[Marxism] Following in the Footsteps of MLK: Education is a Civil Right

["Douglas MacDonald" <doug.macdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following in the Footsteps of MLK: Education is a Civil Right
By Douglas MacDonald, Community-Labor Alliance.
Dmacdonald94591@xxxxxxxxx

I am the son and a grandson of high school English teachers. My family
has over 35 years of public school teaching to their credit. My daughter
is a 2004 Benicia High School Graduate and I am the product of public
schools.

I, like many others moved to Benicia, CA not just for its fine weather
and water views but for her schools. In fact, my wife and I invited her
sister and two children to come live with us while her husband, who
joined the army out of economic desperation, endures his tour of duty in
occupied Afghanistan.

You see, the schools in Hawaii, where they are based, are so bad, that
we urged her to come live with us, save some money and enjoy our
schools. Little did any of us realize the magnitude of not only
Benicia's scholastic crisis, but of Vallejo's, Oakland's and scores of
other communities across California and this Nation.   The Benicia
School Board just decided this past Friday to close the school my niece
attends.

Our schools funding crises is simply a reflection of the larger economic
crises that defunds our critical social infrastructure while at the same
time implementing  massive corporate tax cuts and bloating military
budgets. In the face of these attacks, our local officials offer us
nothing but hand wringing at best and hatchet wielding at worse.

To focus merely just on ones own district or city's educational crises
and pretend that the crises is not national in scope and deserves a
national solution is dangerous and self-defeating.  We will never be
able to adequately address this crises without brining in the larger
regional, state and national perspective. Yes, we must confront problems
in our own backyard, but when the neighborhood is burning down, it would
be wiser to work with ALL of your neighbors to put out the fire.

There are few short term solutions other than raising local taxes via
ballot initiatives. Yet, these ballot initiative beyond stealing
precious recourses and time, rarely pass and when they do, they are
regressive property taxes on the citizenry rather then progressive
taxation of corporate wealth.  Local parcel taxes are a false promise as
they ameliorate only local conditions at best leaving the larger and
poorer population in the lurch.

Yes, I supported the last parcel tax in my home town as its passing
would have prevented the closure of my niece's school, the funding of
dozens of programs and the saving of teachers pay and healthcare.  Yet,
I could never again support a parcel tax because of their fundamentally
regressive and provincial nature.  There is more than enough wealth not
only in Benicia, but California and this Nation to fund free quality
education and healthcare for every single person.

Our hands are tied via prop 13 which requires any new taxes not
implemented by the legislature to be passed with a 66.7% super-majority.
So even when a majority of the population chooses to tax either
themselves or corporate wealth, they cannot.  Moreover, state government
and ballot initiatives are largely manipulated and controlled by
corporate interests.  We have seen several populist initiatives both on
the local and statewide level on issues like healthcare and the
environment, defeated by money pouring in from Wall Street and local big
business.

Yet, we still have the capacity to achieve stunning victories like:
integration, the 40 hour week, employer paid healthcare, the lunch
break, etc. None of these victories were gained simply through
parliamentary politics or disconnected local actions.  These victories
were forged through struggle by the efforts of thousands of parents,
students and workers joining together to demand justice.

Our local school districts operate like little serfdoms with each
community tilling its own soil trying to grow an educated population.
But we know that some serfs had better soil and others have poorer soil
simply because of where they were born.  As long as serfs fought among
themselves over their landlords crumbs they continued to live in
servitude, alienated from their natural ally, their neighbor.  The serfs
only became free when they realized that when they worked together,
planting and harvesting the entire field, together, they produced a
better and larger bounty with less effort.  Together they achieved more
than working separately.  They achieved their very freedom.

In summary, the defunding of education and healthcare should be answered
with defiance, not cuts. To insist on working solely within the system
of local school board meetings, lobbying and initiatives is to accept
defeat as the system is rigged to the favor of the status quo - - the
status quo which says schools should be closed, oil refineries should
earn billions in excess profits and wars should be paid for on the backs
of our children.

Martin Luther King Jr. would have never integrated the Montgomery,
Alabama bus system through ballot initiatives or meeting with area
politicians or founding private foundations.  King and the thousands of
other parents, teachers and workers, who took part in the Civil Rights
struggle, knew that the racist and bigoted system that controlled local,
state and national governments would never be opened via traditional
parliamentary procedures.  Hence, marches, pickets, strikes and sit-ins
were used and successfully pressured the status-quo from the outside, to
change. The institutional opposition King faced to integration is
similar in nature to the ax-wielding and school closing efforts of local
and national politicians and school boards. Remember sometimes the best
defense turns out to be the best offense. We must organize to stop all
closures and demand more funding locally, state-wide and nationally.

 We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the suffering of our
neighbors and their children. Our strength and the solution to this
crises rests upon us working together.  Specifically, I ask you to
consider joining with members of the Vallejo Teachers Association,
Oakland Education Association, the California School Employees
Association (CSEA-Vallejo), Service Employees International Union (SEIU
250), parents, students and the Community-Labor Alliance in organizing a
regional "Unity Rally to Stop Attacks on Education and Healthcare."

Any support committee or foundation must focus resources on supporting
our teachers and students from attacks by Sacramento and Washington.
Funds provide should be used to support local participation in a
coordinated regional, state and national campaign to fully fund
education and healthcare and fight back.  The idea of creating
foundations simply to solve local problems will only create worse
problems for us all by polarizing and fragmenting our neighborhoods and
society and sapping the collective strength we must bring to bear to end
these attacks once and for all.

There are solutions. The money to fund our educational system exists,
the will to claim that wealth, as of yet, does not. Parents, teachers,
students and workers must join together not only for support and
solidarity but to work together to fight back. We need look no further
than the mirror upon which we gaze each morning to see our solution. We
are the ones we have been waiting for!

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