"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family..."

- Admiral Mike Mullen (a guy who has the blood of young soldiers and Afghan families on his hands.)

Will the "Charter Movement" and Merit Pay be Obama's NAFTA?

Is Obama Administration trying to pull another NAFTA on the American labor movement? During the presidency of George Bush I, the Democrats blocked the North American Free Trade Agreement due to pressure from their traditional allies--labor unions. It took a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, to finally push it through.

Similarly Obama and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan (who, might I add, has no experience in the teaching profession,) have long lauded the push towards charter schools and merit pay schemes as a solution to the inadequate education system in the United States. This push is all part of a shameless attempt to discipline teachers. Charters and other reformist schemes have been a strategy to eliminate hard-won job security and put teaching professionals in a position of desperate servitude to management. As a recent Socialist Worker article by Lee Sustar points out, vision of the Obama administration and its allies like Microsoft monopolist Bill Gates,

"...is a public school system in which an elite group of highly trained and well-paid teachers are aligned with administrators to recruit the alleged best and brightest teachers for promotion, while the majority live in constant fear of termination. That's the way almost all charter schools run now, and the Obama administration is pushing public education as far in this direction as possible."

The burning question in many observers' minds is "why is a Democratic President going after teachers unions?" By alienating and, in fact, damaging some of the Democratic Party's most fervent supporters, isn't he shooting himself in the foot? My humble theory is that Obama is playing this neoliberal "third way" game that was so popular with people like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in the 1990's. Like it took Clinton to pass NAFTA and "welfare reform," two long fought-for conservative initiatives, it might take the "socialist" Obama to finally bust the teachers unions.

One more note:
Please consider reading these excellent two articles by Gillian Russom on education from the last issue of International Socialist Review.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-neoliberaleducation.shtml
http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-charterschools.shtml

Russom goes into great length about the Obama Administration's neoliberal dream for education in America. Also check out this ISR article (http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-disasterschooling.shtml) by Adam Sanchez. This quote from Arne Duncan is very telling:

“I am not a manager of 600 schools. I’m a portfolio manager of 600 schools and I’m trying to improve my portfolio.”

Why Wait Until New Year's to Make a Resolution?

Hello people.

Over the past few months, I have been less than satisfied with my level political engagement. I am not simply talking about my current lack of activism, which I am, at this point, not very concerned about. I am more concerned with my relative lack of attention to current events, politics, and theory. My day job, other issues, and my own laziness are all partly to blame. However, in the past few weeks I have been working to combat this.

I have resolved to do a few things each day:

1. Watch/read the news daily.
2. Read at lest two articles about politics online.
3. Read from a book about Marxist/radical history or theory.
4. Blog about what I did.

I feel like this blog is a good way for me to express my thoughts and questions about politics, current events, theory, etc. It will force me to think critically about the things I have learned from reading, watching films, talking to others, going to class, and learning about the world in general.

Ideally, this will be a daily project. I'll try to make new posts at least 5 or 6 days a week. However, I cannot guarantee that I will not miss a few days here or there. I find that when I write more often, the quality of my writing often improves. Hopefully, by writing daily, I will be able to become a more skilled writer. This blog will not only be a self-serving exercise. I hope to gain readers who enjoy what I have to say. I also encourage people to comment on my post. Input is greatly appreciated (but trolls are not, of course.)

So before concluding this post here are the general topics to be covered on this blog (I'm a big fan of lists if you haven't noticed):

1. Marxism
2. Political events and issues (both US and International)
3. Workers' struggles (often incorporated in the broader discussion of politics)
4. My own activism and others' activism that I wish to highlight

First Post

I am currently reading a couple of books. First is Capital Volume I. I am reading it along with David Harvey's online course--a great resource to anyone who is really getting into Marxism.

I am also reading one of Harvey's books. The New Imperialism from 2003. I am planning on posting a review on my Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/user/leftpolitiko