For a working class movement to defend higher education!

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For a working class movement to defend higher education!
Statement of the International Students for Social Equality
24 November 2009

Recent 32 percent fee increases at the University of California (UC)
have provoked an outpouring of opposition from students. These
protests should be welcomed and become the starting point for a
movement throughout the US and internationally to reverse crippling
cuts in education and other basic social services.

The fee raises, which will effectively put the UC system out of reach
for thousands of working class youth, are part of billions in budget
cuts. Similar attacks have been made in the Cal State system, and
additional funds have been cut from community colleges, adult
education, health care programs, and critical state services. More
cuts are to come, as the state faces a budget deficit of more than $20
billion next year.

In protesting the fee increases, students have learned a bitter
lesson: there can be no hope of “pressuring” the university boards and
the state government into rescinding the attack on education.

The state reacted by deploying hundreds of police, some in full riot
gear, to block any democratic participation by faculty, staff and
students in determining the future of the universities. Twelve
students at UC Los Angeles were quickly arrested for speaking against
the cuts at the regents’ meeting, two students were tasered outside of
the meeting, and one student suffered a broken leg after a
confrontation with police. Dozens were arrested at UC Davis and UC
Berkeley after occupying buildings to oppose the cuts.

Police at UCLA were armed with advanced crowd suppression equipment
including a device euphemistically called a “bean bag gun.” The gun
fires a fabric “pillow” containing #9 lead shot which is meant to stun
or incapacitate a subject but can easily cause death when aimed,
accidentally or otherwise, at a target’s vital areas.

The reaction of the police, with the backing of the university
administration and the state government, is an ominous warning. Over
40 years ago, the apparatus of the state was mobilized in a similar
fashion to suppress widespread demonstrations on college campuses
against the Vietnam War. In that case, the repression culminated in
national guardsman opening fire on unarmed students at Kent State,
killing four and wounding thirteen others.

The protests are an important sign of growing resistance to the attack
on education and the interests of the working class as a whole. For
this opposition to succeed, however, what is needed above all is a
political program and perspective to guide it.

Reject all budget cuts and fee increases! Reinstate laid off
professors and workers!

The International Students for Social Equality calls for an immediate
end to all fee increases, faculty layoffs, furloughs and wage cuts.
Tuition for higher education throughout the country must be sharply
reduced to make sure it is accessible to everyone.

Billions should be poured into rebuilding our schools to ensure a
decent, quality education for everyone, from kindergarten to
university. The ISSE also calls for immediate relief for students who
have been burdened by extraordinary levels of debt, often to the very
banks and financial institutions that have benefited from taxpayer funds.

Jobs and quality wages for all!

Students graduating from high school and college face a bleak job
market, which is only getting worse. Unemployment in California now
stands at 12.5 percent, and real unemployment is much higher. Since
the recession began, close to 8 million jobs nation-wide have been
wiped out. Wages, benefits and hours are being slashed across the
country in order to boost the profitability of the corporate and
financial elite.

The ISSE calls for a public works program to guarantee full-time
employment for all those who need a job. Instead of using mass
unemployment as an excuse to destroy public education, we demand the
allocation of the necessary resources to put people to work building
homes, schools, health care facilities and basic social infrastructure.

Reverse the bank bailouts! Redirect bank bonuses and military spending
to meet social needs!

The argument that there is “no money” to fund education and other
social services, that cuts are necessary, is a lie. The US
government’s bailout of the banks and Wall Street could total over $23
trillion. The bonus pool at Wall Street firms is expected to rise this
year to $28 billion—more than the anticipated budget shortfall for
California in the 2010-11 fiscal year! Every year, hundreds of
billions are expended on the US military in order to fund illegal wars
of repression abroad.

The ISSE calls for the expropriation of the ill-gotten gains of the
financial and corporate elite. These vast sums have been “earned”
through parasitism, speculation, and fraud. The wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan must be immediately halted, with the funds used to rebuild
the societies devastated by American intervention and meet pressing
needs at home.

Turn to the working class! Build independent student and neighborhood
committees!

The attack on public education in California and throughout the
country is part of a broader attack on the working class as a whole.
The most powerful sections of the corporate and financial elite are
using the economic crisis to curtail or eliminate social programs,
drive down wages, and destroy millions of jobs.

Education cannot be defended on the universities alone, nor through
the occupation of this or that university building aimed at pressuring
the government. What is required is a broad social and political
movement of the working class, on the basis of its independent class
interests.

A turn to the working class does not mean an alliance with the trade
unions. The presence of trade union executives at student meetings and
protests is aimed at blocking unity between students and workers while
providing a false veneer of solidarity. These are not working class
organizations. They have worked systematically to impose defeats on
workers, while channeling anger into support for the Democratic Party
and cultivating the privileges of their own conservative bureaucracies.

The ISSE also rejects those who argue that the attack an education is
only an attack on minority populations, or that it is a manifestation
of racism. This assault is directed against the working class as a
whole—of every race, ethnicity and nationality. The working class can
successfully resist it only through its unity across all divides.

The ISSE calls for the formation of independent student and
neighborhood committees to organize opposition and establish the
closest ties with the working class as a whole.

Break with the Democrats and Republicans! For the political
independence of the working class!

Students and workers face a political struggle against the
Schwarzenegger administration, the Democratic Party-controlled state
legislature and the Obama administration.

The Obama Administration has led the offensive against the working
class in California. As California and other states worked out their
budgets earlier this year, the administration repeatedly refused
federal aid, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner declaring that
states needed to “put in place reforms that will restore their
creditworthiness.” This could mean only one thing: cutting social
programs and education. This came after trillions of dollars had
already been handed out to the banks and financial institutions

Millions of students and young people voted for Obama hoping for a
change. Obama, however, has continued the right wing policies of his
predecessor, including: bailing out the banks; expanding war in
Afghanistan and continuing the occupation of Iraq; leaving in place
the Patriot Act and other anti-democratic measures; and insisting that
the working class must “sacrifice” as a result of an economic crisis
caused by the financial elite.

Workers and students confront a bitter truth: The Obama administration
is a government of, by, and for the financial aristocracy. A fight to
defend education requires a political break with the Democratic and
Republican Parties, the twin parties of big business.

For equality and socialism!

What kind of society is it that guarantees the multi-million-dollar
bonuses of bank executives while starving the education system of
resources? It is a society in which the accumulation of private wealth
and profit is the basic principle, not the needs of the people. It is
a society in which a wealthy elite controls every aspect of economic
and political life. It is, in short, capitalism.

There is no solution within California alone. The problems confronting
the state are only a concentrated expression of the failure of
capitalism. Indeed, recent mass demonstrations in Europe against
education cuts demonstrate that workers throughout the world face the
same basic question—the question of the organization of social and
economic life. The alternative to capitalism is socialism—an
egalitarian world society based on the rational and democratic
development of the wealth of the planet in the interest of social need.

This requires the establishment of a workers’ government that will
nationalize the banks and large corporations and transform them into
public utilities under the democratic control of the working class.

We call on all students, faculty and university workers who are
looking for a way to fight against these attacks to join the
International Students for Social Equality and its parent
organization, the Socialist Equality Party. Take up the fight for
Socialism!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/isse-n24.shtml

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