Perth Indymedia

Russiagate, Trump, Trump and Trump. It's all we ever hear about the United States. Meanwhile, there are some amazing political developments taking place in what is still the world's only superpower. One such development, which has received virtually no media coverage at all here in Australia, is the extraordinary wave of teachers' strikes that has swept the nation, starting in West Virginia in February, and then quickly spreading to Kentucky, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Carolina and as far afield as New Jersey. Alex Whisson spoke to Attica Scott, representative of the 41st district in the Kentucky state house, and herself a former union organiser. The conversation began with the question of how, bizarrely, a bill relating to sewage in the state legislature somehow turned into a so-called pension reform bill, one designed to gut teachers' retirement schemes.