As the global economy stumbles deeper into crisis, baldly revealing the bleak future capitalism has on offer, youth across the globe are moving into open revolt. With unprecedented budget cuts raining down everywhere, the struggle over public education has emerged as the main battleground.

CORE represents the response of rank and file teachers to the City of Chicago’s attacks on their union and on public education.

With 46 states facing budget shortfalls this year, public education is facing major cuts across the country.

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has proven that BP will gamble with people’s lives and the environment to get more oil and profits. The U.S. Government attempted to politically gain from the crisis by adopting tough posturing in the aftermath of the spill, but in reality they were the ones that allowed BP’s reckless drilling to go ahead.

Since I was a teenager, I have questioned the assertion that “capitalism gives everyone an equal chance at economic success.” Now that I teach middle school, I see the ways in which children are inundated with the idea that anyone who struggles financially simply didn’t study hard enough, work hard enough, or desire success enough. This damaging and completely untrue idea takes its toll on the dreams of children and teenagers, especially when they see that their parents work multiple jobs and are still unable to make enough to support their families.

In the current recession, corporate media would have us believe that things are tough all over. For working people, no doubt they are. Those at the top, however, don’t seem to be missing any meals. The last quarter of 2009 saw corporate profits on the upswing, which is a boon for investors in the stock market but has not translated into many new jobs. Considering that 83% of U.S. stocks are now in the hands of 1% of the people, it’s not hard to see why the “jobless recovery” is no recovery at all for most of us, (ACS, Lending Report via Financemymoney.com ).

Ten months after President Obama announced he would add 31,000 more United States troops to the war in Afghanistan, his surge is showing signs of failing. The mightiest military force in the world, with more than 128,000 troops and the most advanced weaponry on the planet, is losing to a ragtag force of an estimated 28,000 Taliban fighters.

In the past few weeks there’s been a noticeable shift in tone in the business pages and journals. Their confidence in the so-called “recovery” has faded, and has been replaced by anxiety.

Every day, we’re all bombarded with images soliciting us to buy products. Companies spend millions of dollars during the Super Bowl for a 30-second ad alone. Cars, beer, beauty supplies, or electronics, if you can name it, you need to buy it. Big business wouldn’t spend money on these ads if they couldn’t affect our world-view. This has created shocking consequences for women of all age groups.

While voices on the right decried Bush and Obama’s massive bailout of Wall Street as “socialist,” real socialists were actively campaigning against it, explaining that it amounted to a giant handout to those who had created the crisis.

Capitalism isn’t working. This is the conclusion being drawn by increasing numbers of workers and young people as every week a new crisis dominates the headlines. These calamities include the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, which has left millions unemployed; millions in foreclosures; the BP oil spill and the growing threat of global warming; an escalating disaster in Afghanistan; vicious Islamophobia and racist scapegoating of immigrants.

As the 2010 elections approach, millions of working people and young people who are looking to fight against the right-wing corporate agenda will be confronted with the question: Should I give my vote to the Democrats?

The recent, celebrated ending of “combat operations” in Iraq is telling for what kind of “withdrawal” policy could be in store for Afghanistan.

More than 26,000 telecom workers in Pakistan have been on indefinite strike since 16 August. They are demanding a 50% increase in wages as announced by the government for the public sector. These workers in the semi-privatised telecom industry started their protest campaign and partial strike earlier in August, but the telecom authorities refused to accept the demand.

Business and media circles are agog at “the most significant development in philanthropy” for many decades. Forty US based billionaires have pledged to give half of their wealth to “charity” while living or on their death.