Category Archives: Big Brother

Teachers in D.C.

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…protesting the corporate take over of public schools.  Good for them.

A tweeter has a link up to The Nation’s take on it.

From the article:

The growing movement against corporate-style education reform has its work cut out for it. It is, after all, challenging an insidiously well-messaged behemoth funded by billionaires and sanctioned by both major political parties.

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Word.

How does one fight against something that both parties are for?  How does one fight against politicians who have not taught in a classroom, but seem to believe they know better than educators what our kids need?  And how does one fight against willful ignorance on their part when it is soooo obvious that No Child Left Behind is a colossal failure?

My prior posts on education here. And here. And here–profit factor. And here – about the kids who were most impacted by NCLB not graduating on time and dropping out.

No Child Left Behind is not about giving kids a well-rounded education with math, reading, art and music, and physical exercise, but going through the motions of educating kids with tests that don’t come close to evaluating what  a child’s potential truly is….

…worse than that, it pigeonholes kids, who are still developing, into boxes.  It takes away their uniqueness as human beings.  It does not recognize the potential because that is impossible to “test” for–their potential is the unexplored parts of themselves that they —and the world—have yet to discover.

I’m fifty years old and still have not reached my potential. 🙂

Thatcher

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The comments here are priceless on Margaret Thatcher’s passing.  Gah, I used to think so well of this woman in my repub daze.  Arrgh.

And even if I had the money, I would not have seen Meryl Streep’s version of her.  I was afraid that the worst would not come out, and from the comments on the movie, my guess was accurate.  Trying to make her into someone to admire?  Wow, Streep has gone so far away from Silkwood. 

The comments on feminists praising Thatcher as being a woman that “made it” is spot on.  One doesn’t have to look any farther than Hillary Clinton to see that.

I mean, really, Clinton makes a big deal about being asked about her clothes, and there are feminists who applaud that thinking she’s being assertive. Pfft.  Men are asked about the suits they wear.  I wouldn’t know what an Armani suit was if not for that.  And a man could not walk into a courtroom, to use the above example, in jeans and flannel shirt and expect to be given the same consideration from a judge that he would if he were wearing a suit.  Men notice other men’s suits, but they’re not as obvious about it.  It may come out as “hey, nice suit” and left at that.

Should a person be judged by appearance?  Absolutely not.

In my personal observation, we are becoming worse about judging folks by the outside instead of the inside.  Our cultural programming, from watching shows like Survivor, among other things,  buys into the notion that others are superior.  Some see clothes as an indicator of superiority.  I remember that it wasn’t so much so before we moved away from an agricultural (family farm) culture.  I remember when Levi’s became the preferred jean and you were “uncool” if you didn’t have those jeans.  Uncool = lesser person.  This also coincides with “poor person”,  btw….

Somehow our culture became twisted along the way and “rich people” became associated with “good people”.  Being poor, one comes to assess folks not on their bank accounts, but on their actions.  What do they do with their funds?  Do they help others or spend their time degrading others and, like the Kochs, do their best to make sure that they have it all?

 

Anyway, Margaret Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan were the architects of what we’re dealing with today–the culture of greed.  “I’ve got mine, screw you.”   or “I’ve got mine, and I want yours, too.”

More on the Arkansas spill

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You know, there are days when I wish that I was wrong, and this is one of them.

So…my first inclination was right–that they were trying to control the message and access to the area by the press….it would appear that the press corps are going to have to start having body guards.

At least there is one aerial photo of the mess here.

New resource from PR Watch

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PR Watch has this press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 4, 2013
CONTACT: Nikolina Lazic, nikolina@prwatch.org, (608) 260-9713

A REPORTERS’ GUIDE TO THE “STATE POLICY NETWORK:” THE RIGHT-WING THINK TANKS SPINNING DISINFORMATION AND PUSHING THE ALEC AGENDA IN STATES
New Resource Details “Think Tanks” Tanking Americans’ Rights

MADISON, WI — The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the publisher of the award-winning ALECexposed.org investigation, is releasing a new web resource, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:State_Policy_Network for reporters and citizens about the activities of Tracie Sharp’s State Policy Network (SPN) and its state “think tank” members. Although the funding of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is approximately $7 million a year, funding for SPN, its 59 state operations and the controversial Heartland Institute — an SPN ally like ALEC that tries to change both state and federal law — has topped $80 million in recent years. And these SPN operations often function like an echo chamber of the corporate-funded ALEC agenda.

CMD’s three-month investigation, http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform uncloaks some of the major funders of SPN’s expanding operations in the states and raises major concerns over whose agenda these groups are advancing in the state:

1. Mystery Funds. This investigation identifies hundreds of thousands of dollars, and perhaps much more than that, which Sharp distributes to these organizations but that is not disclosed to the IRS as passing through SPN’s books. It is possible that Sharp is distributing or designating funds made available via the Koch-connected “DonorsTrust” and “Donors Capital Fund” or some other stream of cash for the state operations she helps grow. However, some of the big bucks at her disposal did not show up in SPN’s 990 form in the same year it was distributed to an SPN group. See the SourceWatch article on SPN Funding for more.

2. Even More Koch Money Than Previously Known. This guide also flags that substantial funding for some SPN state operations has come from Koch Industries itself and not only the Koch family foundations. That is, hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least, hav been spent by the privately held energy conglomerate controlled by two of the richest billionaires in the world, Charles and David Koch. The total amount is secret because it is not passing through the Koch foundations, which are required to disclose their disbursements. The total amount of Koch money spent on SPN-related efforts to change state laws and spin the news is understated by analysis of their foundation spending alone. See the SourceWatch article on SPN Funding for more.

3. Trying to Change the Law, but Reporting Little or No Lobbying. Like ALEC, SPN and its affiliates seek to change state laws, but report little or no lobbying. That means that corporations and individuals (like Koch Industries and others) that fund their operations can get a tax write-off for funding SPN efforts. See the SourceWatch article on the SPN Agenda for more.

4. SPN Funders Help Some Interests Get Multiple Votes on ALEC Bills. The relationship between SPN affiliates and ALEC is strong and is funded by some of the same donors. That means that some corporate interests like the Kochs get, in effect, multiple votes to change the law on ALEC task forces, where corporate lobbyists and special interest groups like SPN operations vote as equals with elected officials behind closed doors. A particular ALEC task force may have multiple Koch-funded operations — including a lobbyist from Koch Companies Public Sector, a special interest representative from an SPN operation like the Goldwater Institute, and reps from national Koch-controlled or fueled groups like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the Charles Koch-founded Cato Institute, along with the Heritage Foundation, a long-time ally of the Koch agenda. Through ALEC, SPN helps write templates to change state laws; then ALEC members vote in secret for those bills; and then SPN supports the introduction or adoption of those bills as law, sometimes with help from David Koch’s AFP echo chamber in a state.

5. SPN Funders Have Included Some of the Richest and Most Ideological Families in the Country. Fueling SPN-related efforts is a bevy of right-wing billionaires and foundations beyond the Koch brothers and including the Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (large donor-directed funds), the Olin Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (the Amway fortune), the Coors-related Castle Rock Foundation and the Adolph Coors Foundation, the McCamish Foundation, the JM Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. SPN-related activities are also funded by the Roe Foundation, the charitable arm that is part of the legacy of Thomas Roe, the man who helped launch SPN over two decades ago, after telling one of his allies, “I’m going to capture the states,” just like Ronald Reagan was going to capture the U.S.S.R.

6. SPN’s Legislative Agenda Is Frequently Buttressed by Its Forays as “Press” and the Echoes of Its Allies in the Growing Right-Wing State “Press” Corps. As CMD was one of the first to document, SPN groups like the Goldwater Institute are hiring people to act as reporters, and the legislative agenda of SPN is increasingly echoed by the growing right-wing infrastructure of groups that pose as press. Some even get their stories or “reports” picked up as news and delivered to state newspapers as a “wire” service like the Associated Press, as with the Franklin Center’s Watchdog.org groups and the Ryun brothers-allied “American Majority” and “Media Trackers” operations.

This Reporters’ Guide details how SPN works, who funds it, what the network’s groups do, and looks at some of their legislative goals, including undermining workers’ rights and weakening unions as well as undoing renewable energy laws and expanding ways in which tax dollars are redirected to the private sector, for example through funding so-called “virtual schools.”

Key resources include:

1. PRwatch Special Report with Key Findings: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform

2. State Policy Network Main Portal: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:State_Policy_Network

3. SPN Funding: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Funding

4. SPN Ties to ALEC: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC

5. SPN Members: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Members

6. SPN Agenda; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Agenda

7. SPN_Founders,_History,_and_Staff: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/

Cutting Social Security

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President Obama is going to cave to the repubs, who hate Social Security and would like to dissolve it altogether…. (hat tip to common dreams).

…wave good-bye whatever security you felt you had when you turned 65….

Bring on the dog food and slums….and be sure to bail out some more banks–

—while Wall St and others profit…

 

Monsanto, the Godfather…

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…of destruction to human beings and the environment…

And President Obama signs the Monsanto Protection Act.  WTH?

From the Union of Concerned Scientists link:

In 2008—the last year a federal Farm Bill was completed—the company reported a whopping $8.8 million in lobbying expenditures (see table below) intended to influence decisions in Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies.

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$8 million. Just for lobbying, folks….that’s not counting the money spent on persecuting farmers. It was common for farmers to keep seeds to plant crops with–nothing was wrong with that….until Monsanto made it illegal…and one has to ask why?  Why are they allowed to persecute farmers for saving seed?  In some cases, such as Percy Schmeiser, a farmer doesn’t even have to have purchased the poisonous seeds….

Don’t forget the Hoosier farmer fighting this Goliath in the Supreme Court.

One of the articles I passed over with my search made a statement that Monsanto’s seeds are popular with farmers…perhaps that is what the problem is…and where the solution lies…NOT purchasing seeds from Monsanto.  I think it is going to take a helluva boycott on the part of the farmers to bring this giant to its knees.  It’s obvious by now that the gov’t is not going to do the right thing and regulate this poisonous agriculture or the corporation responsible for it.  And Monsanto is doing its best to destroy the family farm.

What a fight on our hands….

Exxon interfering with coverage of the Arkansas spill

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Exxon is interfering with our right to know and the First Amendment–the right of the news crews to fly over the spill to document it. And my guess that the reason I haven’t heard of it on the news is becoming obvious–trying to shut down the news of it so that the Canadian XL pipeline can go through without protest… (note again the Hillary Clinton connection to XL…)

…and as I said, the real reason they don’t want *outsiders* taking the ducks and other wildlife to rescue centers is to thwart attempts to document the damage with photos of the dead and suffering wildlife….

(I say outsiders with just a little sarcasm…as if the American public were outsiders in their own country….but increasingly made to feel that way, eh? )

Krugman on Cyprus

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(hat tip to common dreams)

Paul Krugman has a few thoughts on Cyprus:  Leave the euro now.

The only issue with Krugman’s column is that he should get a little more detailed and put it into context.  Most folks are not literate in the financial world (which I think they bank on (pun intended)), so a little “lesson” on the history of economics and why we continually bail out banks and financial institutions and anyone else they deemed “worthy”…just as long as they don’t give those sleazy poor people food stamps!!

Banks and profiteering on food.

Christie private profiteering

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Well, the good feelings towards Christie for his actions during the storm crises is evaporating rapidly…with the news of him continuing to destroy public education for private profiteers.

Looking at the comments, Amitola mentions how the town has gone the way of most in the U.S.–jobs dry up, people move or the ones that stay are scraping by–not able to support a robust economy.  And the schools follow–poverty is the number one reason for school’s poor performance.  It’s hard to concentrate on school work when you’re hungry, dirty, and your folks are stressed out because you’re *this close* to being out on the street.  (or worse, you’re already out on the street, living in a shelter, with noise all night long and no privacy and no life).

Another poignant comment is by John Randolph:  the 1% bring the city to its knees and then profit off of the carcass.
Disaster capitalism, folks….(speaking of unions, they announced on the news the other day that Indiana has now lost more union members than gained, thanks to “Right to Work” law.  Also, they are airing commercials promoting a tax break…yes, a tax break in this economy…for Hoosiers—Gov. Mike Pence, an APEC toadie, first spouted this hairbrained idea right after election.  Legislature said no.  Now *cough* Americans for Prosperity are taking it to the airwaves trying to get people to call their representatives.)

Unfortunately, charter school takeover is not just here in the U.S., but now in Haiti. (insert a few choice expletives here). Note that Bill Gates has his filthy little fingers in this, too.  Like I said before, he is not the philanthropist he tries to imitate.

See previous posts here. And here. And here. 

And here.