A-Infos (en) US, Anarchist journal, Modesto Anarcho #11 - As the Recession Heats Up, So Must Our Resistance by Brennus and crudo

Day after day we hear the same thing, see the same headlines, and walk past the same 
tired, sad, and depressed faces of those around us. The words foreclosure, lay-offs, 
recession, and cut backs seem to haunt us on the daily. Meanwhile, the government is busy 
trumpeting “hope” and “change,” as it plans to continue the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and 
beyond, for years to come. Locally, while the city governments in the area shut down 
schools, lay off teachers, and cut hours for workers – police are raking in the dough, 
putting up more and more surveillance cameras to issue more tickets, and are hard at work 
building more prisons. Modesto police recently received an almost $400,000 grant for its 
“gang suppression unit,” while a new youth prison is scheduled for construction in 
Stanislaus County. As life in this capitalist system gets harder, the state knows that it 
has to beef up repression to keep us in line – or it will simply be a matter of time 
before people start to take back what is theirs.

On March 3rd, the Modesto Bee reported that the Modesto School Board had OK'd $11.3 
million in education cuts, in spite of public and internal protests. The budget cuts will 
target "high school counselors, elementary and junior high school music teachers, and 
elementary school librarians and their assistants." The cuts will not eliminate programs 
district-wide, but instead "reduce offerings," which we can expect to mean that programs 
will be cut primarily in poor schools, like those on the West and South sides. Teachers 
and students are most affected by the cuts: classified employees union President Aaron 
Castro said that over the last six years the district enrolled 4,000 fewer students, and 
employed 22 more managers. The cuts will affect between 50-100 workers in Modesto City 
Schools. Obviously the bosses are more concerned with saving their own asses than helping 
our children.

In the same issue, the Modesto Bee also reported that Stanislaus county had been awarded 
$18 million for a new 60-bed Youth Detention Camp. Neighboring Tuolumne County was also 
given $16 million, while four other valley counties received a total of $30 million. The 
article glorifies the construction of another prison to house our children who they've 
stolen, citing that Stanislaus county is ranked only 40th of 58 California counties for 
juvenile prison size. All the pigs are trying to attach their names to this project, from 
Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden, to the county's chief probation officer, Jerry Powers. 
They claim the new prison will be a vocational training center, and a way to keep kids 
close to home, but really they're just trying to put a smiling face on oppression.

So, we lose some of the only valuable aspects of the school system: counselors who 
encourage our kids to hang on, librarians who are often the real people teaching our kids 
to read, and music teachers who show our kids that creativity is actually a good thing. At 
the same time, we suffer the building of another prison in our county. The message is 
clear: the state would rather imprison our children than encourage them to dream, or to be 
anything else but another wage slave on the assembly line, behind the coffee counter, or 
in the delivery truck. Children should not aspire to be creative individuals, but instead 
should submit, be broken, and take on the life that the state gives them. The state 
doesn't care about our children any more than it cares about us.

Despite the daily reality that repression is growing, there are signs that resistance is 
already brewing - at a Stockton school district budget meeting in late February, teachers 
and students gathered to protest proposed cuts and lay offs. By packing the room with 
people – and taking collective action, they forced the fire marshal to cancel the meeting 
and have it postponed, thus delaying the decision. While the meeting went ahead a few 
weeks later and the cuts went through despite massive protests, this type of direct action 
shows the way forward. This tactic was also repeated at a Sylvan Union (Modesto) school 
board meeting, much to the same results. Like the recent factory occupation in Chicago at 
the end of last year, which won severance pay and benefits for laid off workers, this form 
of direct struggle with our enemies is our most powerful weapon. Besides the actions in 
Stockton, there have also been numerous protests across the valley at board meetings, 
demonstrations by teachers in Modesto, and marches conducted by college students in 
Sacramento.

What is missing from these struggles however is a rejection of dialog with our enemies. We 
have to stop being the sad people with signs at meetings asking nicely for those in power 
not to screw us over – and start becoming a physical force against capitalism. We must 
also resist those who claim to be on “our side” but have no real intentions of fighting 
back, such as the unions who are more concerned with maintaining peace with the bosses and 
the rich. Unions across the valley and the state have brokered deals with management 
which, while saving some jobs, opt instead for losses in benefits and force workers to 
take “furlough” days. These are days that workers aren't paid for; making them lose up to 
10% of their wages. For thousands of workers this simply amounts to having to do more work 
for less pay. There have also been massive cuts in education, as schools are closed and 
already crowded class rooms grow larger. Fees and expenses at college campuses around the 
state also continue to rise. The “solution” to the crisis that has been developed by the 
ruling class is simple: we must pay for their crisis. Their solution is what it always has 
been, suck us dry while putting more cops on our streets, more prisons in our towns, more 
cameras on our block, and making us work harder for less pay. The time has come to stop 
paying for their crisis. The time has come to stop playing by their rules and start 
creating our own.

Download PDF of MA #11 at http://www.geocities.com/anarcho209
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