Seth:
Speaking of social conditions and relations, public school teachers in
California can get fired for teaching "communism," defined below.
CALIFORNIA CODES
EDUCATION CODE
SECTION 51530
51530. No teacher giving instruction in any school, or on any property
belonging to any agencies included in the public school system, shall
advocate or teach communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate
in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism.
In prohibiting the advocacy or teaching of communism with the intent of
indoctrinating or inculcating a preference in the mind of any pupil for such
doctrine, the Legislature does not intend to prevent the teaching of the
facts about communism. Rather, the Legislature intends to prevent the
advocacy of, or inculcation and indoctrination into, communism as is
hereinafter defined, for the purpose of undermining patriotism for, and the
belief in, the government of the United States and of this state.
For the purposes of this section, communism is a political theory that
the presently existing form of government of the United States or of this
state should be changed, by force, violence, or other unconstitutional
means, to a totalitarian dictatorship which is based on the principles of
communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.
www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisg
Mark:
It's not self-evident that today's workers are more militant, better
informed, more socially aware or have a better understanding of the inner
dynamics of capitalism and of what must be done to end it, than did workers
in Germany or England or Russia in the 1900s, or in Chicago or elsehwre in
the US for that matter. I don't think we should be patronising. And Lenin's
point is the simpel one that workers are
too busy surviving to have much chance to educate themselves in political
theory. The work has to be done by others with more time and opportunity,
and they by definition are not workers. This lesson was being thoroughly
learnt by the masters of the mass media and mass education just at the time
when the left was forgetting it, which has
resulted in the dumbing down of today's workers.
Rob responds to Mark:
"Well, I take your point, but we must look to some social conditions to see
how better education and critical capacity might not translate to more
militancy and more radical critiques.
A couple of thoughtlets - certainly not wholly satisfactory responses, but
contributory factors at least:
clip
[6] not a word of Marxian critique (or any other radical
critique beyond fragmentary feminisms) has inhabited high-school courses for
a generation, so it's off the cultural agenda"
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
_______________________________________________
Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
