Thanks to your support, I am happy to share two recent victories for the Koch Brothers Exposed campaign.
The video investigation "Why do the Koch brothers want to end public education?" revealed how the Koch Brothers, through the think tanks and front groups they fund, were able to support an insurgent school board majority that favored resegregating public schools. The Koch supported candidates described their plans as “neighborhood schools,” which we rightfully exposed as the old language of Jim Crow and segregationist Gov. George Wallace.
North Carolina voters headed to the polls Oct. 11 and defeated school board candidates sympathetic to the Koch Brothers and school resegregation. This is great news for the hundreds of thousands of families who were threatened by the Koch Brothers’ influence in their community. We are grateful for the part you played in the tremendous victory for this community as well as a larger victory for democracy that works for everyone, not just the wealthiest 1%.
WHY DO THE KOCH BROTHERS WANT TO DESTROY PUBLIC EDUCATION? & HOW THE KOCH BROTHERS FUNDED PUBLIC-SCHOOL SEGREGATION 19AUG11
THE koch brothers are evil. Only evil people would work to destroy a school system that does what a school system is supposed to do, educate all the community's children equally. The Wake County, N.C. public school system does that very well, in racially and economically diverse schools. The koch brothers are evil because they tried to destroy this through their proxy organization americans for prosperity which lead a campaign of deception, manipulation and fear mongering propaganda to gain control of the Wake County School Board and then begin the dismantling of a very successful public school system. Only the strength and resolve of a majority of the residents, students and teachers protesting at school board meetings as well as the threat of lawsuits and calls for the federal government to investigate has stopped the afp and koch brothers plans. The Brave New Foundation has documented what the koch brothers are trying to do in Wake County. Check out the video and linked articles and donate to BNF if you can, at the least share this with others so the koch brothers attacks on our public education system are exposed.
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How the Koch Brothers Funded Public-School Segregation
By Andy Krollhttp://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/koch-brothers-school-segregation-americans-prosperity
In its response to AFP, Brave New Foundation stood by its story. BNF pointed to several statements of AFP-NC's in support of its claims, including a 2008 blog post of Woodhouse's saying AFP-NC "is on record as supporting the parents of WakeCARES, through significant financial contributions as well as other support." In the fall of 2009, WakeCARES endorsed the four school board candidates who opposed Wake County's busing policy, and a former AFP-NC director later credited WakeCARES with paving the way for the four candidates' victories. BNF alleged AFP "funneled" financial support to the candidates through Art Pope, a wealthy Raleigh businessman and an AFP national director, who gave more than $15,000 to the Wake GOP which in turn spent nearly all of its political donations in 2009 on backing the four conservative school board candidates. AFP-NC's Woodhouse also told Newsweek in January that his group did voter education and mobilized volunteers for the school board election.]
At first glance, the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers and the Wake County, North Carolina, school board couldn't be more disparate. Charles and David Koch, the brains behind the massive Koch Industries conglomerate and the funders of so many right-wing political causes, are national figures, credited with (or accused of, depending on your political persuasion) launching the tea party movement and waging war on the Obama administration and its agenda. The Wake County public school board is, well, just that.
In reality, there are deep connections between the Kochs and Wake County, and it's all about the money. The latest installment in the left-leaning Brave New Foundation's "Koch Brothers Exposed" video series reveals how a Koch-founded and funded outfit, Americans for Prosperity, fueled a campaign to "resegregate" the schools of Wake County, a prosperous area in central North Carolina that's home to the cities of Raleigh and Cary, among others.
The story starts back in 2009, when elections were held for four of Wake County's nine school board seats—enough seats to dictate the public school district's agenda if all four board members wanted the same reforms. That's where Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, came into play. AFP swooped in to fund and organize on behalf of four candidates who sought to kill the district's policy of busing to ensure diverse, desegregated public schools. The AFP-backed candidates ran against what they called "forced busing"—a phrase, the film points out, that dates back to George Wallace in the 1970s—and instead stressed that schools should educate only those who lived in the surrounding neighborhood.
Local reporters, some of whom are interviewed in the film, connected the push to eliminate busing with the philosophies of AFP and its funders. "They're definitely pushing an agenda to resegregate these schools, but there's also a real push toward privatization," Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies says in the film.
In the end, all four AFP-backed candidates won, and the school board has since begun to roll back its existing busing policies despite a wave of protest and outrage in the local community.
Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Films, says he and his team zeroed in on the Wake County schools controversy as a way to illustrate just how powerful monied interests can be at the local level. "The fact that millionaires can put hundreds of thousands of dollars into a local election and essentially deprive people of their rights, in many ways, and mess with their school system," he says. "It seems to us one of the strongest examples of the really incredible way money takes away our democracy."
You can watch the video in its entirety above.
Local reporters, some of whom are interviewed in the film, connected the push to eliminate busing with the philosophies of AFP and its funders. "They're definitely pushing an agenda to resegregate these schools, but there's also a real push toward privatization," Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies says in the film.
In the end, all four AFP-backed candidates won, and the school board has since begun to roll back its existing busing policies despite a wave of protest and outrage in the local community.
Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Films, says he and his team zeroed in on the Wake County schools controversy as a way to illustrate just how powerful monied interests can be at the local level. "The fact that millionaires can put hundreds of thousands of dollars into a local election and essentially deprive people of their rights, in many ways, and mess with their school system," he says. "It seems to us one of the strongest examples of the really incredible way money takes away our democracy."
You can watch the video in its entirety above.
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