Organizing Student Activists, Voices

High School Students are a group who usually overlooked by the mainstream loudspeaker. The common misconception that youth hasn’t a clue or an opinion of what happens in the world is absurd, and I’m attempting to counter the prevailing argument with place students will have a voice, a real voice. Not only am I planning on forming a advocacy publication (appeal to reason), I’m also planning a radical coordinating committee to give students the voice the deserve.

Those who hold the power over high school students –administrators, teachers, parents– usually conclude that students have no opinion and only their superiors have the enlightened knowledge of what is best. As with the struggles of labor in the past century, where both parties –labor and employer– had a say, students must recognize their equal rights with their superiors. Most forget the view of students when legislating reforms to education and emplacing what they view as beneficial to the very people whom they are responsible to serve –the students.

In Michigan, an acceptable public education and one that couldn’t meet the standards of any respectable industrialized nation can mean the difference of one side of the street. The socioeconomic segregation that plagues Metro Detroit, among other places, creates an educational atmosphere that resembles a marketplace more then nation where education is held in high regard.

Perhaps Michigan Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos favors a marketplace, for his proposed reforms to education that include school vouchers to private schools couldn’t prove otherwise. Dick DeVos claims “that every child in Michigan deserves a world-class education that prepares them for the jobs of tomorrow,” but supports policy that will devastate public education by essentially forfeiting it to private hands. The theory that cutting funding to poorly graded schools will motivate them to improve education is not only a myth, it’s outright obvious –schools are not businesses, and should not be left to the fate of the free market among other institutions. Have we forgotten the term ‘equal opportunity’?

The latter is a prime example in understanding the goal of religions and private interests attempting to take advantage of students who, without a strong united voice, have no voice. Student solidarity is important and often overlooked in a generation where cliques alienate the student population into specialized classes who forget what they have in common. Materialism, among other things, and the engrained philosophy of consumption and conformity have worked to program youth to automatically accept the societal systems of modern-day feudalism and the predetermined fate of either prosperity or poverty.

So today I’m asking on anyone who is tired of our unchangeable fate and the inequality that plague our region, state, and nation. We are people, and deserve to be treated as such; we are not numbers on a spreadsheet or an expense to be done away with and exported. We deserve equal education and health care, equal opportunity to succeed and freedom from those who seek to exploit us. We must join in solidarity; we must tear down the institutions of tyranny and inequality. If you are with me, join us and let your voice ring loud for all to hear.

Youth Action Coordinating Committee
Northville High School
Contact: Aric Miller
(248) 719-3557
arikwithana@gmail.com

I Do Not Support “The War on Terror”

To avoid the calling of names such as “hypocrite,” I’m once and for all attempting to make this very clear: I do NOT support the “global war on terror.” The problems many mainstream politicians have with this position, even if the agree with it, comes with the massive stream of neoconservative criticism that is sure to follow when taking such a stance. I’m betting that at least a handful of left-wing democrats in congress oppose the “war on terror,” but refuse to publicly state this in fear of those such as Ann Coulter, or Donald Rumsfeld. Many in the Democratic Party strongly support the war on terror, but most stand against the War in Iraq. Most desperately take a stance of the moderate, in lieu of the extremist on the right or left. In my eyes, Democrats appear weak and confused, not ready to stand up to the so called challenges of terrorism, homeland security, and national defense; they play their cards for votes, not for what is best for the United States or the American people. The difference between the Democratic Party and its sister, the Republican Party, seem very strong; but in reality these differences are only minute disagreements between elite. Voters see these differences in which candidate seems stronger, and which ones are for or against abortion. Abortion aside, for it truly is the least important issue, besides gay marriage, during this great era of revolution. The real issue that should be the difference of each party is the very system which has proved itself tyrannical just as the systems of the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany proved tyrannical. That system in which currently governs the world is none other then the system which high school economic teachers everywhere claim to be “the only system,” and that is, of course, Capitalism.

How do relate Capitalism with the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and all other wars fought in the twentieth and twenty-first century? It is simple when reading the real story behind some of the most brutal and disgusting moments in our short history. Take, for example, the start of World War I and the silencing of the labor and socialist movements in the United States. A perfect solution to halt the overthrowing of the capitalist system that seemed bound early in the twentieth century. The labor movement became powerful, and militant; the poor no longer would become slaves to the elite which would go on to join the war of empires. That war would later become known as World War I, started as a conflict between empire nation states over colonies and military buildup. The “War to End All Wars,” was just a propaganda slogan aimed to win support of the working man hoping to never have another war; this sadly was an utter lie. The capitalist system thrives off war and simply cannot exist without it. The trend continued throughout the rest of the century and into today, alienating any dissenter, calling names, and creating enemies. Communists instantly became treasonous spies and anti-Americans, Muslims instantly became “Islamofascists” and other misleading terms of hate and bigotry.

These problems won’t be solved by just simply abandoning capitalism, these things are true to human nature, but surely these problems will have less of an ability to take advantage of those who are not as privileged enough to be in the small network of the global elite. I propose to rethink capitalism, rethink socialism, and rethink America. Submitting to a misunderstanding that capitalism “is the only way” is just pure ignorance, at least – capitalism as it has been demonstrated very vividly to us over the years.