The DeVos Democrats

Jacobin

Around about 2010, after voting for Obama in 2008 I realized that there were way too many corporate democrats in office and that it was time to leave the party, and so I did. I think a lot of people left the Democrat party about the same time and then even more when Occupy happened.

I know a lot of Hillary supporters and Dem loyalists blame Berniecrats for Hillary's loss but I think most of you (the whole 2-10 of you on ATS) need to rethink and turn your eyes to the Democrat establishment. The 2016 primary was grossly unfair to anyone but Hillary and she speaks a language that most of us slightly left of you just simply can't tolerate anymore, it's too... Corporate Conservative. If we want to escape the clutches of Corporatocracy then we have to be a lot more willing to clean up our own back yards.

Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s next secretary of education is Betsy DeVos, a longtime Republican operative from two of the wealthiest and most powerful conservative families in the nation. She is the daughter of Edgar Prince, founder of the Prince Corporation; sister of Erik Prince, founder of the private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater; and daughter-in-law of Richard DeVos, the billionaire who co-founded the Amway Corporation. DeVos, who received her entire education from private Christian schools, also has close ties to the conservative Christian Reformed Church.

Unfortunately, many Democrats have long supported the same so-called education reform measures that DeVos backs. Often wrapping these measures in civil rights language, Democratic education reformers have provided cover for some of the worst types of reforms, including promoting the spread of charter schools — the preferred liberal mechanism for fulfilling the “choice” agenda. (Charter schools operate with public money, but without much public oversight, and are therefore often vehicles for pet pedagogical projects of billionaire educational philanthropists like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.)

The entire article is a great read but I hope the two paragraphs I chose highlight my point.

You only confirm what a lot of the more astute right leaning blogs have been saying and the mainstream press refuses to acknowledge.

There is a civil war inside the Democrat Party much like there was inside teh Republican Party.

Of course, I'm not sure the country wants to go even more radically left then Obama took it.

I don't think it's even so much "Corporate Conservative" (though it is, I'll concede) as it seems to me "do as I say, not as I do" speak coming from Dems like the Clinton camp.

DeVos, who received her entire education from private Christian schools, also has close ties to the conservative Christian Reformed Church.

Well I think we can count on her not presenting policies that will hurt people.

a reply to: ketsuko

Sorry but I don't know how you type radically Left Obama with a straight face. I don't know there's a civil war within the Dem party, yet... but it lost a lot of people. If you want to understand true Left, Jacobin would be a good place to start.

a reply to: xuenchen

Because she's Christian?

a reply to: Shamrock6

Maybe so. Too many are tired of hearing it though. We can't continue to put on blinders because we're so afraid of what people like Trump are going to do. The dems barrelled through, hammering away with establishment rhetoric and lost anyway. It's time for a new road.

a reply to: Kali74

That I totally agree with. The way the party handled this election was abominable. I don't know how people can continue to toe that line still. It's sounds very much like some crap that Marie Antoinette would come up with at times, with how out of touch it is.

a reply to: Shamrock6

That's the second time in as many days that someone has used Marie Antoinette in a discussion with me. Revolution in our subconscious...

a reply to: Kali74

Understand, for the right, Obama was farther left than Clinton. He maynot seem so if you are an avowed communist or socialist, but there it is.

For a person on the right, especially someone who has strong libertarian leanings, anyone who advocates for more and stroger government control in any way is farther left.

Obamacare was a fairly fascist policy in that it imposed government regulatory restrictions so tightly on insurance that it might as well have been running them and it certainly created near monopolies in mnay markets with only Medicaid and Medicare as competition, bt design.

Obama used the executive branch and regulatory state when he could not get Congress to move in a statist control move that was purely statist and advanced many leftist aims with them.

So, yeah, Obama was farther left than pretty much any politician. Clinton was at least constrained by his Congress.

a reply to: ketsuko

Obama was further Left than either of the Clintons, yes. Saying that Obama took the US radically left though, is ridiculously exaggerated. The ACA was very corporatist, single payer is Leftist (and the absolute smartest, cheapest way to handle healthcare). I agree that the mandate was fascist (right wing).

However ultimately, Obama, despite being further Left than Bill Clinton is still technically on the Right. Really if you want some insight into actual Leftism, here's an article at Jacobin assessing Obama's presidency. I promise your computer won't fry if you open the link.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: Shamrock6

That's the second time in as many days that someone has used Marie Antoinette in a discussion with me. Revolution in our subconscious...

you can borrow my boots

a reply to: Kali74

S&F for you, and applause.

I'm right leaning.....and after the DNC leaks, I felt horrible for Bernie. Not that I supported him, but the sense of unfairness of what was done to him by his own party disgusted me to no end.

a reply to: Kali74

There is an interesting article by Thom Hartmann as to how the country's political climate changed rightward in the 1980s, to where the Democratic Party made a deliberate choice to go with their "corporate wing" and appeal to the growing "professional class". .... lol personally, I loved Obama's 2004 convention speech, but when I read up on him, I thought he had too many conservative ideas and policy leanings. I did support him, but, now is the time for change in this country.

The change, if successful, would drag the country's politics back to the center at least. The fact is, there is a grave dysfunctionality in this country now. Made more dangerous with Trump as POTUS. The New Republican Party is the Private Party of the Koch Bros. Their ideology has taken over, fed and many states. Their ideology is what used to be (until starting in the 1990s and escalating the last 8 years) the most extreme, far right fringe of the Republican Party, the John Birch Society and David Koch's run for POTUS (VP) in 1980 (got 1%, and thanks to great infusions of money into media and dark money, it is now what the Rep Party is).

The Rep Party has turned our govt into a de facto parliamentary system, with them acting as a faction.

The Dem Party never allowed the extreme fringe left to run as a Democrat, and most never became Democrats. I am talking at the extreme left, which are NOT Bernie supporters, BTW!

The country socially, culturally is changing, has changed. It is hell time to drag this country back from the right fringes!! And only Bernie's ideology can do that. It would have been easier to do this through the Dem Party (with a Hillary victory), but that ship sailed. The Dem loss is multi-faceted, but not to be blamed on Bernie supporters.

It could turn out that the best thing really is Bernie and Warren etal like minded in Congress who will pull this country back, like a tug-of-war. The fight WILL BE in Congress, and there Bernie etal will fight for what Dems should be fighting for. We will support that fight.

a reply to: desert

You are talking about the Carter years.

Guess what?

The country didn't want to go that far left then either.

a reply to: ketsuko

True. The oil embargo made gas prices soar and long gas lines with long waits. Inflation hit. Iran hostages. Carter was honest but seemed naive. The election of 1980 was viewed as a needed change.

There was concern by some white voters that "the minorities" were getting things that the white voter was denied. For ex, I heard one working man complain that he was having a hard time affording college for his kids, while "minorities" got help. I thought, you know, he's right, he should be getting help, too. But, when no one came to offer the white working class help, the scapegoating and animosity began. It became, if I can't get a handout, then neither should a "minority". Unfortunately, that man's children and grandchildren today probably have gone into debt for college education, with years of payments.

OTOH there were New Age, hippie dippy people who voted for Reagan, because they liked that he had a "vision".

And the religious right was being brought into the Republican Party, as their third leg on their political stool (besides defense and economy), with help from people like Richard Viguerie and his mailings. Religious leaders would gain earthly power and wealth by aligning themselves with the GOP; the GOP would get votes, and in return the religious right would gain power in the culture.

So, yes, the country voted to turn rightward. And that is why the Democratic party did what they did. And in the 1990s, the GOP started their RINO hunts, which still go on, which pushed the party further to the right. And, because of this rightward shift, we still have Reaganomics, which has been pushed way beyond, to the point where its Reagan advocate, David Stockman, denounces what has happened.

Those Hitler mustaches drawn on Obama at the first Tea Party rallies? Obama being called "Hitler"? They came from people so far left, that they are not allowed to be called Democrats. That is why Obama was called both Hitler (by the left fringe) and Communist (by the right fringe, still in a party).

This shift further rightward gave birth to the idea of privatizing charter schools. It's all about how much money corporations can make off govt functions (big money in testing, too), and now how much money can be given to private schools to fullfil DeVos's dream of God's Kingdom on Earth. (She admits that philanthropy alone can't do this, that govt money must now be given to bring about Gods Kingdom.)

a reply to: Kali74
You get a star AND flag from me!! (Crazy huh)

Being from W. Michigan I'm very familiar with the Devos and Amway families.

I don't know what Trump sees in Devos that screams experience other than being to rich to understand basic human education.

What does bring me to cheer you on is that you see the rift between Progs/Liberal(classic)/Democrats . They are not the same and I wish you the best of luck in your battle to separate them.

I used to be Democrat then classic liberal. The parties need massive reforms and equal attention at the debate table.

a reply to: desert

This shift further rightward gave birth to the idea of privatizing charter schools. It's all about how much money corporations can make off govt functions (big money in testing, too), and now how much money can be given to private schools to fullfil DeVos's dream of God's Kingdom on Earth. (She admits that philanthropy alone can't do this, that govt money must now be given to bring about Gods Kingdom.)

Sorry, but I have to ask:

How familiar are you with inner city schools? I taught in one for a period of years. They are more like gulags than schools, and it is incredibly unfair to the children whose parents actually care about their education to be told that unless they can somehow get wealthy enough to buy their way out of the school in question either by moving or by paying for a private school or get lucky and win a lottery draw to get their child into a charter program, their sons and daughters are stuck in an environment antithetical to learning with teachers who may be apathetic and best and incompetent at worst.

And all that keeps them there is a freakin' zip code, and the parents are taxed for the privilege of having their kid miseducated in a dangerous environment.

Something needs to be done, and it isn't the money. The city I live in now spends about twice per year per student to pretend to educate each inner city child than I spend for one year of private school education. So my kid is getting a better education for half what the government taxes me to turn out kids who can neither read nor write nor do math at anything resembling grade level.

You can't tell me that this is fair to anyone, not me, not those kids.

a reply to: ketsuko

The curriculum is bad. Teaching to pass standardized tests is a horrible teaching model. Kids hate it, teachers hate it, parents hate it. Regardless of whose bright idea it was to go about educating our children this way... it needs to change. Taking money out of the public education system isn't the way to change it and just compounds everything.

a reply to: ketsuko

"Inner cities" suffer from the same lack of industry dollars as other places, like Ohio, where industries left in a massive migration/shutdown decades ago. Allowing tax payer dollars to go to private K-12 education will not fix the problem of poverty or these areas.

The problem is not the idea of charter schools. Allowing public schools freedom to open public charter schools that meet the needs of local communities is a good thing. Allowing corporations to take over public education is not. High Test Scores At A Nationally Lauded Charter Network, But At What Cost?

And neither should tax payer dollars go towards funding religious schools, as Betsy Devos wants, in order to "advance God's Kingdom".

Betsy DeVos replied, "There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education…[versus] what is currently being spent every year on education in this country…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God's kingdom."

one source

There is no reason for the inner city or your community you describe to not have public school charters. My community has many charter public schools and does just fine. The OP is about privatizing public education.

Actually, the Koch Bros ideology is to "make govt small enough to drown in a bathtub", which means dismantling all govt functions save military, police, and courts. Betsy DeVos, like Rick Perry etal, were chosen for their lack of knowledge precisely to dismantle departments, not make them run effectively. DeVos is also a political reward to the religious right, the idea being to funnel any tax dollars at any level to Christian education.