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.

Original Post.

Gov Granholm’s tax hike is the wrong or right thing?

Response to Nolan Finley "Gov’s (Governor Jennifer Granholm) tax hike ploy is reckless" in the Detroit News on November 15, 2009.

Intro of Finley piece:

"There's something Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn't mentioning as she barnstorms the state to leverage the deep cuts she orchestrated in school funding into the sales tax hike she's long coveted. The governor isn't telling angry and fearful parents that there's at least $1 billion, and perhaps more than $2 billion, in education money to be had if she'd stop obsessing over the fact that there's still a few dollars left in our wallets she hasn't taxed.

"She's absolutely looking for taxes and ignoring the low hanging fruit that could be had from reform if she had the leadership to pursue it," says Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who's tired of Granholm blaming him for the cuts. "

Another Clip:

"House Speaker Andy Dillon has proposed placing all public employees into a single health insurance pool to save, he says, $900 million. But that's going nowhere, again because of the MEA's opposition and Granholm's indifference.

It's a reform that wouldn't cost a single teacher job. And as an added benefit it would make obsolete the MEA's insurance affiliate, MESSA. MESSA is sitting on an estimated $450 million reserve, money skimmed from the school districts it serves. It would be worth exploring whether the districts would have a claim on the money if MESSA was reformed out of business."

-----
Gov’s tax hike is the right thing

Would to God Nolan's neck were not so stiff and frozen in a naysayers nod. Perhaps he needs a therapeutic message, hopefully he could afford such.

One has to wonder if Finley can make a move without consulting with that hovering covey of cathouse ideologues at the Mackinac Center or the one-note, business first last and always, State Chamber of Commerce.

Just a quick review of the unfolding of the Mackinac Center’s  "50 fixes for Michigan" shows the real agenda that drives Nolan's thought patterns.

Looking back over years of clippings from the News and other papers plus reading and rereading those columns, statements, news items, releases and editorials from statewide sources, one realizes that for well-over 20 years the Detroit News has been hamstrung by repetitive and negative attitudes and has been short-sighted, if not a blind-sided ideologue paper trumpeting long-sought goals that do not embellish or improve the public square or the common good.

As much a negativist and as self-serving as John Engler was, he was always a pragmatist.

I recall observing first hand his going into the Republican State Senate Caucus for a desired purpose and coming away angry and empty handed. Did he huff and puff publicly, like the much weaker, milquetoast Michael Bishop? No. Engler simply sent into the GOP caucus Al Short, MEA's head of governmental affairs, and got the result he needed.

Sen. Bishop is tethered to an oath not to raise taxes and he is powerless, if not helpless to do anything but obstruct and obfuscate both the governor's leadership and the general public's desire, which polling shows, would support some tax increases to tide the state over this very difficult period of economic downturn.

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."

And so what did Engler put forward? Confrontation and stalemate, No, never. He called for collaboration and cooperation from two well-known sources, the Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association.

Here's the Engler quote:

"Further, I invite the leadership of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association to join with us in developing and passing this legislation."

Finley's sour cynicism and harping has resulted in comments such as this from whyareyousoangry, Rochester, MI:

"(Finley's) logic--if there is any--is laughable, and I am SO tired of his hatred of teachers, state workers and anyone else who worked for any of the automakers, EXCEPT the company CEOs who mismanaged them into the ground. Finley loves company execs, even when they are proven incompetent. It's a viewpoint I can't wrap my head around, as the EDUCATED owner of a small business trying to make it in this state. He is a great example of why people like me cannot stomach the Republican Party anymore." And the comment concludes: "I am not the only one who thinks Nolan Finley is nothing but a worthless shill for a few SE Michigan moguls. Hope those moguls are ready to bail the Detroit News out when all the readers are gone."

Pretty Boy Bishop is running out of time and electability for any future statewide office. He must sense it now, and what can he do? He's lost control. Mike's caught in the timeless methodology and inertia of a state legislature that has gone "out to lunch" in terms of tackling the real problems of Michigan, or should we say "out to hunt?"

All the arguments and comment about how dire the situation is, and how desperate the legislature is to resolve it (with more taxes or without) are "blown away" by their craven self-indulgence and stoic indifference to the needs of children and families in this once great state. We say "get to work!" Get to work co-operatively right now.

In this crisis, which incidentally is just one of many from the past, relabeled "the 2009 budget crisis," has all the ingredients which are basically the same; repeated often in the last 20 years, the projected solution always includes some form of "reform" and as relates to education. The "crisis" always includes demanded give-backs or something punitive.

A lot of foul hot air goes into the rhetorical posturing, such as the recent You-Tube speech of Sen. Alan Cropsey, where he projects the blame wherever he likes (his favorite whipping object, MEA), but not at his own stiff-necked party of covenant-bound hostages, held to a foolhardy oath extracted by the out-of-state no-tax wingnuts the GOP has come to fear more than the state's economic collapse.

Many taxpayers would gladly give a $1 a day to move Michigan forward.

Original Post.

An Additional Dollar a Day...

Response to Nolan Finley in "House Dems won't face budget reality" Detroit News Blog on November 11, 2009.

Nolan:

What is the difference between your opinion and that of the standard Mackinac Center fare?

What would Michigan be like if the center had gotten 80% of all the things they lust after? (Most often, with your blessing, one might note.)

The MacCen sees this present economic hardship time as a precious opportunity to finish work they've been whittling at for decades. This "crisis" for them is a super "opportunity."

Just what would education quality and taxpayer responsibility for education be if MacCen got its every wish?

Those cardinal controling influences in the MacCen, who cheer for an end to MESSA (and its excellent Blue Cross health care packages for school employees),ask just what would other (Mackinac Center friendly) insurance companies provide?

Think inadequate. How long would it be before they used their influence and cunning to reduce the service provided to something, not equal to the private sector, what ever that means, but less than the best of private sector benefits. That new health plan sought by the MacCen wouldn't be more competitive or less expensive without reductions in services and coverages. And who, Nolan, has decent private sector health care and benefits, as of this Michigan moment? Don't look to the GM workers for a baseline, don't turn to the ubiquitous Wall-Mart for a adequate health care model.

The core of the Michigan GOP is held hostage to the tax-haters and groups like the brown-bagged-headed-unknowns, secret bundlers of cash used to bring national influence to bear on a rural district like that once held by former Rep. Joe Schwarz.

When the intrepid clod buster Jack Welborn wanted to stigmatize the "high spending" legislature he brought over to the capitol a giant cow with an enormous utter, then Welborn prattled on about his opponents sucking up for tax monies.

Then it was Leon Dorlet and his begged and borrowed pink hog, which lingered on Capitol square, hoping to chide and hector the legislature into refusing to raise revenue and taxes. Dorlet was just carrying swill for a well-known national organizer against taxes.

Then came the Beltway weasel, Grover Norquist, who smoozed on Mackinac Island with Sen. Nancy Cassis. "No new taxes, no new taxes." This year's entire proceedings in the Mackinac Island leadership sessions were sponsored, run by the no-taxes lobbies and the endless varieties of flat, fair, or no tax fanatics (including John Fund) who believe themselves the keepers of the holy grail. Starve the state's services into oblivion and all will be well.

A large number of the GOP legislature has given up their rights to outsiders, carpet baggers from DC, when they swear and take an oath never to raise new taxes. Thank God for term limits.

The hard-hearted, conjoined twins of no-tax legislation in the state senate are Mike Bishop and Alan Cropsey. What an odd couple, if ever. Both are ambitious and both have a shed full of axes they love to grind. Bishop loves embarrassing Gov. Granholm and Cropsey won't ever miss a swipe at the Michigan Education Association, ever since he threw in with the fearful home schoolers hoping to scotch maternity, creeping secularism, and of course, the teaching about evolution by holing up in the kitchen with course books designed to propagate the fanatic ideology and race relations teachings of Bob Jones University, Cropsey's alma mater.

So then, who's reality must a citizen chose between: . Democrats who are weakly trying to save the future for our kids against the entrenched GOP Senate, or the ranting GOP which sees no end of pleasure in tearing down Michigan and its children in their hour of need. They are holding out for the equivalent of a cup of less-than-Starbucks coffee a day.


You'd get the idea from Bishop and his clique that it would bankrupt our struggling personal budgets to give just an additional dollar a day (in miscellaneous taxes and closed loopholes) to save our public schools in this their hour of need.


Original Post.

Finley's Right Wing anti-teacher Crusade: A man with a forked tongue and a flaying pen

Response to Nolan Finley in "Teacher perks bleed budget dry" in the Detroit News on October 4, 2009.

Nolan Finley, like his most recent predecessors at the News, is a shrewd man with a forked tongue and a flaying pen.

When Finley openly admits, yet again, that his source for facts and projections, concerning anything to do with public education, comes from that corporatist ideological cathouse, the Mackinac Center, so well-known as the far right's animal house for political antics and wild abandon and factual hyperbole, he reveals his bias and lack of credulity.

Can the Michigan teachers match the easy access that the Mackinac Center has to the major papers, the electronic media, the inner sanctum of the Michigan Republican Party, and the GOP legislative crew? NO.

Millions of dollars from tightly sphinctered, vested corporations, ideologues, and miserly trusticants, have fed this group of fact-twisting-ferrets a rich diet of hulls and shells, washed down with a slithering dash of anti-public service/privatization Kool-Aid.

Time and again, it is the threatening pronouncements and entrapping art of Mackinac Center that has carried out the vengeful goals of John Engler and his shrewd legislative tactics henchmen: Richard D. McLellan and Larry Reed, emeritus head of Mackinac.

It was Reed who exposed his tar-pitched bias during the 1993 Republican Senate Hearings on the shutdown of all school operating funding, when he characterized the MEA as "a Leninist organization", his chosen, passionate statement of belief. Larry would later deny, by lying, he ever said such a thing at Hope College in Holland, when he was on a road trip pushing privatization and the decertification of MEA in front of aspiring teachers.

The influence of predigested talking points and prefab legislation in opposition to MEA has been circulating for decades. During that major funding crisis, the summer of 1993, the News had a rollicking field day. They were so close to their so-called Right-to-work nocturnal dream that they were elated and delirious with verbiage and puffery. Nolan is still chained to the bench from which such venom and spite was set to type.

House Speaker Paul Hillegonds was asked during the '93 crisis where the facts and figures source for the kinds of harsh measures he and the radicalized Republicans of that time were espousing, his source: The Heritage Foundation. What a tight little circle! The big player in both the Mackinac Center and in the Heritage Foundation (brought on line in the time of Reagan, well-known for PATCO and much anti-union angst and activity) is the Amway clan.

Young Dick DeVos was put on the board of Mackinac and the Amway crowd has been a generous supporter and funder of its nefarious missions against MEA.

It was the DeVos family, in particular, that pushed ahead with anti-public service campaigns nationwide and harsh political attack activity, spectacular failed efforts, in which they have wasted millions of their billions in profits.

Say again will you, Nolan, who are the real "bullies" and the perennial rock throwers in this classic battle?

We didn't see Mackinac Center backed Dick DeVos chain himself to the exit gates of to any failing manufacturing operation in Michigan, such as Greenville, as Dick frittered away his personal tens of millions on a disastrous gubernatorial campaign, did we? NO.

Have we seen a well-tuned, pro-active program to keep manufacturing alive in Michigan or make the kind of systemic and tax supported efforts to intelligently and wholeheartedly pave the way for new industry in Michigan--in the manner of say, Chattanooga and the state of Tennessee?

Cry over the fact that John Engler killed the concept--proposed by Gov. James Blanchard--to put in place and develop a university anchored high tech corridor in Michigan 19 years ago. Just imagine what an advantage that would have given us and how it could have saved us from our lack of diversification in industry.

So we are left with milquetoast sophistry about how teachers--with 5 years of undergraduate training and apprenticeship and the continuing responsibilities for even more costly post graduate training--should be relegated to what Nolan describes as the wage of "an ordinary worker" because as he states, "teacher perks have bled the budget dry." This is the same device used by Sen. Wayne Kuipers when he led the move to shut down state government exactly two years ago.

Does Finley really see teachers as ordinary workers? Is that how Nolan appreciates--"as a father and father-in-law of public school teachers", (Teacher perks bleed budget dry, Finley Editorial, DN, 10/4/09) the role and work of professional educators, even those in his immediate family circle? If so, how sad.

And as for the benefits Nolan and the Mackinac/Heritage howlers rage on about:  Where are those health dollars spent? In Wisconsin?

What value do MESSA dollars add to the entire medical economy? To what degree do school employees continue to underwrite the under-insured and the uninsured, who seek emergency care in places like the Amway invested medical operation in Grand Rapids--a billion dollar health complex?

How many teachers do you think, holding a MESSA administrated Michigan Blue Cross health package, are turned away from admission by Amway's endorsed and sponsored Spectrum Health? None of course, they are VERY WELCOME. MESSA clients help pay the bills for those unable to pay their way.

The local economies of so many of our communities and towns are greatly enriched and sustained by the local dollars spent and invested by school employees and their ancillary efforts to build other community organizations, volunteer undertakings, and churches.

Nolan, it's time you think for yourself and step up to the plate for Michigan's future in a positive and helpful way.





Original Post.