WAR AT HOME REPORT: IMPORTANCE OF CHICAGO STRIKE

I think the teachers strike in Chicago is a bellwether event.  We must all find some way (even if just small) to lend support for the teachers, students, and parents who are involved.  Our support must also be vocal so that the greater community hears us speak out.

The teachers are up against the corporate machine manifested in its control of both the Republican and Democratic parties.  "Leaders" from both parties are publicly shitting on the teachers and students and expect them to take it without a whimper.  The teachers have decided to stand up.

Teachers are key to the much needed resistance to the privatization of our lives.  They are living witness to the corporate attempts to put education into a corporate controlled box that will dumb our kids down even further than they already are and turn them into capitalist non-thinking minions.  Let's call it for what it is.

Back in the mid-1980's while living in Orlando, Florida a young student from El Salvador stayed at my house for some days.  He had escaped from San Salvador after university students like him began organizing on campus to stop the cuts in education that the U.S. backed right-wing government was pushing.  One day his university classroom door swung open and a severed head of a fellow student leader was rolled into the room.  He left the country in fear of losing his life.

He told me how the teachers across San Salvador had led the marches in the city to stop the privatization of public services and loss of freedom they faced at that time.  I've always remembered those images he planted in my mind.  When I hear about the teachers on strike in Chicago my mind goes back to El Salvador.

We can't wait for "the perfect moment" to arrive before we start to fight back.  There are a succession of perfect moments happening every day in our local communities.  We need to step into them and give of ourselves to help protect the future generations while we still can.