Has Bill Gates Purchased the Teachers Unions?

[Smarmie Doofus]

Frankly, it does seem that way to me.

Some profoundly disturbing ruminations.

The Raging Horse Rages:


Without his 6o billion dollars, all of Gate’s fascistic ideas would be greeted with silence or a horselaugh and Mr. Gates would be considered a clown in the unlikely case he would be considered at all. With his 60 billion, Mr. Gates is the unelected, unaccountable Emperor of American Education. That is to say, public education, as Mr. Gates, like virtually all the education reformers, would never dream of subjecting his children or their teachers to the degrading, idiotic and debasing schemes he demands for our kids and their teachers.

Mr. Gates has spent the last decade simultaneously undermining and purchasing teacher unions, particularly the two largest, the National Education Association led by Dennis Roekel and American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten. Teacher unions were created to fight the very kind of imposition and degrading demands that Gates is implementing and forever proposing. Gates has made no secret of his contempt for teachers, even to the place of roaming the county suggesting their measly pensions are far too high.

Despite all this, both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, instead of ceaselessly pointing out to their members the danger of Mr. Gates and his kind, not merely to their profession but to a semblance of democracy itself, have repeatedly pretended that they can work Gates and all will be fine. Alternatively, they say stuff like, things are changing and unions must change with them.
This sort of defeated without a fight rubbish.
Privately, they insist they have no choice but to “work with this man.”
http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/bill-gates-continues-to-purchase-major-teacher-unions-and-at-discount-rates/

[NYC_SKP]

1. http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2013/07/

http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2013/07/

[duffyduff]

2. Yes.

Time to purge the fakers out of the unions, for they are being killed from within.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Easier said than done. In previous generations, corrupt union leadership...

... was prosecuted by the gov't. Does that ever happen any more?

We'll be waiting a long time before these people allow themselves to be voted out.

[roody]

3. only the leadership

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Where's my check?

[HiPointDem]

5. yes, the leadership. or rather, he doesn't exactly have to 'buy' them because they're already

bought, whether with money, power, or their own delight in being part of the 'people who matter'.

it's so damn obvious, if you don't believe it you're blind.

in randi's case, her history looks like she was a plant from day 1.

[duffyduff]

8. Weingarten's being a plant was obvious all along

Just a few months of contracted teaching experience plus some substitute teaching while spending most of her time being a lawyer.

Not qualified to head a union.

[LWolf]

7. At least some of the leadership, anyway.

DVR...obviously.

The more troubling thing is that I've heard much of the above locally.

[HiPointDem]

9. what do you mean, 'heard much of the above locally'? you mean about dvr, or about your

local leadership?

[LWolf]

11. This is not something that I am going to

expound upon here. I got publicly called out for doing so by local union reps a few years back. Snowden didn't have to tell me that there is no internet anonymity.

[duffyduff]

12. Teachers don't have a prayer in hell surviving as a professional group

if they are living their lives in constant fear for their jobs.

[LWolf]

13. Yes.

Your solution?

[duffyduff]

14. Organize and start standing up to them, even risking everything to do it

Operating in fear is why teaching is on the ropes.

[LWolf]

15. I've already suffered professional consequences.

I live alone. I have no back-up whatsoever if I lose my job. What savings I had is gone trying to staunch the financial bleeding caused by cutting pay and days over the last 5 years.

What kind of job can a 50-something teacher with no qualifications for anything but teaching get to replace teaching when that job is lost?

It's easy to say "risk everything" to do it, when it's someone else doing the risking.

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. True. There are plenty in your position and TPTB know this.

Which fact emboldens them, to no end.

If this miserable Bush-Obama economy ever improves it might change the whole dynamic in the profession but as long as they have an unlimited supply of cheap labor, teacher activists will have to be "cunning as serpents."

And really careful.

[duffyduff]

18. People, opposition has to start from somewhere

I am WELL aware of retaliation in education--I have been a victim of it.

But if teachers don't start doing something about this and risk retaliation, there will be NO PROFESSION LEFT.

I give public education ten years max in this country without a major turnaround.

Teachers HAVE to do this if they want to survive. They don't have a choice.

[Smarmie Doofus]

20. I'm not counseling inaction. I'm counseling, prudent, planned...

... concerted, coordinated action.

With the aide of fellow-travelers and retirees like me who can afford to take more risks. Having a a thirty year career go up in smoke as a consequence of a quixotic thrust... or series of thrusts... at an enemy with vastly superior firepower just breaks that individual, strengthens the opposition and exacerbates all of the problems we are trying to remedy.

Now for starters... lets take a look, I mean a really CLOSE look, at these friggin' unions. Something is going on there. Something that is not supposed to be.

[duffyduff]

21. It isn't rocket science what is going on with NEA/AFT

They have been infiltrated with moles and plants, and they haven't been weeded out.

They are killing teachers' unions. I suspect there has been handiwork from right-wing think tanks to kill them.

Take a look at Cory Booker, for example, about how he was bought and paid for by the far right to infiltrate the African American community to undermine its support of public education and unions.

Same thing is happening here.

[LWolf]

22. "Cunning as serpents"

and really careful.

That's the conclusion I've come to.

[duffyduff]

19. I AM a 50-something former teacher who was illegally fired

Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about.

You won't have a job left at the rate things are going anyway, for "reformers" are targeting the higher-paid, older teachers for firing to save money on pensions, health care, and salaries.

I have found it nearly impossible to work regular employment EVER again, and it has been FIVE years since those assholes did it to me. I too am self-supporting and was forced to move out of state with to live with family and cannot get back on my feet financially. There is no spouse and no kids to help cushion the blow. It will be another three years of this shit before I can collect SS, at a reduced rate, with WEP added in because I take home a giant pension of $300 a MONTH from a state that doesn't pay into SS.

THAT is what I have to live on and whatever substituting assignments I can get. NOBODY will hire me for anything else, and I am financially strapped to be able to get licensed here.

You really have nothing to lose at this point because they are going to come after you anyway.

[LWolf]

23. My heart goes out to you.

I don't want to be in your position. Nobody would, and nobody SHOULD.

That's why I keep my activism mostly out of my hometown. That doesn't mean I don't speak up. It does mean I do it a hell of a lot more carefully than I was doing before. Having your own union leaders attack you for being too activist is an eye-opener.

[duffyduff]

24. It's a terrible state of affairs, isn't it?

Your union is supposed to look out for you, but you are basically on your own.

You have to watch your back at ALL times.

[HiPointDem]

17. ok, i was just unclear on your meaning.

[Igel]

10. Of course not. Paid for?

Makes it sound like slavery. That's illegal *and* morally unacceptable.

No, the unions are "rented."

Paid for by the hour or by the act. Or at least used to be.

Now they've decided that being paid is demeaning. They do it for free, to show that they're not stuck with just any old outdated system of morals.