Republicans are committing class warfare in so many states that keeping up is a major struggle, but in Michigan, Republicans are not content just to trash the Constitution. They want to police what university professors are thinking, especially if they are committing the thought-crime of mentioning Rachel Maddow.
A conservative research group in Michigan has issued a far-reaching public records request to the labor studies departments at three public universities in the state, seeking any e-mails involving the Wisconsin labor turmoil.
The group, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy [Plutocons delinked], declined to explain why it was making the Freedom of Information Act request for material from professors at the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State University. But several professors who received the records request, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo on Tuesday, said it appeared to be an attempt to intimidate or embarrass professors who are sympathetic to organized labor.
This records request, which was filed Friday, comes several days after the Republican Party of Wisconsin made a records request to a prominent University of Wisconsin history professor, William Cronon, who had severely criticized the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, over his push for legislation to weaken public-sector unions.
The Mackinac Center, which describes itself as a nonpartisan research and educational institution and receives money from numerous conservative foundations, asked the three universities’ labor studies faculty members for any e-mails mentioning “Scott Walker,” “Madison,” “Wisconsin” or “Rachel Maddow,” the liberal talk show host on MSNBC.
Greg Scholtz, the director of academic freedom for the American Association of University Professors, said: “We think all this will have a chilling effect on academic freedom. We’ve never seen FOIA requests used like this before.”
Roland Zullo, a labor studies professor at the University of Michigan, said he found the center’s request “puzzling.” “It seems an odd request for an institution that claims to be nonpartisan,” he said.
Michael D. Jahr, the Mackinac Center’s vice president for communications, declined to discuss the records request. Ken Braun, managing editor of the center’s political newsletter, declined to give the reason for it… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Here’s some additional information about this supposedly non-partisan group.
The Mackinac Center for Policy Research focuses on advancing government privatization and espousing conservative fiscal policies. The group actively advocates school vouchers and the privatization of the University of Michigan. The Center publishes the Michigan Education Report in support of its policies. In promoting other limited-government, free-market economic principles, the group advocates measures such as privatizing Amtrak and prisons facilities and eliminating government subsidies for arts and culture initiatives. The Center is also anti-union, having pursued initiatives to limit union political spending and attacked mandatory union membership policies. Additionally, the Center’s President, Lawrence Reed runs a "think-tank school" on establishing and effectively maintaining state-level conservative think-tanks… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>
Now, if they are non partisan, the big bad wolf is neutral on the subject of pork cuisine. They are so partisan, in fact, that they are the the architects of Snyder’s plan to give his appointed lackeys the power to disband local governments and fire elected officials.
Since they drew Rachel Maddow into this, she covered the issue in two segments. In the first, she exposes how in RepubliSpeak, small limited government really means big intrusive government and gives several examples of Republican abuse of power including this one.
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In the second, she and economist Dean Baker discuss this issue and how Republican plans actually hurt the economy.
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Republican policy is simple to understand. They promote extreme deprivation of the poor and middle classes at the same time as lavish welfare for the super-rich and criminal corporations. Every Republican in office is one Republican too many.
21 Responses to “Republicans Attack Professors”
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First Rachel it is Mack-in Naw despite how it is spelled it means Turtle Island and is a native aboriginal word. so say it correctly.
Second Snyder’s reach to take over governments does not only go to government per se but to school districts also. In Detroit there was already an emergency financial manager for the DPS (DETPUBSCHL) system. A court had previously ruled his sole authority was only over financial issues (185 million in the red) immediately after Snyder signed the law he gave control over the academic portion of the DPS to the emergency manager. Which in effect makes the elected school board pointless and if he is of a mind he can dissolve it and save a few million per year. Also Detroit with it’s loss of property tax revenues and over 100K people in the last decade with a staggering 300 million dollar deficit can now be declared in fiscal emergency.
In Detroit the city and suburbs have been split along racial lines for decades and for that same amount of time the city has been fighting off regionalization of especially the water system. The Burbs want some say and Detroit says we built it (90 years ago) so hands off. The sytem supplies water and sewerage to almost 4 million people. Snyder can (I doubt he will this year) declare Detroit insolvent appoint a manager, fire the mayor and city council, tear up all contracts both vendor and union, set wages wherever renegotiate whatever and regionalize the water system. There is no mass transit here but there are two separate bus systems which could be forced to merge giving control of that system to the suburbs because generally speaking they are in less of a hole. BUT the whole back room plan is to appoint CEO’s of private corporations as emergency managers which in effect will privatize all services.
Oddly enough now 5 months after the election people are upset. At Snyder yes because they bought a pig in a poke with 66% voter turn out but they are upset at the former governor for taking a job with Dow Chemical based in MI and finding that a certain refrigerent is cheaper to produce and acquire in China so she did what she was paid to do and got DOW the best deal.
They apparently are not to upset at Snyder cutting Dow’s tax rat something like 15%. while for the first time since 1954 he is going to try to tax pensions, public and private and gut state pass through grants to cities and towns and education budgets which will force municipalities into receivership so he can appoint private emergency managers if those sities and towns do not raise taxes to cover the shortfall..
Mark, I understand. Locals here take umbrage when people call the river that divides Portland the WILL-a mette instead of the correct Wil-LAM-ette. (the a as in ass).
I have nothing but contempt for those who stayed home to “send a message”.
PS…The professors who are all at ubic institutions are basically civil servants and if we learned anything from the trial of Kwame Kilpatrick it is that any communication sent on a government owned device is subject to a FOIA request. If I were them i would give out my email and password and have every student and activist in americae write hundreds of thousands of emails with those words in them. Let the cons spend their money in that fashion.
Mark, that is an excellent idea. I hope you have communicated it to the faculty.
public not pubic…although Wayne State…
I disagree. Anything screwed as badly as the people of Michigan deserves the term “pubic”.
“Republicans are committing class warfare in so many states that keeping up is a major struggle…” This is too true, and frighteningly so. I’m not much for conspiracy theories but these attacks on our freedoms has all the appearances of a plan in the works for a very long time. I had not heard of this latest attack, so thank you.
You’re welcome, Leslie. Calling Republicans on lying about their strategies is telling the truth, not fostering a conspiracy theory.
TWN: First of all: get over yourself. A lot of people say Macinac. If you’re not from there, you say it phonetically. Here in TN “Maryville” is pronounced “Maraville.” Leave it at that. and I believe you missed the point of the post while nitpicking on semi-related issues.
The point is: the Repubs have gone back to “1984.” George Orwell would be proud. Freedom to the GOP means chasing after everybody else’s. 😡
Judy M..I am just going to let the ignorance of your comment slide this time because it does not make sense Mack-in- naw is not an accentual pronunciation but one that reaches back 300 years Maddow made the comment on her show that she had been told the proper pronunciation and she did not care she would say it as she saw fit. That is disrespect to the Chippewa nation? Any it is not my issue if you, yourself can not use yoour grammatical skills to pronounce a two syllable word Mary Ville in English. You read that opening line and discounted the entire rest of the post which to me calls into question your ability to comprehend anything but liberal talking points or go where you are led only. So get over your own self.
Mark, I’m sure Rachel intended no disrespect for the Chippewa. She was being snarky out of disrespect for the so-called foundation.
Names behind who fund Mackinac Center reads like a “Who’s Who of Right-Wing Donors”:
Charles G. Koch Foundation – $69,151
Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation (from the Amway fortune) – $80,000
Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, parents of Blackwater [Xe] founder Erik Prince (who serves as the foundation’s vice president) – $195,000
Walton Family Foundation (WalMart) – $100,000
Source:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/michigan-snyder-mackinac-center
There is some hope in the SCOTUS June, 2010 FOIA ruling Doe v Reed given that the Court articulated an “exacting scrutiny” standard, “requiring a ‘substantial relation’ between the disclosure requirement and a ‘sufficiently important’ governmental interest.” To withstand this scrutiny, “the strength of the governmental interest must reflect the seriousness of the actual burden on First Amendment rights.”
However, that FOIA case involved an election process, so I have doubts on how much the “exacting scrutiny” parameter applies here.
Nameless, screwtiny is what’s on their minds.
Look, you all are just focused on equal outcomes, rather than equal opportunity. To do so, trods on property rights, which I the host asserts on this site in his rules (his servers, his site, that he maintains). Think about equal outcomes in academics or athletics and you will see how absurd the premise is. Everyone should be given the same grade in school, the A students subsidizing the C students.
And professors attack conservatives and their establishments every day!
On Dean Baker, he is touting the debunked General Theory of Keynes. Keynesian thought was totally disproved decades ago, but it stays with us because it’s message of government policy “filling damand” through increased government spending and new policy resonates with politicians. Fact – government does not need to make up for the demand, because the prices for labor and resources is not fixed. Keynes main flaw was that he assumed that the pricing mechanism did not work. Furthermore, government cannot allocate resources effectively to smooth economic cycles when it tries. It is in fact a net supplier of instability. Read some on a couple of Nobel economists’ thoughts on Keynes (Hayek and Friedman).
Cliff, equal opportunity demands a level playing field. When the super-rich and criminal corporations have the deck stacked in their favor, usually at taxpayer expense, there is no equal opportunity. May I respectfully suggest that using Friedman, the man whose policies brought on the Republican recession that started in 2008, destroys the credibility of your argument.
I hardly think that appointing a “fiscal manager” in Detroit’s case is going to solve it’s problems. And I don’t think this is going to pass Constitutional muster.
Even if the kangaroos recognize its Constitutional defects, how much damage can Republicans do with this in the interim?
They are making that final grab for the brass ring, but them being as stupid as they are means that they don’t see what it is they’re brewing up. It would be a good time for them to check on homes in exile, because our Soviet collapse is now on an accelerated schedule.
JR, I understand your reasoning, and cannot debunk it. Nevertheless, it remains my hope that America will take control of our destiny.
The problem, TomCat, is the exact same problem that existed in the twilight of the USSR: namely, a huge and growing mass of the population does not participate in the society anymore and has no loyalty to it, or interest in preserving it. The mass is big enough now to explode if the right kind of incendiary is applied. I was afraid Madison might have been the fuse, and thankfully it was not. But the attacks are now so naked, so open, that the Rushpubliscum Klanbaggers are souring the people they traditionally depend on for protecting the apparatus. When enough of them turn away, a conflagration can result from the smallest spark.
JR, I’m not saying that you wrong. We will not know that the critical mass has been reached until after the fact. Wisconsin may have sparked a reduction in that mass.