Today saw the OVSF out in the streets with a number of local GR groups, VfP Ch. 69, of course and CODEPINK, allied with Save CCSF rallying against the on going campaign to shut down more City Colleges. The idea of the guys "in charge" is to privatize education through the creation and promotion of "vocational" schools: to create a more servile work force tailor made to the specifications of the corporate sponsors/donors/board. Education for profit.
City college in SF was founded in 1935 as part of a national package to make education available to all the citizens of the United States. But what we are seeing today is a dedicated effort to push out minorities in favor of "tech" oriented labor development. This is in no small measure due to the proximity of SF to Silicon Valley and the cultivating of a "Technorati class" of gentrified, middle class white kids pissed off at "the man", yet somehow genetically obliged to maintain a withering status quo.
If I may digress for a moment, the tech industry is, in my opinion, a part of the labor/working class; however, because of the typical class origins of people finding themselves"privileged" to work in the tech industry....on the "soft" end, anyway... they are unable to relate to the folk on the "hard" end, those people who mine the materials in Africa, the people in South East Asia, laboring for the manufacture of our oh so vital SmartPhones.
There is a vital disconnect between the head and the hands in terms of building solidarity among workers in the tech industry.
But to return the readers' attention back to the recent happenings in SF:
There is controversy among the concerned parties at the Veterans Media Center..."bad blood" as it were, once again, the inability to "share" space has interfered with the capabilities of the space to render effective services, more so, it has created divisions among the Veterans' community.
Personally I feel that if we spend so much time arguing who should "control" the space, we wont have time to ORGANIZE the damn thing in time to make rent!