Can communities of resistance and transformation be born from the social context of school?

Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter 2003 by Gibson, Rich

* A cultural attack in North America, designed to heorize the military and to eradicate memories of Vietnam.

* The privatization of the military, increasing leadership and dependence on mercenaries, secret companies, while special operations forces work under the guidance of corporate leaders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/13/business/yourmoney/13MILI.html

* Government less and less as a neutral arbiter of disputes, more and more a weapon in the hands of the powerful (Lipsitz,1994, p.59).

September 11, the despicable terrorist attacks, and what followed, was both a qualitative shift in our social context, and a bright light illuminating what was already going on that went often unnoticed.

September 11 and the events that followed confirmed at least two related contradictions:

1. The contradiction between global capital and the national base of capital's personifications, the people who seek to ride the process. Capital, a system that rules people, is ever on the prowl for the highest forms of exploitation, of raw materials and resources, of markets, and of labor, people. Capital, as an international system which has now invaded the entire planet, knows no boundaries, but its history is bound to a national base, countries. The capital system requires the protection of national armies - which come at odds with one another in an almost infinite variety of ways. Within countries, capital is represented, personified, by people who, from time to time, possess capital and ride it, until someone else does a better job at exploitation. At every level, all are at odds with all and, in some areas, this persistent war results in either kakistocracy, the rule of the worst conceivable leaders, or Talibanization, the rule of the most irrational and depraved.

Oil is now central to understanding current events and this contradiction. Oil wars play out with the battles between Unocal, Chevron, of the U.S.; Bridas from Argentina, Russia, the countries of the Middle East oil fields, the new central Asian nations, Columbia, Venezuela, Japan, and China, among many others. International capital, as a system, is in discord both with pure individual selfishness and the need for a national army.

It appears that U.S. leaders (who have close ties with oil interests) now seek to resolve that contradiction by invading the world, everywhere from the Philippines to Central Asia, Iraq, and Columbia, and unannounced more to come. So, the U.S. seeks to resolve the national/global contradiction by extending its global rule, by invading the world, with permanent bases everywhere, under its national base. Positioning against China has to be seen as a significant part of this effort to construct uninterrupted hegemony (Meszaros, 2002, p29).

2. That will create another contradiction, the deepening inequality that the wars' costs will lead to, causing intensified suffering among the poorest section of U.S. society and the poorest people in the world. As the economy and efforts to reify a Master/Slave relationship grind on the daily lives of poor and working people, they will fight back, developing wisdom as they go, as they always have - and must.