THAT THAT THAT
by The Ox
Dedicated to Derrick Jensen, Sylvie, Mickey Z and all like-minded souls

NOTE: Don’t read this article. Instead — because I know you’ve got to be short on heartbeats like everyone else I come across — devour the Matthews link directly below. Especially if you’re in education, especially if you’re into educational reform. Ah… everyone should go through Jan’s blah blah very carefully… as if the thrill of their life depended on doing so. As if our horrid collective momentum will continue on its all-encompassing destructive course if the work is not embraced. If Jan’s work is off-putting, at least glance at the link provided at the very bottom of this unnecessary article. That’d be a decent compromise for now… which might lead to action in solidarity.

Jan D. Matthews has provided an absolutely indispensable (and very accessible) publication titled, Toward the Destruction of Schooling. It is so spot-on and rare, for the first time in my online life I’m offering a second link to the very same content. [This latter link does have some pictures and some additional links.]

There’s much that I love about Paolo Freire’s work, and I trust that anyone out there who honors his opus will not be put off — please! — by Jan saying that we should go beyond him. That said, it’s not practical — in terms of what TOSCA wants to accomplish in 2010 — to run with the thrust of Jan D. Matthews’ argument exclusively/unaltered (in pure form) at the moment. So… I will compromise, for now, in the name of ending THAT.

I will not live much longer. I am very healthy, but I am 67.

[Pause.]

Let’s say that I was put on this earth to stop the U.S./NATO bombing of innocents. Let’s make it that simple.

Put on this earth to stop that abomination, and much that is related to THAT (including the threat of THAT).

But let us just focus on THAT.

Stop THAT and, then, let’s see what happens. Stop THAT… and let’s see how it affects our schools, our health care, our housing, our environment, other species… our sense of what schools exist for, as things stand, in this society. Our families and all our loved ones. Our souls. Our sense of why we’re on this earth.

All this without politicians. Stopping THAT without this and that.

Use your imagination to come up with what would have to change, what could change then.

We don’t need any plan like TOSCA or PARECON. That’s not necessary right now (if ever)… to deal with THAT.

Just let’s… stop THAT… and see what happens. [Like stopping any of the worst excesses of the last century.]

Then I can die in peace.

Call me, for God’s sake!
831-688-8038
P.S. Stopping THAT would involve organizing to destroy the repressive apparatus which Jan describes, not tinkering with it. If the reader’s not interested in that or in stopping THAT, I’ll gladly settle for moving in solidarity against our ecocidal momentum… though the U.S. military is the greatest single polluter on earth… and dealing with THAT would clearly go a long way toward addressing our catastrophic environmental issues. [Pause.] The atomization encouraged by our schools must be put aside. We must do something together. As per http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02022010.html.