Editorial: 2008. Chicago. Beginnings of a mass movement in Chicago
Since January 1, 2008, by our imperfect count, more than 10,000 Chicagoans from all communities have risen up and protested various attacks on public education — and their children — by corporate Chicago and its minions from City Hall to 125 S. Clark St.
Although the city’s corporate media have ignored most of those outpourings, belittled them, or continued to chase after the dog-and-pony shows served up by City Hall and the Duncan administration, the movement grows.
By April and May, these movements had reached the teachers, the teachers’ union, and other school workers. All have been betrayed for too long — both professionally and financially — by the leaders of our own unions.
Officially, most of the histories we have reported on here in the pages of Substance did not take place. Corporate media have blacked them out. They were not reported in the Tribune or Sun-Times. They were not covered by the TV “news” reporters. They were not taken into account when the Chicago Board of Education continued to rubber stamp the Richard Daley’s attacks on public education in the USA’s third largest city.
Everything we have seen since January 1, 2008, tells us that a new movement is beginning. That movement will delay itself for a time — as the USA elects a new president and then as people sleep off that process and wake up to realize little has changed.
Some time after Inauguration Day in January, 2009, that movement will be explode again. We will be helping people to narrate its existence and understand its meanings.
