Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Rick’s Re-Invention: A.L.E.C.’S Corporatist “Disaster Capitalism” on the Rise

Behold the Nerd's brass knuckled attacks on public education; more brazen and destructive than Engler's hamfisted assaults. Ugly is on the rise, again.

Rick Snyder using the American Legislative Exchange Council crip notes, can't make a move without A.L.E.C. First, the beefed up EFM's (dictatorial powers given Snyder appointed one man rule set against the rights of local government under Michigan's "local option") and now systemic attacks on teachers (all categories) and the very foundations of Public Education (rules, privatization, and operations).

Michigan has become an infamous "Mean TeaPublican" battleground state. 

Scott Hagerstrom, the Michigan Director of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Hagerstrom made it clear, it's the Kochs, working directly through A.L.E.C., who are aiming to "take the unions out at the knees." This belligerence started in Wisconsin and now it's spreading across the country.

Snyder's in a world of trouble. Snyder's causing the kids of this state, our kids, to go into panic. Their schools, bus transportation, art & music, sports programs, band and field trips, advanced placement classes and/or ability to take a class at a near by college or university while still in high school-all this and more, much more is on the cutting table.

The concepts that are the core of the Snyder program (to reinvent by destroying what we have, to rebuild in the mode Rick dictates) use the metrics and formulas of A.L.E.C. a heretofore unknown far right, Koch Bros. et. al. think tank controlled and funded by major corporations.

Here is a partial list of A.L.E.C.'s other corporate backers, those we know of from Wikipedia: " American Nuclear Energy Council, American Petroleum Institute, Coors Brewing Company, Texaco, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, VISA, Exxon Mobil, the National Rifle Association, Amway, and others.

Groups critical of ALEC claim that the organization is controlled by the entities that fund it, subsequently promoting donors' agendas and goals, along with attempting to advance legislation which favors their interests."

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a political/ideological powerhouse, second to none. It calls corporate-serving shots nationwide. Most recently the power of A.L.E.C. has been laid bare in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, although A.L.E.C. subterfuge and "mainlining" of "just-fill-in-the-blanks" corporate written and approve legislation for states has been brought to the public's attention.

A.L.E.C.'s activities are so widespread and endemic to the lawmaking processes of state legislatures across the country, and for that reason are so ACCEPTED BY IGNORANCE OF THEIR PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES, the public finds it hard to believe such a group exists. But they do. Consider: "ALEC has approximately 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states, as well as more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former Governors who are considered 'ALEC alumni'" as per Wikipedia.

Thus as Snyder attempts to roll out his jaundiced version of what's good for your child in Michigan's public schools it is only fair that we begin the process of ferreting out who's underwriting these "re-inventive" concepts and coughing up the statistics of the kind that Snyder uses to make his full-frontal, brutal raid on our neighborhood schools.

If you love outsiders dictating to Michigan who, what, when and where about your child or grandchild's education you will want to follow the revelations coming about Snyder's the sources behind Rick's snide attacks on schools and the teachers who teach. 

As A.L.E.C. purposefully puts Michigan schools in the worst light possible, Snyder accepts that flawed data. His response, "It's a fact." No, governor, it's as filtered and reported by A.L.E.C. and staff doing the insidious work of the anti-public schools crowd. The 2008 A.L.E.C. Education Report barked our public schools, placing them at the near bottom with the right-to-work paradises, the Gulf states, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. These are states with significant minority student populations. A.L.E.C. reports highlights states on the boarder with/or closer to Canada to the north: Minnesota, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Montana, where minority students are far less concentrated; these states are ranked highest. No genus is needed to find an important factor in those findings.

A.L.E.C. employed ideological bully William Bennett to head up its annual education report (He's the harsh critic of public education, whom Reagan put into the Carter established Department of Education to obfuscate and destroy as much as possible of this far right-hated federal cabinet post). Bennett also runs a for-profit business. K-12Inc is Bennett's idea of what he would like to do to profit from public education, especially through the means of privatizing as much of its functions as possible.

K-12Inc also has had amongst its shareholders those well-known parochiaid/voucher mavens, Dick & Betsy DeVos. So, as one can see, Snyder's vision informed and directed by The American Legislative Exchange Council is a retread-a far right coup. It isn't the re-invention ideal as Snyder proclaims: it's retro-pursuit of the long-standing disenfranchising goals designed to destroy America's great institution, free public education. In this process the harsh critics have found a willing pawn in Snyder.

A.L.E.C.'s long march goes on, as the public will see. For Dick & Betsy, the Koch Brothers (backers and funders of A.L.E.C.) and the mom & pop family-business-killers, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, public education is a target of great opportunity for quick profit and power lust.

The next major attack is already underway; again funded and cheered on by Betsy DeVos. It's her dismemberment and undermining of public universities and colleges. Who would believe anyone, much less Republicans, would literally stoop so low as to turn government and the taxpayers against our local schools so much a part of Ovid, White Pine, Monroe and Alpena where community and kids matter so much.

Republicans cannot hate teachers and professors and at the same time hold a dishonest honest claim to care about students.

The Michigan TeaPartisan's radical and aggressive punishment attacks on educators are a clear indication of a very low-class mentality, festooned with haranguing diatribes, and the extremely rude conduct on the part of select TeaPartisans during education hearings in Michigan's legislature; all centered on crashing down on education and educators. Such is the sorriest of sights.

Snyder's A.L.E.C. centered education plan is a tragic lose - lose for Michigan's kids.
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