Michigan's John Engler: The Judas who led the Public Away from Public Education and Civility

John Engler’s personal crusade to eliminate public schools has at its heart the weapon of “Faux Public School Academies” better known as “public school charters.” Charter Schools are direct descents of Neo-Jim Crow Segregation academies .  These are schools siphoned off taxpayer dollars for partisan and ideological purposes.

Charters are mainly privately-run , proprietary operations funded with tax dollars taken from traditional public schools funding sources - one clear major steppingstone in the take-down of traditional public education as we have known it.   The yellow pages of the Deep South are crammed with private and religious academies run to provide schooling for white parents’ children - with every intent to support and expand paid segregation via public tax dollars.

What a long awaited dream is being achieved via for-profit “charters!”  Using chartering and vouchers to fund these separatist operations (with public tax dollar creates a separate educational and social apartheid.  Using local and state tax dollars to re-segregate the south (and the entire nation) is a wholly unworthy accomplishment (Much MORE on Engler and Charter Schools below).

Decades Long War on Unions: Protesters hold "Stop Engler at Northwest
(Airlines)" signs and pass out John Engler Flyers in May of 2006

First Some History: Nasty was the virus infused into Michigan Politics by John Engler
No amount of sophistry or interpretation of the present "sorry state" of Michigan politics and/or its immediate future can ever factor out the corrupting cynicism and bone-ugly operations of John Engler.

Engler's revolutionary angst and bitter many years of partisanship has produced a maelstrom of civic negativity in his aftermath. Many "Englerites" (and there are plenty surrounding Rick Snyder) conditioned and trained in the "Englerisque" ways have continued and matured in "bad habits" with regard to how state government is run and how the legislature behaves-late night sessions, straight party voting, and verbal bullying. Engler's part in term limits has come to be a disaster undermining good government. His appointees and friends are still scattered around the workings of this state, unrepentant if not aggressive.

One of Engler's most visible undermining achievements was his part in creating the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - a perpetual negativist voice that has near unlimited access to both the Detroit News but many of the other newspapers and media outlets in the state. Mackinac Center's voice is an echo and a replay/update of that of Engler.

Engler planted this very bitter seeds of divisiveness in this state and also in the nation. It was Engler who, in full support of Newt Gingrich, encouraged the complete shut down of the federal government to embarrass Bill Clinton and the Democrats.

It was "Big John" who royally rewarded Engler cronies with highly placed state jobs and salaries which actually exceeded his income as governor. It was Engler who participated in and surfed off the effects of the 1983 recall efforts in the state.

The cruel and unthinking explosion of 89,000 singles from the welfare rolls and general assistance with one quarter being mentally ill and another quarter "unemployable" under heavy protests from the religious community. It was Engler who attacked the state's mental health programs in search of cost savings. Parents with children suffering with mental disorders had to take their children out of state for treatment because of Engler's revolt and ideology.

The stacking of the Michigan State Supreme Court with highly loyal and politically activist judges, one of whom telegraphed his opinion on a famous case, losing his probity for even-handedness. The amount of money raised and spent to elect the Engler Three to the state supreme court was patiently obscene.

The huge expansion of the Michigan prison system under Engler, as a state industry, has resulted in many of our current corrections imbalances and difficulties. The decline of the state started its momentous downhill, run-away pace under Engler. Jobs were being lost from 1990 on. Engler's replacement jobs, if you recall, were at McDonalds, WalMart, and Menards, hardly the living wage jobs required to live nominally in this great state.

Engler's sops to business were ineffective in building up the US manufacturing base and he was always ready to say more tax cuts would improve what in fact got worse-by projecting blame on some other entity or group.

The propensity of Engler to favor certain corporations and lower their taxes created structural deficits, many of which compounded the huge debt he left - to be covered by his successor, Jennifer Granholm. This was all at a time when the nation had a period of huge deficit reduction and surplus, and a booming economy.

Engler and George W. Bush deliberately and systematically ignored the need to bring General Motors to account for its ineptitude and disregard for sound business practices. Bush's right hand man, Andrew Card, knew the inner workings of the auto industry and was ineffective in making the difference which was required.

No one wants to remember G. W. Bush. Among Republicans is name is trash. Bush's will carry into history the burden of his ineptitude and an uber-cowboy attitude which took this nation and the world to the brink of economic disaster and disrepute. Engler's sticky fingers are all over the tarnished silver platter he used to deliver goodies to his insiders and cronies.

When it came to Engler's legacy, following his governorship, he was deemed unacceptable for a position in the Bush administration. Then as a highly visible and as the overpaid head of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Engler compounded the mistakes John made in Michigan, inflicting them on the entire country.

Engler's part in the demise of Northwest Airlines and his perpetual support of outsourcing and manufacturing in Communist China over and against the pleas from such groups as the tool and die manufacturers in Southeast Michigan, who cry out for regress of such grievances. As one loyal and supportive Engler contemporary has stated, there are those who would like to have the "fat boy" back.

Engler's a mindsticker. Ask the state's teachers about Engler. He's well-remembered and still greatly-disliked. The entire state breathed a sigh of relief when Big John left the state, but he still makes his appearances like his latest visit to CMU.

John Engler as Corporate Thug: Union Bashing in Blood-sport Englerite Politics
(Original Cartoon in the MetroTimes Series on John Engler by Curt Guyette 1999-2002)

Engler dropped his proud proclamation of his Engler Revolution when it became obvious that the public was fed up with that term.  But his undercutting the stability and necessary functions of state and local government by revolutionary means continued to the end of his tenure.  Keep in mind a revolutionary TAKES FORCEFULLY FROM SOME to gift those takings to others he favors, there’s nothing civic-minded or healthy about that.

Engler’s role as a fire-breathing pugilist politician became well-known.  Porcine and in-your-face,  (Engler is literally the model of "Godfather Politics" adopted by Chris Christie of New Jersey)  Engler was side by side with (and devising) Newt Gingrich’s infamous and dangerous total shutdown of the federal government in the 1990’s.

At one point in Engler’s escalation of personal braggadocio, the then governor donned a leather Hell’s Angel-style black leather biker jacket and strutted about; proud of his new and expanding tough bully image.  Engler believed he had achieved his goal as the man who had made Michigan governance the throny nest of those whose mantra was “Death to Public Service.” To this day, John M. Engler is a man with a malevolent, indelible image and remains the perfect archetype for vulture politics.

Back to Charter Schools...

John Engler - Master of Predatory Politics - The Judas Who Led the Public Away From Support for Local Democracy in Education

Central Michigan University’s Center for Charter Schools was recently renamed to honor Engler, by some of the folks he appointed at CMU. At the renaming ceremony in Mt. Pleasant John Engler had this to tout:

"We can announce today charter schools are here to stay" ….“Competition and choice are here to stay."

The Detroit News account of this event noted on May 22, 2012:

“Monday's dedication festivities at CMU reflected on the legal, political and social struggles Engler and charter school proponents have endured while highlighting new laws allowing unlimited charter schools in Michigan after 2015 and an expansion of cyber charter schools.” 

And so the Engler Revolution slogs on!

Engler and Charters
Engler’s ensconcing of Charters at CMU was but one part of his personal “revolutionary” master plan. Engler announced at the Harvard University School of Education, May 3, 1995 (Box 123, Engler Records, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) and made himself crystal clear as to where his passion was and where his efforts were leading.   In ten years Engler hoped to render the education unions inoperable.  Destroying the professional associations for educators would then give him entre to an entire plethora of destructive legislation and ideological opportunities.  John M. Engler never reached that goal as governor, but his successors (with the ardent help of many Rad Right think tanks and civically subversive groups like the secretive Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Rick Snyder) never relented.

Currently under a CEO/Boss Rick Snyder (who sees himself the “executive hire” in sole command of Michigan) and with the help of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (A.L.E.C. in which Engler is an important, long time operator  and committed proponent /supporter) and the Tea Party Republicans or TeaPartisans (funded by such anti-public education mega bucks as Walmart, Amway / Dick & Betsy DeVos, and the Koch Brothers) the push is on to complete the felonious work of Engler. 

See Also the exhaustive article: "Public Money Finds Back Door to Private schools" in the New York Times on May 22, 2012.

Michigan Was Not the Earliest Leader of the Charter Movement, That Distinction Goes to Minnesota

It was not Engler and Michigan who were the leaders in the origins of the charter movement.  Historically “chartering” was a teacher envisioned concept for real improvement in education and schools utilizing less administration deadweight and over-regulation,  hoping that by ramping up autonomy and innovation they could do great things for kids.   It became apparent to the determined critics of public education that “charters” could be easily co-opted, and so they were.   “Chartering” as a competitive wedge, an anti-neighborhood public school device (incentivized by privatizing and appeal to long sought sectarian goals) could be used to undermine the entire taxpayer funded system.

Undermining public education had taken root in the radicalism of the Cult of Ronald Reagan and was fully expressed in Reagan’s anti-public union action: the PATCO Action - where the aircraft controllers of the nation were summarily fired.

CMU is a poor excuse for a Teacher Training Institution:  Why was it made Engler’s center for Charters?

Such schools as CMU fall into a category where “the schools that train our teachers are known to be "under performing." To illustrate, "fewer than 70 percent of graduates [of our schools of education] meet state licensing requirements.... Sandra Feldman, the [former] president of the American Federation of Teachers...acknowledges that the quality of teachers isn't high enough."

Central Michigan University has had since 1996 an opportunity to retool, become a premier and singularly outstanding teacher prep institution.   Instead, it chose to  take the easy path, accept the 3% management fee offered for overseeing the Englercentric faux public charters (CMU now loosely supervises over 50 charters with 30,000 students receiving the foundation grant at about $7,000 each).  Meanwhile the university remains a sub-standard venue for teacher prep.

For a powerful account of Engler's lachluster history and more on CMU's Charter School initiatives read Michael Hanley, Democratic Michigan State House Leader in 2000, in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools":

"Charter schools may be sponsored by a variety of governmental institutions. Unlike traditional public schools, their boards are not elected by the public (or even the parents of their students). Unlike private schools, they are financed by public tax dollars. Proponents claim that charter schools will make traditional public schools better by creating competition in the educational marketplace. Opponents argue that some Michigan charter schools have been poorly managed and have not delivered results in test scores. These claims are supported by several critical reports authored by Michigan universities and think tanks [Mackinac Center and others].

State law allows any local school district, intermediate school district, and most community colleges to sponsor an unlimited number of charter schools. However, state universities are limited to 150 overall. In his 1999 State-of-the-State message, Governor Engler called on the legislature to eliminate this cap on university charters. A united House Democratic Caucus and about nine House Republicans have resisted this initiative. This bipartisan coalition continues to believe that additional accountability measures, such as a certification requirement for teachers and expanded oversight of how public tax dollars are spent by the schools, should be in place before the university charter cap is raised. Of course, some legislators believe that charter schools are a generally bad idea, and do not support expansion under any circumstances.

It deserves to be noted that one of the reasons the Governor insists on removing the cap is that Central Michigan University - the state's most aggressive charter authorizing institution - has reached its limit for granting charters.

And who appoints the Board of CMU? John Engler."
{emphasis added)

Man Who Did Nothing Else Butt: A life-long Government Employee
and Politician (with 3 government pensions), John Engler Hates Government

John Mathias Engler is a Master at Utilizing Government to Undermine Government

Engler’s gamesmanship with various aspects of tricks and schemes devised to distort or control branches of Michigan government knew no bounds.   He shifted aspects of the Michigan State Board of Education to the State Treasury Department. He purposely under-funded the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSER) retirement fund. According Michigan State Senator Glenn Anderson:

“Republicans want to blame our teachers and our school workers for the issues with the current retirement system, but the real problems started 15 years ago when Gov. John Engler made severe changes to how the system was operated. MPSERS had previously been prefunded, but Gov. Engler decided to take the lid off the cookie jar and start stealing money from the fund to fill other budget holes. Now, former, current and future school employees are being unfairly punished for the mistakes and financial mismanagement of their benefits by the state.”

Engler devised many other means to obfusticate and to purposefully undermine programs and organization(s) he wanted to REVOLUTIONIZE.

Source: "GOP's attacks on retirees must stop" by Glenn Anderson on DailyKos (May 2012)

To quote John Engler from his State of the State in 1997:

"Being for public education means making sure that every school, every classroom, every teacher, every student is safe."

"BEING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION MEANS KEEPING EDUCATION OUR TOP PRIORITY!"

"One key to quality education is quality teachers. Proud, passionate -- these professional men and women are making a difference in the lives of students every day. That's why I was outraged to read in the Detroit News that in one high school this year nine teachers have been assaulted."

"When teachers are attacked in their own classrooms, academic performance is also a casualty. I may be old fashioned, but it seems to me, if a student lays a hand on a teacher, that student is gone."

Just words to fill in the time looking back, fake whiskey talk used to gin up support for his major overhaul of not just education financing, but the whole public perception of Public Education.  Perhaps no single individual has done more, going out of their way to make the lives of Public School teachers in Michigan lives more miserable and more publicly attack teaching as a profession, that Johnny Mathias Engler.

NAM and Damn
John M. Engler coming off term limits, and failing at his short-lived, only private sector job at EDS, was hired to run the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) a very right of center, right-wing infested, anti-union amalgamation of interests working against American workers and as an aggressive partner with Communist China.  From its earliest days NAM has been a perfect match for Engler.

Even back in 1903 the then radical NAM President “David MacLean Parry  delivered a speech at its annual convention which argued that unions' goals would result in ‘despotism, tyranny, and slavery.’ Parry advocated the establishment of a great national anti-union federation under the control of the NAM, and NAM responded by initiating such an effort.”   Eight years later, “In an address at its 1911 convention, NAM president John Kirby, Jr. proclaimed, ‘The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is engaged in an open warfare against Jesus Christ and his cause.'”

Engler’s All About Power & Money
John M. Engler is reputed to have received a million dollars a year to pontificate and expound at his NAM post.  Not bad for a “kid from a family farm near Beal City,” a legislative loner who honed his command of government minutiae and insider operations to the point he was once hailed as the “Butcher from Beal City” for his savage and relentless attacks on the mentally ill, the homeless and many other aspects of Michigan’s infrastructure and operations using government-to-destroy government.

Go ahead rebrand Central Michigan’s Center for Charter Schools with the name “Engler,” but know full-well that such a label on the public university’s infrastructure has degraded, not enhanced, the image and mission of that state institution.  The Engler Center for Charter Schools would rather have been a perfect fit for Hillsdale College – well-fit to that rogue institution’s overall mission and purpose.

On the Reader:

• "The Real Engler Revolution" and Engler series by Curt Guyette (MetroTimes 1999-2002) (Note: On-line archive no longer availible - Use Lexis-Nexis to access).
• Read about Engler's Michigan "Virtual High School" history (page 24-25) and history of "Virtual Education" used to create defacto vounders system. 
• Engler as "Public Official of the Year" in right-wing, ALEC funded "Governing" magazine in "Remaking a State through Ideology and Determination" (2001), creating $1.3 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" and... 
• Then read how Engler depleted that fund and hacked State Revenues as he left office in 2002 in "Rick Snyder’s Michigan Data: Reversing Engler Mistakes by Reviving Them (Slash, Burn, Repeat…)" (February 2012).
• More history on the political fights between Dems and John Engler on Public School funding and Engler's appointment of the CMU Charter School Institute board in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools" by then Dem House Leader Michael Hanley in 1999.

Related Slates:
The Ugly History of Engler’s Attempt at What He Praised as “School Reform” During the Engler Revolution in Michigan (April 2011) - Nerd Snyder Goes Engler’s Mississippiafication of Michigan One Better: Rick’s Kicked Michigan’s Future Right Into the Crapper (April 2011) - Before Rick Snyder Removes the Michigan Public School Code, Step Back to the Engler Revolution: What  Will NO CODE Mean? (April 2011) - John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan (March 2011) - The Governor (Granholm) Must Lean on the MEA to Accomplish the GOP Senate's Radical Goals (December 2009)

More on Michigan Public Education on the Gazette.

Original.

If Only Michissippian TeaPartisans Would Stand Up to the Bullies at the Michigan Chamber...

Those like The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and the Koch Bros.’ Michigan Chapter of the Americans for Prosperity’s Ranting Rabble

If only Alexander Hamilton could have foreseen the ravishes and rashness of vengeful TeaPartisans in the ruinous TeaPublican led extension of the musty and dank Engler Revolution (the 2011 Legislative Session), bitter partisanship now headed up by a myopic and weak Nerd Beancounter who thinks he owns the right to dictate to citizens of this state following his evisceration of many state programs and budget responsibilities.

But alas!

"We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority."

-- Alexander Hamilton-The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85

Who can save us from a radicalized TeaPublican state legislature reeking havoc on all its enemies, a bully-boy super majority, out of control and disrespectfulof all minority rights?


Original.

Nerdly (Rick) Snyder Fails Citizenship 101

Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder has not proven the factors supporting the need for his theft of Public School Financial resources (a $900 million cut, and upwards of $1.1 billion in School fund surpluses and unexpected new revenues due to go to schools), nor has Snyder built a credible case for why his corporate backers are not paying their proportional higher share in increased taxes helping Michigan through this crisis.

Why rather than accept "shared sacrifice" during this crisis, are Snyder's business cronies actually being given "no strings attached"-huge sums of money fleeced from ordinary citizens? You and I know, Snyder knows he's stealing revenue that belongs to K-12 schools support. Yet the Nerd stubbornly persists in his one way trip to disaster.

To compound the ugliness of this corporate/business "gift outright" is the fact that those who have backed Snyder in this erroneous decision are a secret group of contributors. The public is being fleeced and those involved in this civic crime are hidden from our view and directed criticism.

Like other actions supporting this situation in Michigan dovetails with the highly planned, well-orchestrated and choreographed National Legislative Coup mounted by radical rogue elements, best identified as TeaPublicans-funded as foot soldiers/astroturf activists by mega corporations and radical hard right think tanks. This is their golden moment of radical opportunity. 

University of Wisconsin Professor Bill Cronon published March 15th a study guide that blew the cover off this coup, even then underway nationwide. Cronon asked: What's fueling the "sudden and impressively well-organized" wave of right-wing legislation targeting the environment, workers rights (collective bargaining), public service, students voting rights, women's issues, and, immigrants in state legislatures across the country? Answer in large part: The Koch Brothers, Walton family, Amway clan's secretive legislative mill: The American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.)

A.L.E.C.'s finger prints are all over the Nerd's legislative agenda current and what's to come. Snyder's own hired honchos have added expensive PR and media ads to their arsenal of anti-public service "revolutionary action" to cover the tracks back. What do they want and why are they hiding who they are from the public?

Reports Todd A. Heywood:

"The (Snyder hired Yob associates')Values Group is pushing support for Gov. Rick Snyder's controversial budget which includes eliminating the state's business tax, creation of a flat six percent business tax, eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit, cuts to education funding distributions, cuts to local revenue sharing programs and a new tax on retirement pensions. Snyder and the GOP majority in the state legislature plan to pass the budget by June 1, weeks before the Values first campaign report is filed ."

We know, now in part, why there's the Nerd's "bum's rush" to pass as much of the massive anti-public schools, anti-public service/police/firefighter/corrections officer/social worker, union busting legislation as possible. The reason is clear: as the public awakens to the threat and the damage done by this rogue rebellion-the Retro-Engler Revolution, they will begin to resist and block Snyder's re-invention of Michigan's entire governance into a troubling morass which will pull the state down into a deeper and longer "One State Depression." Snyder's corporate backers and his host of privateers-anxious to get their hands into the public treasure-cannot stand exposure during these critical early months of their blitz.

Rich Robinson, executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, sees the rules under the current elections law as the heart of the present problem:

"I've been complaining about our crappy lobbying and campaign finance laws for years. We just don't require frequent enough reporting," Robinson tells Michigan Messenger in an e-mail. "WE SHOULD KNOW THE SOURCES OF MONEY THAT ARE ATTEMPTING TO DRIVE THE POLICY PROCESS BEFORE POLICY DECISIONS ARE MADE."

Progress Michigan's executive director David Holtz has puts it on the line:

"AN 86 PERCENT TAX BREAK FOR CORPORATIONS AND ZERO TRANSPARENCY FOR CITIZENS - THAT'S THE ARROGANT MESSAGE WE ARE GETTING FROM GOVERNOR SNYDER'S POLITICAL CAMP."

"We should assume there's a reason they are not immediately disclosing the corporate and other donors behind these ads. But that reason doesn't have anything to do with transparency or good government."

What Snyder's doing is dead wrong:
- Robbing the children's education,
- Putting dictators in place of elected officials
- Taxing deferred savings of the elderly who face end-of-life's daunting expenses
- Putting thousands of children/needy families off public assistance
- Shortening the foreclosure period allowed for redemption by half
- Reducing unemployment with over 400k on the brink of no support other than limited charity
- Purposefully cash-starving local units of government into bankruptcy
- Giving billions to business without supporting evidence that such a give-away is really necessary rather than dead wrong

Ashamed, the Nerd, responsible for this tragic set of events, should hide his aggressive self-serving MO and conceal his greedy corporate supporters from the worried public as long as possible.

We are learning that we live in an evil time.
________________________________

"(T)his is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." 

-- John 3:19-20

"It is a proven fact that Evil will Increase in Direct Proportion to the Preaching of the Lie. If Good men do nothing to restrain the effects of evil, it will inevitably triumph over all men. Evil is done in darkness. It Cannot stand the Light of Day. Exposed it will either lash out or run and hide. HOWEVER EXPOSING EVIL REQUIRES VIRTUE AND COURAGE, BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS COSTLY TO DO SO. WHETHER THE EVIL BE POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS, IT WILL DESPISE ANYONE WHO SHINES THE LIGHT OF TRUTH."

"In a Free Society Evil is restrained by holding forth a Standard of Truth. But when Truth is fallen in the streets nothing remains but the evil. Then the institutions become corrupt from top to bottom and rotten to the core. Like the one bad apple in the barrel ruining all the others, so one bit of leaven gone un-checked will destroy the Standard."

"The Root of a tree must remain healthy for the tree to bare its fruit and prosper. If the Root is allowed to decay, soon the whole tree will produce nothing but degenerate fruit. Tell one lie and by necessity you must tell another to cover the first."

-- A Timely Prophetic utterance from Standing the Gap

Original Post.

Before Rick Snyder Removes the Michigan Public School Code, Step Back to the Engler Revolution: What Will NO CODE Mean?

No State School Code Equals Stealth Control

" A virtual de-regulation of schools" is being sought by Gov. Snyder and Mike Flanagan

No School Code in Historic Perspective
Engler's State of the State (SOS) announcement calling for complete destruction of the State School Code had a clear purpose. It was to be no longer the state, acting as consensus of the whole, but rather local boards who will have the ultimate power to make and enforce the rules. Who then will control education?

Now that may seem easy to answer. The community and the parents at large decide, right? NOT SO. Engler's illogical action is designed to dovetail with the stealth campaign of the Hard Right (A Betsy DeVos backed and funded Citizens for Tradi-tional Values which claims 68% of the winners in one Michigan statewide election were their/her candidates). Their purpose is made clear in these words:

"We are now in the process of putting born-again Christians on every school board in America. How? by COMMUNITY IMPACT EVANGELISM! A school board with five members needs only three Christians to take complete control of a school district. You can literally own that system and control all personnel, curriculum, materials, textbooks, and policies. You will influence the mindset of between 20,000 and 50,000 children." - Robert L. Simonds, president, National Association of Christian Educators/Citizens for Excellence in Education 1986.

Simonds, a former California teacher and preacher who in 1983 founded Citizens for Excellence in Education/National Association of Christian Educators, heads a Christian crusade which is mounting a vigorous attempt to gain control of public education, and it is a crusade in which there are armies of willing warriors. It is succeeding because of the lethargy of a preoccupied citizenry that no longer votes or takes part in civic affairs. They assume too much!

On the surface it seems like an attack only on the publics' schools, but it is part of an even larger purpose. This activity is aimed as much against the Mainline Protestant churches and their memberships as much as it is against those whom these religious enthusiasts label "secular humanists." Mainline Protestants serve on school boards in large numbers and don't, except in rare cases, operate church related academies via their churches.

This sea change in America is an all-out-no-holds-barred attack upon the Methodists, Presbyterians, and other major Protestant denominations which are labeled "apostate" in the view of this militant army of Pentecostals, Fundamentalist Catholics, and Fun-damentalist Independents. The Mainline Chruches' "liberal" stances on human sexuality and the co-operation with the World Council of Churches are but two examples of this tradition's' "sins." Nor is there likewise any real ultimate historical reverence or toleration of the Jewish and Muslim--Abrahamic faiths, or the Buddhists. Read their literature. The Fundamentalist Magazine, Tim LaHaye, "Only Christians should hold high office." (LaHaye's definition of "Christian" is on his own narrow terms and does not include many Christian believers with less Fundamentalist views than those of LaHaye.)

1/22/04 Former Republican State Rep. Joanne Voorhees' simply stated conviction (quoted by the Grand Rapids Press) was Christians are the only folk she would endorse or support for public office. She explicitly trusts Christians The general public, perhaps casually agreeing with her sentiments, fails to understand Voorhees' thinking, practice, and parlance. Qualified Christians according to Voorhees are very specific, narrowly defined believers. Society thinks of Christian as a broad, inclusive term. Voorhees defines/limits Christian to narrow, specific dogmas and exclusivity. Her "Christians" must adhere to exacting/specific religious demands.

It's a problem. Voorhees, was, at the time, an elected representative who must do all the people's business: her approved "Christians", other Christians and faiths, as well as everyone else's business. She as an elected state legislator was sworn to uphold a national constitution disallowing religious testing for public office. Yet, in practice, Voorhees espouses religious tests for public office--conflicting with the constitution and putting herself above it.

Voorhees' subsequent restatement: "Christian" includes the Jewish faith--awkwardly and inaccurately attempted to mitigate damage her candid expression of her "selective" Christians only viewpoint had previously created.

This is just one example of what Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson announced in Houston '92 at the GOP National Convention: a "Cultural and Religious war." Such unbridled intolerance is a serious threat to America's pluralistic tradition and well-being. It must not be taken lightly.

This is a time of great unrest worldwide. In America, the undefined unhappiness of many citizens over the loss of personal control over their financial futures, and a preoccupation with crime and violence, contributes to a volatile and dangerous time. Adopting simplistic solutions to complex problems has a great and widening appeal. Provocateurs and provocations abound.

These "values voters" are souls who feel, with all fervency, that they have the "absolute answers" to the problems of education and society. Those answers come straight and literally from the Bible, as taught and expounded by their powerful leaders. These leaders know the power of faith in the lives of the Faithful Followers and covet the power of government to impose that narrowed view of faith on a wayward society, a culture and worldview, they condemn.

In any age or time this kind of crisis mentality spawns fears that constitute the formulic recipet for violence and repression. Just as the ultra-right national leaders picture it, it's a war (a starkly harsh term) on all unbelievers.  They allude to it as analogous to the Civil War where a moral issue was said to be the root cause of the conflagration....

It was a specious and treacherous act on the part of Engler to willingly and deliber-ately attempt to open the flood gates of carefully constructed and tested pubic school control to such ideologues - by a radical reconstruction of state government policy-so clearly favoring the Hard Right's pre-announced, divisive purposes.

Remove the State School Codes? Can educational apartheid be far behind?

Original Post.

The Ugly History of Engler’s Attempt at What He Praised as “School Reform” During the Engler Revolution in Michigan

Commentary prior to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's 'special message' on Michigan Public Education Plans.

John Engler, known for his vengefulness, facilitated the school debacle during his tenure with ease. Documented proof and scholarly studies underwriting the need for Engler's drastic action were never produced. Engler's resources and support came from the ideological warehouses of the Hard Right and the cut-throat business bosses long anxious to flex their power.

"Friendly fascism in the United States...(does not) need a charismatic, apparently all-powerful leader such as Mussolini or Hitler...The chief executive, rather, becomes the nominal head of a network that not only serves as a linchpin to help hold the Establishment together, but also provides it with a sanctimonious aura of legitimacy through the imagery of the (governor), his family, his associates and their doings."

"The chief executive is...a TV performer, (a star of the Far Right), and his...(office) is indeed 'a awesome bullypulpit' from which he and his entire production staff can wield a potent "magic wand."...the Establishment's top levels (have no need to) remove power from the...(governor) but would accentuate the need for at least one fully presented face, to help counterbalance the facelessness of the (greedy business and religious) oligarchy and (help to) legitimate the regime as a whole...continuing to distract attention from the (purposes) and powers operating behind and through (the governorship)."

--Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross

Without such supporting assets as provided by the various organizations and the immense funding mechanisms as come from the powers behind the governor, Engler could never dare begin the process of creating educational apartheid in our cities. He would not dare to suggest elitist academies be funded by public tax dollars in the posh conservative suburbs.

Engler Designed Devices to Force the Public Schools to Fail The crippled public school was designed by legislation, revenue limitation, and the creation of deregulated bootleg charter competition to fail.

Localizing the school code makes decentralization and fragmentation possible, thus furthering disruption and failure of the system. The support of the public will be lost.

Step by step, the coordinated editorial attacks unfold. The primary sources are the Detroit News and the Grand Rapids Press. Yet all of this is still but a dim foreshadowing of the darkside program laid out for Michigan and orchestrated by TEACH, the Mackinaw Center and the Foundation for Traditional Values and a dozen other national Hard Right groups were all joined in.

Their plan: destroy confidence in the schools, flirt with the racial issues. Project blame schools and teachers for the "punks and thugs," the "hounds of hell" that roam our cities. Then while there is a "moment," devise an unlimited charter system funded by a "direct grant to parents." Steal the tax funds for private purposes.
All the while, far rightist were to push ahead to a full blown voucher system of educational apartheid. Engler's announced intention to entirely remove the State School Code is just another clever calculated step in the process.

Engler's method of operation: Keep the offensive, keep the opposition off guard. Ignore the criticisms, just bully your way through.

Tomorrow we learn how the Nerd intends to re-invent public education. 

How much of the Engler influence remains, will soon be known.


Original Post.

John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan

Recently, John Mathias Engler has become a subject of renewed interest in Michigan media. Ousted one term U.S. Senator, Spencer Abraham made reference to his buddy Engler ("The Michigan Experience: Why Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans shouldn’t sweat their dip in the polls" in Weekly Standard Op-Ed on March 17, 2011- a better title might be "Former Gov. John Engler proved that Republican governors shouldn't sweat early, negative polls") recently as a way to encourage Snyder and company to hang tough in their hostile attacks on the public servants and ordinary citizens, both young and old, of a struggling Michigan.

Engler has been taken to task by state industrialists and regional editors as being vindictive, obstructionist and anti-Michigan manufacturing:

"Like a recurring case of Montezuma's Revenge, Michigan can't rid itself of John Engler. Gone "but unfortunately not forgotten" from state government for four years, Engler is now a lobbyist for the nation's major manufacturers and pops up frequently clinging to the coattails of Republican power brokers in Washington.

"After wreaking havoc on the state's budget, environment, human services and open government as governor for 12 years, Engler finally left Lansing, thankfully concluding his career on the public payroll, his only previous source of employment throughout his adult life.

"Known best for his vindictive meanspiritedness and bullying fear tactics, Engler did more to politicize public affairs at all levels in Michigan than any other politician in recent memory. Even members of his own Republican Party bitterly complained "privately, of course" about Big John. Many were not unhappy in the slightest when he packed his bags for private sector paychecks and corporate boardrooms.

"His scowling specter, though, returned on two fronts in recent days, sadly reminding us of the bad old days when Engler ran roughshod over anyone and everyone who had the temerity to oppose him."

Crain's Detroit Business reported that tooling companies in Michigan have had it with Engler's perceived coziness with the Chinese government on outsourcing and currency valuation.

The companies' trade group is distancing itself from Engler's National Association of Manufacturers, contending Engler and the NAM have "betrayed" domestic manufacturers in U.S. dealings with the Chinese.

"'Our own former governor has been completely blinded by the larger business interests that are running the NAM,'" Herb Trute, a downstate tool and die executive told Crain's.

"'And it's patently obvious to me that they (Engler and NAM) have done very little to help the plight of the small manufacturer'"

This editorial was chased by a follow-up letter from Joyce Braithwaite Brickley, who served as a long-time top aide to former governor William Milliken. She made this observation about the record and character of John Engler:

"No two people on the face of the earth are more familiar with the machinations and childishness of former Gov. John Engler. We put up with his small tricks, dishonesty and continuous negativity over our 15 years in the governor's office when Engler was in the state Legislature."

In 1994 Time Magazine referred to Engler as "something of a Republican hatchet man in the state legislature."

Sadly, it is former governor John Engler who presided over the beginnings of the future Mississippiafication of Michigan. It was a time when government was used against government to push agendas which harmed our state. With the help of radical tax haters like Patrick Anderson, Richard Headlee, et al, and the Senators Welborn and DiNello. These individuals with their wild libertarian rantings supported and abetted Engler in his cold-hearted revolt.

Using a surprise defeat of James Blanchard, who was seeking a third term as Michigan's governor, John immediately began his first term as governor with extremely harsh measures.

Voters, Engler declared, "are tired of the same old crap going on in Lansing." His mantra, Cut taxes! Throw the deadbeats off welfare! Take control of the schools! All this and more ... He became known as the Beal City Butcher. His campaign theme had been "cut and cap" state spending, but he went far, far beyond that even though he had not even won a majority of the votes cast in 1990 and had no clear mandate.

Engler chained the Lafayette clinic and closed mental health facilities around the state. Adolescents with mental problems literally had to be transshipped out of state for mental health care. Common Cause's Peter Overby described Engler's Revolution in the following manner:

"While Washington is busy reinventing government, Engler is intent on de-inventing it. His administration (was) like a radical expression of the free market he so admires:

Specifically, an outside takeover, like a leveraged-buyout buccaneer, he parlayed his thin victory into an unprecedented shake-out of state government, its budget and mission. He whacked away at two departments; shuttered a third; froze civil service pay; closed what he considered a costly, unproductive line (General Assistance); and announced plans to contract out or simply sell some other government operations."

Engler put nearly 90,000 welfare singles on "General Assistance, a state program that sent checks ($160 a month at the end) to childless, 'able-bodied' adults who were unemployed or working in low-wage jobs " out on the streets.

Engler never bothered to investigate, one quarter of those on GA were mentally ill and another quarter unemployable. Many of these went on the street scrounging for returnable bottles, many were made homeless. Engler wasn't afraid to play off stereotypes of welfare recipients as lazy inner-city residents--GA "subsidized (were) people who had simply chosen not to work.." 

Again Common Cause:

"(E)xtensive studies by universities, state and private agencies demolished the stereotype: The average age of GA recipients was 39. More than 40 percent were women. White men ages 26-40 outnumbered young black men 2 to 1. More than half had 'chronic or severe' health problems. Most had work histories. About 45 percent lived in Detroit, which lost some 44,300 manufacturing jobs in the previous decade.

"'There really just aren't options for these people,' says Sandra Danziger, a social work professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored one study. 'All the job growth is in high-skill or entry-level services.'

"Engler (had) no regrets about his incivility and inhumanity in regard to those on GA. 'I think we did the right thing,' he said, 'and the evidence is quite compelling that we did.'" But what actually was the impact of the cold-hearted GA cuts?"

"In its economic impact, the END OF GA HAS BEEN COMPARED TO THE LOSS OF TWO LARGE MANUFACTURING PLANTS. 'In spite of the facts that were coming forth, people didn't seem to care,' said social work professor Danny Thompson of Western Michigan University. 'Not just the politicians, but the public. It's a funny, spooky feeling.' Danziger wondered aloud why people sympathize with workers laid off by GM, but not with GA recipients who would have died for an assembly line job."

"The state budget was indeed balanced. But incalculable costs were shifted to local hospitals, jails and other facilities where homeless people might land.

"Other costs were quietly passed to federal taxpayers. One federal agency sent Michigan 194 percent more money for homeless shelters in 1992 while cutting funds nationally by 8 percent. Another shift occurred as former GA recipients applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the federal-state payments to the disabled, aged and blind. SSI budgets rose everywhere in 1992 (mainly due to a Supreme Court decision that made more children eligible), but in Michigan the burden shifted dramatically. Federal SSI payments went up 24 percent nationwide, 29 percent in Michigan. The states' share increased 6 percent, but Michigan's actually dropped 11 percent,"

The impact of Engler's draconian actions even put a pale on the free market glee often heard from Engler's own Mackinac Center for Public Policy Director, Larry Reed:

 "...once described the (GA) cutoff as 'conservative compassion,' (saying later) : 'I have been bothered from the start by a lingering need to stimulate more private initiatives to meet these needs. I hope that in hindsight we'll look back and say that one of the benefits of the elimination of General Assistance was to heighten the concern of people in the private sector, to get them off their butts and out there creating new initiatives to meet the need.'

"As he was attacking GA, Engler also started to dismantle another welfare system: an extensive network of business subsidies and aids built up by his predecessor, Jim Blanchard. But corporate interests had more political clout than welfare recipients and stopped him."

Engler simplistically continued to repeat his chosen line as he bulldozed ahead:

"... Lansing should just lower taxes, stand back and let the entrepreneurs go full-throttle. Despite the state's big-labor, big-government reputation"

Engler was now in charge. His mindset became the adopted mindset of most Republican officeholders and appointed state functionaries. Clearly for them it was go along or be shut out.

Engler had in mind radical re-directions and other ham-fisted measures. Engler applied to his brand of ideology, backed and supported by his self-invented Tonto, the Mackinac Center, Midland. John doctored the Michigan economy during a time which came to include an era of unparalleled national prosperity during the Clinton years.

Even today, Engler continues to be a background player. As the President of NAM, The National Association of Manufactures, Engler aggressively promotes outsourcing and defends the role of China in the market including China's unfair currency policies. While Lou Dobbs of CNN reports on the root causes and impacts of our manufacturing crisis, off-shoring, and outsourcing, Engler run a hate Dobbs website with scathing denunciations of Dobbs' findings.

Brought before a congressional committee recently, lobbyist Engler defended the kinds of K Street "Corporations first" lobbying that is at the core of the federal trade and foreign currency troubles with which Michigan manufacturers have been assailed and with which they cannot fairly compete.

It is directly from this mindset comes the brutal Lansing takeover of cities, schools, and local units. The seeds of an economic shakedown and the collapse of Michigan's economic future were sown by this insensitive and power hungry de-constructionist who thought of himself as the author of a personal revolution.

Revolutionaries always carry out their agendas by tacking things from their enemies and giving them to their followers. So under Snyder, his top aides being old Englerites, we see the continuation of a Engler-inspired steep decline in the state's quality of life and increased uncertainty for the future of Michigan.

John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan and his destructive efforts live on today in growing infamy. Rick Snyder appears to be a maven of Englerism, Snyder and his Teapublican legislative rabble are on a wildly destructive tare. Engler, by comparison, may end up looking like a flaming saint.


Original Post.

Michigan Gov Rick Snyder's Nerdonomics Gone Wild

It's easy to go loony in Michigan; it's so natural to turn on each other when the Bush induced Depression pulls us all down.

A willful and stubborn Nerdhead governor amplifies our desperation and the hurt.

Apparently this economic trauma is being felt everywhere, but not in the heart of our Novice Nerd Governor. The word is out: Snyder is stubborn, very set in his own ways; beyond reason and not inclined to compromise or collaborate. In a word, Tricky Ricky is not political. So many Michigan voters thought they saw a glimmer of hope that he was our Superman-mild mannered Clark Kent turned powerful helper.

Snyder appeared to be a businessman, a special man who is willing to give of himself, step down from his safe high place as a millionaire; become governor/statesman, let-the-chips-fall-as they-may and lead Michigan out of our troubles. Rick was to do this with a credible/honest set of best practices. It turns out Rick's got a character flaw. He doesn't play by the rules of the public governance game.

Snyder May Not Want to Be Political, But He Must He may hate the world of politics. He may know little or nothing about how to bring about consensus among and between folk over whom he no longer holds the power; that which he once had as an owner/CEO to "hire and fire at will."

Snyder insists he's the CEO of Michigan, "hired" to run Michigan as a business. Rick's vision of himself in this mythical role makes him insist that things run in his mind as a business. Michigan is not a business. The Governor is not a CEO. MICHIGAN HAS NO CEO!

Snyder is given the elected responsibility to oversee the other branches of governance and the departments of Michigan. He has a bully pulpit and very limited power as compared to an actual "CEO" of a corporation, his prior domain.

Snyder's Experience Advisers Can't Get Through to the Stubborn Nerd The word is out that his advisers, many very experienced Engler Men, can't get across to Snyder that he must give a much wider berth to the politics-the gentle art of persuasion. We are in a tough time. This time is made much worse by the battering of ideological, social, and raw "business-first-last-and-always" mindset of so many around Lansing.

The Engler Revolution's negative vibes still reverberate in the rotunda of the Capitol, Engler devotees still hunger for the power of political persuasion they once had when the Engler Revolution legislatively took from one group in order to "gift" those "takings" to cronies and others John Engler chose.

Engler was Devilishly Clever As his sidekick and facilitator, Richard D. McLellen has said his buddy, John M. Engler, was a master at pre-planning, mapping and strategizing his every move; first in political terms, then carried right out to the end of the political and legal process to his end goal. That's why we have a Englercentric State Supreme Court and so many programs stamped with the Engler Revolution empress.

Snyder, by comparison, is a Political Novice, in the Worst of Times, Attempting a Steep Learning Curve The Nerd is in the middle of a huge crisis. His inability, or should we say, willful insistence on his own way or the highway, is an extreme liability at this very time.

Some common sense, some sense of working together with the public needs to temper Snyder's stubbornness and angst.

Keep him in your prayers. Thoughtful people are alarmed. Here's Snyder; unknown in philosophy and intentions; having successfully dodged debate and interviews on his inner workings and real outlook prior to the election; now in command of the governorship a political office. He has been elected to the most difficult period of Michigan history in our memory and we don't know the man!

Snyder's Ability to Lead Successfully Depends Greatly on Consent of the Governed The Nerd insists on doing what "He sees fit;" damn the advice of political advisers and seasoned pundits. We're headed for worse trouble. Snyder is losing the confidence and support of the people of Michigan. His high-handed approach to the budget is but one example.

Tricky Rick has turned one faction against another. The poor are immaterial to his beancounting, just as those 85,000 able bodied but mentally ill and unemployables were "throwaways" whom Engler put on the mean streets in 1991.
Now we learn on radical moves such as the newly legislated "Emergency Finance Manager" (EFM) who is given unparalleled powers, dictatorial unlimited discretion to disband cities, school districts, etc. accountable directly back to Snyder himself.

The theory behind the new EFM fails to ostensibly improve the governmental unit's failed operations and financial conduct as we find corruption and malfeasance under the Detroit EFM headed by Robert Bobb.

More pointedly the EFM proposes to COERCE AND FORCE those units (put concurrently under new specifically Snyder induced revenue shortfalls ($470/student cuts in Foundation Grants, the summary end to Block Grants to local units from Lansing, etc. which exacerbate and compound the existing revenue shortages) into a loosely defined, but deadly "emergency status" leading to a sudden takeover and liquidation of assets and buildings, etc. Government take overs of local functions will be hotly resisted. Mark that down. And those employees targeted for loss of bargaining rights,etc. and those elected officials kicked out of office, and barred for years from future office, won't be taking this dictatorial coup sitting down! The public knows what is the hidden purpose of the EFM's and they aren't buying in.

Folks We Are in Deep Tabasco! 

It's now becoming clear that Snyder is so deep into his independence and (assumed) power, vested in a belief he truly has his former corporate prerogatives, that he has taken from, and undercut, a very subservient Teapartisan Legislature. Snyder makes the Legislature a victim via his big oversight grab: As the A.P. reports: "...Rick Snyder's move to make the state budget 'simple, fair and efficient' may instead be leaving the public in the dark about how its money will be spent." Furthermore, Snyder's "line items for programs and spending wouldn't be binding. That basically could allow UNELECTED DEPARTMENT HEADS RATHER THAN LEGISLATORS TO DECIDE HOW THE MONEY SHOULD BE SPENT, said Craig Thiel, state affairs director for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council in Lansing.

"The lack of specifics concerns citizen watchdog groups such as Common Cause Michigan. PEOPLE REALLY HAD A SENSE OF WHAT WAS BEING FUNDED when they could see department budgets laid out program by program, said executive director Christina Kuo. DOING IT SNYDER'S WAY 'REALLY GOES AGAINST HIS COMMITMENT TO OPEN GOVERNMENT AND TRANSPARENCY.'"


Original Post.

2/17 (February 17, 2011) will live on in Michigan History as a very dark day: The Day Gov. Snyder Robbed Kids & Grandparents

"Pensions are deferred payments for work done. 'Benefits' are pay for work, not a handout. Pensions and benefits are arranged by contract. If there is not enough money for them, it is because the contracted funds have been taken by conservative officials and given to wealthy people and corporations instead of to the people who have earned them." - George Lakoff

Simply put, Snyder has chosen to join on the Welcher Wagon. The numb nerd has bought into the "airy fairy" world of Karl Rove and William Kristol. Snyder has become the manservant of that nasty little corporate gofer , Grover Norquist and his anarchist John Bircher buddy, Saulis Anuzis.

The Back Story
Years ago, a nominal moderate (at the time), former House Speaker, now corporate officer at DTE, Paul Hillegonds, said that the local communities had been "too generous to teachers." He said that the state take-over of local schools was the way to force (that's "coerce" - a term of endearment our Tea-Publicans adore) by the "shift and shaft" mechanism that become Proposal A. That pushed costs back on the local taxpayers so that they, in Hillegonds' scheme, would have to make "hard choices."

Prop A was a clever device that gave the taxpayer a sugar coated, measured dose of arsenic, accumulative poison. The candy coating was the immediate "tax relief" in the form of a 60% annual reduction in local property taxes for "homesteaders" and hoped owners ignored the "hit" that was backloaded in the form of "state transfer taxes" at the point of sale. Prop A saw several categories of state responsibilities such as retirement costs (state obligations) drilled back to the local schools as part of the required responsibilities due under the so-called "foundation grant." That provision included what has amounted to hundreds of millions of indirect support to private and church schools.

Sen. Jack Welborn was less sophisticated in his truth and revelations, he knew exactly what was happening in 1993 and spoke up revealing how "foundation grants" were designed to undercut public schools.

The sharp decline of the Michigan economy is now a decade along. The "gifts" and "ear candy" bandied about by John Mathias Engler and cronies (many of whom are back at the state salary trough under Snyder) were illusions. The slippage following Prop A created huge loopholes for corporations who weaseled out huge tax "give-backs" from local units of government. Tens of millions of tobacco taxes were lost to cross-state-boundary smuggling, which became an industry until the tardy tax stamp was affixed.

Did Engler save the Big Three? Did Engler's Revolution insulate Michigan from recession or produce a business boom in Michigan? Decidedly NO. The structural games and devices he and cohorts peddled began to ravish the state even before he left town for a millionaire Bonus for Bonzo as chief lobbyist at NAM, aggressively promoting China over Michigan. How weird is that!

The debt Engler left Jennifer, and the many, many holes "King John" drilled in the revenue bucket did just what he designed them to do, they revenue starved Michigan. That huge "unfunded" business connected to "state obligations" to pay deferred constitutional income to superannuated public employees: That's a nasty Engler legacy.

On 2/17 we said, "Shut up we don't want to hear about history," "we want what we want" taken back from our deserving retirees. And "Oh Yes," we have the majority power to do it, "so there."

2/17 will live on in Michigan History as a very dark day; the day Snyder walked the state away from its moral obligations in order to award his business cronies and boost Karl Rove's efforts to defund unions.

This last week we have seen the final chapter of the Engler Revolution make a direct hit on our children and our seniors. Granddad and grandma are hit with the leeching effects of a decades long campaign from Engler's Willy Wonks over at the Mackinac Center. They are so proud, so happy! Just drop by their new showy headquarters near the Lansing capitol and pay them a visit, ignore the party trash in the back conference room! MacCen benefactors: Dow, Amway, Consumers, the Insurance lobby as well as a whole host of outside anti-government foundations have been paid-off big time with the proposed Snyder/Engler Redux Michigan Budget proposals.

Whoa, just a jiffy!

Snyder is imposing dramatic "new taxes." Does anyone believe all those "NO NEW TAXES" Tea Party legislators can stay true to their solemn oaths and support HUGE NEW TAXES ?

Snyder's Voo Doo vocabulary usage, neutralizing the REAL facts, notwithstanding!

Just you wait, Just you wait. The people are coming to Lansing.


Original Post.

Mackinac Center: Dancing On the Deck of Michigan's Titanic

It is as though the elite/high society passengers and crew on the Titanic were ideological "true believers" convinced that that ship, like Michigan's ship of state, is "unsinkable" no matter what kind dangers or sea condition the ship faces. 

The big shots announce that there is "no danger" just trust in their navigation and professional judgment, and proceed to pass around the Champagne casks and party-hardy. They play "Happy Days Are Here Again" as they arrogantly ignore the blind leadership of the Captain and believe the ship will survive any harm they or the ship can encounter. Just stick to the outline we have published sings out the Nerd, Michigan has entered the final chapter of the "Engler Revolution."

As this day unfolds the bubbly will be flowing over at the Mackinac Center. It's there unbelievable day of triumph The "againer geeks" have succeeded in bringing down Michigan.

The Party is on.
First Mate Frank Beckmann reports from the engine room: "...business leaders who have been briefed on the preliminaries call it a night-and-day difference in approaching Michigan's budget issues and economic environment. They complimented the candor and even courage of the administration to off what they termed "BOLD AND DRAMATIC" CHANGES that stand in stark contrast to what one business leader called the "anti-business" environment in Illinois.

'But these business leaders told me they're not surprised since the administration is led by Snyder (experienced CPA-CFO-CEO) and Lt. Governor Brian Calley (pro-business banker and ex-chair of Tax Policy Committee), who is taking the lead on a lot of the policy discussions.

'In the end, this will be a controversial proposal that will challenge conservatives to live up to their stated beliefs. But it's a grown up plan that's developing and has business leaders excited for the first time in recent memory over what state government is actually doing to stimulate business growth."

As this radical ignore the culture and the quality of life "navigation plan" their ideology has brought us to clash with "icebergs" of public resistance and anger.

True to the timeless tragedy: The common man, the working families, locked in steerage-the bowels of the sinking ship of state-won't be offered life boats. After all if the boat sinks, the myth goes, IT'S THEIR SOCIAL WEIGHT THAT TOOK IT DOWN.

Up on the promenade, it's Mackinac Center dancing jigs and giving high 5's all around!

Here's the MacCen score card, print it out and check off each item (hole in the hull) as the MacCen Grinch geeks pop another magnum:

1.) Eliminate the Michigan Business Tax- replace the money it raises with cuts in government spending.
2.) Pass Right-to-Work legislation. There may be no greater single economic development policy that Michigan could adopt.
3.) Rein in the Department of Environmental Quality. (Maintaining Michigan's high standards, means businesses) "won't be doing business or creating jobs in Michigan, period. It's a 100 percent tax rate."
4.) (Stop) the state promising millions of dollars in targeted tax credits or subsidies to slick operators in sexy industries who promise to "create" jobs.
5.) Bring public sector employment benefits in line with the private sector (Using the tools honed and revised by MacCen as to that "private sector" benchmark is.)
6.) Make public pay equal to "private" pay: Michigan Public vs. Private "hourly" compensation.
7.) Resend Gov. George Romney's signing of the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act, eliminate collective bargaining for public employees.
8.) Cut state government work force
9.) Change state revenue-sharing formula
10.) Let private firms run some prisons
11.) Eliminate the earned income credit
12.) Allowing for income tax exemptions for government retirement benefits, including pensions and proposed extension of those exemptions to private sector pensions is "unfair" as viewed by LaFaive.

The Mackinac Center has recommended hundreds specific ideas to save the state more than $2 billion a year. Most of them involve getting government out of certain activities, or eliminating costly privileges to certain groups. "101 Recommendations to Revitalize Michigan."

Michael D. LaFaive: "The solution to Michigan's problems is simpler than (people) are willing to admit."
Do it our way!

Interpretation: Just do as my Mackinac Center dictates you must.


Original Post.

The Governor Must Lean on the MEA to Accomplish the GOP Senate's Radical Goals

Response to Detroit News article "Detroit parents want DPS teachers, officials jailed over low test scores" on December 12, 2009 and Detroit News Editorial "Michigan lawmakers must adopt reforms to liberate schools" December 2, 2009.

The Detroit News hectors the legislature to "liberate" schools and taxpayers from the teachers

Hobnailed "Liberation ideology" strikes again. Been here, done this. It's the "Engler Revolution" all over again.

The very queer nature of this effort to strip the teachers of their abilities to perform their duties and protect the professional education standards of the State of Michigan are being challenged in an even stranger alliance: Radical conservative tax-haters and the so-called "socialist" and "gangster politics" of Obama.

To see the sea change in the attitude of the Detroit News toward anything Obama, including the Obama Administration's Race to the Top's-latest and greatest attempt to grab the headlines and effect changes brought to U.S. education, is astonishing. R2T is another heavy-handed, top-down gimmick, another underfunded edict from the feds in DC impacting the local school district financially, and not much more.

This News and Obama collaboration is indeed a wild spectacle.

Arne Duncan is transposing his elements of his Chicago methodology and practice upon the national scene and using the promise-"bribe" of federal education dollars as the carrot to accomplish his goal. In light of the deep economic crisis in the country, Duncan may succeed. Especially if he can pull down Michigan's higher standards and force change by means of money offered in this time of extreme budget crisis. Pushing alternative certification to bring in outsider practitioners of certain math or physics skills sounds attractive, if there are no real certified teachers available (that may be universally true in low performing or anti-union states like Texas, but not Michigan), to place "non-educational methods trained outsiders" in the elementary schools is bizarre and serves no enhancing benefit for the students, in fact it is insulting to trained teachers and our state's premier teacher training programs.

Other concepts cut-back across the list of high accomplishments achieved by Michigan Schools and endanger our ability to serve under the strained conditions which now exist in the state.

Knowledgeable business people and informed citizens understand the externalities of culture, economy, family life (or the lack thereof) and a myriad of other factors which bear directly on the acculturation and development of children as determines or molds their educational achievement and moral development. Even liberals are near the end of theory as to the workable solutions for the very poor, the urban bound and the under-classes of Michigan.

The only reason that the Detroit News is toadying up to Arne Duncan's newest scheme is that it fits, hand in grove, with a more sinister and long-term goal of the Mackinac Center/Detroit News cabal's most pressing goal, defeat of the MEA as a power in the state. A quote from Thomas Bray, Detroit News, lays it all on the line: If the MEA can be broken here in Michigan then more of the conservative agenda for education can be pushed in the entire country. There it is. MEA is a major target as a political enemy, all discussions of reform or educational funding aside.

Sen. Wayne Kuipers told Rick Pluta, Michigan Public Radio, that the R2T changes being crammed through the Senate and the House are accomplishing the very personal goals that he has worked so long an hard to accomplish during his tenure. Kuipers serves a very right wing religious constituency and an ethnic religious minority that has long been at odds with public school financing going back decades. Kuiper's dream is now near reality, with the help of Lansing Democrats,, and even Gov. Jennifer Granholm-hamstrung because of economic necessity and unable to withstand the pressure from Washington.

The school employees and teachers have become the holders of the "OVERDRAFT ACCOUNT" once again for Michigan. It is with impunity that the legislature has turned to the state's education community to fund their problems in funding our children's' education. And they say education and educators are our top priority?

In the early 1980's is they took money from the school employees retirement fund to bail out Chrysler when it was near the brink, before Proposition A, in the early days of the so-called "Engler led Revolution", Engler found his budget in deep trouble. In 1996 following a heated court battle the Free Press reported, "In a decision hailed as a 'big win' for the Engler Administration, the Michigan Supreme Court said Monday that it would not require the state to repay more than $400 MILLION taken from a teacher's retirement health care fund in the early 1990's."

Gov. Granholm has adopted a "go-it-alone" style and has not been able to collaborate or work effectively with the ambitious Democratic Leader of the Michigan House and her stand offishness toward the MEA, which has been a good base of support for her, has not served her well, not in the 2007 state shutdown nor in the current impasse. Granholm is locked into the moves by the Obama Education Department-out of mandatory party loyalty. 

The welfare of Michigan education suffers, and suffers badly without its erstwhile "friends." Why otherwise would she agree to "alternative" methods of allowing individuals with little or no instructional or psychological training and methods to simply waltz into the role of teacher-in a school full of highly qualified teachers who are required to complete many more hours of training beyond certification.

The thought in Michigan was higher standards.

Gov. Granholm pushed for much higher graduation standards in subjects akin to college prep, why would she retreat on full certification and endorsements for all classroom instruction? Again, the News, Thomas Bray asks, "...And is everybody cut out for a core curriculum that is clearly aimed at college enrollment?" The obvious answer is "no."

The issue of "wildfire" charters comes up again.

This revival of the southern segregation academy is still the nocturnal dream of the hard right and the Christian Coalition. What we have seen in Michigan is the FAILURE OF OVER 40 CHARTER SCHOOLS funded with tax-payer dollars, schools closed and their publicly funded buildings and facilities in foreclosure. Where are the legislative attempts to salvage the lost tax moneys?

Charters run openly claiming to hire "only Christians" to promote their "national heritage" ideologies, charters self-segregated with over 90 percent of students the same race, a least one charter teaching in Islamic language and culture, these are the "love children" of those hard rightists and others who are purposefully attempting to dismantle our historic public school tradition and rich heritage. This kind of anti-neighborhood "revolt" is dangerous and offensive to our history of community and good citizenship. Again that old Detroit News sage, Thomas Bray: "...everybody "knows" that the entire GOP strategy depends on using "code words" as part of a "Southern strategy" to win elections." And "parental choice" and "charters" sounds better and sells better than "parochiaid" and "vouchers."

So hold your noises Lansing.

What you are doing is not a reform, it is not moving in a pro-active direction.

The things that need changing are going unchallenged, and teachers are being summarily locked out of the dialogue (there is none!). This kind of political shenanigans is bitter chocolate icing on a bar of political Decon.

The old bitterness and reprisals hatched by Engler are back and you, our communities representatives, are the lackluster lackeys to carry out the deadly deed.