tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002170971070950267.post7387531963158562329..comments2024-01-25T16:08:09.760-05:00Comments on Grassroots Education Movement (NYC): Props to all for super Jan. 21st protest to Stop School ClosingsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002170971070950267.post-7058891648985727202010-01-28T20:51:21.728-05:002010-01-28T20:51:21.728-05:00While I do believe Charles Barron or any politicia...While I do believe Charles Barron or any politician will gladly sell us out and have interests vastly different from ours, to many people Barron has not yet been exposed. Many look to him for leadership. We should hold him to his threat to shut down Tweed! Shut down Tweed, and shut down the entire city! If we are going to stop the closings, it will take a real fight!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002170971070950267.post-57035667598558210732010-01-27T22:46:22.427-05:002010-01-27T22:46:22.427-05:00Must of us in GEM did not have any illusions about...Must of us in GEM did not have any illusions about PEP and the Jan. 26 sham. However some of our students, parents and teachers were begging Klein and those scoundrels to please vote no to the closings, such naiveté is common, some people still believe that we live in a democracy. We need to have a massive educational drive to expose the politics of the ruling class and their lap dogs, politicians, bureaucrats, etc. we need literature, popular leaflets, we need to talk to people face to face or in small groups. I also like the idea of a peoples assembly, with the participation of leaders such Charles Barron, and other strong committed leaders. But we must work together in a non sectarian way, it is not about this group or that group, but all of us working together to develop a common plan, points of unity, and organize, organize. The peoples assembly for Public Education should be an education activity for our students who were involved in the fight against the closings, their parents and the teachers, all the peoples that are not activists, but that are ready to become activists. As we educate ourselves we organize.. I support the March 4th rally, but rallies without education and organizing leads to demoralization, after the rallies the energy of people dissipates. We need students to organize students, parents to organize parents, and teachers to organize teachers, and bring every body together in some kind of action, but we can't do this without education. and we need to do it soon! GEM, ICE and all of you involved in this struggle KUDOS. Feed back please.GustavoMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05556752961008592954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002170971070950267.post-37075986689002998932010-01-27T16:28:14.975-05:002010-01-27T16:28:14.975-05:0019 schools were slated to be closed last night. Th...19 schools were slated to be closed last night. The scumbags on the PEP passed the motions. As many speakers pointed out last night, the PEP has no authority to do this. We the workers, students, and teachers have the power to stop this. Last night not one person spoke in favor of a single school closing — not even from the panel which approved 19 of them. There is a unanimous consensus that these cuts are racist, classist attacks and must be stopped.<br /><br />Now is the crucial moment. The sham PEP has been fully exposed. We must take matters into our own hands. We must walkout, occupy and strike to stop ALL school closings, layoffs, fare hikes, Metrocard cuts — all attacks on students, workers and the oppressed.<br /><br />The UFT leaders must be exposed for their treachery. After weeks of demonstrations called by grassroots coalitions fed up with the UFT rubber stamping Bloomberg’s policies, the UFT leaders were forced to mobilize some rather small portions of their membership for the demonstration and meeting last night. This is not enough. The UFT, together with students and parents, has the power to shut the entire city down. Instead, union leaders share stages with politicians who pay lip service but scramble to keep us from mobilizing. The union leaders try to give us chances to symbolically display our anger without making a real fight or winning real change.<br /><br />We cannot accept this intolerable situation. Thousands of teachers are facing layoffs, thousands of Black and Latino students are being displaced from their schools, and 500,000 students with free/reduced-cost Metrocards will lose these by September. Just like the UFT refuses to mobilize its teachers for a strike or actions to stop the closings, TWU100 refuses to mobilize transit workers against the MTA’s attacks on working class students.<br /><br />Those of us who see and expose these betrayals must come together in common action. We must fight together so strongly that the union leaders have no choice but to support us or be sidelined entirely.<br /><br />Now that the PEP has voted, we must immediately begin preparations for escalated and continued struggle, while realizing that many of our so-called “leaders” will be ready to drop the struggle and accept the PEP’s many-year plan to attack, underfund and close public schools.<br /><br />Sending a message is not enough. We must make the change we seek.<br /><br />NOW we must immediately fight together on these grounds:<br /><br />SUPPORT MARCH 4TH ACTIONS TO DEFEND EDUCATION!<br /><br />OCCUPY CLOSING SCHOOLS AND KEEP THEM OPEN!<br />USE AN OCCUPIED SCHOOL TO BUILD A GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR A REAL STRUGGLE AGAINST ALL ATTACKS ON EDUCATION!<br /><br />STUDENTS AND WORKERS, BUILD A GENERAL STRIKE!<br /><br />UFT MEMBERS, STAND TOGETHER AND FIGHT DESPITE THE TREACHERY OF THE BUREAUCRATS!<br /><br />BEWARE OF ALL THOSE, EVEN IN OUR OWN RANKS, WHO STAND IN THE WAY OF THE MILITANT BATTLES NEEDED TO DEFEND OURSELVES FROM THE CAPITALIST ATTACKS!deterritorializationhttp://revolutionarydesire.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com