"How Conservatives Took Out a Contract on America" by Lisa Longo at Huffington Post

[applegrove]

How Conservatives Took Out a Contract on America

by Lisa Longo at Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-longo/how-conservatives-took-ou_b_1947858.html

"SNIP................................................

You see this show was on a Christian Network, preaching to the faithful on how to guarantee the next decade would reflect their "right" Christian values. For the next ten years I watched as slowly school boards removed sex education and tried to put prayer and "intelligent" design into curriculums. State legislatures defunded reproductive health clinics and courts upheld the obvious back-door attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade. The war on drugs became a WAR on drugs and our prisons overflowed as conservatives fought to privatize our correction institutions while they socialized corporate losses.

Overall, Democrats seemed unable, or unwilling, to challenge the GOP on the big issues. They just stood by while conservatives put lipstick on that pig and called it a silk purse. How is it that the country that was founded by community organizers was suddenly arresting protestors and allowing them to be bullied and intimidated? Did we really value business more than education? And is that why no one seems to understand that energy independence based upon reliance to fossil fuels is an oxymoron of epic proportions? Or that funding corporate subsidies and calling money speech are both a perversion of everything our Founding Fathers fought for?

It seems to me the defunding of education was key to everything else the GOP wanted to accomplish. You can't have an electorate who understands economics and public policy and convince them to vote against their own best interest. It is hard to convince a savvy voter that defunding education to build prisons is the best use of our tax dollars. Or that funding war is important, but funding health & human services is not. In order to do that, you have to murder the education system and hijack all avenues of intellectualism by making it seem as if intellectuals are "bad."

So that is what they did. The GOP put forth a doctrine that was, and is still today, a contract on America, the goal of which is the privatization of our public education, health & welfare system. Most of us weren't just "blinded by the right," as David Brock titled his book on the subject; we were totally blind-sided by the all-encompassing strategy that has insinuated conservative dogma into every aspect of our lives.

...............................................SNIP"

[Viva_Daddy]

1. The "method" to this madness:

First discredit PUBLIC education and that paves the way to sell people on the idea of PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT schools as "the great new alternative". This was/is a campaign begun long ago by the mythical "job creators" to make more money and control educational curriculum. The so-called Texas State "school board's" "work" to "edit" textbooks is also part of this "plan" (dare I say conspiracy?).

[applegrove]

2. And to stop people from becoming critical thinkers.

[iemitsu]

3. well-written article.

the public schools were not the first stage of the strategy, they are just the current stage.
my state is facing another charter schools bill in the up-coming election. we have voted them down three times already. the greedy corporate fiends that fund this effort just won't quit.