Obama/Duncan: For Sale to the Highest Bidder?

Q: "What do Wall Street and the Billionaire Edupreneurs - Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Sam Walton, et. al. - have in common?"
A: "A controlling share in the Obama administration and Arne Duncan's Department of Education."

--April Fool's? Maybe not. (And if you think I like saying that, after working so hard to elect Obama, be assured I don't.)

Re: Wall Street, if you haven't read The Atlantic's new feature article, "The Quiet Coup," by former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Simon Johnson, here's the teaser:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time. (Really. Read the whole thing.)

Replace, in that teaser, the words "finance industry" with "Gates, Broad, and Walton," and "recovery" with "education reform," and you might have a decent analysis of the "unpleasant truth" about Arne Duncan. Sharon Higgins of Oakland gives us a reading list in the comments for the last post to substantiate that analysis:

Listen to Diane Ravitch discuss what has happened in NYC under mayoral control. Mayor Michael Bloomberg (billionaire #8 w/a net worth of $20 billion) and Eli Broad, (billionaire #47 w/a net worth of $4.7 billion) hired prosecutor Joel Klein to be their public education attack dog. (I'll embed it here - Clay)

If you don't know who Ravitch is, take a look at her curriculum vitae. (Hint: a long-time conservative Reagan/Bush I appointee - Clay.)

Be sure to read "Diane Ravitch Looses Her Religion."

Then read "Eli Broad: The King of L.A." to learn about his manipulation of LA's school district via Mayor Villaraigosa (Broad was pissed because the mayor wouldn't "go all the way").

Broad gives his opinion about local school boards at "Q&A with Eli Broad."

Look at the two buddies, Duncan and Broad bff, at "Eli Broad describes close ties to Klein, Weingarten, Duncan."

Then read how Obama has chosen to join in with the billionaires propaganda machine.

Money buys more than inauguration parties, and a billionaire-driven authoritarian autocracy is the new way to manage America's public education.

Decide for yourself.

Propose an action:

I found Duncan's email address at the DoE. If any of you want to suggest an action to pressure Obama and Duncan to move left-of-center, I'm all ears. I'll use this space to bang the drum. Maybe Obama, like FDR before him, needs the Left to raise enough Cain to give him an excuse to embrace more progressive and democratic positions against the moneyed interests.