I was a public school teacher for 40 years & the GOP & ridiculous federal regulations made it difficult to teach, starting w/the STUDENTS & their needs! Bush’s NCLB (another POTUS whose mental capacity is questionable) forced me to have to fight for my students’ rights —& my sanity & health (my breast cancer is related to this stress !) for the entire time!! The Republicans care about money, control & POWER! At my age, I don’t know how much longer I can fight….younger people must take the lead [thankful for Bernie Sanders Progressive protégés, like AOC, who are FINALLY being heard 🩵]! I will share this piece far & wide 🙏🏽
PS The fact that trump’s stupidity has allowed him to put Linda Macmaon (sp) from his WWF —wrestling days—to help abolish the Department of Education says it all ‼️ (excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes—my phone & fingers don’t seem to work anymore!)
Excellent piece that everyone who has a family and/or cares about education should read. Many of us are well-aware of many of the facts herein and, sadly, those who should be aware either won’t read or claim it is “fake news.”
Thanks for your kind words. The way I write is to start with a question and it goes from there, I have thoughts as I progress and fact check them as I go. It’s very time consuming, but I think it works. I’m still learning. 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you, TM. This was very clear and lucid and in the end heartbreaking. I’m well past the age of schooling but I keep learning something new every day in my mid-70s. It’s a pleasure and a source of real joy! How very sad that Trump and his cronies have never felt this joy, but Trump clearly despises giving young people the opportunities that he himself steered clear of all his life. He is the dangerous ignorant who believes he knows everything better than the experts. But if I’ve learned anything in my 70+ years it’s that the more I learn the more I realize how much more there is to learn!
Thanks Phoebe, I agree with your observations. These are challenging times. My aim here is to break things down for people to bring the threads together to paint a clear picture.
Thank you for sharing this investigative report on Trump’s shell game of lies towards public education. He aims to destroy public education so that any narrative can be used by his rule will not be opposed.
Knowledge and understanding of facts are required to establish critical thinking in the evaluation of what is real and what is not real and to oppose authoritarian rule.
I live in Canada and I am thankful to have been given a public education from kindergarten to Grade 13 that allowed me to enter a publicly-subsidized university science program and learn critical thinking skills that can be transferred throughout my whole life. It did not make me rich in money, as I pursued a career in ecology, but I am rich in knowledge and understanding of the world and the gifts that are all around us in a liberal democracy.
Unfortunately, the lunatic fringe of the right wing has been born from the rage that the liberal institutions that failed to protect them from corporate totalitarianism.
The promises of neoliberal policies since the Reagan and Thatcher governments deregulated capitalism has snowballed the concentration of wealth from the middle class to the “doner class” through both Liberal/Democrat and Conservative/Republican governments has alienated and destroyed the aspirations of the working class to the degree that the belief in magical thinking will be the path to crushing what destroyed them. Bill Clinton was no saint. The North American Free Trade Agreement was a gift to multinational corporations and the erasure of the regulations between corporate banking and commercial banking lead to the 2008 financial meltdown that required the federal bailout of the financial system across the world onto the backs of the middle and lower classes in the form of taxation and federal support programs being slashed.
Hence, the rise to power of the white supremacist and white evangelical “Christian” right over the last 20 years in the USA.
Support for Trump is a major symptom of American decline, not the overall disease.
This is what the end of the American Empire, which started when Richard Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard in 1971 and US treasury bonds became the backing for international trade and the printing of fiat currency began.
The roof is coming in.
I follow many journalists, writers and historians.
Chris Hedges has been prescient to the decline for more than twenty years, as he has been a direct witness to the destruction of democracy after the liberal institutions have failed to block unfettered capitalism and extremism.
We in Canada are within the sinking vortex of American decline and we will be lucky if we can escape it.
trump was a bully in school who surrounded himself with bigger boys that he paid to protect him and bully smaller and smarter boys. This has been trumps entire game his entire life. He paid smart school kids to take his tests which the teachers knew weren’t completed by the idiot trump. Than he was thrown out of school and sent to a Military school by his father to try and change his Evil, useless son.
trump never learned, spending his time threatening the elderly that lived in the disgusting apartments that his family owned. The tenants had no heat, barely had hot water and if they complained he told them he would evict them.
He even had a run in with the NYC Mob because he was telling everyone he was a MADE MAN, which was definitely Not True and they were not happy. His father worked for the mob and they told him to get him out of NY or else. So trump was sent to NJ to create more havoc.
trump has spent his entire life trying to be an aristocrat, trying to be powerful and respected but all he gets is loyalty out of fear because he never returns the loyalty just uses it against the people that have been loyal to him. trump only cares about trump. He will never get the respect he so badly wants because no one can believe a word he says.
How invigorating and refreshing it is to read your article that is well written and informative. And how sad it is that many who are misinformed and in a web of disinformation refuse to be explicated and educated. Concerned Citizen
He is a sick person. Nothing but a showman and not a very good one.
He needs to go sooner rather than later.
I believe that the MAGA people do not understand what this administration is doing and how it is going to affect them in the future. Maybe they can understand this. Help spread the word.
A person hires a qualified service provider to come in on a regular basis to clean their mansion . They pay them well for the service they provide. They have used this provider for several years and are very satisfied with their performance. They are approached by a financial advisor who says they can reduce their expenses by fifty thousand dollars starting today. The owner of the mansion is empress and gives this financial expert the ok to do so. The financial expert tells the cleaner service provider that their services are no longer required as of today. He tells the owner he has saved him fifty thousand dollars a year that he can invest or spend anyway he likes. At first the owner is thrilled, until he realizes his house is not getting cleaned. What do you think he will do to remedy the situation he now finds himself in???
You see this service provider was providing a service that the owner not only wanted but needed.
This administration and all his minions have no idea what they are doing except they are causing major problems for our government and we the people. (Except for you MAGA of course .) I have a feeling that neither I nor anyone else is going to change your MAGA brain. at least I tried.
This piece is excellent! Thank you!
I was a public school teacher for 40 years & the GOP & ridiculous federal regulations made it difficult to teach, starting w/the STUDENTS & their needs! Bush’s NCLB (another POTUS whose mental capacity is questionable) forced me to have to fight for my students’ rights —& my sanity & health (my breast cancer is related to this stress !) for the entire time!! The Republicans care about money, control & POWER! At my age, I don’t know how much longer I can fight….younger people must take the lead [thankful for Bernie Sanders Progressive protégés, like AOC, who are FINALLY being heard 🩵]! I will share this piece far & wide 🙏🏽
PS The fact that trump’s stupidity has allowed him to put Linda Macmaon (sp) from his WWF —wrestling days—to help abolish the Department of Education says it all ‼️ (excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes—my phone & fingers don’t seem to work anymore!)
Thanks Susan, great info you share here. There is so much going on, it’s difficult to know what to zoom in on, but this one really got me angry.
Have a great weekend, what’s left of it.
I wrote this recently regarding this subject, hope no one minds if I share it here:
Please Stand for the Approved Interpretation
Narratives sanitized to suit approved beliefs.
Outcomes engineered for obedience, not understanding.
Censorship disguised as "protecting the vulnerable."
History mutilated to absolve the architects.
Institutions starved, then mocked for their weakness.
Literacy sacrificed at the altar of loyalty.
Democracy deemed too dangerous – so they made it decorative.
Laws crafted by those who circumvent them.
Every librarian branded as a dangerous radical.
Fiction condemned when it cultivates compassion.
Truth dismembered and sold as speculation.
Independent thought replaced with manufactured consent.
Nuance strangled while memes are memorized.
Facts filtered, flagged, then forgotten.
Our children – programmed by algorithms, abandoned by adults.
Reasoning labeled as rebellion.
Mistrust weaponized against the messengers.
Education reimagined as indoctrination.
Democracy – just another failed experiment.
No child left informed, all left behind.
Thanks Bob, I don’t mind at all. Thanks for the contribution.
Always nice to be appreciated, and that’s what I appreciates about you.
Excellent piece that everyone who has a family and/or cares about education should read. Many of us are well-aware of many of the facts herein and, sadly, those who should be aware either won’t read or claim it is “fake news.”
Thanks for your kind words. The way I write is to start with a question and it goes from there, I have thoughts as I progress and fact check them as I go. It’s very time consuming, but I think it works. I’m still learning. 🤣🤣🤣
I’m a firm believer in learning every day until we pass from this world. Keep up the great work.
That’s very kind. Thank you
Thank you, TM. This was very clear and lucid and in the end heartbreaking. I’m well past the age of schooling but I keep learning something new every day in my mid-70s. It’s a pleasure and a source of real joy! How very sad that Trump and his cronies have never felt this joy, but Trump clearly despises giving young people the opportunities that he himself steered clear of all his life. He is the dangerous ignorant who believes he knows everything better than the experts. But if I’ve learned anything in my 70+ years it’s that the more I learn the more I realize how much more there is to learn!
Thanks Phoebe, I agree with your observations. These are challenging times. My aim here is to break things down for people to bring the threads together to paint a clear picture.
I’m Martin by the way. Nice to meet you.
There's another angle: that of neo-reactionary ideology.
https://kellihere.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-bros-are-tearing
Thank you for sharing this investigative report on Trump’s shell game of lies towards public education. He aims to destroy public education so that any narrative can be used by his rule will not be opposed.
Knowledge and understanding of facts are required to establish critical thinking in the evaluation of what is real and what is not real and to oppose authoritarian rule.
I live in Canada and I am thankful to have been given a public education from kindergarten to Grade 13 that allowed me to enter a publicly-subsidized university science program and learn critical thinking skills that can be transferred throughout my whole life. It did not make me rich in money, as I pursued a career in ecology, but I am rich in knowledge and understanding of the world and the gifts that are all around us in a liberal democracy.
Unfortunately, the lunatic fringe of the right wing has been born from the rage that the liberal institutions that failed to protect them from corporate totalitarianism.
The promises of neoliberal policies since the Reagan and Thatcher governments deregulated capitalism has snowballed the concentration of wealth from the middle class to the “doner class” through both Liberal/Democrat and Conservative/Republican governments has alienated and destroyed the aspirations of the working class to the degree that the belief in magical thinking will be the path to crushing what destroyed them. Bill Clinton was no saint. The North American Free Trade Agreement was a gift to multinational corporations and the erasure of the regulations between corporate banking and commercial banking lead to the 2008 financial meltdown that required the federal bailout of the financial system across the world onto the backs of the middle and lower classes in the form of taxation and federal support programs being slashed.
Hence, the rise to power of the white supremacist and white evangelical “Christian” right over the last 20 years in the USA.
Support for Trump is a major symptom of American decline, not the overall disease.
This is what the end of the American Empire, which started when Richard Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard in 1971 and US treasury bonds became the backing for international trade and the printing of fiat currency began.
The roof is coming in.
I follow many journalists, writers and historians.
Chris Hedges has been prescient to the decline for more than twenty years, as he has been a direct witness to the destruction of democracy after the liberal institutions have failed to block unfettered capitalism and extremism.
We in Canada are within the sinking vortex of American decline and we will be lucky if we can escape it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GxSN4ip_F6M
🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮
trump was a bully in school who surrounded himself with bigger boys that he paid to protect him and bully smaller and smarter boys. This has been trumps entire game his entire life. He paid smart school kids to take his tests which the teachers knew weren’t completed by the idiot trump. Than he was thrown out of school and sent to a Military school by his father to try and change his Evil, useless son.
trump never learned, spending his time threatening the elderly that lived in the disgusting apartments that his family owned. The tenants had no heat, barely had hot water and if they complained he told them he would evict them.
He even had a run in with the NYC Mob because he was telling everyone he was a MADE MAN, which was definitely Not True and they were not happy. His father worked for the mob and they told him to get him out of NY or else. So trump was sent to NJ to create more havoc.
trump has spent his entire life trying to be an aristocrat, trying to be powerful and respected but all he gets is loyalty out of fear because he never returns the loyalty just uses it against the people that have been loyal to him. trump only cares about trump. He will never get the respect he so badly wants because no one can believe a word he says.
How invigorating and refreshing it is to read your article that is well written and informative. And how sad it is that many who are misinformed and in a web of disinformation refuse to be explicated and educated. Concerned Citizen
He is a sick person. Nothing but a showman and not a very good one.
He needs to go sooner rather than later.
I believe that the MAGA people do not understand what this administration is doing and how it is going to affect them in the future. Maybe they can understand this. Help spread the word.
A person hires a qualified service provider to come in on a regular basis to clean their mansion . They pay them well for the service they provide. They have used this provider for several years and are very satisfied with their performance. They are approached by a financial advisor who says they can reduce their expenses by fifty thousand dollars starting today. The owner of the mansion is empress and gives this financial expert the ok to do so. The financial expert tells the cleaner service provider that their services are no longer required as of today. He tells the owner he has saved him fifty thousand dollars a year that he can invest or spend anyway he likes. At first the owner is thrilled, until he realizes his house is not getting cleaned. What do you think he will do to remedy the situation he now finds himself in???
You see this service provider was providing a service that the owner not only wanted but needed.
This administration and all his minions have no idea what they are doing except they are causing major problems for our government and we the people. (Except for you MAGA of course .) I have a feeling that neither I nor anyone else is going to change your MAGA brain. at least I tried.
Pretty sure it’s Pazzi, not Patsy, as in the Pazzi Conspiracy.