We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools

from PR Watch.

The One Percent are attempting, and in many cases succeeding, in taking over major institutions in our fake democracy. It seems that the great unwashed can't be trusted and must defer to their betters who are the richest, the winners in the capitalist game, and by capitalist definition, the best. Well, maybe they are right. Let us look at the evidence that this article reports.
Every day, dozens of reporters and bloggers cover the Big Three's reform campaign [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation], but critical in-depth investigations have been scarce (for reasons I'll explain further on). Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that the reforms are not working.
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