Saturday May 16, 2009
dennis.elam@att.net
See our previous post April 21, 2009, It's 1968 All Over Again
Thirty nine people were arrested Friday during a sit in outside the LA school district headquarters.
It was pone of among dozens of peaceful protests around the city by teachers and students outraged
by plans for deep cuts in education spending. Plans are to lay off as many as 2500 teachers in statewide cuts to education. Schools throughout LA were disrupted as hundreds of teachers called in sick and hundreds of high school students walked out of classrooms to protest cutbacks in the US second largest school district.
Remember mood drives markets. Never mind the irony that both teachers and students failed to show or left to protest possible teacher layoffs, no one is threatening to close the schools. An affirmation might be to suggest lower wages for all to prevent the layoffs, this is a union right, but oh no, instead no school today, when was it hard to get a student to sign up for that?
At any rate, the intention of was to get arrested, indeed those arrests are being trumpeted at the union site.
We saw this same thing in the 1960s as protests over the War in Viet Nam went from peaceful to violent at Kent State.
We mention this for younger readers who may not grasp where this is liable to go. Indeed the result then was the destruction of the national Democrat convention by the Chicago Seven. With the chaos on television the result pretty well gave the election to Richard Nixon, talk about an unintended consequence!
But meanwhile the TEA parties are gearing up for another round July 4. This is the contrast, the teacher union wants the status quo to continue, so does Barack. The TEA party goers do not want any of this, indeed TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already.
Our point is not to recount the news but to make it clear this will not end well. California as we have observed is broke. How long before the states in relatively good shape realize they are supporting the states in not so good shape. Worse no one in Michigan or California wants to change their model, and that , as Buddy Holly sang, Will be the Day.
Oh when, well you would ask. Kent State happened in the spring of 1970. But it would be well into 1972 before things really fell apart. So, this could last a while...before things really get to boil.
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