Max Brantley, the editor of the Arkansas Times, is a journalist who fearlessly stands up to the all-powerful Walton Family in the state they think they own. Brantley is a hero of the Resistance in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH.
In this post, Brantley describes the Waltons’ efforts to destroy the Little Rock School District and to crush the Little Rock Education Association.
He writes:
They are doing to Little Rock schools what the foundation of the family fortune did to small towns all across America — hollowing them out. It’s a years-long, billion-dollar effort that favors “choice” — privately run charter schools, vouchers for private schools, taxpayer support for homeschoolers and a diminishment of the role of elected school boards. Parents know best, the Walton acolytes assert, even when the studies show little proof that the various choices beat conventional public schools. They are still searching for the magic bullet for the grinding reality of the impact of poverty on standardized test scores, the misleading standard by which “failure” is determined…
Little Rock teachers are…complaining of a mass e-mail from the anti-union Arkansas State Teachers Association last night warning teachers against striking. This group had a $362,000 startup grant from the Walton Family Foundation, no surprise given how notoriously anti-union Walmart has always been. ASTA also has ties to a national anti-union organization founded by like-minded billionaires. Teachers weren’t too happy to be spammed by the group. ASTA also has been peppering state newspapers with op-eds touting their anti-union views. Its leader, Michele Linch, was the lone public voice on the other side of an outpouring of public opposition to the attack on the LRSD and its union by the state Board of Education.
Teachers in Little Rock ARE talking strike. I confess misgivings. There’s not a readily attainable goal as seen in other states, such as a pay increase. Nor is there any realistic hope for a change of heart in the Asa Hutchinson- (and thus Walton-) controlled education hierarchy. As Ernie Dumas wrote this week, racial discrimination and union hatred (tied historically with racist thinking) have always been with us in Arkansas. The recent LRSD takeover was nothing more than a combination of both by the white male business ruling class, with the primary immediate goal of union wreckage.
The Waltons collectively have a fortune in excess of $100 billion. They buy people, they create organizations to implement their evil schemes, they think they can squelch democracy by the power of money.
Those with the courage to stand up to them—journalists like Max Brantley, the teachers of the Little Rock Education Association, the parents and activists of Grassroots Arkansas—are the heroes of our time. They oppose autocracy, plutocracy, and a vast conspiracy to destroy democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“a vast conspiracy (of extremist billionaires) to destroy democracy.”
Thomas Jefferson offered advice to deal with this when it happens.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure,” Jefferson wrote in a letter to William S. Smith, a diplomatic official in London, on November 13, 1787.
I think it is time … but there are not enough Americans angry enough, yet, to rise up and follow Jefferson’s advice. Peaceful demonstrations and reasonable debate are not going to stop the Waltons, ALEC, Gates, and all the other totally corrupt billionaires and those like the Trumpists that are involved in destroying our Constitutional Republic and its democratic institutions.
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Oh, Lloyd, I hope you are wrong. Revolution never just takes down the bad guys. They kept eating each other in the French Revolution. Our own revolution was not some holy endeavor for freedom. There is substantial evidence that it grew out of a desire to avoid helping Britain pay for the French and Indian War that protected the homes and businesses of their colonists. I know I am over simplifying the reasons for our revolution, but my point is that the motives behind revolt are probably never entirely pure. The coalition of people who end up supporting such a course are not all high-minded and altruistic. We managed to end the Vietnam war without destroying the country and the civil rights movement of the sixties and seventies brought changes with heavy costs but without outright destruction. I’m not sure what the mechanism is that keeps protest from turning into civil war, but I hope we do our damndest to figure it out.
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That is another thing that history teaches us. The leaders of most revolutions often become the next generation of tyrants replacing the ones that were defeated and executed to make room for the new monsters who are also the false prophets the Bible warns about.
Matthew 7:15 ESV / 1,204 helpful votes
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Being a false prophet doesn’t always refer to religion. A false prophet can also be political.
I think anyone that wants to be a leader means they are probably psychopaths and narcissists like Donald Trump.
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Arkansas is an example of what to expect in an oligarchy where corporations have the power. It is a dystopia for working people and a loss for democracy. The people of Little Rock should try to get some help from the SPLC and the ELC. Maybe they can find some way to fight back in the state charter, constitution or civil rights legislation.
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