Randi Weingarten quoted Chris Rufo’s speech at Hillsdale College, where he called for school choice to break free of public schools, one of our democratically governed local institutions.
He threatened to sue her.
His first tweet: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1518631508277297153
delete your false tweets and issue an official retraction—or I will unleash hell on you.
He’s complaining about tweets from Randi in this thread.
Here’s the entire speech from Rufo at Hillsdale – Video here
“For example, school choice– to get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust. Because in order for people to take significant action, they have to feel like they have something at stake.”
—- separately he lays out how to do this –
“And so what we’re seeing, I think, as the first step is a narrative and symbolic war against companies like Disney, for one example.
You have to be very aggressive. You have to fight on terms that you define. You have to create your own frame, your own language, and you have to be ruthless and brutal”
Randi has three things going for her:
1. She quoted Rufo’s words
2. The resources of the AFT.
3. The First Amendment
Go for it, Chris! No empty threats. Show your cards. Get woke.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wonder what Rufo is really afraid of? Smart, educated kids ? He’s also a homo/transphobe. Man needs to get a grip and a life….
Rufo is threatened by anything different from his own view of what should be.
Diane: I cannot help but think there is a lot of Republican falderal going. That said, it seems to me Rufo thinks that the U.S. Government is NOT fundamentally democratic . . . that is, it ALREADY belongs to the people. He probably has swallowed whole propaganda rhetoric about “government schools.”
There are only two choices for Rufo:
(1) Either his intelligence (such as it is) serves his ignorance insofar as he has swallowed “hook/line/sinker” the oligarchs’ privatization rhetoric, and joined the cult, OR
(2) he is complicit with the oligarchs, with capitalist transactional thinking as the ONLY thinking; and ultimately with the movement towards fascism.
The republican party has already signed off having election debates . . . just sue! they say. Very telling of them: Reasonable discourse has left the building . . . not their forte’. CBK
CBK: The transactional thinking is a good point. People feel differently about their actions when you move from the idea of a values-based decision to a transaction. Want to make sure your teachers take all their days off? Restrict their ability to take days off. This changes their thinking from moral decisions to transactional decisions.
Hello Roy: As you probably realize, transactional thinking as the ONLY kind of thinking is a disease that comes with capitalism-only thinking and has infected the U.S. (at least) but is particularly rampant right now in the Republican Party.
The problem is the ONLY part of it; along with the (long forced) disappearance from our thinking in and of its proper context . . . in a working democracy that is not all-about jobs and making money; that is: of public institutions (like unions?) and a regard for the law, citizenship, creativity that is not necessarily linked to economic concerns, and the public good that those institutions are there to serve.
Enter: public education with its roots directly related to democracy and at least a part of the curriculum devoted to student awareness of what it takes for democracies to survive.
And I don’t think the “dark” power brokers give a hoot about educating our children, especially to become civilized citizens of a working democracy (hah!) insofar as neo-liberal capitalist thinking is the fundamental thread running through the whole curriculum.
Like all good fascists, these people have patience, money, and planning. Think Koch and their interest in choosing higher ed teachers and building separate on-campus institutions that teach . . . guess what . . . “economics.” At least for those charter school owners who don’t abscond with the money before anyone gets taught anything.
But for K-12, according to the playbook, the advent of charter schools is just an interim moment between truly public schools and THEIR FORM OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS . . . makes Devos’ shenanigans look amateurish. And my reading of it is that oligarchs will dispense with cow-towing to religion as soon as they get their way with the order of things.
My view, however, is also that nothing is a given, . . . unless, like the environmental crisis, we don’t see it coming down the historical pike and then don’t act on it. CBK
My guess is that he starts with sincere if misguided beliefs, then discovers he can monetize them.
Looking at the video, it’s difficult for me to conclude that he has any sincerity in his bones. He strikes me as a soul-twin of Coleman: their goal in life is power. When they look into the mirror in the morning, , they see Julius Cesar.
I wonder why Disney does not bring a lawsuit against Rufo? Surely he has defamed them in a way that would hurt their bottom line. It seems obvious from his Hillsdale speech that he intends to make them the bad ogre in his rhetoric.
Interesting question. Tough to win a free speech lawsuit. Might give him a bigger audience.
Diane: Sort of like censoring a book. Everybody wants to read it then. So if I stir a hornet nest, I need to know the resulting activity will decrease hornet activity.
So the question is, why does poking the bear with a stick always produce a win for the right wing? Rufo is a small boy compared to Disney. He must perceive the Disney bear as being caged, so he is free to poke it with a stick.
I expect he has Koch money behind him but I don’t know for sure. There’s a lot of libertarian billionaires who like what he’s doing.
Have to love the laser like focus of this new ed reform celebrity on public school students.
Wonder where public school students are in this coordinated political campaign that is being run around their schools?
Not a word about the students- ever.
Have any high profile ed reformers uttered a word of criticism about their new celebrity?
Do “progressive” ed reformers understand yet how they have absolutely no influence or power in this “movement” and they were all simply used to effect a political result?
The “cancel culture” of the whiny, miserable, thin skinned right is, “I’m going to call my lawyer.”
“To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”
So odd. I can never find public school students in ed reform political screeds. Where are they, I wonder?
Very “adult centered” I must say. So much so that public school students have now completely disappeared from the “movement” that is supposedly about them.
Is anyone in ed reform ever going to speak out against this guy?
Thousands of paid “advocates” for ed reform, all of them meekly and obediently going along with this. He’s launched a political campaign to harm public schools. Millions of students attend public schools. Not one of the ed reform advocates or groups will say anything to even indicate they disagree with this approach?
The single person with the spine to debate him is Randy Weingarten? I mean, glad someone was there, but wow.
Randi has finally realized that there is no meeting the deformers in the middle. She is better off standing up for her democratic principles and her union members than trying to earn a place at the Broad Academy table where teachers will always be on the deform menu regardless of what Randi does or says.
Retired Yes, yes and yes. There is no middle ground here. Here is the graph for it, I hope it translates:
Parties: Republican vs Democratic
Political
Foundations:
BEFORE Both Democratic (small d)
Political
Foundations:
AFTER: Fascist vs Democratic
What is he going to sue her for? She quoted him!
He won’t sue for anything. But he was referring to the second tweet (the one on the bottom), which had a quote that wasn’t accurate. After his tweet threat, she followed up with the second one that provided an accurate quote.
I agree he won’t sue. Rufo tweeted yesterday morning that he had a meeting with lawyers scheduled for yesterday afternoon. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the first thing an attorney would tell Rufo is to basically shut up, to stop making public (or private) threats like, “I will unleash hell.” Tweeting threats against a potential defendant is not how one issues a subpoena or wins a case.
Chris Rufo will never “woke” up. I think that Rufo is just another greedy, fascist dictator loving zombie.
Consider Rufo’s threat: “delete your false tweets and issue an official retraction—or I will unleash hell on you.”
I think Rufo just admitted he has a direct line to the devil.
His speaker fees must be amazing.
So asinine and childish. Musk just dropped a sixth of his net worth on a dumpster fire of disinformation. I long for the days when a tweet was merely a sound birds made.
If Musk brings back Trump, I leave Twitter. Not that Musk cares.
”Because in order for people to take significant action, they have to feel like they have something at stake… the first step… a narrative and symbolic war… You have to fight on terms that you define. You have to create your own frame and your own language.” —
–Christopher Post-Trutho
Ms. Ravitch,
A few days ago I came across an online comment that I saved (copied and pasted below); unfortunately I don’t recall the outlet I saw it on, but the author’s name was Susan. I’d like your reaction.
“Diane Ravitch long ago ceased to be a serious scholar. After publicly changing her mind about almost everything she believed in regarding education, she has become a far Left partisan who labels anyone who disagrees with her as evil and/or stupid (in so many words). What is most revealing is that she hasn’t had an independent thought in at least ten years – whatever the AFT and the NEA support, she parrots their company line. She appears to spend most of her time posting commentary on her blog which is cultishly followed by a small number of groupies who constantly tell her how wonderful she is. Very sad: she wrote several books on education which were well-regarded, but she has renounced most of her past writing in order to appeal to the education establishment, from which she NEVER dissents.”
Those are strong words. I’m curious: are there any issues that you disagree with the AFT and/or NEA about?
https://www.city-journal.org/html/closing-diane-ravitch’s-mind-13600.html
This is the article you are referencing. It’s from a right-wing s**t rag that slavishly champions ed reform so of course they are happy to do a hatchet job on a fierce unapologetic defender of public education. Ms. Ravitch has previously spoken about the transformation in her thinking over time. Humans grow. Btw It’s very deceptive to post verbose slime and then conveniently “forget” what junk think-tank you got it from.
City Journal = Koch
Becky should read Dark Money by Jane Mayer.
And, she should ask herself if she values voting rights for women. Republican Peter Thiel who is funding JD Vance for Senate said women voting in a capitalistic democracy is an oxymoron.
Women fought for the right to vote and achieved it in 1925.
In the approximate 100 years since then, there have been only 18 GOP female governors. Becky thinks the GOP will limit itself and only suppress the votes of black people?
I would have remembered if City Journal had been the source of the comment I quoted because CJ is a well-known publication to people like me who read extensively about public policy. At any rate, the essay Callisto cites has no comments that follow, so I couldn’t have found the comment I quoted there. I was just clicking around on education-related topics and I came across it there. You may graciously retract your error.
I expressed no opinion on the quoted comment; I merely asked for Ms. Ravitch’s reaction to it.
Bob Shepherd has provided a defense of Diane Ravitch and her readers, so I won’t go there. I will ask why you think Diane should respond to those comments. It is so obviously an opposition infomercial. There is nothing in it worthy of response.
It’s beneath me. I have standards.
Callisto, that’s not the article, though it is another lame-brained polemic against Diane. It claims, for example, that she has rejected the emphasis by Hirsch on knowledge-based education. That’s not true. Her position is quite a bit more subtle than this caricature implies, and I say that as a fervent supporter of knowledge-based education who has followed Diane’s blog for years.
This quotation rang a bell with me. I know that I read it somewhere at some time in the past, but I’ve been unable to locate it on the Internet. I was just curious about its origin. It’s repellant, of course, and uninformed. This and the City Journal piece are akin to the sorts of stuff written by crazed, vindictive exes. LOL. These people couldn’t stand that Diane saw through what they were doing.
The author of the City Journal article, Sol
Stern, once a friend of mine, quit because he refused to bow to Trump. He is a man of deep principles who has frequently changed his mind. First he was a leftwinger at the radical journal Ramparts in the 1960s. Then he swung far to the right and became a right winger and was a regular contributor to City Journal. When City Journal embraced Trump, that was too much for him. He dropped out. I never took seriously his criticism of me. His changes from far left to far right are dizzying.
“cultishly followed by a small number”, yet here you are, Becky, quoting made-up words. I think that at last count, Diane’s blog had 36,000,000 views.
I presume your mindset renders Rufo and Pat Buchanan, non-partisan and pro-democracy?
My cult following is somewhat larger. The blog is approaching 40 million views.
Becky’s frame of reference is rethuglicans who double down when they’re wrong, for example MTG and John Eastman.
Dear Ms. Maganz:
There are many oft-repeated slanders against Dr. Ravitch, among these, that she is some sort of tool of the teachers’ unions or is funded by them. And that’s just nonsense. A couple reactions to your comments: First, her many books since she evolved from her previous positions have been best-sellers. Second, her blog has had tens of millions of views. Third, she is widely published these days by news organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Review of Books. She is the co-founder of the highly influential and important Network for Public Education. Dr. Ravitch opposes the federally mandated state standardized testing and the Common Core. The AFT and NEA have not taken public positions in opposition to either. In general, Dr. Ravitch is a supporter of workers’ rights to organize. But she gets no pay or other support from teachers’ unions.
OK. That’s more than a couple. And if being a fan of Diane Ravitch, the renowned historian of education, courageous muckraker and defender of freedom of speech, and de facto leader of the defense of public education from the many attacks being made on it is being a member of a cult, well, count me in. However, if this is a cult, it’s an odd one, given the heated debates that take place in the comments on this blog. In fact, given that unanimity of unquestioned adherence is definitive of cultishness, I would have to say that this blog is just about as far from being a cult as one could imagine.
Your comment reminds me of another made recently here by someone who said that he was surprised to see on this blog frequented by “leftists” fervent defenses of NATO. Well, this is not surprising at all. People of many political persuasions post here, and though many posters are indeed to the left of center, their positions on particular issues and subtle, nuanced, and often in disagreement.
cx: are subtle and nuanced
Thank you, Bob. Important to emphasize: I support and encourage labor unions. I believe they build the middle class. As the number of people in labor unions has declined, the concentration of wealth among the top 1% has grown.
I have never been on the payroll of any union.
I thought it might be interesting, in this context, to share some of my own experience with Diane Ravitch. Many years ago, I read her book Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform and thought it the best book on education that I had ever read. I was, btw, in the middle of my career in the textbook industry, where I worked as a writer and editor and manager of large print and online courseware projects for K-12.
I was delighted when she contacted me for some input to the first version of her book EdSpeak. I think she thought some of my Devil’s Dictionary-style definitions of terms in Educationese a bit radical for her tastes. LOL. But again, I was extraordinarily impressed by her intelligence, wit, and deep perceptions.
Then she started her blog, and I found it a place with a wise and learned moderator, where extremely important topics in education were vigorously debated–fundamental stuff like the history of segregation, standardized testing, teacher autonomy, unions, classroom management strategies, educational standards, varieties of assessment, educational technology, charter schools, voucher systems, school and teacher evaluation systems, curricula and pedagogy in history and reading and mathematics and science, etc., as well as fly-by-night stuff like campus free speech zones and flipped classrooms and grit.
In recent weeks, this blog has seen extremely vigorous debates, involving vastly differing points of view, about topics as various as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, proposed national curricula, critical race theory, phonics and grammar instruction, standardized testing, trans rights and medical procedures, legislation affecting LGBTQX students, approaches to the teaching of history, NATO, and many, many others. And I enjoy participating in these debates. That, and my admiration of Diane and of her work, keeps me coming back.
A couple years ago, I volunteered to do some editing of the manuscript of one of Diane’s books. This was an enlightening experience. In my long career in publishing, I have edited manuscripts by many of our country’s leading public intellectuals, and NEVER have I received raw copy as well-written, as closely and carefully argued, and as free of errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling as hers was. And this level of work was coming from a woman in her early 80s!!! The word genius is thrown around a lot–too much–but my Lord, her work was of astonishingly high quality in comparison to that of others who were, for their scholarship and accomplishments, household names and titans in the academies.
I have enormous respect for this woman, not only for the quality of her mind and for her profound compassion and concern for schools, teachers, kids, and democracy but also for the incredible courage that it took for her to follow her convictions and take on many friends and alas, many soon-to-be former friends, some of them among the most powerful people in the country, with whom she had come to disagree. I can only imagine what kind of courage that took. Few could muster it. She’s breathtaking. I’ve called her our Boadicea. More like her, please!
And, Ms. Magnanz, for an answer about the seriousness and care exhibited in Dr. Ravitch’s recent work, I refer you to her books. If you read those, you could not possibly think it sensible to post such ludicrous calumny. Yes, she took a turn toward the polemical, but there is a reason for this. She sees clearly that the most important of America’s democratic institutions, its public school system, is under well-funded and systematic attack, and she has courageously, at much personal cost, risen to its defense. I am referring, of course, to her extraordinarily well-written and carefully argued and documented books The Death and Life of the Great American School System (2010), Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (2013), EdSpeak and Doubletalk (2019), and Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools (2020). That’s quite an oeuvre for a woman in her 70s and 80s! One would have to look long and hard to find her like. It’s not surprising that she has a following, given her brilliant, deeply informed, indefatigable championing of free speech, teacher empowerment, and public schools.
And Dr. Ravitch is hardly a doctrinaire left-winger. Anyone who thinks so hasn’t really bothered to familiarize himself or herself with Dr. Ravitch’s recent work and so is talking unwarranted, arrant nonsense. That anyone would make such a claim is a tell that he or she is blowing hot air and is clueless on this subject.
You might try reading those.
And one thing anyone who knows anything about Diane is that she is an independent thinker, certainly not a follower. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has called her the “titular leader” of support for public education. That is accurate. She opposed bipartisan attacks many times, even when politicians she supported went along with DeVos and Koch. That’s all I want to say, and now I’ll stop stooping to the level of the rightwing gaslighter above by responding to the nonsense.
Becky Maganz: . . . because we should NEVER change our minds, and we shouldn’t openly agree with someone, well, . . . that we agree with, . . . because then someone like you will think we are cultish. Oh, dear, what can the matter be . . . Johnnie’s so long at the fair. Where’s my bleach? CBK
A comment this stupid doesn’t deserve a response.
Oh, Enlightened Master Diane. We your cultish groupies await your instructions! Has the time come, yet, for our final liberation and ascension?
ROFLMAO at how ridiculous this comment is. Why on earth would anyone post such nonsense?
Expect instructions when Haley’s Comet returns in 2061. Stand by until then.
It is a long time to wait, Divine One, but on Earth and in the place of the Awakening, your Will be done!
LOL. Hale-Bopp to the top!!!
Should have been Hally’s Comet, not Haley.
Understood, Enlightened Master!
Becky… your comment is a blatant attempt at gaslighting and not relevant to the discussion of Rufo and other neo-fascists seeking to disrupt American public education.
Mr. Shepherd. It has come to our attention that you have been using the words freedom and liberty in your posts–registered trademarks of The Repugnican Party, The House Freedom Caucus, Faux News, and The Trump Organization RICO. Wiretaps in our possession (thanks, Vlad!) also reveal that you have been practicing freedom of speech without a license from the government in exile of Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange Than Does the Sun. Be advised that unless you cease and desist, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. –Toady, Finkle, and Skank, Esqs.
cx: The House Freedumb Caucus
Haha. I hope you have a good lawyer, uncle Bob.
Better call Saul!
Gee, this will be difficult since Rudy Ghouliani’s license was suspended. Maybe Sidney Powell or Homer Simpson is available.
This thread is quite revealing. I expressed no opinion on the comment that I quoted; I just asked for Ms. Ravitch’s reaction to it. The thoughts expressed in that comment have been made by numerous other people over the years. I can see why the commenter I quoted referred to a cultish following on this blog.
I’ve lived long enough enough to have personally known many dozens of people well enough to know their opinions on various issues. And I’ve read hundreds of different writers expressing their opinions on all variety of matters. I’ve yet to come across anyone who agrees with anyone else or any organization 100% of the time – other than people who are emotionally connected to or financially paid off by those they claim to agree with in all situations.
So I sincerely ask: on what issues does Diane Ravitch disagree with the positions taken by the education establishment as personified by the AFT and the NEA? Let her speak for herself. If she remains silent, that will tell us a lot.
I sincerely ask: on what issues does “Becky Maganz” disagree with the positions taken by the right wing Republican establishment personified by known liar Donald Trump? Let her speak for herself. If she remains silent, that will tell us a lot.
Diane Ravitch believes in honesty and truthfulness. That is something that can never be understood by folks who embrace liars like Donald Trump.
Diane Ravitch’s positions reflect the truth. The fact that positions reflecting truth are more likely to be similar (but not exactly the same) to positions taken by the AFT and NEA than they are to positions embraced by the lying Donald Trump and the Republican party that worships him is a mark of integrity.
Let Becky Maganz speak to condemn the blatant lies of Trump and the Republicans. If she remains silent, that will tell us a lot.
NYC- thanks for writing your comment. Becky has much in common with the right wing. For example, she fails to understand (or, she favors) false equivalencies. The reasoning in your message will elude Becky.
If she had the capacity to understand, she would learn from reading an article about the personality traits attracted to cults. The list includes among others, those with low self worth and schizotypal thinking (on the edge of delusions or disconnects to society). Cultists tend to subsume rational thought to explanations that rely on other world answers. QANON is an example.
Trump’s followers were labeled a cult so, Becky parrots the right wing tactic of, merely redirecting back, the criticisms that are made against them. The right wing’s latest example is the redirection of the word fascist. The last original tagging of the left from the right was “snowflake.” But, it worked against the desired messaging which was, the left hangs out with the devil and plots to murder. It’s difficult to reconcile “snowflake” with claims that the same people are out to kill the Matthew Cawthornes, Jim Jordans and Josh Hawley’s in the nation. It creates a mixed message that confuses GOP voters.
In a J.D. Vance ad aired in Ohio, the Harvard grad who makes his money from investments that use the H-1B visas he criticizes, Vance tells the audience that the left looks down on GOP voters. He doesn’t tell them, the right exploits them.
This is the politics of grievance, which Trump plays like a fiddle
For years, Ms. Magnaz, I have patiently waited for the AFT and NEA to take principled stands against the invalid federally mandated standardized testing and against the puerile Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic]. I have waited in vain. Diane Ravitch has written often in opposition to both. If you want to see her taking positions not taken by the AFT or the NEA, simply type Common Core or Standardized Test into the search box at the bottom of any of Dr. Ravitch’s blog pages, and you will find dozens and dozens of posts in which she takes positions on these that disagree with the official positions of the AFT and the NEA. The AFT even took money from the Gates Foundation to promote the Common Core, and neither union has stated its opposition to the federally mandated state tests. Diane has written extensively in opposition to both. And btw, about those standardized tests:
cx: Maganz
Oh, and btw, Diane and I have had occasional disagreements, and, as I said, there are many lively debates on this blog. So this business about cultishness here is preposterous. And so is the implication that she is somehow a tool of “the education establishment,” which she has wrangled with again and again. The powers that be in U.S. education allow charter schools and vouchers, for example, which she vehemently opposes, and the Trump administration’s Department of Education (how “establishment” is that?) wanted to impose a national curriculum, which she also opposed.
I say “in opposition to both,” but again, her positions on these issues are nuanced. But they do differ from the official positions taken by both the AFT and NEA.
Who is us? And if “us” had really done all the research from a broad range of position that “us” claims, thaen “us” would know the answer to that question.
cx: “…a broad range of positions that “us” claims, then…”
Regarding the subthread started by Becky Maganz: She might start by naming the “the positions taken by the education establishment as personified by the AFT and the NEA.” Or even just one. Hard to know what she’s talking about. But I had to admit I know little about AFT & NEA positions from primary sources. Here are a few I found on issues we’ve talked out exhaustively on this forum.
On charter accountability: NEA https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/action-center/our-issues/charter-school-accountability#:~:text=NEA%20supports%20non%2Dprofit%20public,in%20student%20learning%20and%20growth. AFT https://www.aft.org/resolution/reclaiming-promise-public-charter-schools-through-rigorous-authorizer-reform
On high-stakes annual state-standardized testing: NEA https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/despite-progress-charade-high-stakes-testing-persists
AFT https://www.aft.org/blog/randi/real-purpose-esea
Related to DEI/ CRT: NEA has a “Racial Justice in Education Framework”: https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2020-08/Download%20the%20complete%20Framework.pdf AFT passed a resolution “Confronting Racism and in Support of Black Lives” https://www.aft.org/resolution/confronting-racism-and-support-black-lives
I was surprised to find union leadership’s positions both less wishy-washy and more probing/ nuanced than I expected.
I think what you’re engaged in here, Ms. Maganz, is what is known as “trolling.” You aren’t paying attention if you think anyone in these fora–particularly Diane Ravich–is going to respond to you. As far as the comment you quoted, the nature of scholarship, indeed the work of the scholar, is to change his or her mind when new evidence supporting different perspectives become available.
As I am wont to ask so many persons like yourself who enters these discussions with an antagonistic ideological agenda: Are you sure you know what you’re talking about? Because it doesn’t sound like you do.
We must have free speech!
You said what?!?!?!?! I’m going to sue you!
We must have free speech!
It looks like the first time around, Weingarten slightly misquoted him. THIS is the basis for a lawsuit?
Bizarre
In what sense did Weingarten misquoted him? How are the words “brutal” and “ruthless” describe an activity which is not an attack?
I was referring to the fact that she seems to have added in her first tweet some words at the beginning of the quotation–“to sow and grow that mistrust.” I’m not sure that that’s exactly what he’s referring to. I would have to go back and listen again to his speech, which I’m not going to do.
“I would have to go back and listen again to his speech, which I’m not going to do.”
Yeah, it would be as wasteful as relisten to Coleman’s advice on life.
I have a propensity for stating the obvious and I feel more compelled now than ever to state it: the GOP has always exhorted about “freedom,” “liberty,” and “keeping government out of our lives” but they have absolutely zero compunction about using the levers and machinations of government in an attempt to control what people can read and discuss, amongst many other things they claim to be hands-off about. Massive doublethinking, Newspeak toadies to beat all hell.
Yeah, the extremists want to impose their views and practices on others in the name of “freedom.” A woman who is raped by a stranger is not free to abort his baby. If she tries, the rapist can report her, collect a bounty, and she goes to jail.
“To sow & grow that distrust, you have to create your own narrative frame,& have to be brutal & ruthless in pursuing it,’”
I think CR has a winning strategy he’ll open with the winning
“I didn’t attack public schools, I just encourage people to be brutal and ruthless in sowing and growing distrust against public schools. I never ever used the word ‘attack’. ”
Is he 12 years old? He certainly sounds like it.
I really wonder how he is going to create a lawsuit when the video appears on YouTube with the title “Laying Siege to the Institutions”. My English was bought on the flea market, so I am not sure if laying siege falls under the umbrella of an attack. Maybe he is advocating a peaceful though brutal and ruthless siege.
I guess I misunderstood the post. The idea behind the lawsuit threat is that Weingarten apparently misquotes Rufo and the sentence ““To sow & grow that distrust, you have to create your own narrative frame,& have to be brutal & ruthless in pursuing it,’”. doesn’t appear in the speech but only Weingarten’s twitter.
OK, despite my better judgment, I listened to the speech. I believe Weingarten accurately summarized Rufo’s long winded speech, frequently selfpromoting speech but she was not quoting word for word.
He does say,starting at 27 min, that against institutions such as Disney or publisc schools, one has to wage a “narrative and symbolic war” and in this war one has to be “ruthless and brutal in pursuing something good”.
At 34 minutes, he starts talking about not only increasing the number of people who distrust “institutions like public schools” but, in order to achieve fundamental change, like getting universal school choice, one has to achieve universal distrust of these institutions. Here is what he says exactly:
I think you want to create the conditions for fundamental structural change. … For example, school choice: To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from the universal public school distrust.
Briefly: one needs to “sow & grow” that distrust. How to achieve this goal universal distrust? Well, according to his earlier advice one has to wage a “narrative and symbolic war” and in this war one has to be “ruthless and brutal in pursuing something good”.
Weingarten hence accurately summarized what Rufo was saying, but she was not quoting, proper. It would be very disappointing if there was a basis for a lawsuit.
She certainly paraphrased what he said. She did not distort his meaning.
Yeah, I agree.
Mate and Diane In a civilized setting, even incorrect paraphrasing, however, is the beginning of reasonable discussion, and certainly not fare for a lawsuit.
Oh, . . . EXCUSE ME . . . I forgot that Republicans have dispensed with “civilized settings,” “reasonable discussion” or debate. I keep forgetting. So sorry. CBK
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/liberals-culture-war-dodge-fight-history-left.html
I do not know what the adviceof this article is. The generic “One way to lose a culture war is to refuse to fight it. ” is not a recipe, as far as I see it.
Is “Another way to lose it is to let your allies do a lot of unpopular things and then allow the country to believe the only way to stop them is to vote you out of power.” something new, something enlightening?
As far as I am concerned, getting into a fight, more precisely, accepting that what we need to do is participate in some kind of war, is a mistake.
The error Weingarten made was to only criticize what Rufo said, point out that he explicitly promotes a brutal, ruthless fight against public schools, which should include false, lies-filled propaganda, but she didn’t balance her story with a description of why public schools are the choice to make.
The correct, age-old advice is “avoid a fight”.
The writer of the New York magazine article, Jonathan Chait, is an ardent advocate of charter schools. I don’t take his advice.
“Jonathan Chait, is an ardent advocate of charter schools. ”
Ah, that explains the tone of the article.
I start understanding that these school choice advocates think in terms of a war against public school. This is why they talk so aggressively.