Discussion for article #244570
I’m not sure why this is shocking… 1) Textbooks are and have always been a ripoff and 2) don’t disparage your employer or you get fired.
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“It’s all about the money,” she says in the video. “You don’t think that educational publishing companies are in it for education, do you? No. They’re in it for the money.”
Private industry in a nutshell. Why does O’Keefe hate America?
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Does he support the government taking over publishing?
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…and now…for something completely the same------------ only different…
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If Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt cared about kids they wouldn’t be using Texas Board of Education standards as the basis of their textbooks.
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Textbook publishing is a for-profit business? Huh, who would have guessed?
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I have about as much faith in the leadership at Houghton Mifflin as I do in Dunder Mifflin.
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I have no pity towards anyone involved, but I’m flummoxed by O’Keefe. What was his point? Of course a for-profit business is in the business of making money and pleasing their customers. How was a disloyal employee’s personal opinion about Common Core relevant to anything but her company’s management who clearly – and rightfully – have some concerns about being embarrassed by such.
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Hey Ms. Barrow, I hear O’Keefe is hiring.
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Dumb.
What’s O’Keefe’s angle here? So, the industry is in it to make money. So, this lady–who was there for less than a year–was there to make money. So, the industry did not lobby to implement Common Core. What the fuck is he getting at with this? The woman comes off as pretty dumb, but nothing scandalous.
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Accounts manager? She’s a glorified check collector in the accounts receivable department and makes zero contributions to and has zero control over the content and substance o the textbooks, let alone HMH’s entire business model or practices. If she ever attended a board meeting, it was to pour coffee.
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Why isn’t this asshole in jail for fraud? It doesn’t take an Act of Congress to make that happen. Why can’t local authorities charge the little fucker already? He must have broken numerous laws by now.
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Is this supposed to be a dig at Common Core? A slam on corporate capitalism? A take-down of a disloyal employee? It has no actual point to it. How does O’Keefe scam “donors” into paying him to punk people?
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James O’Keefe is a controversial, conservative provocateur known for producing deceptively edited undercover videos targeting Democrats and groups supporting progressives.
FIFY TPM
WTF?
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April 2015? Was she a plant in the first place? WTF? What did O’Keefe pay her?
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Except here he seems to be targeting a large corporation for prioritizing the free market over educational quality, which I thought was what conservatives have been touting for a long time.
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I was just amazed at TPM writing an incredibly charitable description like that.
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Very slightly paraphrased, but this is almost exactly the big exchange in the video:
“Did the textbook companies lobby for Common Core so they could sell more books?”
“No, but once it was put in place we had had to conform to it or we wouldn’t be able to sell any books.”
Seriously, THAT’S your fucking bombshell???
ETA: after thinking about it, I’m betting that’s what they wanted to be the “bombshell”, but since she didn’t give them anything, they had to go with “I hate kids!” The ten-second clip of which is repeated over and over, of course.
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