Obama’s speech

Avedon Carol

The revolution has not been in technology. The revolution has been that the immorally rich have finally rebelled against the very possibility of democracy and equality and are making sure to nail down any hole in their walls against the rabble, eliminate any possibility of clever “little people” being able to better themselves with hard work or clever ideas. It has become increasingly difficult for any small business to emerge or survive, for poor kids to work their way up to a decent living. And it’s not an accident.

A government’s policies determine who lives and who dies, who earns and who starves. Government makes the money and decides where to spend it. It can give to rich people and buy nothing in return, or it can give it to the rest of us and give us roads and jobs and a stable base of government-employed public servants whose steady income results in steady spending in the real economy and thus creates the private sector jobs. A government can set policies that protect its workers, or one that forces them to compete with the worst, most corrupt slave economies.

Obama has chosen to give our money to the Malefactors of Great Wealth and make up excuses about technology and international competition to convince us that we should survive on subsistence wages in order to “compete” with China and India. Compete for what? Why, compete to make our rich people richer than their rich people. Whoever’s behalf we are working for, it won’t be for us.

Education deform

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools

Every day, dozens of reporters and bloggers cover the Big Three’s reform campaign, 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. Stanford University’s 2009 study of charter schools—the most comprehensive ever done—concluded that 83 percent of them perform either worse or no better than traditional public schools; a 2010 Vanderbilt University study showed definitively that merit pay for teachers does not produce higher test scores for students; a National Research Council report confirmed multiple studies that show standardized test scores do not measure student learning adequately. Gates and Broad helped to shape and fund two of the nation’s most extensive and aggressive school reform programs—in Chicago and New York City—but neither has produced credible improvement in student performance after years of experimentation.

Bloggers in distress

Via Susie we learn that Cabdrollery and Lance Manion urgently need your support.

I realize that d2route is in danger of becoming a blegging blog, but supporting bloggers is the best way you can push back against the right wing in this country. No other group so consistenly pushes back in a way that affects our political discourse.

Building a movement

Lefty blogosphere arouse as a response to an out of control political culture. If you came of age after Bush vs Gore, you can hardly imagine the freak show our press use to be. Yes, much worse than it is now. The most vile lies could be put into to circulation with impunity.

Blogs gave us the medium to fight back and some of us availed ourselves of that opportunity. Blogs are building a counter narrative of what is going on and what are true policy options are.

When the rich and powerful artificially take single payer health care “off the table,” blogs, including this one, puts it right back on.

This blog has worked to raise consciousness about local groups such as Empower DC, along with national groups fighting for single payer health care.

This blog played a crucial role in getting word out about the hideous Michelle Rhee and mobilizing national blogosphere in support of public school teachers.

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Update – thanks to those who have been able to donate. I am very encouraged and am just a dozen small contributions or two big ones from meeting my immediate goal. There are so many other bloggers in trouble, and so many readers just unable to give in the current environment, I am doubly grateful to all those who gave. If you appreciate the work of this blogger and are in a position to help, Please click here to support this blogger.

Storage fees

Many of my belongings will be auctioned off if I cannot raise storage fees. Readers, if you can help

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