Discussion for article #237359
1 Like
“Obviously the faculty are opposed, but there are plenty of folks who look at it and believe this, in fact, is the future,”
Nope. This is the future for any failed state that believes that education is just some worthless sector of the economy that’s completely fungible to the point of dismissal (and yeah, I’m looking at Louisiana and Kansas). My home state of New York has problems but we do value higher education.
11 Likes
Yes, Scotty, piss off one group of voters at a time.
I recall the late George Wallace going after “pointy headed intellectuals,” – you know, them enemies of us workin’ folk who think they’re better’n us.
3 Likes
“Obviously the faculty are opposed, but there are plenty of folks who look at it and believe this, in fact, is the future,” Nassirian said, citing the increasing pressure on universities to be more efficient in light of escalating tuition costs. “And it may be.”
Of course those rising tuition costs are being largely driven by cuts to state higher education funding, so it’s another case where republicans deliberately created a crisis which they then exploit to ram through the policies that they actually want.
Unions? Crushed, Now on to those Universities which have been a hotbed of liberal thought. I wonder who the next target on their enemies list is?
13 Likes
Biggest republican house slave. Reap what you’ve sewn Wisconsin. Because you’ve turned your state into-a feudal system of serfs and indentured servants who only exist to serve the rich.
3 Likes
Well, that should help with academic recruiting in Wisconsin. There goes the University of Wisconsin’s reputation for being one of the top public schools in America. Why does Scott Walker hate Wisconsin?
5 Likes
Well we could EXPECT DOTING less from a CROOK like this DOLT. HOW LONG does it take to finish the investigation into this DOLT. We all know how ANTI-EDUCTION the Republicans are, KEEP’EM STUPID means more votes for the Republican CROOKS. They’ll CUT education EVERYTIME. Look at Kansas and the other ANTI=EDUCATINAL DOLT that is the Gov… Try to balance their INCOMPETENCE of their state’s budgets on the backs of children and their educational…THEY’LL CUT THERE FIRST EACH AND EVERY TIME. KEEP’EM STUPID, now that’s a plan. SEE HOW REPUBLICANS ARE.
I’m from WI and entering the academy, and this situation makes me equal parts sad and terrified. But more than anything it makes me feel exasperated and infuriated. Why/how the hell did WI voters fall for this brainless baboon despite multiple opportunities to show him the door? It makes zero sense either financially or in terms of the state identity (cheese, Packers, and Bucky).
When I was 18 I chose to go to U Minnesota rather than UW because it felt like half my hometown was going to Madison, and I wanted to “get away” by going to the Twin Cities (Minnesota and Wisconsin have a reciprocity deal, where students from the neighboring state pay in-state tuition). At that time I knew I was choosing the slightly inferior school. The sad thing is that in a few short years, UM will surpass UW in any measurable way. Like nature and humans, universities are just another resource to be squandered by the capitalistic nihilism of Walker and his ilk.
7 Likes
This is all part of the Koch Master Plan: 'Stupid People are easier to control".
Hey, ALL Fascists HATE EDUCATION because educated people see through their attempts to manipulate them.
Stupid people are too stupid to realize they are stupid (i.e. “Tea Party Members”)
One of my favorite Quotes:
Benjamin Franklin: “We are all born ignorant, but you must work hard to remain stupid.”
2 Likes
Am I being too biased in my political beliefs to point out what I see as the strong contrast between those states that vote in a supermajority of GOP Governor, Legislature AND the courts and those few that do so on the Democrat side?
I look at places like Wisconsin, and Texas and Kansas and North Carolina where they take control and wind up stripping the state’s furniture and using it to keep the engines running.
And I compare it with California which endured several years in which a GOP minority was able to use legislative and constitutional manipulations to stall government and force huge cuts in spending for education, health, roads and the environment. Finally, the voters said enough and give control to the Democrats. California seems to be doing pretty well these days and does not seem to be abusing its authority. Of course Democrats don’t view government as an evil empire that needs to be immediately strangled as soon as they have the chance.
11 Likes
You made the right choice that will pay off in the future by enabling you to have a future.
At some point (I’d say by the decade’s end), high schoolers from WI will find it very difficult to get into any good college short of Bob Jones U. The word will have gone out across the higher educational system that students from WI didn’t get a good education and probably can’t pass muster in their college.
1 Like
All part of the plan to abuse their control over states to turn state universities into conservative indoctrination camps.
Welcome to history class…no need to take notes…just relax and let the learning flow through you…
4 Likes
Sure. Democrats, for all of their flaws, actually want to govern. republicans appear to primarily want to use their power to push an ideological agenda and grow/entrench themselves. In this case, they’re looking to destroy another group that they believe opposes them (Academia), regardless of the consequences to the people of the state.
Scott Walker has shown republicans that the “shock and awe” political strategy of just ramming through your agenda and crushing opponents will sell to their base…and since their base generally shows up in low-turnout elections (most state level ones and things like a recall), there’s little downside.
3 Likes
Because Democratic voters
- didn’t “come out” (sounds as sophomoric as a frat party and just as useless)
- “were turned off” by that nasty old-folks time-consuming (one day every couple of years) bugaboo: politics
- could not fathom: voting–responsible elected officials–good public policy–better quality of life
- “oooooh the gadgets the gizmos…makes us feel soooo important!!” ++++++
Scared old people can always be counted upon to vote in massive percentages and numbers. That is as much a force of nature as a glacier.
If Democratic constituencies are either too (a) distracted and/or (b) made petulant by making-the-perfect-the-enemy-of-the-good…
Then the only people voting will still be granny and gramps from the Dairy Farm.
Just Like ALWAYS
++++++ Notice to all gizmo-addicted people:
It is NOT the number of times one uses the gizmo which is important (twitter, “social media” cell-phone-calls, etc.), IT IS THE RELATIVE POWER OF THE PERSON USING THE GADGET:
ONE telephone call from ONE CEO elimintating jobs for hundreds of thousands of people carries more weight than 1000 calls apiece from and to 1000 serfs.
3 Likes
“If this happens, over time, the professors who can will leave.”
Feature, not a bug.
“And as the top flight scholars and researchers depart, so will the reputation of the institution”
Entirely irrelevant as far as these people are concerned and not sufficiently relevant enough to the rest of the populace to make a difference.
The point here is to create an entirely caustic and untenable environment for highly educated professors who know wtf they’re talking about, want to teach truth to students and have the integrity to insist that they won’t teach non-truth. An academic diaspora is the GOAL. Then the replacement stooges can be brought in…know-nothing morons and grifters willing to teach the youth whatever nonsense is mandated by GOP/Teatroll controlled state legislatures and administrations in exchange for a paycheck that underbids the gong salaries for long-term academics, all in order to alleviate the GOP/Teatrolls’ problem with educated youth voters (and increasingly educated minority voters), i.e., that we know they’re fucking liars. They tried making their own universities…didn’t work so well. They tried suppressing youth votes (was it LePage who was famously yammering about prosecuting out-of-state students for voting?)…didn’t work so well. They’ve been trying for decades to convince everyone that the Dept. of Education should be blown up and public education made scarce, sparse and difficult to obtain…hasn’t worked so well. So, time to totally deconstruct state college and university systems…and community colleges as well.
They win this…easily. Their “50%” of the voting public is highly motivated to “solve” the “problem” of people being educated to rely on all this fact and reality stuff that contradicts the conservative ideology and policy positions. They care deeply about finding a way to assure that indoctrination to their way of thinking is taking place, because this is seen as an existential problem for them, their party, their ideology and their power and control. It’s not seen that way by liberals and it’s nigh impossible to convince them of ti because they are educated and many will read this shit I’m spewing and call me a consipiracy theorist or pooh-pooh such cynical orwellian prophesy. But I truly believe the GOP/Teatrolls have literally shifted to admitting (at least to themselves) that indoctrination, not education, is precisely their goal…which is why they project that goal onto the current academic system, calling it a hotbed of liberal indoctrination because it inconveniently results in educated individuals who see through conservative bullshit (at least at a higher rate than not). Conversely, liberals simply see it as teaching math and science and reading famous literature and looking at history based on documented proof, etc. and have trouble fathoming that such deliberate manipulation of the nation’s education could take place. Conservatives lost the battle for academia, because they were on the wrong side of reality ab initio, so they see no alternative but to destroy it so it can be remade in their image. Continuing to attempt to compete for it is not a viable option because, well, they’re simply wrong and, consistent with fundaments of their conservatism, are constitutionally incapable of abandoning disproven beliefs to adapt. Instead, all this outside stuff that contradicts them must be changed and forced to comply. Thus, loss of reputation is a meaningless construct in their world: it would simply represent the liberals’ backlash at having THEIR conspiratorial control over the gears of indoctrination stripped from them. [Insert Mario Savio here…again…I can never get enough of that speech hehe]. Meanwhile, liberals will sit home and fail at voting, because nothing will wake them up to this other than it actually happening, at which point it may be too late to undo.
Next up, more cutting of gov’t grants for research at the state and federal level, because grant money gets in the way of the financial pinch they’re trying to put on “liberal academics.”
6 Likes
yep my state because of the failed give everything to the wealthy and corporate sector and send my state into a huge deficit go after education and health care things that we desperately need but republicons don’t seem to give a shit about…since it mainly apply’s to the poor and middle class
Thank you for that FINE post.
Many many thanks.
2 Likes
Allowing governor appointees to fire liberal professors.
Simmering right wing nihilism at its finest. Step by step, we see the Koch plan to turn America into a patchwork of economic warlords exploiting uneducated neo-feudal surfs forever after unfolding right before our eyes. And all the while, our degenerate media fails to notice anything going very wrong and all the other people simmering in rage against how the nurds they bullied in high school are now making more than they do vote and applaud.
4 Likes