Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/13/literal-talking-points-memo.html
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Here’s some talking points from the other side:
http://www.reclaimourschools.org/sites/default/files/AROS_Talking_Points_v1.pdf
A grassroots organization is the same as the super rich piecemeal dismantling of a valuable public institution for their own economic gain?
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Sociopathic scumbags
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It’s weird that these “free marketeers” think that lowering teacher salaries and conditions will lead to anything but a labor shortage and increased unionization… And that bad schools means they get a capable workforce.
They’re not just sabotaging the country’s future - but their own businesses futures.
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Pearls will be clutched
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Maybe, but for a brief glorious time a lot of value was created for shareholders.
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You do realize that public education is being picked clean by these folks, right? Their goal is to END public education. Maybe you don’t care about that but many of us actually do.
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You do realize that am goofing on the content of the talking points and the fake concerns they have for public school teachers and low income families?
Sure - the Koch’s & Walton’s are in their 80’s - but it’s not like they’re going to spend it before they die. They’re just eroding their familiy’s wealth in the medium term.
DeVos is younger - and should be worried about preparing from her retirement from her government handout job.
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Their goal is to end public education, full stop.
They think they can get better results from private schools where they can just let people go without any repercussions. One of the local private schools which used to be a pretty good school is now treating their teachers like an easily replaceable commodity, likely influenced by ideology like this.
I think you mean less capable work force? But that’s the other goal - to have work force that is trained for very specialized tasks without all that critical thinking baggage. They think this will mean that things like labor movements come only from the educated elites and that if you eliminate that sort of critical thinking, then you’ll solve the problem of an active and aware labor force that has their own set of interests. They are the exact same kind of elitists that they proclaim academia to be, looking down on the working classes as people who are little more than mindless consuming drones.
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I did not. Carry on, then.
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George Soros is grass roots?
The people who make up the rank and file of this organization seem to be.
And I’m not opposed to the rich investing in social movements. I am opposed to the rich attacking public instititutions that many Americans rely on for their own betterment and the betterment of their communities. The Kochs, Walton’s, and DeVos are actively working to undermine public education. At the very least Soros is supporting this valuable resource which HELPS the working classes.
[ETA] Also, it seems like the talking points for the Alliance for Schools are not hidden away, but are available on their website. It’s transparent and easy to find. Talking points are necessarily the problem, it’s the lack of transparency that I think is at issue. And the fact that their goal is to eliminate a public good.
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George Soros is the standard deflection target for conservatives. Whenever you see someone blaming Soros for something it’s safe to assume that the Koch brothers or someone similar has been doing it on the right for years and were recently caught (again).
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But all their labour will be offshore and if onshore it will be roboticised. Old-fashioned conservatives used to like a modicum of public education because their factories needed literate and numerate humans, as you imply. Not any more.
(And perhaps once they get their proper flying cars/human-carrying-drones, which have the flexibility of cars [as opposed to the limitations of helicopters] we’ll watch them de-fund public roads at that point too.)
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Will the robots buy their products?
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I’m not worried about anyone undermining public education. As it stands it operates at the mercy of political whim; it may be time to separate education and state.
Remember, it was the public educated electorate that elected Trump.
Except that Soros actually funds The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, the source of the talking points I referenced.
“Corrupt politicians in the hands of the wealthy campaign donors ruined public education, so let’s cut out the middleman and let the wealthy ruin education directly without government interference!”
This is literally what happened when Trump got elected. We cut out the corrupt politician middlemen and just elected the corrupting wealthy person to ruin things directly. Just because the wealthy can corrupt government doesn’t mean we should ditch government. We should kick the influence of the wealthy out of government.
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