The Nation is watching

David Bacon, writing for The Nation, penned one of the best national stories yet on our March for California's Future. This is a can't-miss, must-read story!

Here is an excerpt:

San Diego community college teacher and marcher Jim Miller has observed the severity of the crisis most clearly in education. "Over $8 billion has been cut from education in the last year, in San Diego alone $52 million," he says. "Statewide we're serving over 200,000 students we're not being funded for. We've had to lay off scores of part-time instructors. My job is to serve our students and I'm unable to. Community colleges are the most accessible door of opportunity for working class students and particularly communities of color. We're witnessing the destruction of the California dream in education."

But Miller is also proud that the demands of the march go beyond education, to "fighting for an economy and a government that works for everybody. We're not saying save education by throwing old people out of their homecare, by getting rid of healthcare for poor kids, by closing down state parks or privatizing prisons. This is about the future of the state of California." Without such unity, he says, "we'll see a scarcity model, where people say take someone else's piece of the pie, not mine. That's a race to the bottom."

Doug Moore, another marcher, is executive director of United Domestic Workers Local 3930. He emphasizes that in small San Joaquin Valley towns, the budget cuts on the table in Sacramento could even lead to the elimination of home care itself. "Statewide there are 127,000 nursing home beds, but only 20,000 available. So where are people going to go? In California we have record unemployment already. Now you're talking about another 350,000 people going on benefits. The governor's budget solution is not a solution. It's a disaster."