Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Goods on the WeVote Burlington Part I

American Majority Rally - Madison 2011 with
Their Hero the Late GOPropagandist Andrew Breitbart


Perhaps you've heard me before say things like our communities, civility, rationalism, our educators and not only our public schools, but our public institutions generally, are under attack by the combined forces of greed, selfishness and short-sighted ignorance. While some of you are no doubt aware of what I’m referring to, others may have dismissed it as mere paranoia.

Well now I’ve got the goods on the WeVote Burlington Tea Party and the big money, American’s-for-Plutocracy national agenda behind them and their attempt to take over our local school district. http://americanmajority.org/majority-2/its-time-for-new-leaders-in-our-education-system/

EXCERPT: One of the groups that joined the New Leaders Project is We Vote Burlington. Activists in a local group led by Bonnie Ketterhagen attended an American Majority training and decided to bring some change to their own school board. They recruited two new candidates for the school board elections, trained them using American Majority’s campaign resources, and helped them to victory in the Spring of 2012.


Of course they are referring to Messrs Ketterhagen and Koldeway who have brought division and derision to your Burlington School Board. I'll have more soon on that score and the lies that American Majority has spread about events in Burlington. 

I also found the following post pertaining to this year's spring election: http://americanmajority.org/blog-2/it-begins-here-24-conservative-victories-in-wisconsin/

EXCERPT: "American Majority Wisconsin, February 20,2013 - Something big happened in Wisconsin yesterday. Twenty four American Majority-trained conservative candidates advanced out of their primaries to the general election in April. That makes more than 250 candidates trained by our American Majority Wisconsin staff since opening our Mequon office in October 2010. Advancers in Tuesday’s election include 10 school board candidates . . ."

The American Majority piece above was parroted by GOPropaganda AM 620's Charlie Sykes in the following post on his online newsletter written by Matt Batzel the local American Majority apparatchik, which has apparently been removed since the TP's April 2nd defeat: "5 Local Races to Watch - Right Wisconsin - Conservative politics ... www.rightwisconsin.com/perspectives/199773521.html Mar 25, 2013 – We Vote Burlington, the local Tea Party group, decided to start ... Now We Vote Burlington has an opportunity to flip the Board and gain a ..."

NOTE: I would have included more, but you have to buy a subscription for that and I'm not giving these people one penny's worth of what they love.

UPDATE August 2013 - The full text of the Right Wisconsin piece on the BASD Board Race and the Merican Majority/WeeVote candidates is now available on the link above as follows: "Battles over Act 10 have taken place across the state at the local level, often times before many school boards. The Tea Party has been very effective in mobilizing Burlington residents to show up in mass to Burlington meetings. Back in 2011, the Burlington Area School Board proposed a property tax increase, but faced a backlash when a room full of citizens voted it down. However, the Burlington School Board ignored that vote and still raised taxes. We Vote Burlington, the local Tea Party group, decided to start running their own candidates to take back the School Board. Two of their supported candidates were elected in 2012 and started causing waves. Now We Vote Burlington has an opportunity to flip the Board and gain a majority with the Spring 2013 Election. Due to the pressure from We Vote Burlington, one tax hiking incumbent chose not to face re-election this spring. We Vote Burlington has two candidates running for 2 open seats: Julie Koldeway and Norma Miller. The only incumbent is Larry Anderson, with challenger Jim Bousman on the general ballot as well."

Please note that the GOPropagandist "news"letter conveniently left out the fact that the Citizens of Burlington voted overwhelmingly on October 31, 2011 to approve the budget adopted by their elected School Board and reject WeVoBee attempt at blitzkrieg.

It's (NOW) certain that recently defeated WeVote candidates Julie Koldeway and Norma Miller were among the 10 school board candidates mentioned above. So what kind of training did American Majority give to to the WeVoters? Was it their advice that last year Bonnie Ketterhagen would only take questions from the Standard Press if they were submitted in writing? Did American Majority advise Koldeway and Miller to refuse to debate their opponents and answer questions before the public? Perhaps they were behind the WeVoters refusal to interview with, or even answer questions submitted in writing by the Standard Press so the citizenry could inform themselves before voting. You might get some indications by visiting them on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanMajorityWI

According to Source Watch, American Majority is well funded, national in scope, with offices in numerous states and connections to the usual astroturf manufacturers behind the Tea Party: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Majority

EXCERPT: "American Majority is a 501(c)(3) right-wing nonprofit political training group established in January, 2008 that "trains and equips a national network of leadership committed to individual freedom through limited government and the free market." Its goal is to train budding Tea Party candidates to run for school board, city council or state senate seats in local areas around the U.S., with the hopes that they will eventually run for Congress. The group's strategy is to raise up a "national farm team of conservative leaders." Ned Ryun, one of the group's founders, says "Today’s county commissioner, tomorrow’s congressman. You’ve got to feed the system." Founders, Drew and Ned Ryun are the sons of former Kansas Republican Representative Jim Ryun, who served in the House of Representatives for 10 years. Drew Ryun was a deputy director at the Republican National Committee, and Ned was a writer in the George W. Bush White House."

EXCERPT: "Eric O’Keefe, who helps lead American Majority, has been a Koch aide and conservative operative who attends and also helps lead Koch strategy meetings."

American Majority and their sibling Tea Party organs like fALEC, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity and Sam Adams Alliance have an national agenda to crush union representation and to destroy public education and replace it private for profit schools. This has long been the goal of would be plutocrats like the Koch Bros, The DeVos' (Amway)  and the Walton's (Walmart). 

Imagine what it would be like being an educator, excuse me, "associate" at Walmart Elementary. And if you think citizens will save tax money under this system, you've got another thing coming. The Privateers will take the money now used to support our local educational infrastructure and to ensure that our educators living amongst us have a decent standard of living and benefits and spirit that wealth right out of our community and our state and off to Arkansas, Wall Street and the Cayman Islands!  

These are the national people that are behind the local people that are after your local schools and your money. And you can bet they'll be back!

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