Nothing in the foul, reactionary disaster known as the Obama Administration has been quite so sickening as the sight of the Conman-in-Chief going before the US Chamber of Congress and throwing 93 teachers and teacher assistants to the wolves.
These words from the same guy who made zero demands of the Wall Street banksters who brought the US and world economy to the brink of collapse. Did he call for the firings of Blankfein, Dimon, Lewis, or Ed Liddy? No, he instead handed them the keys to the US Treasury, in order to reward themslves with record bonuses.
No one since Ronald Reagan fired the striking PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981 has a national leader so openly trashed the interests of working people as a whole. The teachers from Central Falls High in Rhode Island are being used as scapegoats for the inevitable outcome of 30 years of federal policy aimed at starving public education and encouraging the growth of private-marketeer charter schools. The Central Falls teachers are not to blame for shutting schools, eliminating programs and increasing class sizes.
In order to pay for the Wall Street bailout and the US War on the World, massive cuts in public education are happening all across the country.
Just this week:
-- The Kansas City, MO school system announced the closing of 26 of the city's 61 schools and the firing of 25% of its employees.
-- San Francisco announced the firings of 900 teachers and staff.
-- Los Angeles sent out layoff notices to over 5,000 teachers and other school employees.
-- Detroit announced it would close 40 more schools, on top of the 29 shut down last year, and the privatization of student transportation.
All this is happening under an administration whose Education Secretary announced last month that "Katrina was the best thing that could have happened" to the New Orleans school system. 60 percent of the city's public school students now attend charter schools -- the highest percentage of any American city.
Public education was a conquest by the working class, achieved through decades of mass struggle: the right of all children, regardless of wealth, to a decent public education. It is precisely that egalitarian aspect of public education which has long been the main target of the American Right, an aspect now seen as foolish and out of date by our "socialist" President.
These firings (and pronouncements by Obama) are meant to serve as an object lesson and warning to any workers who dare oppose their working conditions. Just over a year after its inauguration, the Obama Administration has turned out to be the most right-wing government in modern US history. The defense of public education requires an intense struggle against this man, as well as against the two wings of the Property Party and the profit system which it defends.
