Jeff Bryant lives in North Carolina and is a close observer of the recent political coup. Before the new governor, Roy Cooper, took office, the legislature rushed through bills to reduce his power and his appointments. Not content to have gerrymandered the state to put themselves in a supermajority in both houses of the General Assembly, they acted swiftly, without hearings, to diminish the role of the governor.
Bryant contends that education is at the heart of the coup, as it has long been in North Carolina. He interviews a historian of the state who explains the efforts by racist whites to disenfranchise blacks. Literacy tests were key to maintaining control of state government. When it turned out that large numbers of whites were illiterate, that gave impetus to improving white schools.
It is especially sad to see North Carolina on the path of racism, reaction, and hostility to public education, because it was once recognized as the most progressive state in the South.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sooo SAD! Easy to destroy; hard to build. These destoyers = pure greed and HUBRIS.
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I think it’s safe to say that tea party candidates that dominate NC have/had the financial backing of the Koch brothers and/or the membership of ALEC.
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So why don’t we just call that the “establishment” or if you prefer the oligarchy. No matter which party they are supporting the ultimate goal is preservation of wealth or shall we say inequality . One path is the slow road the preferred road express. Organizations like ALEC or the BRT were not formed to foster an egalitarian society.
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It’s not easy to label it the “establishment” or the “oligarchy” with one word, because they are not unified. There are different camps out there.
From what I’ve read, Bill Gates controls/leads one group of the oligarchy and the Koch brothers control the other one. These are the major players and there are a few billionaire oligarchs who are going it alone and do not belong to either cabal. They are the wild cards but by themsevles, they are outgunned by the two big billionaire cabals.
The Guardian calls the Bill Gates cabal the Good Club, and says they want to save the world, but saving the world to someone like Bill Gates doesn’t translate to what that might mean to the working class.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/31/new-york-billionaire-philanthropists
Inside the Koch Brothers’ Secrete Billionaire Summit
https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-behind-koch-brothers-secret-billionaire-summit/
Is it safe to say that Littlefingers Donald Trump is a wild card because he doesn’t belong to either group? At least, I’ve never read that he does, and after Bill Gates met with Littlefingers and came out complementing him by comparing him to Kennedy, I think the Gates cabal might have a better chance to recruit this serial lying, groping cockroach.
Other media reports show that Littlefingers literally hates the Koch brothers for some reason. Maybe the Koch brothers won’t praise him and Gates gets it. Kiss the groper in chief’s ass, you and get farther than ignoring him.
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BRT = ??? (for those of us self diagnosed with Acronym Identification Impaired Syndrome Disorder)
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Business Round Table?
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Duane, you slay me (YSM)! BRT might mean Big Red Turnips or Beat Rednecks Thrice. According to Google it means Be Right There which doesn’t make any contextual sense to me but then I have the same impairment as you. Or maybe it does if you look at the word “right” from a political point of view (PPOV).
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Lloyd Lofthouse
Those good guy billionaires are standing on some pretty shaky grounds from attacking Public Education to their vision for higher education,to labor issues and anti trust issues … …
Supporting neo liberal Democrats because of social issues is not much different than supporting right wing Republicans.
I assure you that you or I would not meet with Trump and walk out with smiles ear to ear. We are more likely to walk out in cuffs .
The distance between Trump and the Koch brothers is minimal judging by his cabinet picks. Which could have been made by the brothers Grim oops / Koch /oops Pence, Koch
“Gates gets it. Kiss the groper in chief’s ass, you and get farther than ignoring him.” True that
And on trade the real solution of our trade deficit lays in the value of the dollar . Inflationary policy that devalues the dollar is the sure fire way to make foreign goods more expensive and American goods more competitive at home and abroad. That involves fiscal and monetary policy that supper heats the economy giving workers the ability to finally demand wage increases ,empowering unions to demand those increases. A place he will never go.
His infrastructure plan is nothing but a tax give away to developers who will use it mostly for projects they already would have done. Nobody is replacing the pipes in Flint . If they build a school it will be in the basement of a luxury building with an entrance by the garbage disposal.
His Tax policy will put more money in the bank for perhaps
the top 10% and do nothing to help stimulate the economy. We may see a larger payout on our mutual funds as dividends and stock buy backs will soar. But we are the small potatoes .
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I agree on all the points you made. Although I don’t think I’d be led out in handcuffs. For me, it would probably be a body bag if I failed to make my point with a pointed object.
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We need a revolution in this country as we are no longer a democracy evident in this case in NC. I cannot believe they type of country we are now living in and am wondering how in the world did we get to this?? Some say globalization has caused too many people in this country to accumulate an exorbitant amount of money and influencing and taking over government. Any way you slice the cake we are now living in a billionaire controlled country that is self destructing in every aspect of life whether it be education, policing with safety and order and just about everything else…sad sad we need a revolution…
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It is revolting that there is so much manipulation and dirty dealing to suppress democracy and deny Americans what should be their rights under the law. North Carolina has become perhaps our most regressive state and has truly lost its way.
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Thanks Diane!
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When I came to Greensboro, NC just over 2 years ago, I learned that the city had a lengthy history of racism, yet had also earned the reputation of being progressive in terms of racial policies. However, I soon discovered there was actually only the appearance of being progressive while continuing to practice racism in all forms. This phenomenon, known as the “Progressive Mystique,” was a deliberate attempt by city officials to portray the city to outsiders as an island of acceptance and tolerance, while simultaneously being able to continue racist practices. The city of Greensboro had found a way to have its cake and eat it, too. Perhaps the same could be said of the state as a whole.
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I am curious. What are the racist practices the City of Greensboro is performing? Are these policies? I know people as individuals can be racists and may join others in the practice of racially motivated behaviors but I am puzzled as to how a city could or would pursue racial guidelines or codes. One would think there would be safeguards for those types of illegal doings.
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We are circling the drain in North Carolina. The state superintendent says thatl urgency is needed and that he will take a year long listening tour of the state. So much for urgency.
http://www.wral.com/new-nc-superintendent-urgent-changes-needed-to-fix-outdated-school-system/16402326/
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This particular piece is of interest to me personally because my mother grew up in a turn of the century railroad town east of Raleigh in the aftermath of the political goings on that this historian describes to Bryant. She was raised in an excellent educational environment, the daughter of a lawyer whose mother coached girls basketball and taught at the local school until she married. My mother attended a very excellent public school and was the equal in her education of my father, who attended a prominent private school in Tennessee. While she always deferred to the fine education her husband had received, and while she supported my attending that same private school when I came along, it was obvious that she was very well educated. Her devotion to education was derived from contact with caring teachers, many of whom I met in my youth because she kept up with everybody she ever met.
The irony of this whole story was that she was the liberal in our family. From her I learned to accept people for who they were, to refrain from petty hatred, and to consider governmental policy that helped people. One of my earliest memories was waiting in the car while she went into a neighbor’s ramshackle house with a thermometer to see if the unfortunate child within was running a fever and needed medication. (Incidentally, the daughter of the sick baby inside, a former student of mine, recently published her third book, a Christian fiction genre piece. Other kids going back to thisnfamilynare still my students)
I have always believed that knowledge was the first step on the road to liberalism. Even if the reactionary white power North Carolinian political leaders sought to marginalize Blacks in an attempt to hold onto power, it failed from the perspective of my mother. Her experience must have been duplicated in the state, for when I moved there to teach in 1979, I discovered a state that was more progressive than my own. Teachers were better educated, students were better prepared, and colleges expected more from the students.
Ironically, there was an ill presence in the senate at the time, Jesse Helms, who was pushing the state toward reactionary government. In the years since, I have been dismayed to watch the state swing more toward the Helms Carolina and away from the place I loved for 5 years before I moved back home. In that same time, in-migration has dramatically changed the political make-up of the state. Bryant’s article does not treat the effect of the massive population increase due to migration and the effect of this on the body politic of that state. Nor can I add anything to the discussion, for I have been in Tennessee during that time, but it seems a significant omission.
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Beautifully written memoir Roy. I will agree that the influx of outsiders has changed the disposition of the state with mixed results. I also remember Jesse Helms being the personification of the old south conservatives. Nothing ever stays the same but it would be nice to keep the good parts. Air conditioning is now essential but in some areas neighboring no longer exists. One doesn’t always anticipate the consequences of progress.
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I would disagree that Helms was “old south”. His reactionary attitudes was indeed fascist, racist, and reprehensible, but the old south had a decidedly Jeffersonian admiration for learning and intellectual search for truth. Helms and his logical successors today lack this. They substitute cynical attempts to solidify their own place as the economic and moral chieftains in an otherwise pluralistic era.
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I stand corrected!
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