Allowing "Bad Things" that Destroy Our Public Institutions be Dignified as "Revolutionary / Re-inventive" Public Policy - Why?

Why are we allowing “bad things” which destroy our public institutions to be dignified as “revolutionary/re-inventive public policy” such as is now being ram-rodded into law by radical /hard core TeaPublicans presently in power?

Political tools, in and of themselves, are neither innocent or guilty.

We use our politics in whatever way we choose. There is power lust, ambition, privilege and preference, the possibilities of reprisals and self-seeking and much more...

Where does the danger of malfeasance enter in? Do they derive from the attributes and tools of politics or from the character of the politicians and their twisted principles.

Some in our society, because of their inherent civic weakness and proclivity for manipulation and skullduggery, cannot be trusted with public office, and cannot be allowed the use of public office--which brings with it the powerful tools of politics. You do not allow children to play with dynamite! Nor should tyrants and bigots to be allowed the power to abridge democracy as with Snyder's dictatorially enhanced Emergency Finance Manager Act.

In addition to the merely untrustworthy "them"--the self-serving, or power groveling puppets of moneyed interests--there are the obviously evil subversives, corrupters, etc. What might they do with the tools of political power? They probably would not do much differently than they are already doing in the business world or as crafty religious shaman. If they are really successful at being manipulative, they already have their own techniques which work very well. But these personalities, given power in a weakened democracy, in a time of deep economic crisis; where citizens by default and ignorance have capitulated their franchise (to participate in civic affairs): there we find the unscrupulous politicians play on indifference and will constitute a real danger.

If by chance radical revisionists are using the influencing tools of the press, media, and the bullypulpit afforded their high office, they either do it unconsciously or they already have acquired the necessary techniques of undue influence and propaganda.

The country is well on its way to a showdown of conflicting values: it's all part of the "cultural wars" lusted for by the demagogues and hard-core religionists and anti-tax wingnuts. The power of persuasion is the key to the kingdom for these folk. 3/4 of all Republicans watch FOX Cable news exclusively!

That takes care of the politicians and the ideologues, but what about the ordinary citizens?

This is where "useful" fear creeps in.

What are we doing about this aggressive power play promoted by the use of fear as a political tool?

The power to effect change and make the necessary improvements, the power to stop the abuse and the divisiveness still resides with the citizen.

The voters must overcome their disbelief that American politician can act in such destructive ways as we see some now behaving. Overcome fear with action. Fear is both the root cause and the strength of this radical cultural backlash and "slash and burn" techniques of the Hard Right.

Once you have lost your fear of their ability to manipulate, you are well on your way to taking corrective civic action. Unveiling the demagogue--for the small mind he is--destroys the illusion of power and cuts off his ability to carry forth-empowered by the opportunity our fears present him.

C. G. Jung wrote,

"The evil that comes to light in man and that undoubtedly dwells within him is of gigantic proportions ...He does not deny that terrible things have happened and still go on happening, but it is always "others" who do them..."

"This strengthens the opponent's position in the most effective way, because the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil (desires to go) over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of this threat."  

-- C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self, New American Library, New York, 1957.

Original Post.

Michissippi (Michigan) as Gone from Conservative, Headlong Into Brazen Corporatocracy

Michissippi as Gone from Conservative, Headlong Into Brazen Corporatocracy: “Good institutions neglected and ancient moral principles ignored, the evil in us tends to predominate.”

"Change and reform, conservatives are convinced, are not identical: moral and political innovation can be destructive as well as beneficial..." "Mere unthinking negative opposition to the current of events, clutching in despair at what we still retain, will not suffice in this age."

-- Russell Kirk (Michigan Conservative and role model claimed by John Engler)

Intemperance in the pursuit of Corporate Supermacy, Corporatocracy, is no virtue. 

More from Russel Kirk:

"Men and women are not perfectible, conservatives know; and neither are political institutions."

"We cannot make a heaven on earth, though we may make a hell. We all are creatures of mingled good and evil; and, good institutions neglected and ancient moral principles ignored, the evil in us tends to predominate."

"Therefore the conservative is suspicious of all utopian schemes."

"He does not believe that, by power of positive law, we can solve all the problems of humanity."

"We can hope to make our world tolerable, but we cannot make it perfect. When progress is achieved, it is through prudent recognition of the limitations of human nature."

Unfortunately we so soon forget the greatness of Kirk's integrity, art, and brilliance extolling the virtues of true and lasting Conservatism.

Shamefully, the TeaPublican Super Majority has ignored and degraded Kirk's wisdom in their willful slide from the ideals of a real Conservatives into the near Anarchy of a godless Corporatocracy.

Corporatocracy is a direct threat to everything GENUINELY Conservative.

Michigan is being sold out for pennies on the dollar! We are being propelled well on the way into being legislatively and morally bankrupt; as well as economically stillborn.

CORPORATOCRACY: A social theory that focus on conflicts and opposing interests within society, denotes "a system of government that serves the interest of, and may be run by, corporations and involves ties between government and business. Where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country, including carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the 'free market' label."

Change and reform, conservatives are convinced, are not identical: moral and political innovation can be destructive as well as beneficial; and if innovation is undertaken in a spirit of presumption and enthusiasm, probably it will be disastrous. 

 

 - All human institutions alter to some extent from age to age, for slow change is the means of conserving society, just as it is the means for renewing the human body.
- American conservatives endeavor to reconcile the growth and alteration essential to our life with the strength of our social and moral traditions. With Lord Falkland, they say, "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."
- (Conservatives) understand that men and women are best content when they can feel that they live in A STABLE WORLD OF ENDURING VALUES.

Conservatism, then, is not simply: - the concern of the people who have much property and influence;
- it is not simply the defense of privilege and status.

Most conservatives are neither rich nor powerful;
- But they do, even the most humble of them, derive great benefits from our established Republic.
- They have liberty, security of person and home, equal protection of the laws,
- The right to the fruits of their industry, and opportunity to do the best that is in them.
- They have a right to personality in life, and a right to consolation in death.

Conservative principles shelter the hopes of everyone in society. And CONSERVATISM IS A SOCIAL CONCEPT IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE WHO DESIRES EQUAL JUSTICE AND PERSONAL FREEDOM AND ALL THE LOVABLE OLD WAYS OF HUMANITY. 

Conservatism is not simply a defense of "capitalism."

"Capitalism," indeed, is a word coined by Karl Marx, intended from the beginning to imply that the only thing conservatives defend is vast accumulations of private capital.) But the true conservative does stoutly defend private property and a free economy, both for their own sake and because these are means to great ends.

What are these "Great Ends"? 

Those great ends are more than economic and more than political. (Great ends) involve:
- Human dignity
- Human personality
- Human happiness
- The relationship between God and man

(T)he radical collectivism of our age is fiercely hostile to any other authority: modern radicalism detests religious faith, private virtue, traditional personality, and the life of simple satisfactions. EVERYTHING WORTH CONSERVING IS MENACED IN OUR GENERATION.

Mere unthinking negative opposition to the current of events, clutching in despair at what we still retain, will not suffice in this age.

A conservatism of instinct must be reinforced by a conservatism of thought and imagination.

Note: This is an outline of conservatism by Russel Kirk.

Original Post and supporting Post.

Snyder's Re-Invention: A Right-to-Kill-Jobs State Called Michissippi (Michigan)

A civic crime has been committed. Extravagant power plays by Rick Snyder and the Union Bashing and Anti-public service reprisalists, now holding power, as in the manner of the TeaPublican SuperMajority; have crippled the state's economy and gutted the very systems that have to power to restore the economy.

Gone are good pay jobs with benefits. The loss is equivalent to the loss of a Michigan city the size of Bay City. Were Bay City swept away by a Joplin, MO type tornado it would be a humongous tragic disaster. It is an economic disaster. One would have to assume that these state workers (38,000) did nothing to support or service the state and that their dismissal is inconsequential. It is not. The loss of health coverage, money to meet the mortgage, food for the table, transportation and a myriad of other essentials, these public servants are in deep trouble. Each of the 30,000 also represent a multiplier effect. It isn't just one person out of a job, it's a direct blow to their domestic units.

Fanatic forces such as the Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity and Richard D. McLellan's Mackinac Center major influence have acted quickly and early on in the Snyder tenure to set things in compliant order to further their own cronies' profit-centered agendas. Therefore Snyder has killed positive upward economic trends that were there coming from Granholm's years of pro-active leadership. Jennifer worked to create jobs, Snyder is a JOB KILLER!

Snyder is a jobs killer genius.

Michigan can't wait for things to work themselves out utilizing the results of politics centered on revenge and retribution so endemic to the Mackinac/AFP playbooks. These things don't work out on their own.

Snyder should take an honest look at his regressive, negativist, and anti-jobs Engler-holdover team: Stratified/Highly-paid payrollers with no vision for the positive. They are little more than Corporate favoring saboteurs-who care nothing for the Middle Class and public service and who's "expertise" amounts to taking the State down destructive dead-ends.

Snyder is too mired in his own narrow concept of corporate management details to provide the vision Michigan needs. Rick has actually taken the economy from Critical to Fatal.

The Nerd's relations with massive numbers of Michigan citizen sectors is totally disastrous.

Snyder isn't a political operator who can negotiate with the workers of this state in good faith nor can he build stronger ties to officials in state and county governments-whom he has put under great pressure to do the real dirty work of inflicting suffering and job loss on those who actually run the state and local units of government service day to day.

Snyder is disdainful of other politicians who do not see him as an omnipotent CEO but as a governor with limited constitutional power, and it's cost Rick key allies in the fight to restore the Michigan Economy.

It was a huge mistake on Snyder's part using scare tactics, exaggerating the state's revenue short fall and the condition of pension and health care funds to frighten residents into thinking that cutting a gigantic slice of the business taxes would be the best route to jobs. The loss of over $3 billion dollars of citizen buying power and discretionary spending will even blow back on the joyful business lobby so pleased with their Snyder Bail Out.

A temporary (emergency) rise in the state's income tax of about 1% would have tided the state over and provided the basis of recovery and done so without reducing the state to economic rubble with Snyder's infamous "Atomic Bombing" of state infrastructure and operations, the revenue starvation of local units by the complete cut-off of state provided Revenue Sharing-the give back of local tax dollars to operate local service and maintenance of infrastructure.

By killing roughly 38,000 jobs, encouraging municipal leadership to kill or axe nearly every city service the populace depends on, The Nerd comes off as petty and aloof and MORE PRONE TO "DICTATORSHIP" THAN LEADERSHIP. Top-down state control of every detail of local community life is not sustainable nor advisable.

Reshaping the state's weaken economy is a decades-long process, Michigan residents should have confidence that it's progressing. But that is not the case. THE GOAL IS JOBS, GOOD JOBS, JOBS THAT RESULT IN REAL PROGRESS AND STEADY OUTCOMES ARE THE TARGET.

Doing pro-active things, being collaborative and not combative with public service, would convey the message Michigan has a future. In the same light, killing jobs and therefore putting families off health care (multiply 38,000 by the average size of a state employee household for those dismissed, fired, state employees and realize this is a HUGE ECONOMIC HIT). State employees are summarily out of work in a jobless economy, many will be facing foreclosures, and bleak desperation.

SNYDER HAS JUST CREATED AN ECONOMIC DISASTER OF THE FIRST ORDER. Worse yet, killing state jobs, only to deliver those same jobs to for-profit operators handpicked by Snyder to substitute in lower quality and irresponsible and unnecessary middle management (not directly answerable to the community) is a tragic civic blunder.

All this mistakes one would naturally expect a Certified Nerd to make.


Original Post.

Corporate Supremacy - The Road To Ruin

Corporate Supremacy is a direct threat to democracy and the broad road to a devastating Second National Economic Depression. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis D. Brandeis was author of stellar quote in yesterday's post.

Brandeis further stated with blistering truth:

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

These are very serious times. Conservatives are serious people, with steady, substantive objective wisdom and a real commitment to the survival of our democracy and way of life.

Where is Michigan's Russell Kirk when we need him?

"The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character-with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at the highest." 

-- Russell Kirk

From one expert on the history and development of American Conservatism:

"Laissez-faire Conservatives, in contrast, view the world through the lens of liberty, particularly the economic liberty of the free market and the political liberty of the minimal state."

"All of human history is seen as either the inhibition or progression of liberty. America is lauded as the cradle of liberty, created out of the spirit of self-reliance. The American Revolution is seen as a revolt against despotism, a milestone in the achievement of human liberty. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are revered as sacred symbols of limited government and individual rights."

"The concept of liberty is inextricably bound to the concepts of the individual. As the primary element of society, the individual is seen as an autonomous, rational, self-interested actor. Laissez-faire conservatives view humans as endowed with free will, initiative, and self-reliance. Left on their own, individuals will be creative and productive. The aim of a good society is to elevate the potential of humans by bringing this nature to fruition. This is best accomplished by protecting the economic liberty of the free market and the political liberty of the limited state."

"In stark contrast, then, to the ideal world of social conservatism, in which moral authority restricts self-interest and thereby integrates individuals into a community, the laissez-faire ideal poses a society in which natural harmony exists through the very pursuit of self-interest. It is the marketplace, rather than God or moral authority, that creates social harmony out of individual interest." 

-- Insights from Rebecca Klatch, author.

Somewhere common sense and a sprit of unity-the need to pull together in crisis-has been lost on those who play games with politics and blindly serve the goals of the Wall Street Speculators and the corrupt Bankers who have taken us down in this low and ultra-dangerous vortex.

Snyder's Michigan Dictator Law-known euphemistically as the EMF legislation-is one clearly serious aspect of a troubling "business best knows how to govern" illustrates a TeaPublican dive toward an impoverished Michissippi and a failed state. This dangerous mechanism is being used to strip community for the profit, enhancement, and monopoly interests of corporations. Michigan's Dictator Law is a gigantic and frightening step toward the collapse of democratic government and the common good in Michigan.

As one commentator has expressed it there's a third group of conservatives, the Conservative Rebels: The "rebellious" expression of the radical right is a strange form of "conservatism" that fits nowhere in the order of conservatism as most of us have known it historically.

Bashing and melodramatic pronouncements, name calling and red herrings abound, but none of this is "classical conservatism" nor is it Laissez-faire Conservatism or Social Conservatism in their common expressions.

"It is the "payday" book writing, radical radio, lecturing-for-a-fee kind. Radical foment is what is needed to make the "almighty buck", not much more.

Actually these provocateurs aren't that far from anarchists.

The country comes up last against following these rebellious "pseudo-conservatives" who have little constructive to add to our present woes--except more woe and wailing.

What they have become good at is evoking fear. This is not the time for economic fear mongering if the economy is to be put back on track.


More  from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis D. Brandeis.

Original Post.

Quotes: "... in the Hands of a Few" - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis D. Brandeis

"Through size, corporations, once merely an efficient tool employed by individuals in the conduct of private business have become an institution-an institution which has brought such concentration of economic power that so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state.

The typical business corporation of the last century, owned by a small group of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size by their private wealth, is being supplanted by huge concerns in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees and the property of tens of hundreds of thousands of investors are subjected, through the corporate mechanism, to the control of a few men.

Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power. And, as ownership of the shares is becoming continually more dispersed, the power which formerly accompanied ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few... [and] coincident with the growth of these giant corporations, there has occurred a marked concentration of individual wealth; and that the resulting disparity in incomes is a major cause of the existing depression."


-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis D. Brandeis

Original Post.

Corporate Supremacy: Michissippi’s Reinvention of Involuntary Servitude and EFM Legislated Privatization of Nearly Every Community Asset - “Profitization”

Corporate profitazation: Under the guise of help for the troubled finances of civic institutions Rick Snyder and cronies have devised a quasi-legal device, the office of Emergency Finance Manager to facilitate the "public profitazation" of everything of value in Michissippian community assets.

This "public-to-private profitization" of assets across Michissippi includes currently real property: Public school facilities and real estate, waste treatment plants e.g. Pontiac, brownfield real estate with high value waterfront development potential, public works facilities and equipment, city buildings and auxiliary operations...the list goes on. It's the replacement of "we the people government with corporatism.

This is just the beginning, the number of high value targets for the privatizing zealots in the Snyder/McLellan/Dillon combine is yet to be unveiled. With clever scheming and with grand opportunism known as "disaster capitalism" these greedy men are taking down the state for money and for profit. They represent a very troubling trend toward "corporate supremacy."

Note carefully how this "illegal community asset grab" is unfolding. The attacks are in predominately minority centers and urban pockets of extreme poverty. Who cares? Snyder believes indifference gives his administration license.

The biggest of the predicable goals is the profitization seizure of Detroit's high value public waterworks, a gem of a coup, if it can be pulled off for surrounding suburban jurisdictions especially Brooks Patterson's Oakland County. Strip majority minority Detroit of its one high value asset, and move on to huge tactical advantage and profit for the Corporate Supremacists.

When the lustful eye of pro-EFM backers took a look at Jackson and saw an opportunity to move in last week, Dillon put a quick kibosh on that recommendation. For the Dillon/Snyder stratagem to work, the stripping of assets and the dictatorial take-overs must be in areas of long-term distress, cities and urban centers long under debit problems and "dysfunction."

As long as the EFM process can be portrayed as an aberrant form of "help" - legislative benevolence - and the public continues its cynical opinion of minority "lack of responsibility" for "their" abandoned and troubled areas such as Benton Harbor, there will be little effective protest elsewhere. So just bide the time.

This does not mean that Jackson city and other predominately "white" areas are not on the short list or at risk it; only means those godfathers who set the pace; such as Richard D. Mclellan, will choose the time to swoop in to pluck the low hanging fruit anywhere he chooses, across Michissippi. After all, if there isn't a massive "corporate supremacist" plan, why has Andy Dillon pre-trained over 300 Emergency Finance Managers?

Snyder led "Corporate Supremacy" has virulent and dangerous elements: bigotry and racial bias. What is being legislated from TeaPublican Lansing, with its irresponsible super-majority drunk and high on power, is the equivalent of pushing minorities back over the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge into Jim Crow Land.

This lingering bias was expressed in the written opine in the Detroit/Mackinac Center News which blamed the recent brown down/blackouts in Detroit on Black political leadership over the past decades. And true to form, the Det/News suggested the solution: Sell off Detroit's Power and Light, municipal power works to the Corporate Supremacists eagerly awaiting another takeover. Never mind that brown outs occurred concurrently in Ann Arbor and in other diversified areas across Michissippi.

All of this fits the Koch Brothers A.L.E.C. plug and play legislation such as has been introduced in Wisconsin. The Kochs want Wisconsin to sell off, privatize, all municipal utilities, let Corporate Supremacists have a profitization monopoly. These same elements are at play here in Michissippi.

In the Holland area, to operate a machine shop inside the service area of the Holland Board of Public Works means getting three phase industrial electric service at a much lower price than that offered by Consumers Energy. Maybe that is because Holland Board of Public Works isn't headed up with a CEO like Consumers Energy's David Joos-who in his last year with Consumers received a salary in excess of $3 million and over his entire tenure, tens of millions in salary and benefits. Consumers customers chipped in for the Joos booty: Every time the lights came on, Joos got his cut!

Oh yes, check out Richard D. McLellan, Mackinac Center's godfather, he has had a turn with ITC Holdings as a board member. ITC is in the power game. ITC is the largest independent electricity transmission company in the nation its holdings includes the Michigan Electric Transmission Company (METC).

On way or the other McLellan is a major player in Michissippi power and how it is supplied. Everywhere you turn in Snyder's Michissippi there's a Nerd business crony, a Corporate Supremacist, getting or planning his accumulating cut.

All this on top of a near $2 billion tax-funded bailout!

Original Post.

Betsy DeVos’ Chum Bucket: Deep Inside - An Agenda & Dangerously Flawed Beliefs

Betsy DeVos, Michigan's source of ultra-ugly paid and delivered by her ultra-wealth and unholy zealotry. Betsy's one woman bitter attack on public schools gets media play around the country, but not here. Why?

The Michigan Legislature, endowed with a supermajority, has gone on a rip that can only be compared to the Arizonian raging wildfire-sweeping that state with tornadonic energy and uncontrolled fiery fury. On the topic of Michigan's plunge into public education devolution, the arsonist to blame is Betsy Prince DeVos.

Deep Inside Betsy Is A Dangerously Flawed Belief

Here writer Rachel Tabachnick has nailed it:

"Religious Right groups are often portrayed as only concerned with social issues like opposing gay rights and women's reproductive rights. But "Biblical Capitalism" or the belief that laissez-faire economics is biblically mandated, has been growing in popularity for more than two decades. Although the merry band of libertarians and the dominionists may have little in common, THE ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL, ANTI-UNION, ANTI-REGULATORY AGENDA OF EACH IS EMPOWERING THE OTHER. The combined front has become a formidable force for radical free market fundamentalism and the eradication of the public sector."

Betsy has made no bones about wielding her mega-wealth:

"[M]y family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican party... I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now, I simply concede the point. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment; we expect a good and honest government. Furthermore, we expect the Republican party to use the money to promote these policies, and yes, to win elections."

Betsy's Heavy Hand In Other States

Returning to Rachel Tabachnick in her comprehensive three part series, in Part 2 "Pro-Voucher Astroturfing: Campaigns Across Nation Coordinated by DeVos, Funded by a Few Mega-Donors" on April 24, 2011:

"The Indiana state senate passed a sweeping school voucher bill on Thursday, April 21, 2010, following an intensive crusade by the Betsy DeVos-led AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN and affiliated organizations. The blitz campaigns in Indiana and other states are similar to the one in Pennsylvania (described in detail in the previous report). A small core group of donors, ideologically opposed to public education, contribute millions of dollars to the pro-voucher movements in states across the nation. THE MASSIVE FUNDING AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUNDS AROUND THE NATION IS A CLASSIC CASE OF ASTROTURFING, CREATING THE ILLUSION THAT THERE IS A SPONTANEOUS WAVE OF GRASS ROOTS AND BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR VOUCHERS. 

(Emphasis added) 

Tabachnick adds:

"In addition to the millions spent in Pennsylvania, over $4.6 million dollars was raised by the Indiana affiliate of the Betsy DeVos-led pro-voucher organizations prior to the 2010 elections, all from 13 mega-donors ($5.8 million for the year). The Indiana PAC money also funded campaigns in Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin and other states."

How does Betsy's scheme work? Again, Rachel Tabachnick:

"Funding comes from a few mega-donors who make contributions in one location. These funds are then moved to non-profits and PACs in other states, obscuring the identity of the small group of original donors. (This report focuses on the affiliated PAC in Indiana which had over $4.6 million in receipts from 13 donors prior to the 2010 election, and sent most of the funds to six other states.) The pro-voucher 501(C)(3) nonprofits across the nation, which do not directly fund candidates, are also largely funded by the DeVos-led entities."

No tactic Is Too Underhanded or Devious for "Christian Zealot" Betsy and Her AFC (American Federation for Children).

Tabachnick:

"The Indiana AFC PAC contributed $63,450 to the Wisconsin AFC PAC. The expenditures for the Wisconsin AFC PAC were primarily for canvassing, and advertising. Additionally, the Wisconsin PAC received $25,000 on 9/03/2010 from Education Reform Now, led by Joel Klein. Media buys in Wisconsin were used to support pro-voucher Democrats running against Democrats not supporting vouchers in the primaries and for support of pro-voucher candidates in the general election. THE AFC FINANCED NUMEROUS ATTACK ADS THAT MENTIONED NOTHING ABOUT VOUCHERS OR SCHOOL CHOICE. THE MAILER SHOWN WAS SPONSORED BY AFC, AS SHOWN ON THE RETURN ADDRESS. THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT SCHOOL CHOICE OR VOUCHERS. THE MAILER ATTACKS THE INCUMBENT STATE SENATOR PAT KREITLOW FOR "KILLING" WISCONSIN JOBS.
(Emphasis added)

Here in Michigan the massive attacks on public schools play directly into and out of Betsy's Playbook. Much credit for the ugly nature of this take down of public school teachers and the attendant hatred stems from her dominate hard right influence and sub-rosa activities.

Long ago Betsy took up with Milton Friedman and Friedman's purpose: ""Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a market system."

So while vouchers are a state constitutional element and the Herculean effort by Betsy in 1990 to pass a ballot proposal altering the Michigan Constitution to allow vouchers failed, Betsy's persistent and aggressive efforts have not faltered, killing public education is her life's work.

It is difficult to say where Betsy got her "chum bucket" attitude. Raised a poor little rich girl, she inherited a vast fortune. From that fortune and the foundation that administered it came Blackwater, Betsy's brother's mercenary for-profit private army. Betsy, herself, was schooled in the strict doctrines of the reactionary Christian Reformed Church, its elite Christian Schools and Calvin its college. Noteworthy, are the distrust and lingering ethnic feelings of a conservative nature of this splinter religious movement, having separated from the Reformed Church of America, the CRC had distinct ties to its religious counterpart in apartheid South Africa which lingered long after South Africa abandoned its racial separatism and doctrines of white supremacy.

Advocate Mike Klonsky:

Like Betsy DeVos, Wisconsin's Scott Walker ... "refuses to compromise. So beholden is he to political paymasters such as the Koch brothers and the De Vos family, which has steered millions of dollars into the state to promote his extreme proposals to replace on of the nation's strongest public education systems with voucher programs and privatization schemes, that the governor continues to pressure his legislative allies to enact a biennial budget that slashes spending for education and local services."

More from Rachel Tabachnick Series on Betsy DeVos and Public Education agenda - article cited: "Pro-Voucher Astroturfing: Campaigns Across Nation Coordinated by DeVos, Funded by a Few Mega-Donors" (April 24, 2011).

See ALSO:
Betsy DeVos Announces PA Governor Tom Corbett Will Keynote Pro-Voucher National Policy Summit (April 26, 2011)
Strategy for Privatizing Public Schools Spelled Out by Dick DeVos in 2002 Heritage Foundation Speech (May 3, 2011)
Protesters Object to School Privatization Efforts of DeVos, Michelle Rhee and PA and WI Governors (May 10, 2011)
Vouchers/Tax Credits Funding Creationism, Revisionist History, Hostility Toward Other Religions (May 25, 2011)
Prince and DeVos Families at Intersection of Radical Free Market Privatizers, Religious Right (May 16, 2011)

Original Post.

Jabs, Jabs, and More Jabs - No Interest in Jobs, Jobs, Jobs... from Gov Rick Snyder or Michigan Republican Super-majority

The hidebound lemmings in the TeaPublican super-majority continue their herd-instinct march into the deep Sargasso sea. As the aggressive actions of the GOP Legislature continue to conduct Class Warfare on public service and due process, good jobs are being replaced and taken from loyal personnel as a way to garner profit for the elites.

Massive taxes are placed on the elderly and the poor are shortshifted from supplemental survival monies, foreclosures march on, and in a bold and stone-cold stroke, Michigan's curmudgeon TeaPublicans cut un-employment short- amazingly in our state hardest hit by job loss. The bail-outs that saved GM and Chrysler are railed against.

In Grand Rapids, the backroom/controlling elites have created a huge monopoly in health care by the combining of previously competing medical services. Now, years on, they are in financial straits. Their efforts to gobble up regional hospitals in places as far away as Traverse City have failed. Doctors outside the monopoly warn that the conglomerate is driving up costs, not bringing relief or reduced expenses.

The money-men of Grand Rapids, so critical of public education and public service, have a controlling hand in the Mackinac Center's on-going crusade to "fix Michigan." MacCenter is the JAB factory, not the JOBS source. The Center is fixing Michigan alright! Their greedy and grabby "fixes" are working against the Middle Class and ultimately are helping to bring down the standard of living for the state. Jabs from Spectrum Health are not producing jobs.

For 6 months the TeaPublicans have manned the reprisal legislative wrecking ball. All the prime targets of the greedy elites have been hit. More Jobs? No jobs creation legislation has made the docket. However, jobs reduction and jobs handicapping has been center stage; this is what they are really most centered on.

The jobs score card as of today, far fewer jobs, more furloughs, more pink slips, more economic distress and recession.

Firemen, social workers, DOT employees, state police, corrections personnel, local police and dispatchers, teachers have been given the TeaPublican shaft. These key personnel are treated with the most rude disrespect. How will the new feelings of "positiveness" called for by faux positive Rick Snyder ever overcome the acrimony and hard feelings that will survive the Nerd's tenure and taint the every possibility of co-operation and collaboration to bring Michigan back long into the future?


Jobs, Jobs, Jobs was the false flag under which the conniving Business Leaders of Michigan laid out in their successful stealth campaign to place a "corporatist compliant" Snyder in the Capitol as "their man" - to benefit their proprietary special interests and procure larger profits.

Walhalla-their prize: a nearly $3 billion taxpayer bailout to fatten their bottomlines. Not bad for starters!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...Snyder where are the Jobs you promised?

Where is the emergency legislation to create and import those jobs Michigan needs rigtht now; Today ?

This Governor and a far rad legislature are far more committed to JABS than JOBS.

If JOBS were their top priority then why waste precious time on JABS?

Original Post.

My Wealth vs. Government Taxation

My wealth and success are the direct result of my individual effort and rugged determination to make something of myself. Thus my wealth is a sure indication of God's specific blessing on me.

Too many individuals are slothful, inattentive and other-directed, and often are found in need of money or assistance in some manner. There are those who cater to the needs of the poor, the indolent, the lazy and have devised and used the coercive power of government to find means to provide for such "leechers" in society.

Most often it's the sinful lives of individuals that produce deadly disease, poor health, mental atrophy, and enscounce irrevocable habituation of lifestyles that hinder and prevent them from taking necessary "personal responsibility."

Sin Is Expensive
Throughout our declining culture "sin" has undermined the American Dream. Abandonment of families, children neglected and abused by parents, dishonest actions, sexual aberrations and unbridled license, theft on the job, rampent drug use, these all lend themselves to a real dashboard costs. The data is there.

The single mother with an illegitimate off-spring, a brain eaten away by drugs and delusions, the slothfulness of the "lazy" living on unending welfare, the "welfare cheat," these and others committing petty crimes, frauds, and major felonies are a dead weight on my economic well-being.

All things that are sinful, created by the sinful acts of others, cost me money. Those are high costs, borne by those with resources and some measure of income and/or wealth. Right bearing "strict values" activists must act to put "sin" under strict control and set real limits for the future. Isn't this what we learned from our Puritian Fathers? The Killer Clincher

To tax me, to coerce me to surrender my "blessings from God" is a very great evil. If you take from me my resources to enable those unworthy sinners who will not work and do not take "personal responsibility" for themselves, you (as represented by the police powers of government) are robbing me of God's Blessing. Therefore, I have a god-given right fight back, to defend myself from government taxes that are stripped from me to give "unearned" support to, and prosper, those who refuse to care for themselves.

Sin may come on other forms than that of the criminal mind, the mooch or the indolent welfare recipient. We view the worker who organizes to have power to participate collectively in the inner workings and privileged areas of business ownership that bear upon working conditions, safety, and wages, etc. as another kind of "thief." The union worker takes from ownership the powers of control over their own realm and makes demands that are inconsistent with the sterling standard of a right to "hire and fire at will."
We must defend the "divine rights" of proprietorship and wealth to be free of "sin's takings."

"It is a policeman's duty to protect men from criminals -- criminals being those who seize wealth by force. It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman's duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property -- then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman."

-- Ayn Rand, (1905-1982) Atheist & Author, Source: Atlas Shrugged, P. 535 (1957)

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Michigan Business Leaders Have Linked Their Operations With State Government to Assure Higher Profits...

...Without the Need for Strong Performance.

The endless loop of repeated shibboleths and mantras telegraphed by the ideology of this Michigan View blog are not conservative, they are some contrived form of hybrid thinking invented and promoted to cover a vast chasm of real world political and social danger arising from the ascendency of this very contrived political and cut-and-paste philosophical point of view-having at its heart an anti-Jesus thrust.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy Sides With Ayn Rand Against Jesus

From one of several feeds in the circular references promoted by the Mackinac Center and the sponsors:

"The critical tension between Rand and Christian theology is on human worth. Christians affirm the inherent and very high value of individuals because of their creation in the image of God. Rand values human beings only for their achievements. A person who does not offer value is a leech, a 'second rater.'"

The "rugged" in the form of the Mackinac Center's Rugged Individualism is useful to those who want to divorce themselves from co-operative community, from individual participation as citizens in government as a legitimate function of social organization.

We have seen how certain wealthy Michigan residents have used cunning and ability to "plunder" bit-by-bit their way to immense riches. This kind of money-making remains suspect and just a millimeter this side the line to legal-even forbidden by some national governments.

Now operating a system, similar and drawn from the model they developed, which promotes itself as somehow the genuine American way of a honest, credible business plan, it's harvesting huge profit from its admission to the Asian Market. This Mackinac Center co-founder and underwriter actually churns tens of thousands of recruits, sells they overpriced products in a what some define as a product-based pyramid scheme. It maintains a tight, top-down control on its organization in a manner repeatedly taken to court and into legal conflict.

It certianly took a "rugged" individualism to devise and carry out this phenomenon. Always on the line with what is barely legal, it has endured, in large part, by its clever decision to seek direct involvement in state and federal government and political activities furthering its select causes-not the least of which is seeking its own survival and wealth protection.

This license to prosper, while taking advantage of the nature of the human greed, coupled with a historic Calvinism, is a sectarian dogma that puts the "elect" above and in power of control over the "non-elect" and thus infuses this kind of Ayn Rand modus operandi with a "god-blessed-us-over-you elitism that consumes the best of community and continues to raid the assets of the community commons for the furtherance of personal wealth and power of this elite; aggressive powerbrokers thusly attempting to extend the power of wealth out over to the children of the elite for perpetuity.

There is a steely indifference to others deep inside this set of elites. They harbor and foster class warfare. Overlooking the path they took to gain wealth at the hardship and expense of the dreams of others, and operating on a plan that could only provide a limited success for a chosen few over the tens of thousands of eager raw recruits-who expend much time, energy, soul, and money to duplicate the success controlled and managed from atop the pyramid, these elites among the founders of Mackinac Center have made a mess of both Christianity and capitalism. Their source of wealth, viewed on a workable and restrained level, can be sustained and duplicated in the pursuit of providing for the needs of self and society. It's a failed model-unsustainable.

The critical tension between Rand and Christian theology is on human worth. Christians affirm the inherent and very high value of individuals because of their creation in the image of God. "Rand values human beings only for their achievements" and not for whom they are as individuals, part of the human community. The Mackinac Center has wrangled the stiff corners of rampant capitalism and its many abuses into a type of civic religion that denies the fellow human and falls short of the known plan of God for society.

An Aynian maxim: "A person who does not offer value is a leech, a 'second rater.'" The brainwashing and the propaganda of the past 3 decades from the MacCen have centered on finding a way to mollify critics, take command of the public opinion by means of a bargain that allows Mackers near, to total, access to the editorial pages and the story lines of the state's flagship newspapers. They have been gifted the prime source of philosophical and political opines for far too long.

What positive good has the Mackinac Center delivered for Michigan? Did it shelter us from the ravishes of the Bush Economic Debacle? Did it inspire a new vision for the state as a more progressive and effective aid to work-a-day life? Are the workers and middle class citizens and their children more economically well-off after years of hectoring by the Mac Cen?

Has the Mackinac Center created a positive and pro-active state culture as opposed to the present negativist culture so derided by Rick Snyder?

Nitpicking and fly-specking has become the high art of the MacCen. Its ability to negate any opinion other than that of its own has become oppressive and smothering to the public normal discourse.

There is of course, a true purpose for the Mackinac Center: To promote and prosper the highly sought goals of its private membership, to punish and defeat its perceived enemies in both politics and the world of economic and ideological pursuits.

In it's defense, the Mackinac Center would present itself as a faithful guide to the "free market." Free it is not. Every way and manner it can, the MacCen has skillfully utilized the power of government to defeat government as it would serve any group or purpose other than itself and its utterly selfish ways.

Hunter Baker writes concerning Ayn Rand:

"Though Rand certainly made no secret of her contempt for those unable or unwilling to engage in true exchange of economic value, she was right to tell interviewers that she was no totalitarian because of her abhorrence for the use of force. She did not believe in compulsion. Instead, she wanted a world in which a man stood or fell on his productivity. Rand saw production as the one great life affirming activity. Man does not automatically or instinctively derive his sustenance from the earth. He must labor and produce."

"This was Rand's bedrock and explains why she had such contempt for those who try to gain wealth through political arrangements. She saw this parasitism on every point of the economic spectrum from the beggar to the bureaucrat to the purveyor of crony corporatism."

Herein lies the piercing condemnation of the Mackinac Center, straight from Rand herself: The Center deserves condemnation and contempt because it has (and continues to) use power and money to further "gain wealth through political arrangements" and Ayn saw this abuse for what it is, an ugly "parasitism on every point of the economic spectrum from beggar to the bureaucrat to the purveyor of crony corporatism."

Elaborates Hunter Baker in "Understanding Rand" on May 4, 2011, concerning the recent re-lease, the remake of Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

"Government action occurs under the rubric of equity, but these people who 'move the world' - as one conversation in the film expresses - do not understand what claim the government has to order their lives or to confiscate the fruits of their labor. THE VILLAINS OF THE PIECE ARE NOT SO MUCH ANY WELFARE CLASS AS MUCH AS CORPORTISTS WHO WANT TO LINK THEIR COMPANIES TO GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS SO AS TO ASSURE PROFIT WITHOUT THE NEED FOR STRONG PERFORMANCE. THEY GO ON ABOUT LOYALTY AND PUBLIC SERVICE, BUT IT IS A MASK FOR MEDIOCRITY AND GREED."

And this is exactly what the Mackinac Center has done. With the legislature on a rip, Michigan "corporations" and certain business interests have now successfully "LINK(ED) THEIR COMPANIES AND ENTERPRISES TO (MICHIGAN STATE) GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS SO AS TO ASSURE PROFIT WITHOUT THE NEED FOR STRONG PERFORMANCE."

Over the next 2 years nearly 3 trillion dollars harvested by class warfare will be ladled out to Snyder's business backers with no provisions or parameters for performance-thus there is no need for strong performance. Thus the Snyder business bailout becomes "a mask for mediocrity and greed."

That is simply not right, that is not fair, that is not efficient.

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Remember When: Conservatism meant something good, wholesome, and dependable

If only we could believe again that Conservatism meant something good, wholesome, and dependable. Its definition being: Conservativism - a political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes.

Whatever is infusing the Michigan Legislature and the Michigan GOP at this juncture-Reinventing Michigan-it is not that traditional understanding and that historic definition of what it means to be a true conservative. Indeed, conservatism as thus defined has long ceased to exist in Michigan, all apologies to Russell Kirk. It's all about Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Congressman Paul Ryan, and the "virtues of selfishness" and "extreme individualism" with special contempt for government of all kinds.

We have been entering a dangerous and unholy time. Language as we once knew it had a dependable meaning. Civility, while badly assaulted on occasion, was known to exist in our public discourse and respect for the "loyal opposition" was the rule of the day. Long ago drinking in the Michigan legislative chambers was banned, and David Jaye was embarrassed when his pistol slipped to the floor of a House ante-chamber (while it is not clear where proposed legislation will take or permit carrying of handguns in this state) we have set some gun limits which have been upheld. It was perhaps that profane ruffian, Gil DiNello who last struck a fellow in the chambers, such events had become rare. Now however, there is a new and mercurial tone in the Lansing Capitol building, one of real hard feelings and a ill-tempered spirit of "gottcha" that has all but poisoned the people's house.

The very idea that the State of Michigan would find support to turn on itself in such a vicious and unseemingly manner as is now occurring would be for true statesmen and "men of goodwill" an in-toleration and an insult to the institution, if not basic morals. But the attitudes and the stoneheaded minds now inhabiting the people's house are set against all contrary views- displayed by the maurading new breed of TeaPublicans. As one has said, it's not about re-election for himself, it is about doing "God's work." Can it be that stifled debate and killing all compromise is the plan of the Almighty? Delusion reigns. This rouge crowd has created a terror by majority.

It must be said that much of what has happened to Lansing is an import from outside our state, not that there have not been untoward ideas raised and grim reprisals mouthed about prior. One of the most despicable outside Michigan, one of the dispoiling sources of disunity and conflict is the person of Newt Gingrich. Newt's connections to Michigan via Amway, Engler and Saul Anusis are well-documented and easily tracked. Newt's presence in Michigan always spells increased civil discord and trouble.

This current kind of "conservatism" is so close to anarchy it can hardly be distinguished from that brand of revolutionary-government is the problem, less government, more personal freedom to act as one wishes ala Ayn Rand is the new prototype for systemic corruption of what remains of the Founder's ideals and the concept of American democracy.

In a recent blog article entitled, "Budget Battle Pits Atheist Ayn Rand vs. Jesus" there is this assessment concerning U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R Wisc:

"'You've got a guy who is a rising Republican star, and who wrote the budget, saying he's read her books and Washington needs more of her values,' said Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, which produced the video. 'If you're a Christian, you've got to ask some serious questions about what's going on here.' In other words, Sapp argues, you can follow Ayn Rand or Jesus, but not both."

USA Today reprinted this from the Tuscan Citizen in Tuscon, Arizona, thoughts from Stephen Prothero, religion professor, Boston University:

"In Rand's Manichaean world, it is not God vs. Satan, but individualism vs. collectivism. While Jesus says, 'Blessed are the poor,' she sings Hosannas to the rich. The heroes of Atlas Shrugged (which, alas, is only slightly shorter than the Bible) are captains of industry such as John Galt. The villains are the 'looters' and 'moochers' - people who by hook (guilt) or by crook (government coercion) steal from the hard-won earnings of others.

"Turning the tables on traditional Christian morality, Rand argues that altruism is immoral and selfishness is good. Moreover, there isn't a problem in the world that laissez-faire capitalism can't solve if left alone to perform its miracles."

This new kind of "conservatism" has no basis in traditional Conservatism and enhances, preserves, or protects nothing of the real American Values we all once learned to cherish and for which many have fought and died.
Original Post.

Hatred for Teachers: The Radical Right has created a defining Moment in Michigan; TeaPublicans have institutionalized HATE

Hatred of public school teachers has been a constant underlying theme of the organized, hateful ideologues for a very long time. It didn't start with Ronald Reagan's commitment to abolish the U.S. Department of Education (just established by Pres. Carter), but that sentiment and the "bold-but-brash" actions of Reagan in PATCO spiked the direction things would go from there on. Ginned up on the anti-unionism that is part of radicals' cherished "Freedom," this mindset is "Give us the freedom to do things that are off the scale of civic good, if that's what we demand."

Many of the "Republican" radicals and near anarchist Libertarians have sought to go the distance on outrageous legislated reprisals: e.g. Eradicate the public school teachers' unions and now, as under, Rick Snyder, abolish Detroit's public school system entirely. 

No place has seen as much bitterness and vituperation and anti-teacher unionism "gotcha" come into play than Michigan in the last 30 years. The poster boy for this raw reprisal and the bone-ugly has been John Mathias Engler, a rural farm boy from Beal City, who serves as the crude archetype of "in-your-face" legislation and bitter rhetoric. Engler is the prototype, mold, from which such curmudgeons and bullies as N.J.'s Chris Christie, mirroring Engler, have emerged.

Add in major monies: Amway's cash-flushed aggressive anti-teacher/union darling-Betsy DeVos, the community-busters: right-wing Think Tanks-- the Koch brothers CATO and sub-group Americans for Prosperity, and foundations of the Scaife, Olin, Bradley, Smith-Richardson, and Walton families--whose leaders have publicly indicated their desire to completely eradicate taxpayer-financed public education. And there are dozens more.

Add in religious groups against mainstream American beliefs: the zealot Christian Re Reconstructionist movement, James Dobson (who trumpeted long and loud: "Take your children out of public schools." Expand the list with wild-eyed radicals such as disgraced and criminally indicted extreme-right savant, Mark Siljander, the former Jerry Falwell, and a host of others who misuse the public's interest in religion for private political purposes revolved around personal power and control of wealth. Much of this movement had apartheid, a revival of the old segregationist academies of the Jim Crow South as its highest priority.

Add in the disinformation factories of Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Michigan's Mackinac Center, the Center for Free Enterprise, FOX News, Rush Limbaugh's daily rants, and many, many more and hate becomes the basis of published fact.

So now one party, the TeaPublicans of Michigan, has a strangle hold on all four (4) branches of state government. There has been unleashed a grand scheme contrived by radicals such as Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich to use federalism, state power, as they envision it, to make massive blitzkrieg on legislative policy and governance at the state level and thereby circumvent and handicap the role of national and federal powers in areas where they are at odds. At the state level these burrowing ideologues can utilize their "new found" majorities to terrorize all "enemies" and are being ginned up to do so.

The moment to act on the hatred stoked-up against the role of teachers in their own affairs and the place of teacher influence in education policy-making has come to a volcanic episode of uncontrolled anti-public school legislation. These Know Nothings, whose revisionist efforts would set back the profession of teaching into the 19th Century, know full-well what they are attempting to do. There can be no reasoning with carnal rage as seen in recent committee and floor behavior.

They are attempting exterminating, purging the influence of teachers in every governmental realm they can conceive. As one watches the introduction of anti-teacher bills into the Lansing docket, it is clear that the anger and the vituperative and bitter intent of this out-of-control radical majority, a lockstep cabal of extremists, will continue unabated until the public becomes fully and clearly aware of the vast harm and danger their polices present to our families, our communities, and our children.

A FINAL WORD
Underlying all of this hatred and push to seize control of teacher's rights, compensation, working conditions, and to marginalize their influence is the real reason the Mackinac Center has spent millions to usher in this bitter and resentful moment. In many ways their deep angst and corruption is the source of all that ails the Michigan psyche.

Certain insurance elements invested in the MacCen are backing and infesting the secretive work of Mackinac Center. They are salivating over the prospect of fees and contracts for privatizing educators' insurance. They are the same tight group that wrestled the successful and lucrative Michigan Accident Fund away from the state early in the Engler Era. Multiple millions are there for MacCen competitors of MESSA to harvest and profit from, via the power and the thrust of the present anti-teacher environment headed-up currently and pushed behind the present Capitol scene by former REP. WAYNE KUIPERS, a cunning operative who has a double-edged axe to grind with teachers.

No longer in elective office, yet armed with a seething resentment, KUIPERS soldiers on for himself and for a nasty group of backroom men intent on profitization from Michigan's economic crisis-brought on in part by their own incompetence and inabilities to face the challenges presented business and state government in the 21st Century.

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Dead End/Bad Trade Off: Profitazation or Abandonment of Detroit’s Public School Children

Specious envy surrounds the sacred role of a teacher at a low period when unjust criticisms are being hurled about, as they are so often now days.

The kinds of snide remarks popping up in this blog are typical of the anti-intellectualism which has haunted the country from long ago and consistently undercut its greatness. Much of the anti-public schools spiel has the dark undertow of Michigan's historic KKK.

With all the puffery about the public wanting only the "best and brightest" to enter teaching, and knowing the uncertainty and vicissitudes of the occupation; why would an extremely bright young person go into teaching? Especially, as teachers now know, that one major political party, Michigan's GOP, has dogged and derided the profession (coming from every level from the Reagan Presidency on down, over decades) with every sort of encumbrance, criticism, and financial or legislated penalty that could be devised or contrived. Literally they are attempting to undermine public schools to de-certify the teacher's unions; and convert public schooling to a profit making industry via charters and vouchers- a monstrous blunder tainted with educational apartheid.

People Love Their Public Schools, They Are the Heart and Soul of Many A Community Communities celebrate the sporting events, the homecomings, the high achievements of PS science clubs and other extra-curricular activities. They follow their graduates progress into all manner of successes and higher achievement. And, of course, many graduates become teachers themselves. So many so that, there are hundreds of applicants for a single opening in schools--when schools are hiring.

How proud a parent is to say or learn their daughter and/or son will take up teaching! 

How welcome a new teacher is at the mortgage department of the local bank or as a new member of a place of worship; or as so many eventually do, a teacher becomes an elected local official or civic board member. Kill that spirit at your own peril, you mumbling detractors!

After 20 years of fierce and unrelenting Republican and "Anti-Tax" Libertarian attacks, cuts, and trash talk, the public still loves the schools. They respect teachers world's better than the politicians and far-rightist pundits who perennially attack and purposefully undermine public schools as an institution. Who are these greedy and cynical hacks-whose feral skills are on the prowl to tear it down the PS?

So many people say, "I owe it all to my teacher." What a testament to teachers! Teachers are the true heart of historic social acculturation and the proud soul/mentors at the core of this venerated institution. Except for inner cities, some depressed rural areas or isolated small communities, the Michigan school facilities are much better than those I have closely observed in Virginia or any number of other states.

Across Michigan, we take pride in our local schools. We really do want our children to have the best opportunities possible. Until Engler, the one very fundamental axiom of classic Republican scripture was local school control, which in Michigan was taken from us, ripped away by rouge Republicans in a bold manner in 1993. Now we see and realize the danger and the error of that plot. State control of local school funding is undependable and subject to the nastiest of politics and very anti-student.

The sad thing in all of this is, Nolan Finley. Finley has had moments when he was an advocate, supporter, and even a collaborator with MEA and public education. An important fact considering his own immediate family members, his daughters are members of the teaching profession.

Albeit, Nolan works for newspaper tycoons who have a very aggressive and dangerous ideological attitude/slant against public education. Such an un-civic attitude doesn't build good will, it doesn't foster cooperation; it cuts to the heart of the promise of our nation--a free and excellent education--underwritten by the public at-large.

The long dismal decline of Detroit is a humiliating, humbling, and a sadly tragic blotch on the pride of all Michiganders. The city's public schools reflect the systemic decline and despair of its trapped population, rather than produce that state of affairs.

Now comes the lowest suggestion, depraved conclusion of one Nolan Finley, "DEMO" DETROIT'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS: "DPS can't be saved. It pushed beyond the tipping point years ago, and must be allowed to slide into oblivion."

Aggressive Profitazation of public schooling as a new "disaster" capitalist's scheme: Profit at the direct expense of Children and their mentors. Don't even dare to call it "good for kids."


Original Post.

Dan Calabrese Shows Genuine Care & Understanding for Detroit Public Schools

Response to Dan Calabrese in "One reason the DPS can't balance its budget" on the Michigan View in the Detroit / Mackinac News on May 31, 2011.
Our Calabrese prayer group is rejoicing in the progress Dan is making in his Christian and political life. We are especially proud of the fact that he is willing to cut cross grain with the anti-public schools sentiment and support the work of the fine folk who are courageously supporting and mentoring young women at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, exclusively educates teen mothers.

While Dan acknowledges there is a cost for this service, (expenses connected to " daycare and other amenities" and that providing for each young mother "costs the school $12,619 per pupil to educate"; Dan sees the value and the moral foundation behind this wonderful effort. (One reason the DPS can't balance its budget, Calabrese, DetNews, 5.31.11)

Dan also bravely and honestly breaks ranks with the cynical tax-haters. He sees the tasks that are set out in a maturing light of understanding: Dan has come "to recognize that the DPS faces challenges brought on by social pathologies that have overrun the city, and that's why you can't blame the entire deficit on incompetent management."

We are so encouraged Dan! Please keep up your pro-active progress. We are with you on this your positive path.

You have our prayer support.

Original Post.