Audrey Watters asks the question that we should all be asking: is our democracy for sale to the candidate with the most billions?
Apparently our schools sold out years ago when money was dabbled before them.
People who take money from that powerful education foundation — you know the one, the one that turns 20 years old this year — always insist to me that they’ve never been compelled to change their policies or practices. Of course, it doesn’t have to coerce its grantees to say and do things. People self-censor. They shape their initiatives to suit the foundation’s philosophy and its goals. They value the things the foundation says it values; they measure the way the foundation says it measures. Because if they rely on the foundation for funding, they know to fall in line. They needn’t be told. That’s how the power of philanthropy works. It sets the agenda. Personalized learning. The Common Core. Charter schools. Measures of Effective Teaching. It didn’t push for these ideas because that’s what people wanted. It helped convince politicians that these were the ideas that education needed. That is to say, education policy has not been shaped by democratic forces as much as it has been by philanthropic ones — by the billionaires who wield immense political power through their “charity.”
Actually, I don’t blame schools—few of whom had a say in decisions to follow the Gates money trail—so much as I blame the policy elites, who fell in love with the idea of sitting at the feet of billionaires and following their commands. The billionaires didn’t know what they were doing, but they were so confident in the virtues of testing, accountability, competition, choice. Who could resist?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“One of the most depressing responses to racist authoritarianism that I have ever seen: endorse a different racist authoritarian and pretend like his charitable giving is not, in the end, as self-serving as the other’s.”
When billionaires dangle money in front of schools, their motives are never questioned, and neither is the veracity of what they propose. Billionaires weaponize their wealth and distort any concept of democracy we have. Our economic meltdown in 2008 created a cash starved crisis for the nation’s public schools. it was a perfect storm for giving billionaires and corporations access to our schools, and no questions were asked about their motives. There were no questions asked about the validity of their proposals. Our students, teachers and schools became the play things of the plutocrats.
Bloomberg is at it again, trying to buy an election. In Wednesday’s debate, Elizabeth Warren was not about the bow to the oligarch. She and the other candidates have been working their tails off for a year or so. She pounced on Bloomberg like a panther. Bloomberg looked at her in disbelief. He was being challenged by a female, a former speech teacher who was telling him he needs to earn his place at the podium. We should all hope this is a start of a new day in American politics where we judge candidates by the content of their character, not the size of their wallets and portfolios.
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The U$ is far more of a “dollarcracy”than a “democracy” — and has been for a long time.
In “Dollar We Tru$T”
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“Dollarcracy is US”
Dollarcracy is us
In dollar do we tru$t
The dollar buy$ the pol
Who makes us .pay the toll
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Makes us pay the troll” might be better
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And I guess that would make Bloomberg the troll
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Or Trump
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Although it’s kind of confusing because both Trump and Bloomberg have blurred the traditional line.
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That’s dedicated to Mayor Bloomberg (the buyer) and Mayor Pete (the pol).
Pete and Repete
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Good one!
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Establishment Dem, Pelosi, went to Texas to rob Justice Democrats of a win. Nancy gave
her endorsement to Cuellar who gets funding from the Koch’s and who has voted with Trump 70% of the time.
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Human monsters and ruthless turds (no insult meant to natural turds) like the malignant narcissist and psychopath Donald Trump and all the other deformers of everything civilized operate under the assumption that everyone has a price, and if they cannot buy you, they will destroy you any way they can.
History teaches us that the only way to deal with these DEFROMERS is to erase them. That’s why most revolutions that start at the bottom end up eliminating all of the DEFOMERS (the ones that did not escape to other countries) that thought they could buy anything and everyone.
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The establishment Dem institution, Media Matters, has an interesting story naming the “Never Trumpers” who spread the propaganda in newspapers and in broadcast news that “progressives aren’t electable” i.e. Peggy Noonan (WSJ and Sunday morning political shows), David Brooks and Bret Stephens (NYT), Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot (WaPo), and Steve Schmidt (MSNBC).
The article points out that “Never Trumpers” have negligible pull in their own party so there’s no reason for them to be granted space for opinion that crowds out views from progressives.
A refreshing change of pace – establishment Dems critical of corporate media for pushing a false narrative about Bernie and Warren and, an illustration of how progressives are cheated.
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That’s unusual.
Most of the Democratic owned and operated media are having a nervous breakdown over the Sanders win in Nevada.
MSNBC is squandering the last remnants of its respectability in their over the top negative response.
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Chris Matthews compared the Sanders win to the Nazi invasion of France.
This comes just a week after MSNBCs Upchuck Todd basically called Sanders Supporters Digital Brownshirts (another Nazi referemce,)
But it’s undoubtedly all coming from MSNBC President Phil Griffin, who is just doing what they he Comcast board of directors tells him to do (for his pay, of course)
Almost all of Sanders’ father’s family died in the Holocaust and Griffin undoubtedly knows that.
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It is surprising. Media Matters was linked to the Hillary wing But, if I recall correctly, Brock, who is Media Matters, was on the receiving end of hefty insults from Hillary’s team (leaked e-mails).
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