We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

State Terrorism and Education, the New Speculative Sector in the Stock Market [Mexico]

Click here to access article by Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F. from El Enemigo Común.

Neoliberals from international banks are meeting stiff opposition in Mexico in their efforts to transform public education into commodities that can be bought and sold in capitalist markets. They have no qualms about murdering people to obtain their objectives.
The reasons why the Mexican government wants to impose the Educational Reform, even if it means killing people, as with the massacre in Nochixtlán by repressive state forces on June 19, are rooted in economic objectives guided by international financial organizations. The reform, proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the OECD-Mexico Agreement to Improve the Quality of Education in Schools of Mexico, aims to lay the groundwork to shift education from being a State responsibility to instead being resolved in the realm of the financial market.
Lois Weiner of New Politics introduces another report with this statement:
Another piece explains the complicity of the "official" pro-government teachers union, SNTE, in supporting the government reforms, against the will of thousands who have taken to the streets. The protests are being led by a reform movement, CNTE, within the official union.  An activist in the Chicago Teachers Union who has done work with CNTE has organized a fund-raising appeal.  Money will to directly to CNTE, which is fighting with unbelievable courage against reforms that are planned for the rest of the world. Yes, the US as well.