{"id":24557,"date":"2019-12-21T22:35:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T06:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=24557"},"modified":"2019-12-22T03:43:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:43:12","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-can-a-year-of-international-protests-become-class-conscious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-can-a-year-of-international-protests-become-class-conscious\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Can a Year of International Protests Become Class Conscious Uprisings??"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We Say Fight Back!<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

France on strike: Power cuts, schools shut, no Eiffel Tower<\/h1>\n

French union activists cut electricity to nearly 100,000 homes or offices. Eiffel Tower staff walked off the job. Even Paris opera workers joined in Tuesday\u2019s nationwide protests across France, singing an aria of anger as workers rallied against the government\u2019s plan to raise the retirement age to 64.<\/p>\n

\n

Despite 13 days of crippling train and subway strikes, French President Emmanuel Macron and his government stayed firm. The prime minister declared his \u201ctotal\u201d determination to reshape a pension system<\/a> that unions celebrate as a model for the rest of the world but that he calls unfair and destined to collapse into debt.<\/p>\n

Lighting red flares and marching beneath a blanket of multi-colored union flags, thousands of workers snaked through French cities from Brittany on the Atlantic to the Pyrenees in the south.<\/p>\n

Hospital workers in scrubs, Air France staff in uniforms, lawyers wearing long black robes \u2014 people from across the French workforce joined in the strikes and protests in higher numbers than the last cross-sector walkout last week.<\/p>\n

The retirement reform that has brought them together is just one of their many gripes against Macron, a business-friendly centrist they fear is dismantling France\u2019s costly but oft-envied welfare state.<\/p>\n

Workers from the hard-left CGT union on Tuesday carried out what they called \u201ctargeted\u201d blackouts on electricity networks around Lyon and Bordeaux to call attention to their grievances, and their power.<\/p>\n

Several European countries have raised the retirement age or cut pensions in recent years to keep up with lengthening life expectancy and slowing economic growth. Macron argues that France needs to do the same.<\/p>\n

Tourists canceled plans and Paris commuters took hours to get to work Tuesday, as train drivers kept up their strike against changes to a system that allows them and other workers under special pension regimes to retire as early as their 50s. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMonument Closed\u201d read a sign on the glass wall circling the base of the Eiffel Tower, which was shut for the second time since the strike, one of the most protracted France has seen in years, started Dec. 5.\u00a0 apnews.com\/6e8881cfd9882fdfe90e50999c4bb342?fbclid=IwAR1TM-WZTXx8KQIZTzHOyPuEh1-C5CicPeBSBwGhcyRVzlKHtj09I9zwRW4<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

California Kaiser Mental Health Workers Launch Strike; Problems ‘Keep Getting Worse’<\/h1>\n

More than 4,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals in California launched a five-day strike on Monday at Kaiser facilities across the state.<\/p>\n

Psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, addiction specialists and others represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers say that Kaiser mental health clinics are severely understaffed, forcing some to work after hours to serve more patients. Meanwhile, they say, patients are forced to wait as long as two months for follow-up appointments because of inadequate staffing.<\/p>\n

“We’re striking because the problems that plague Kaiser’s mental health system keep getting worse,” said Kenneth Rogers, a Kaiser psychologist, in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We don’t have enough time to provide proper patient care which includes the preparation and follow up work that goes into every appointment. And patients are being forced to endure even longer wait times for appointments, while Kaiser sits on billions of dollars refusing to fix the problem,” Rogers added.\u00a0\u00a0 www.npr.org\/2019\/12\/16\/788620859\/california-kaiser-mental-health-workers-launch-strike-problems-keep-getting-wors<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

‘There’s Really No Refuge’: Santa Cruz Grad Students Strike Amid Housing Crunch<\/h1>\n

All is not well in Banana Slug country.<\/p>\n

Final grades for the fall quarter are due at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the campus of some 19,000 students<\/a> with a curious mascot<\/a>, but a wildcat strike has put those report cards in jeopardy. Graduate students, who declared a work stoppage earlier this month<\/a>, have vowed not to deliver grades for the undergraduate courses they work with until the administration meets their demands for higher pay.<\/p>\n

Specifically, graduate students are calling for a cost of living adjustment \u2014 a monthly bump of just over $1,400<\/a> to help them cope with the region’s high cost of housing<\/a>. And to do so, they have decided to act independently of their official statewide union, United Auto Workers Local 2865<\/a>, which in 2018 negotiated a systemwide wage increase of 3% per year over four years.<\/p>\n

The union has not publicly backed the students’ wildcat strike and did not respond to NPR’s request for comment Wednesday.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

“Really, it’s rent burden,” Stephen David Engel<\/a>, a Ph.D. student in the school’s History of Consciousness Department<\/a>, explains to NPR. “Graduate students are paying 60-70% of their wages on rent \u2014 and that includes, by the way, students who live in, quote, ‘subsidized housing’ on campus. So there’s really no refuge \u2014 the university does not provide a refuge [from] the housing market.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 www.npr.org\/2019\/12\/18\/789268753\/there-s-really-no-refuge-santa-cruz-grad-students-strike-amid-housing-crunch<\/a><\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

Edward Snowden, NSA leaker, loses civil suit brought by U.S. over publication of ‘Permanent Record’<\/h1>\n

Edward Snowden<\/a> is not entitled to receive proceeds from the sale of the former intelligence contractor\u2019s memoir, \u201cPermanent Record,\u201d a federal court judge ruled Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Citing agreements Mr. Snowden<\/a> entered into with the CIA and National Security Agency<\/a>, U.S. District Judge Liam O\u2019Grady ruled that the U.S. government is entitled to collect any money he makes off his memoir and related public events.<\/p>\n

Mr. Snowden<\/a>, 36, has been wanted in the U.S. for more than six years in connection with criminal charges brought as a result of leaking classified material to the media. He released \u201cPermanent Record\u201d on September 17, and the Department of Justice sued him the same day for publishing the book in violation of non-disclosure agreements he signed with both the CIA and NSA.\u00a0 www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2019\/dec\/18\/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-loses-civil-suit-brought\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘The Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis’<\/h1>\n

In a recent editorial published in the New York Times,<\/em>\u00a0the Chinese blogger Murong Xuecun, writes: \u201cThe Communist Party\u2019s dumbing down of our language was a deliberate effort to debase public discourse.\u2026 This deliberate use of language to obscure and confuse serves a clear objective: to conceal the reality of China\u2019s lack of democracy and indeed to pretend that democracy exists.\u201d[1] The author refers to this bureaucratic language as \u201cMao language,\u201d which he says was used extensively during the Cultural Revolution. \u201cIntellectual discussion, along with reason, were thrown out the window. In this atmosphere, words lose real meaning. The party can then use words to obfuscate and lie.\u201d But Murong Xuecun seems himself to be a victim of the very manipulation of language he talks about. He too uses the expression \u201cCultural Revolution\u201d in the sense officials do, reducing a complex social movement to a political movement under Mao\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Yiching Wu\u2019s The Cultural Revolution at the<\/em> Margins<\/em>:<\/em> Chinese<\/em> Socialism in Crisis<\/em> has among other qualities the capacity to get the reader interested in this complexity. After this book, it will be difficult to talk about the Great Cultural Revolution (GCR) by referring merely\u00a0to the bureaucratic version of it, or even to\u00a0pretend, as neo-Maoist currents do nowadays, that Mao provided revolutionary leadership during the GCR.[2] Wu\u2019s book fits within a well-established tradition that includes independent researchers, both academic and non-academic, as well as a few radical socialist political groups in Hong Kong, Europe, and the United States that have developed a critique of the GRC years<\/p>\n

The social turmoil may have been initiated by the party bureaucracy, but gradually it gave birth to anti-bureaucratic tendencies. These were eventually smashed by the popular army called in by Mao. Testimony by young rebel Red Guards (RGs) has also been published.[3] These accounts show how the official version of GCR terror against the Chinese people hides the fact that the rebel RGs who criticized the bureaucratic system constituted the core of the victims of the army\u2019s repression during the late 1960s.\u00a0\u00a0 networks.h-net.org\/node\/11717\/reviews\/89127\/reeve-wu-cultural-revolution-margins-chinese-socialism-crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Susan Ohanian: Data-derived student reading lists fail<\/h1>\n

An article in VTDigger (State launches new math and reading ed tech initiative<\/a>) reveals that Vermont has contracted with MetaMetrics, an education assessment and data analytics company, to provide materials for Vermont\u2019s K-12 schools. We are told that \u201cMetaMetrics \u2018Lexile\u2019 and \u2018Quantile\u2019 products suggest books, worksheets, and instructional videos based on a student\u2019s individual math and English scores. Those scores are generated using a student\u2019s results on standardized tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermonters need to\u00a0 shout \u201cWait a minute!\u201d before handing over their kids to this heir of Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose 1911 tome \u201cPrinciples of Scientific Management\u201d promised to create a utopian society of perfect efficiency. Today, Taylor\u2019s heirs offer us the nightmare world of Big Data systematizing everything: schools tracking student \u201coutputs\u201d\u00a0 with the promise of optimal statistical outcomes. Educational historian Herbert Kliebard called this \u201ca veritable orgy of efficiency,\u201d with teachers positioned as delivery agents for what Big Business dictates. In \u201cUtopia is Creepy and Other Provocations,\u201d Pulitzer Prize finalist Nicholas Carr noted that this is where \u201cPuritanism and fascism meet and exchange fist bumps.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a longtime reading teacher I have\u00a0 scrutinized the MetaMetric\u2019s Lexile Framework that claims to establish norms for reading for each grade level. Let\u2019s look at grade 3 where they say a student in the 50th<\/sup> to 90th<\/sup> percentile should be reading books with Lexile scores from 645 to 980. If we look at 730 titles, we get \u201cThe Book Thief,\u201d a book The New York Times called \u201cbrilliant and hugely ambitious,\u201d cautioning that \u201ca book so difficult and sad may not be appropriate for teenage readers.\u201d Also at 730 are the decidedly adult titles Hemingway\u2019s \u201cFarewell to Arms\u201d; Patricia Cornwall\u2019s \u201cBlack Notice,\u201d in which the decomposed remains of a stowaway lead Dr. Kay Scarpetta on an international search; \u201cThe Shipping News\u201d by Annie Proulx, an author Publishers Weekly noted \u201croutinely does without nouns and conjunctions.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 vtdigger.org\/2019\/12\/19\/susan-ohanian-data-derived-student-reading-lists-fail\/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

letters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Why Education Reforms Aren\u2019t Working <\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Readers offer their ideas for improving schools, including less focus on test prep and more teacher involvement in policy.<\/p>\n

I taught through various eras of so-called education reform. Very early in my career, as a beginning New York City teacher, I received an award to spend the summer studying special methods for teaching children of poverty at Princeton University. Children were bused in from Trenton.<\/p>\n

Over the years, upstate New York schools where I taught received lots of special federal funds: We bought art to hang in our school, bought machines to give children extra phonics drills, bought tons of textbooks, sent teachers off to be drilled on intensive phonics, hired experts to fly in with their PowerPoints, and on and on.<\/p>\n

How long will we continue to beat a dead horse? When will we help families directly, ensuring that all children live in families with adequate minimum income and adequate housing?<\/p>\n

Education reform has enriched many people. It\u2019s time to start reform where it\u2019s needed, directing the riches to children.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d start education reform tomorrow by giving all children a voucher for 10 free books of their choice<\/em>. And I\u2019d work at making sure the children have homes where they can take those books.<\/p>\n

Susan Ohanian
\nCharlotte, Vt.<\/p>\n

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Esper wants to move troops from Afghanistan to the Indo-Pacific to confront China<\/h1>\n
\n

While an announcement of a drawdown of several thousand American troops from Afghanistan<\/a> is expected soon from the White House, the secretary of defense wants to redeploy those forces to the Indo-Pacific region to confront China.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

There are currently 13,000 U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan. During a Monday visit to Kabul, Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a>, R-S.C., said President Donald Trump may soon announce a decision to reduce the American footprint in Afghanistan to as low as 8,600 troops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Monday that he has not yet issued any orders to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, but he explained that a reduced footprint with or without a settled peace agreement with the Taliban was still a possibility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cI would like to go down to a lower number because I want to either bring those troops home, so they can refit and retrain for other missions or\/and be redeployed to the Indo-Pacific to face off our greatest challenge in terms of the great power competition that\u2019s vis-a-vis China,\u201d Esper said Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Esper said he believes the U.S. can reduce the number of troops because the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Army Gen. Austin Miller says he can conduct both the counterterrorism and advising mission in Afghanistan with fewer troops.\u00a0\u00a0 www.marinecorpstimes.com\/flashpoints\/2019\/12\/18\/esper-wants-to-move-troops-from-afghanistan-to-the-indo-pacific-to-confront-china\/<\/a><\/p>\n