Category Archives: racism

Saving Michigan Public Schools

by

Diane Ravitch has this link up on Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton fighting the good fight for Michigan public schools from the profiteers.

From the link:

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who signed his authority over school reform to the experimental EAA for 15 years in 2011, asked to get it back immediately, apparently due to deep concerns about the EAA’s many failures – but EAA Chancellor John Covington refused. Given the crumbling relationship between the EAA and Flanagan, Lipton said the EAA must be brought to a halt, not expanded, as Republicans in the Legislature are seeking to do.

~~~~~~~

and then there’s this:

And why won’t the governor, through his control over the EAA Board of Directors that hired and can fire Covington, demand Covington to immediately return control to Flanagan or be removed from office?”

~~~~~~~

Stunning.   Absolutely stunning that they signed authority over for 15 years to an uproven entity!!  Who does that?!

Of course the Repubs are not only not stopping this, but trying to expand it.  (Probably hoping that it will be harder to stop a speeding train).  Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Koch Brothers, John Arnold, and the billionaires boys club have too much at stake to take their marbles and go home…

 

Charter Schools Gravy Train

by

(hat tip to scathing purple musings)  Forbes, of all places, has this article up that pretty much summarizes all that is wrong with charter school profiteers.

As mentioned here before, the article notes that Bill Clinton allowed them to proliferate by giving them tax credits and not only that, but green cards for foreign investors.  Yep.

As I’m reading about the for-profit scheme and how the author notes that they have not been that profitable…I’m thinking of the “classes” being given to kids via video or online “learning”…so they don’t have to pay a teacher at all.  Or–they have one teacher to answer questions or grade tests for however many kids they can squeeze in….I don’t even know the answer to that and I’m not going to even try to guess.   They don’t really care, anyway, if the child is getting a good education…as long as it looks something like an education, they’re just fine with that…

Lastly, I’m even more impressed with public schools after reading this–the author notes that charter schools can pick and choose their students, so they should be showing better test scores than public…less than a third do that.

So…even with the students that are autistic or mentally challenged, the public schools still outdid the charters.  Here’s to the dedicated and beleaguered public school teachers….::clink::

Video segments of Kochs Exposed

by

Here are snippets of the documentary on the grip the Kochs have on policy.  It’s truly heartening what happened in Wake County, a southern area, and how they were not willing to go backward.

Also, this documentary leaves out the Gates Foundation and Eli Broad and the Walton family’s influence on destroying public education…just wanted to note that important piece of this pie.

 

 

Kochs Exposed: one of the most important films…

by

…you will ever see is here.

It is just mindboggling how the Koch brothers have their tentacles in every aspect of society: union busting, voting rights, livable wages, social security, corporate taxes, healthcare, etc….

Not only that, but equally troubling is how easily Congress and politicians can be bought.

They are more than willing to endorse the racist ideas of the Kochs by a stealth way of re-segregating schools, interfering with one’s right to vote, and dumping toxins in poor and black neighborhoods.  The only thing missing from this documentary is how BP is right there with Koch and will most likely accept the petcoke byproduct of tar sands at the Whiting, Indiana refineries.  Indiana always seems to get lost in the concerns of pollution.

Another troubling aspect of this documentary is how Ed Shultz is featured as being against the Kochs, but he is for XL pipeline….which the Kochs are behind!  One can only wonder how much the Kochs have paid to MSNBC or to Shultz (which I would find it hard to believe, but Kochs seem to go on the belief that everyone has a price…and they only need to find out what that price tag is…)  since Ed has changed his tune, and the Kochs are known for greasing palms to buy people’s silence or worse, it’s not without merit to question if they have paid somebody off to get Ed to promote the pipeline.

I’m glad, however, to say that some of us care about the environment and our health and our children’s health and are resistant to this dirty money…

 

A letter from a mother

by

Anne Clair, an Elsipogtog mother, wrote this about her son being jailed while protesting SWN trespassing on the native owned land.

Again, I ask–  If most of the taxpayers are against fracking and tar sands, then why are the oil companies allowed on that land?  Why were the police there and who are they working for if the taxpayers do not want this?

 

 

More evidence why we need media diversity

by

Protestors in Venezuela were blocked on twitter from posting images of the protests.

PBS, which is supposed to be free from corporate influence, is now under fire for airing an anti-Pension series sponsored by John Arnold.   David Sirota’s article on it here.

In recent years, Arnold has been using massive contributions to politicians, Super PACs, ballot initiative efforts, think tanks and local front groups to finance a nationwide political campaign aimed at slashing public employees’ retirement benefits. His foundation which backs his efforts employs top Republican political operatives, including the former chief of staff to GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey (TX). According to its own promotional materials, the Arnold Foundation is pushing lawmakers in states across the country “to stop promising a (retirement) benefit” to public employees.

~~~~~~~~~

…both PBS’s “Pension Peril” correspondent and the AP reporter did not mention that according to budget data, pension shortfalls in Illinois are far smaller than the amount the state is spending on expensive taxpayer subsidies to corporations. 

[…]

The state is just choosing to spend that money on huge subsidies to corporations like Sears and Google rather than paying its bills or making its required pension payments.

~~~~

See…the money is there…but it’s going into the pockets of the 1%, see?  Note the $4 billion per year in subsidies in New York!  OMG talk about greedy, greedy, greedy!

And here we have the smoking gun of executives knowing who was funding it and refusing to disclose it:

“We were sitting in a meeting talking about another issue and (PBS officials) were drawing examples of how they were working with other campaigns, and one of their executives said they’ve got a series called pension peril coming up talking about the threat of pensions at the state and local level,” said the source. “I asked who was funding that project, and the executive said that at this point they are not disclosing who their funders are, and everybody sitting around the room kind of paused.”

~~~~~~

Link to Jane Meyer’s article in the New Yorker here.

In 1997, he [David Koch] began serving as a trustee of Boston’s public-broadcasting operation, WGBH, and in 2006 he joined the board of New York’s public-television outlet, WNET. Recent news reports have suggested that the Koch brothers are considering buying eight daily newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, one of the country’s largest media empires, raising concerns that its publications—which include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times—might slant news coverage to serve the interests of their new owners, either through executive mandates or through self-censorship. Clarence Page, a liberal Tribune columnist, recently said that the Kochs appeared intent on using a media company “as a vehicle for their political voice.”

~~~~~~~~

$50 for Christmas bonus?  Are you kidding me?  So much for trickle down economics, eh?

Meyer’s piece brings up the ABC News story on Disney hiring pedophiles being cancelled…because Disney owns ABC.  If I recall correctly, the reporter of the story was asked if he was crazy for investigating it….

Even more depressing is the upcoming PBS pieces by Chitester on the “evils of the welfare system”  I can hardly wait.  What a bully this guy is…pick on the ones who are least likely to fight back.  Creep.

Honoring dead and missing women

by

Idle No More has this up on a day to honor dead and missing Indigenous women.  I would like to expand that to all women—missing, dead, beaten, and raped.

Unfortunately, it’s in Canada…but yeah, if you’re not there, perhaps you could just take that time from 10:00 to 12:00 p.m. to meditate on that.  Not only on that, but how we can heal our society so that women are not seen as second class or “less than” for being….women.

Some suggestions:

–Say a prayer.

–Make a list of what you can do personally to stop the rape/violence against women culture.

–Change your thinking of hierarchy–that one must be “above” or “below” another.  And that one’s material wealth is equal to their spiritual worth.

–Examine the media.  Truly examine how the media sends messages of women’s worth.

–Listen to women.  Listen to what they tell you they want–don’t try to put your own ideas on to women.  And don’t, for pete’s sake, make us all one homogenous group….we are all individuals with different ideas, needs, wants, and goals.

The stories behind the food stamps

by

I was thinking about my post on food stamps, and thought I’d add a little depth to the folks behind the faces–

I mentioned in this post about the man getting only $16 a month in food stamps.  He’s in a wheelchair, not too much older than me.  He was a fire fighter, once, and then was paralyzed in a hunting accident.

Another lady limps with one leg as she had a stroke.  Her left arm is basically useless–some mobility to it but not much.  She, too, isn’t too much older than me.  She had been married once and had children from that union.  She had once suggested that her husband look into a security business.  He did.  He now lives quite well while she lives in poverty with a small income from disability.

An older African American gentleman once played in a jazz band in Chicago during the 50s and 60s (and probably longer, but that’s what I heard about).  He had his picture in the paper once.   Now he lives in public housing, unable to afford a better place.

A younger gal is a student nurse who somehow ended up here from Hawaii.  She’s in public housing and on food stamps until she gets her degree.

Another gal my age used to work for a national grocery chain.  She stood on concrete floors for eight hours every day for years…..it took a toll on her back and knees and now she is on disability and food stamps.

I just wanted to put a face on the folks on food stamps so people understand.

You never know the story until you walk a mile in their shoes…

The $$ behind destroying unions

by

…in this case, the big bad teacher’s unions.  They are portrayed as taking away the civil rights of children…by billionaires who are paying their parents less than livable wages…so they can have even bigger bank accounts and totally take over public education.

Meanwhile,Diane has this up on the Schools as Soap Operas, brought to you by corporate profiteers.

Additionally, Reclaim Reform has this up on the hypocrites of reform.  Pretty sobering.

But wait…here is some good news–Pittsburgh schools cancel contract with Teach for America.  Yay!

 

 

Wisconsin Senator reveals plan to close public schools

by

Well, those of us following the Education fiasco already knew this, but perhaps the doubters will finally realize the school profiteers have wanted to close public schools all along.

“For the next several years, 5% of public schools must be named as failing – even if those schools weren’t failing by current standards. With few exceptions, schools that failed for three years would be required to close or be operated by an independent private charter management company with a minimum five-year contract. Local school boards would have little authority over this company for five years. For Milwaukee, this change would apply to schools that failed for just one year.”

~~~~~~~~~