W. enters my wife’s schoolboard race

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http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/w_enters_my_wifes_schoolboard_race/?source=newsletter


Our family gets a close-up look of how big money has taken over politics -- even at the local level


Before it happens, it’s hard to know how you’ll feel when you see a slickly produced, oil-CEO-financed flier implicitly attacking your 11-month-old baby for not being old enough to attend school and explicitly criticizing your family for not being able to afford a home.

It sounds like a takeoff of “SNL’s” hilarious “bat problem” campaign ads — something so over-the-top it couldn’t possibly be real. But, in our case, it wasn’t a parody — such a mailer now fills up thousands of mailboxes throughout my town. And unfortunately, I now know how badly I feel in the face of such a barrage. I’m not overwhelmed by anger or vengefulness. Instead, I’m experiencing a far more numbing set of emotions: a mix of sadness and helplessness.

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Emily had thought a “big” contribution meant a few friends joining up to scrape together $500. But, in the last few weeks, news broke that oil CEOs and financial executives were cutting $10,000 and $25,000 checks to her opponent. We found out that notorious front groups like Stand for Children were funneling in tens of thousands of dollars of out-of-state financial industry cash, and we started hearing about serious threats of retribution from big-time professional politicians.

Not surprisingly, many of these donors and politicians are part of the larger national network aimed at undermining traditional public education — a movement that has succeeded in voucherizing the school system in neighboring Douglas County and that has placed Rupert Murdoch-funded voucher activists right here in Denver. In the process, this little grass-roots school-board race has become so inundated by big money and national political forces that none other than former President George W. Bush just made an education-themed appearance – one clearly designed to influence the education debate dominating the upcoming school board election.

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for years I've been saying that schoolboards are powerful and we should be getting elected to them.

wishing Emily well and much Stamina.

from the article: "The most powerful people of all sure think those local races do matter — and they’re now willing to spend what it takes to exploit your apathy and rob those elections from you."

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1. They started this in the 80's during Reagan. I saw full page ads in the Raleigh News & Observer

and they were being financed by NRA, churches, Jesse Helms conservative group (can't remember their name right now), and others. The

POWELL MANIFESTO

that was written in Nixon's time, set out EXACTLY how the monied interests in this country were supposed to systematically take over every aspect of education .... and they initially targeted colleges, not elementary schools .... and media, and races at every level of government to insure liberal ideas were completely UN-financed at every turn.

Back then there was no internet for people across the country to report clearly what they saw going on, so it all seemed like a local problem.

The Powell Manifexto was the PNAC of the beginning takeover of society. PNAC was the consolidation of the military takeover. This whole thing has been well-planned and systematically deployed for almost 40 years.

The military/commercial/industrial complex in this country is the purest form of evil.

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2. true

nt