have labor unions in any form. Factories were emptied of American workers and the work was parceled out to foreign countries like China, India and Indonesia. But by shipping an enormous number of jobs to safer, and cheaper, foreign labor markets, business created an enormous vacuum in American society. Youths, straight from high school no longer could get well-paying jobs in American industry because most of these jobs, with attendant union membership, were now outside the United States. None of this outsourcing was an accident and although the Republicans occasionally were here to bemoan the loss of jobs, they never made any effort to prevent the flow of jobs away from this country. Bush and his people were squarely in the pockets of both militant Israeli and wealthy American business power groups and one of them shouted “squat”, George Bush ran into the corner of the Oval Office and squatted like a toad. Another part of this warfare was to tacitly allow an enormous number of Mexicans to pour, unhindered, into this country where they could be used as cheap, unreported and untaxed labor. Occasional raids were permitted but the millions of cheap and, most important, non-union, workers ensured that the day of the American labor union as an economic and political force was over, at least during the terms of Republican presidents.

Bush and his far-right thugs may be gone but the anti-labor policies and practices remain. Unless and until they are stopped and, more important, reversed, the economic picture in America will be bleak and wintry indeed. Businesses who have emptied their workplaces and stuffed their pockets should be heavily taxed along with all of those American businesses who have moved to foreign countries to reduce their taxes. They seem interested only in enriching themselves at the expense of the American people and if this policy of greed and secret control is not stopped abruptly, there can only be more economic and social destruction!"

Source: Bradley Moscrip
www.b.moscrip@yahoo.com

They'd like us to think pro-labor is a definition of socialism.

UGH!

No vouchers.

This is public education.