Monday, May 18, 2020

Fast Times At Covid Corporate High

It was hard to miss Saturday night's glitzy Graduate Together show broadcast in primetime over all the commercial TV and cable networks, and live-streamed on Facebook, Youtube and many other social media platforms.

 Its marquee attraction was former President Barack Obama, whose virtual commencement address to the nation's quarantined high school seniors was covered as a major political news event by the corporate media. (It followed a separate address, sponsored by JP Morgan Chase, to graduates of the nation's Historically Black Colleges.)


Obama's performance was augmented by song and dance routines and motivational speeches by students who had entered to win a spot in what might be called the Bootstraps Inspiration Sweepstakes. One girl gushed about her success being the result of a heroic mother working three jobs to pay her college tuition. The lesson this student learned was not that no parent should ever have to work three jobs, or that no student should ever be in onerous college debt, Her message was that it is incumbent upon the youth of America to "demand more" and show up to vote for politicians who will also pay proper verbal respect to hard-working parents like hers.


Although our disrespectful and disrespected current president was never mentioned by name, a distinct anti-Trump current ran right though the High School Musical program. The liberal politics of orchestrated diversity and slick entertainment and inspiring vignettes served to distract the audience from the true, underlying agenda and profit motive of the show.


A joint project of Hollywood's Entertainment Industry Foundation (ETF), the XQ Institute and the LeBron James Family Foundation,, the show's occult purpose was to gin up public enthusiasm for the complete oligarchic control of our public school systems. It was one giant infomercial for school privatization.


As the Jonas Brothers crooned, and activist Malala Yousafsai championed the rights of female students, a scrolling chyron at the bottom of the screen urged viewers to visit a "Rethinking High School" website. One click brought you to the XQ Foundation,  a think tank bankrolled by billionaire Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs and led by former Obama administration officials and investment bankers and hedge fund operators.


It's just another variation on the same old refrain from those smash capitalistic hit jobs on public education and teachers known as No Child Left Behind and Race To the Top. 


Following the neoliberal mantra of never letting a serious crisis go to waste, ETF CEO Nicole Sexton told Variety that Obama's participation in the infomercial was neither the surprise nor the altruistic rare treat that corporate media had been promoting it as:

 "We have a long-standing relationship with XQ Institute, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to challenging traditional education platforms and ways of teaching. This period of time has taken that to a whole other level. But through XQ’s networks, there were a number of students and educators and families across the country who expressed sadness about the missed opportunity to experience the wonderful rites of passage tied to high school graduation. XQ came to us and said, “Let’s talk through what we could do with a telecast,” and we took that to our board.
 We have 11 board members, four of whom are executives for the four major networks. It was instantaneous. They all got so excited. There were a lot of people recognizing that there are going to be seniors who will miss these wonderful rites of passage and asking, “How do we fill that void in a way that really celebrates them?” So our networks at the national level had been exploring different ideas. And then when that opportunity came to them with a formidable partner like XQ, it was literally a no-brainer for them. Within an hour, they came back and said, “Yeah, we want to do this as a roadblock.” And within 24 hours, I had the date.
The CEO of the XQ Institute is Rosslyn Ali, former deputy Obama education secretary for civil rights. Its parent organization, the Emerson Collective, is managed by former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, author of Obama's punitive Race To the Top initiative, as well being Rosslyn Ali's current and former boss.

The XQ Institute uses the same obfuscatory vocabulary to hide its for-profit motives as other finance capital-backed school "reform" initiatives run by such billionaire luminaries as Bill and Melinda Gates and the Walton Family Foundations. 


As school privatization critic Diane Ravitch outlined several years ago in her book Reign of Error, common tropes are that public schools are failing, that mainly poor and minority children are "trapped" in these failing schools, that unionized teachers are not up to the challenge of training children for the "jobs of the future," that there exists a "skills gap" in the job marketplace that unionized teachers cannot bridge, and that if only we can bring some of the same good old market-based creative destruction (closures) to schools as private equity brings to business in order to "rescue" them, then all might be well. And be sure to use the word "choice" in every other sentence, as though you actually had one.


To further hide the gross profit motive of placing education of children into the hands of greedy and unqualified venture capitalists and oligarchs, education reform cultists also commonly and cynically frame their agenda as "the civil rights issue of our time." 


Ravitch continues:
"Their policies, they say, will make our children into 'global competitors.' They will protect our national security. They will make America strong again. The corporate reformers play to our anxieties, even rekindling dormant Cold War fears that we may be in for jeopardy as a nation of we don't buy what they are selling. The critics want the public to believe that our public schools are a clear and present danger to our society. Unless there is radical change, they say, our society will fall apart. Our economy will collapse. Our national security is in danger."
And these are the people who complain that Donald Trump is the guy who brought fascism to the country. How convenient. What a gift both Trump and the coronavirus pandemic are giving to the school privatization movement. 

Due to the pandemic, there's been been a slight change in plans and a tweak in the propaganda delivery. Since society has already failed and the economy has already collapsed right before our eyes, the new message to investors is that Remote Learning Is Fun and Profitable. 


All that America's education policy makers have to do is dream and imagine the possibilities. And the XQ Institute is here to help with its pharmacopoeia of hallucinatory drugs.


One of the first steps is to do away with democratically elected local school boards - or at least, to seed them with XQ-funded candidates. This is euphemized on their website as " empowering local communities." Their accompanying illustration is thus one of clenched fists rising in protest against traditional schools.


Speaking directly to local and state legislators and governors, XQ waves wads of money to legions of innovators in contests to redesign their local high schools to neoliberal expectations. A big part of freeing students from the schools they are trapped in is in getting them unpaid internships for the jobs of the future - or "Innovation Schools."


What could be more radical and innovative than never re-opening the shuttered schools at all in favor of remote learning and de facto serfdom - or opening them at vastly reduced physical capacity? Think of the real estate. Not for nothing are the boards of directors of reform organizations rife with property developers and real estate magnates. 


If you watched Saturday's graduation show and clicked on the incessant advertisement link to XQ, you were treated to an avalanche of reform Newspeak that would bury even George Orwell. The language is that turgid and uninformative. You will be led down endless alleys and mazes in search of the perfect Covid Academy merchandise and tips.


One such link is to an outfit called Envision Learning Partners. The essence of this experience begins a mission statement in ALL CAPS. Because, let's face it, by the time you find your way to this site via the long and windy road that XQ has provided for you via the gala star-studded TV graduation special, your eyes are already glazed over. An example of school reform Newspeak:



ENVISION LEARNING PARTNERS (ELP) EMPOWERS SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS TO BUILD A SUPPORTIVE CULTURE OF LEARNING BY DESIGNING SYSTEMS OF PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT THAT ENCOURAGE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS TO LEARN AND GROW TOGETHER. WE BELIEVE THIS APPROACH CONTRIBUTES TO GREATER EQUITY IN EDUCATION—MAKING SURE EVERY STUDENT HAS REAL CHOICES AND POWER OVER THEIR OWN FUTURE


In other words, Teach to the Test. Pandemic or no pandemic, keep rating teachers as failures if their students from poverty stricken neighborhoods don't score well. And with Zoom replacing the classroom, they are guaranteed not to do well. In the small print at the bottom of the page  Envision finally sees fit to divulge that it is a for-profit charter school conglomerate in the business of selling test-taking kits to teachers and school districts who must buy them if they are to succeed in the Education Marketplace. They need a lot of 'elp.

For as Barack Obama advised graduating seniors in the keynote address of Disaster Capitalism's gala graduation party:
Doing what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way — which is why things are so screwed up.... >When you need help, Michelle and I have made it the mission of our Foundation to give young people like you the skills and support to lead in your own communities, and to connect you with other young leaders around the country and around the globe.
He might as well have been speaking his empowering message into the un-monetized wind. Before Covid-19 struck, socialism was just as popular as capitalism among the young adults surveyed. People both young and old still have their brains and they still have their eyes to envision what myriad and deliberate screw-ups that the lords of unfettered capitalism truly are.

Here's the commencement address that should be broadcast far and wide. As Marxist economist Richard Wolff argues, what we need is not a glitzy graduation show or remote learning-by-oligarch. During this national lockdown, what we need is an education reform program that would pair millions of jobless but eminently skilled and qualified professionals from many fields with millions of quarantined students. The sessions would be one-on-one, the teachers would be paid by the government, and the students would not be indebted for life.

That's how reimagining and rethinking high school - or any school or functional democracy, for that matter - would ideally sound.





13 comments:

eva said...

Great Article, Karen.

Diane Ravitch is the writer who gave courage to some key Black and white Bay Area residents to push a complaint forward to the Attorney General’s office regarding our school district. It required making allies of people some of us had long criticized, and they delivered, much to
my astonishment.

Xavier Becerra investigated and ordered the school district to desegregate last August. It was the first such order in the state of California in over fifty years.

Xavier Becerra is the first Latino AG in the State of California. Think about that for a moment, readers. California WAS Mexico. We’ve been part of the US for 170 years now. For most of this time, Mexicans grew and picked and shipped all our food for us, with few if any rights and subjected to incredible abuse. If you’re eating lettuce in February in New York, for
most of the 20th century, it was picked here in California by Mexican migrant workers.

It took 170 years to get Becerra. And we never imagined he’d be able to deliver on desegregation, but he did.

This is the generational shift that the Trumpers and some of the “fake left” - from limousine liberals to grifters like Jimmy Dore and Michael Treacy - want to stop. They want to stop people of all races fighting together for common cause, for a universal set of basic rights.

Well, screw Trump and Dore and the “liberals”. In essence, screw the white supremacists.

BTW, Scahill did a great Intercepted podcast with Greg Grandin and David Blight on reconstruction and western expansionism. Necessary, restorative, soulful and inspiring listening.


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intercepted-with-jeremy-scahill/id1195206601?i=1000474446300


The Joker said...

Thanks for this post, Karen, I intend to send a link to it to a number of people -- though I wonder if it'll make any difference when so many people seem to have already been fully-assimilated into the praise-be-to-unfettered-capitalism Borg.

Luckily, I haven't been. I know that when the XQ "Institute" first started airing TV commercials some years back in my city, my suspicions about their agenda were immediately aroused. Then pretty much confirmed, in that particular commercial that you've probably seen (it probably ran everywhere), with a female "student" saying something like "we should have classes on how to be an entrepreneur", followed by the voice-over "that's a school board thing". Couldn't get a more concise exhibit than those two sentences that their agenda was pushing neoliberalism, along with all that implied with regard to monetization and corporatization of public education, plus either pressure on, or takeover of, school boards.

But you column here is valuable because it dissects and critiques in so much greater detail, and exposes the connections to specific persons behind the curtain of the dog-and-pony shows they propagandize us with. So thanks.

Jay–Ottawa said...


as in all things
the good the bad
and the ugly just
follow the money

in the beginning
public money to
public schools
then public money to
charter schools
then public money to
online schools

that's progress
brought to you by the
BM Gates Foundation
the world's largest private
charitable organization

tangled up with other
foundations spawning more
foundations in league to convert
the dead lead of public money
and the spring of foundation money
into ignorance for the millions and
billions for the few

eva said...

Sorry, tried to reply earlier but screen deleted.

I’d just point out that, if we do follow the money, we sometimes see land grabs disguised as charter school fights.

this was apparent in the ongoing fight in Marin County, with a remarkable number of charter school proponents curiously linked to the local real estate industry and developers.

I am curious to know if anyone has noticed this in New York or other East Coast states.

The Joker said...

Good news, readers here. Apparently Trump is medicating (self-medicating?) with hydroxychloroquine. Given that reports suggest it actually INCREASES mortality rather than reduces it with regard to COVID-19, Trump taking it must be considered good news.

I think it increases the risk of cardiac arrhythmias (independent of COVID-19). I can just imagine a scenario where Trump keels over with V-fib. Then (still in my imagination) Ivanka yells "Daddy" and attempts resuscitation, stradling him. Trump, in his last moments of semi-consciousness, thinks that he is finally getting to "date" his daughter. Jared joins in on the resuscitation, because he doesn't want to lose his influence, access to power, and profits, should his father-in-law croak. Then Eric and Donald Jr. join in too, for similar reasons. They're all working feverishly to save him. Then Melania comes in and tells them all to stop!

I can dream, can't I?!

eva said...

Karen,

I ask the following questions in sincerity and in good will because the issue of media is important, and because your opinions hold weight not just with me, but with your readers.

Is it true that Jimmy Dore is promoting Obamagate?

Is there any sort of line Dore would cross that would motivate you to rescind your prior suggestion for your readers to tune into Dore?

Is it possible that aggravation with the failures of the Obama administration might blind some on the left to the reality that not every criticism of Obama is valid?

I mean, I thought the point at which Dore accused Bernie Sanders of being a Nazi, or at which Dore turned two blind eyes to Tulsi Gabbard’s support for ethnic-cleansing Modi, might have been a wake-up call.

What’s... going on with Dore? And is it right for us to ignore it?

Jay–Ottawa said...

@ eva

"Is it possible that aggravation with the failures of the Obama administration might blind some on the left to the reality that not every criticism of Obama is valid?"

This is not Karen, for whom you're standing by for an answer. The party to which you wanted to speak to (h/t Lily Tomlin) is Karen, but I can't resist swinging at a couple of fat pitches you directed at her.

I watch Dore the political comedian only when he's linked to some other piece I'm reading. Haven't any idea what he's saying currently about Obama. For balanced commentary, I suggest you give Dore up for, say, Naked Capitalism, Nader or Moon of Alabama.

It may be an unintended thought trick to separate the 'Obama Administration' from 'Obama' himself. In any event, you're right that Obama isn't to be blamed for every disaster that occurred on his watch.

But the valid criticisms of his remaining policy errors, actions, omissions and sell outs are numerous and major –– sufficient to categorize him as one of the most successful political hypocrites ever elected to the presidency. Unless you live up there in the neighbourhood of the 1%, Obama never did anything for you and, most important, he never intended to.

You're right: Bernie is not a Nazi ... a Quisling maybe?

Karen Garcia said...

Am I being Corbynized?

I once recommended Jimmy Dore on this blog because he lightens things up as well as having substantive policy discussions with guests like Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson and Ralph Nader, along with showcasing progressive candidates who are often ignored by the corporate press. Granted, he is not for everyone. Don't watch him if you don't like him.

Just because he was once a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard doesn't mean I was endorsing Tulsi, although I appreciated her appearances at the debates as the sole critic of US imperialism. You can find certain things off-putting about a person and certain things admirable, and still be willing to listen to what they have to say.

If Dore ever called Bernie a Nazi, I would love to see the evidence. He does call him a traitor to this supporters, which he is. See my latest post for more.

As far as "Obamagate" is concerned, that affair is about the "unmasking" of Gen. Flynn and suppression of evidence of same by Adam Schiff and other McCarthyites in the Dem Party and intelligence community. See Aaron Mate for the details - he just did an extensive interview on "Useful Idiots" with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. Margaret Kimberley also has an article on the topic over at Black Agenda Report.

Just as Republicans twisted the Benghazi scandal as a way to attack Hillary when it was, in fact, an illegal gun running operation, Trump is twisting the Flynn scandal into self-interested petty politics - thus absolving the Obama crowd in the process.

It's all theater.

eva said...

https://twitter.com/zferjmi/status/1240855627657699330?s=20

Hi Karen and Jay,

Thanks for your replies.

Karen,

I feel strongly that the matter of maintaining a racially integrated political force from the left is critical to our mutual survival. Not just white people. ALL of us.

It is my impression that Dore is malignantly trying to divide. I sincerely hope you did not interpret this as criticism of you, it is valid criticism of Dore.

Not sure what you mean by Corbyn-ized. I’m a fan of your writing, and of Corbyn’s politics, but I honestly don’t place you both on the same plane of influence.

I merely asked a sincere question about your recommendation to tune into Dore - because I find he consistently makes statements that seem designed to dogwhistle hateful attitudes to minority communities, a point which had not actually been addressed.

Here’s the Dore clip (above link) comparing Sanders to a Nazi for reference.

Maybe you don’t find that unnerving. Maybe you didn’t think his laughing about the pronunciation of Ghiridharadas was a dog-whistle. I did, and as someone affected by that kind of hatred, I have to tell you that.

There are many more thoughtful outlets on which to watch Hedges et alia, of course. But Dore’s support for Gabbard - without ever addressing her own support for Modi - or addressing the fact that she was essentially far more conservative than he claimed - or her support from alt-right groups - is something that should raise a red flag.

Dore is currently available on Taibbi’s podcast suggesting that COVID-19 deaths are possibly UNDERcounted. Which is certainly not what any of my friends and family in hospital and in public health would surmise. And let me stress that his suggestion of an undercount is perilous to LatinX and Black communities, who are facing FAR higher death rates than your white community in midstate NY.

I think Dore is up to something quite pernicious. I would be wrong not to raise the issue after you recommended people tune into him.

I found the Aaron Mate interview on Useful Idiots to be less than compelling, and I say that as someone who, you well know, has been critic of the Obama administration’s many failures going back to when I first began corresponding with you circa 2010? (I organized quite a few peaceful protests during the bank bailout, on federal and state property. And it was, to be frank, more nervewracking than I care to recall. I did it because it was the first if many actions Obama took that were profoundly mistaken.)

I work every day with activists of different races and ethnicities. Jimmy Dore doesn’t offer us much in the way of inspiration. Just self-aggrandizing hateful division.

You and your readers deserve better than Dore.

Sincerely,
Eva




eva said...

Jay,
I definitely am not here to defend Obama!
Not a huge fan of Naked Capitalism. I like Nader a lot.
Spent yesterday day cramming for a phone call about redistricting with MALDEF.
Some interesting news. Hope to relate later.
Thank you for your reply.
I think George Carlin once described Lily Tomlin as the angriest woman he ever met. It was strictly a compliment. She’s ferocious in the movie Grandma, and totally inspirational.
A bit like Karen!

Karen Garcia said...

This will be my final word on Jimmy Dore.

Inexcusable for him to use the word Nazi and Bernie in the same sentence. I had missed that episode. But taken in context, he was actually referring to a Sanders campaign spokesperson who. after the March CNN debate with Biden, had still urged people to go vote in the Illinois primary at the height of the pandemic... in effect, potentially sending people to their deaths. Bernie himself did not directly engage in this loathsome "get out the pandemic vote" rhetoric, he merely expressed wishy-washy regret that more states weren't canceling the elections. He suggested that polling places restrict themselves to less than 50 people at a time. Kind of shocking, in retrospect. Sure. it was wrong of Dore to compare this herding to the polls to Nazis herding people to concentration camps. Biden, of course, was much worse, essentially telling "folks" that voting during a pandemic would be as safe as houses. This guy also just openly admitted to being "cavalier" re his insulting remarks about Black voters.

Dore professes himself to be completely done with electoral politics,admitting there are no political heroes. Tulsi stiffed him after using his popular platform. His focus now is all about organized labor and issues,like M4A and bipartisan corruption. Good for him.

Sure, he is offensive, more boastful sometimes than I would like, but maybe the liberal class needs to be offended. He is angry, over the top, witheringly critical, ever more popular and probably scaring establishment Dems to death. As a result, his show will probably go the way of Alex Jones (to whom he is often unfairly compared by critics)sooner rather than later.

My "Corbynized" definition: smearing by association. Jeremy Corbyn was accused of anti-Semitism by dint of his alleged association with alleged anti-Semitists - as a way to destroy his labor candidacy. Bernie supporters themselves were accused of being Nazi brownshirts by MSNBC's Chuck Todd. Now his delegates are forbidden by Bernie himself to criticize Chuck Todd. He has tragically internalized the same manufactured narrative.

I wish that the whole overused Nazi metaphor and slur would just go away. Calling the duopoly right-wing authoritarian or even fascist is probably more accurate.

eva said...

Sorry, I want to clarify an earlier statement, as I was typing too fast in my reply.

Dore was on Taibbi’s podcast suggesting that COVID-19 was OVER-counted, and asserted that more people might die from the lockdown than from COVID-19.

That’s not on assault on people in power - that’s an assault on high risk groups, like essential workers, Blacks, LatniX, older people, children.

That’s a dog-whistle that should be loud enough for everyone to hear.

Kat said...

Eva,
One of the most agonizing problems of human experience is how to deal with disappointment. In our individual lives we all too often distill our frustrations into an essence of bitterness, or drown ourselves in the deep waters of self-pity, or adopt a fatalistic philosophy that whatever happens must happen and all events are determined by necessity. These reactions poison the soul and scar personality, always harming the person who harbors them more than anyone else. The only healthy answer lies in one's honest recognition of disappointment even as he clings to hope, one's acceptance of finite disappointment even while clinging to infinite hope.-- Rev. Martin Luther King jr.

I think you are correct to take heart in even the small victories.