I subscribe to the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the Arizona Republic, the Orlando Sentinel, and a few other newspapers. I want to keep journalism alive.
One of my favorite features is a daily summary in the Boston Globe called Fast Forward by Teresa Hanifin.
This is an excerpt from this morning’s Fast Forward.
“Trump heads to Texas today for a couple of fund-raisers. While there, he’ll sign some executive orders designed to further roll back energy and environmental regulations and promote the fossil fuel industry, apparently to meet his goal of making global warming worse.
“The orders also contradict Republicans’ long-held belief in states’ rights. Trump is trying to rob states, especially those run by Democrats, of the power granted to them under the Clean Water Act to stop pipelines and other projects that could harm the water quality in their districts, and give that power to the feds instead.
“It’s also yet another attempt by the GOP to subvert the will of voters who elected those Democrats, presumably for reasons that included protecting their water. But oil and gas interests donate a ton of money to hold more sway with Republicans, so there you have it.
“But Republicans aren’t alone in working against the best interests of ordinary people when it suits them: Democrats have joined their GOP colleagues to push a bill that would permanently ban the IRS from creating its own free electronic tax filing system. Why? Because it would compete with Turbo Tax, H&R Block, and other private tax prep companies, and if you can’t buy off lawmakers with campaign donations and millions of dollars in lobbying, then what good are you? The full House could take up the measure soon; there’s a similar measure over in the Senate. ProPublica has the sordid details.
“AG William Barr is back before a congressional budget committee today and is still being asked about the Mueller report. Here are live updates.
“Meanwhile, Bloomberg found out that Barr is placating the boss by assembling a team to investigate why the FBI decided to investigate possible ties between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Why was there an investigation? Oh, I don’t know …
— Maybe it was the fact that there were at least 100 known contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian-government linked people or entities, according to Business Insider, including 23 meetings or calls.
— Or perhaps the fact that 16 Trump campaign officials had direct contact with a Russian government official or a Russian-linked operative, and at least an additional nine campaign officials were aware of these contacts.
— Or maybe it was the fact that Trump campaign officials had meetings, calls, and digital correspondence with high-level Russian government officials, billionaires linked to Putin, an accused Russian spy, and hackers enlisted by Russian intelligence to meddle in the 2016 elections.
“All that may seem like a big, fat nothingburger to some. Reasonable people would disagree.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed on all counts.
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First USA Today and now the Boston Globe. Finally some real investigative reporting that journalists can feel proud about posting. I’m glad they are taking back their profession and helping us all in the long run.
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Agree, LisaM.
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Thank you for this one, Diane.
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A criminal cabal attacking all of our democratic institutions. All in plain view and with the imprimatur of the entire feckless Republican Party. I look forward to the return of government by and for the people.
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“I look forward to the return of government by and for the people.”
I hope some semblance of democratic rule returns before it is too late.
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Except you have to realize that there are plenty of Dems that do this, too. It’s not a left or right issue. It’s a greed issue.
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Why Faux News and the Wall Street Journal of Corporate Apologetics Are Lying to You about Socialism
In the past few months, Faux News and the Wall Street Journal of Corporate Apologetics, both owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch the Morloch, have been running almost daily pieces about the Armageddon that would ensue if the United States followed the Evil Master Plan of the Democratic Party and became a Socialist country (by which they mean, if we adopted a universal, single-payer healthcare plan, mandatory paid parental leave, reasonable unemployment benefits, free college tuition, protections for unions, and more steeply progressive taxation in order to pay for this stuff). In every one of these pieces, the hacks who write for Murdoch say that if we do those things, we will end up just like the Soviet Union and Venezuela.
Sigh.
OK. Let me get a few things straight.
First, Socialism is an economic system in which workers own the means of production. So, a country like the old Soviet Union, in which the means of production were owned by the state, was not a Socialist country. However, an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP plan, is Socialist. Do you know of any nation state where the workers own (or owned) the businesses they worked in? Neither do I. So, Socialism is an economic system that hasn’t been tried yet on a national scale.
Second, a political system in which there is private ownership of business and steeply progressive taxation to support the general welfare via universal healthcare, good unemployment benefits, free college, paid parental leave, and so on is not a Socialist country. Countries with that sort of system are called Social Democracies.
Third, Social Democracies like Finland and Denmark always rank at the top of lists of the happiest places on Earth, for obvious reasons. For example, they pay half what we do for healthcare and everyone is covered, so they are healthier and live longer.
Fourth, Venezuela failed not because of its social welfare programs but because it was completely dependent upon sales of a single resource, oil, and when the price of oil tanked, so did the Venezuelan economy.
Now, what’s the deal with Fox News and The Wall Street Journal? Surely some people who work for these propaganda ministries went to college and therefore can distinguish among Totalitarian State Socialism (like that in the former Soviet Union), Socialism, and Social Democracy. And surely they know the facts about how great life is, on many measures, in the modern Social Democracies. And surely they know why Venezuela is in trouble. It’s not exactly a secret.
So, when they say the crap they do, they are simply lying. Why? Because they serve the interests of the oligarchy, of leaders of the New Feudal Order like Rupert Murdoch the Morlock, and are therefore purposefully spreading disinformation to keep a Social Democratic revolution from occurring here. Why? Well, if that happened, Murdoch’s US companies would end up having to pay their fair share in taxes, and Rupert would end up with a few billion dollars less.
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The summary was appreciated.
There’s some solace that the stupidity of the Waltons and DeVos’ is getting coverage through the Theranos story. Their evil was already known.
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“Social Democracies like Finland and Denmark always rank at the top of lists of the happiest places on Earth, for obvious reasons. For example, they pay half what we do for healthcare and everyone is covered, so they are healthier and live longer.” I often wonder if they also live longer and have much less anxiety because they do not have to deal with the idea of their own government taking a shockingly disproportionate amount of their own personally-given taxes and sending it to an invasive, globally vicious military.
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It’s a wonder that we aren’t building a wall between us and Canada since they have decided social-democratic tendencies although apparently their new Conservative government would like to undo it.
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They certainly don’t have to worry about HALF of their healthcare dollar going via profits into the pockets of the racketeers who run the US healthcare systems (insurance, pharma, hospital chains, etc).
Thirty-two of thirty-three developed nations have universal healthcare. The lone exception is the United States.
In 2016, per capita healthcare costs in the US were $10,348, and the US spent the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare of any OECD country (17.9%). In contrast, the OECD average healthcare cost was $4,069 USD, and the percenage of GDP was 8.9%. These figures are all from the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC or from the OECD.
Despite the high cost of our healthcare, we have poorer outcomes than do countries with universal, single-payer plans. Twenty-seven countries in the OECD have longer life expectancy than we do, and 32 countries in the OECD have lower infant mortality rates. These figures are from the OECD.
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A wall is not necessary along the Canadian border because no one wants to leave Canada for the US.
One would have to be insane to do so.
Of course, if the draft were ever reinstated in the US, a wall would most definitely be needed.
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You are right. I’m thinking that wall may be more to keep us in although a few of their businesses have benefited from government subsidy in their competition with us. My once local bank is owned by the Canadians as well. You never know who doesn’t want America to be great again!
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And the Canadians would probably be the ones building it to keep the riffraff out.
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You might have that definition of Socialism vs Communism reversed but as many different sources as you check is as many different opinions you will get. Including that Marx used them synonymously.
But as I pointed out a few weeks ago. State-sponsored Social Welfare insurance funded by employer taxes has absolutely nothing to do with either. It originated with Bismark in an effort to counter the push for socialism in Germany. After he had a crackdown on socialists in 1878. Bismark was removed when he proposed an even harsher crackdown on the socialists in 1890.
So it would seem that Bernie and AOC ought to change how they describe themselves to the Democratic AntiSocialists of America.
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The were a number of prior precedents for the welfare state, including the programs for the needy instituted by Ashoka in India and similar programs carried out by the Rashidun and Abbasid caliphates. A really important milestone in the development of the modern welfare state was the Beveridge Report and the subsequent reforms based on it: http://www.psi.org.uk/publications/archivepdfs/Victims/VV2.pdf
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And, as you point out, one can argue endlessly and pointlessly about definitions of terms, though I think the definition I gave a defensible and valuable one. But the main point stands–what bothers the Murdoch press is calls for steeper progressive taxation to fund social programs like universal, single-payer healthcare. See my notes on that, below.
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Wish I could have posted the New York Times’ Investigation of the Murdoch’s, their intra-Family struggle for power, and Rupert’s encouragement of nationalist, proto-fascist governments in the US and Europe. It focused on the power struggle between two of Murdoch’s sons, James and Lachlan. Lachlan was most like Rupert and he prevailed. James left to create a foundation (with his wife) devoted to preserving democracy and fighting climate change. I couldn’t post it because it’s behind a paywall and I could not post more than 300 words. It’s a fascinating story.
Did you know Rupert controls 70% of the media in Australia? He was also responsible for bringing national testing (NAPLAN) to Australia. He brought Joel Klein, one of his favorites, to Australia to sell the Education Minister on the “NYC Miracle,” attributable to testing, testing, testing. Of course, there was no NYC miracle, and in the next year or so, Australia is likely to put an end to NAPLAN. Murdoch hired Klein to create an edtech division at News Corporation and invested $1 billion in Klein’s effort to reinvent education. After Klein’s venture lost $500 million, Murdoch got rid of it.
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Wow! I had no knowledge of Murdoch’s importation of GERM to Australia. That’s just awful. To be expected from this man.
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It serves the purposes of the Murdoch propaganda machine to have this shibboleth to attack–to lump systems with totalitarian state ownership and Social Democracies together and to cherry pick failures from within this ill-defined set. In his fascinating work Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, George Lakoff (1967) talks about the word balan in the Aboriginal language Dyirbal, which describes a set of things that includes “women, fire, and other dangerous things.” Well, “Socialism,” as used by the Murdoch press, is just such an ill-defined set. And the lumping together of disparate things is intentional. It’s meant to confuse, to distract attention from Social Democratic systems like those of Finland and Denmark, and to paint steeper progressive taxation to support social programs as akin to what was done in the Soviet Union and and in Nazi Germany. And, unfortunately, with uneducated voters and with wealthy folks who don’t want to see their taxes go up, this works.
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In other words, the Murdoch press is painting anything that it doesn’t like as “Socialist” in hopes of providing a ready means of identification for objects of 2 minutes hates.
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Bob Shepherd
Thanks for the lesson in Eastern / Mid-Eastern Civilizations.
But we are on the same page. The Bismarck reference was more relevant to my point for a number of reasons. The most important was that he was a vehement anti-socialist. So any programs resembling that model should not be considered Socialist. Of course, that is irrelevant to the right. As it was irrelevant when Bismarck proposed them to counter a rising Socialist tide. . We have a long history of Red Baiting in this country. Since before WW1 Socialism was attacked as Public enemy number 1. Even Teddy Roosevelt certainly no socialist as the right loves to point out when it is convenient.
“If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a Communist agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln’s” …
Surprisingly the Republicans haven’t taken this down yet.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ottob.html
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That’s a lot of news every day. Journalists everywhere should “pay respect.” Thanks for all the support for the beleaguered press your column engenders. Please get at least 6 hours of sleep to rest those eyeballs, Diane
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Does this woman ever sleep? I have often wondered. She’s amazing, but the hundreds of thousands of us who love her worry about this.
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Gail,
Here’s a secret. I had a colonoscopy this morning and I didn’t sleep a wink last night. All checked out well. Never waste your money on Cologuard. It gave me a false positive.
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“Here’s a secret. I had a colonoscopy this morning and I didn’t sleep a wink last night. All checked out well.”
Hundreds of thousands of educators across the world have let out a collective Alleluia.
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Hope you are recovering well from that unpleasant procedure!
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Deep sigh.
Like you, Diane, I subscibe to sereval newspapers and publications like ProPublica. However, I refuse to support the Boston Globe, my hometown newspaper, because of its continual assaults on the Boston Public Schools – not its administration, but on the teachers and paraprofessionals who are on the line daily.
Perhaps it is because of the business relationship its publisher, John Henry has in his Fenway Sports Group with the billionaire privatizer, Seth Klarman, who holds nearly $1 billion of Puerto Rico’s death. However, this is nothing new. Columnist Scot Lehigh has made a career of denigrating and blaming teachers, while James Vaznis has only recently developed some skepticism about the goals of the mayor and the foundations pushing the privatization agenda.
The Globe endorsed and supported the installation of the unqualified Laura Perille as interim superintendent. Last week they published this piece, neglecting to identify Marty Walz as a DFER lobbyist. It’s recycled from the Pioneer Institute, which is affiliated with ALEC and is funded by the Kochs and the Waltons.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/04/01/what-lawrence-public-schools-can-teach-boston-about-education/E0IPoPHEwO5XXvaocobWKK/story.html
The editorial board has not weighed in on our struggle to fund Massachusetts’ public schools so as to ensure equity. They could call out Governor Baker, former executive director of the Pioneer Institute, for failing to provide ELL kids and kids in poverty with the money due to them under the state’s own formula, the Foundation Budget, but they do not. They are quite supportive of charters and testing. There’s was coverage, but no call to invalidate this year’s iteration of MCAS 2.0 after a racist question appeared on the tenth grade exam in March, an exam students must pass to receive their diploma – which requirement the Globe also thinks is just dandy. Affected school districts are now considering a lawsuit, the third since 1978, for equitable funding. https://t.co/pkC988vks6
As to testing, like New York, Boston has schools where admittance is predicated on a standardized test. Like New York, there is great underrepresentation of students of color at the most sought after, Boston Latin School. It turns out that the ISEE has not been validated for students of color and that it has been the sole bidder to provide the test for some twenty years, but there was no reporting of that in the Globe; it was one of our public radio stations which reported it.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2018/10/23/entrance-exam-used-by-boston-latin-may-not-be-up-to-the-test
The Globe could lead the charge to push officials to change this, but they will not. As a “remedy”, the school department is doubling down on the test, continuing to admit next year’s students by test scores and administering the test next year on a school day to all students who opt in.
#NoGlobeForMe
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You have convinced me. I have a digital subscription ($4 for8 weeks). I won’t renew. Several years ago, I was interviewed by Scott Lehigh and he write a snide article,
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Thanks, Diane! When I absolutely must know what inanities they have published, I clear their cookies from my cache.
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Glad to hear that all went well.
I was going to make a similar request about WaPo. Then I figured if we applied the purity test we would not have any reading material.
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Agree Christine-
The Globe and the richest 0.1% sleep in the same bed.
Massachusetts, like all of the 50 states, have department of ed employees representing states for SEDA (Gates-funded).
If Gates wanted an ALEC style operation for eduction, SETDA would fit the bill. It’s public employees instead of elected officials, fostering public private partnerships, promoting digital learning and offering seminars on how to scale up ed tech start-ups. SETDA’s Digital Instructional Materials Map provides ideal information for national sellers of tech products. WHY are state employees running SETDA- is it in name only- and if, so, who is focused on the ethics?
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It is the only reason I subscribe to the Boston Globe Nothing else is worth reading in that paper
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In 2001, the Globe editor pronounced that the paper supported charter schools.
The owner who bought the Globe in 2013, formerly had an investment firm. In the 70’s, he was into commodities- not exactly the background that would suggest anything positive about his views supporting the common good.
Now that the NAACP, ACLU and SPLC are on record about the threat that charter schools pose to the minority community, the Globe should rethink its position.
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I’m glad you support journalism, and I also agree that we need to keep it alive; but, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post are all owned by billionaires, and the six largest media outlets control over 90% of the media some of them controlled by billionaires, or at least multimillionaires, and a large portion of the stock holders are billionaires.
We need media outlets that aren’t controlled by oligarchies.
I know a lot of your writing is much better than the oligarchs; however, we can’t rely solely on traditional media if we want the truth. You might be familiar with others like Common Dreams, Truthdig, Grist, etc. that might provide better news at times, although it’s hard to keep up with it all.
It’s routine for these oligarchies to expose others corruption while participating in their own. And while the mainstream media is rightly going after Trump they helped rig the primaries for Hillary which resulted in the Trump presidency.
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The Globe should do an article on our bought media.
But they won’t because they are bought and paid for.
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