{"id":310,"date":"2019-03-04T12:02:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=310"},"modified":"2019-03-04T12:02:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:02:47","slug":"how-to-destroy-a-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/how-to-destroy-a-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW TO DESTROY A DEMOCRACY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Donna\nDufresne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>First:&nbsp; Go after the schools by undermining public\neducation. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>You create a punitive, high-stakes\ntesting system which further divides communities by race and economic diversity,\npushing us back into segregation and widening achievement gaps.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>&nbsp;You publish district test scores in the\nnewspaper, which leads to an insidious type of <em>red-lining<\/em>, a secret code used by realtors implying that high test\nscores mean good schools, (a racist code meaning white, middle class). <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Then you punish the under-achieving\nschools further by emphasizing the test scores and imposing remedial solutions\nto improve. You take away the arts, science and social studies to improve the\ntest scores. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You do away with talented and gifted\nprograms and school-wide enrichment, thus destroying talent development and\nfurther disengagement.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Then you impose a data-driven\nbusiness model which requires so much management and time, administrators and\nfaculty have nothing left to give for creativity and critical thinking,\nespecially since their students\u2019 performance on the test is linked to teacher\nevaluation.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Meanwhile, you spin a culture of\nanti-intellectualism, a mistrust of academics, and especially those teacher\nunions. You emphasize underachieving schools in the inner city, and you now\nhave the data to prove that teachers and public schools are not doing their\njob.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Then you offer a brilliant business\nsolution \u2013 privatization in the form of Charter Schools. Being semi-private,\nthese schools can bypass teacher unions, hire &amp; fire whomever they want,\nensuring a transitory staff of young, inexperienced teachers who are cheap\nlabor. The business plan drains school districts of their limited funding,\nwhile increasing your profits.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>&nbsp;Then you keep moving the goal post, making it\nharder and harder to achieve, because teaching is now driven by the test and\ncramming for success. The culture of cramming makes it impossible to meet\ncurriculum standards, because you have removed critical thinking from the\ncurriculum by taking away the arts, science and social studies in elementary\nschools. Test scores continue to plummet.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Now that you have dumbed everyone\ndown and whipped those errant, mostly liberal academics back in place, you\u2019ve\ncreated the perfect conditions for privatization of public schools. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Underachieving schools begin to\nexperience BRAIN DRAIN, as parents who are sick of the emphasis on data and\ntesting, and who can afford the time and resources, seek out alternatives.&nbsp; Some fight like hell to get their children\ninto Charter and Magnet schools, (which often don\u2019t offer transportation), while\nothers opt to home-school. Private schools are thriving. The achievement gap widens,\nand segregation deepens.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Those remaining struggling schools\nteeter totter on the edge of extinction with budgets being drained by tuitions\nfor the local Magnet or Charter school, and, let us not forget the\ninsurmountable cost of testing and the technology which supports it.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>While the local Magnet and Charter\nSchools seem to be rolling in dough, the old neighborhood public school which\nis within walking distance, is now crumbling. Lead pipes, bad water, flaking\npaint and ancient text books are only the tip of the iceberg, pushing us back\nto the segregated south in the 1950\u2019s. The Magnet school gets enrichment\nprograms, monthly assemblies, field trips to the science center. The old school\ngets more administrative positions, teaching coaches to monitor the data and\nteacher performance. Kids get more intervention and remediation, but little if\nany enrichment.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Now that you have created and\nnurtured a culture of anti-intellectualism and mistrust of public education,\nyou can get on with the real business at hand. Without all that liberal\nnonsense, like social studies and critical thinking, you have created an\nuneducated populace who knows nothing about Civics and History. You have\nproperly anesthetized them with reality shows, and mindless games on their\ndevices. Now they are ripe to blindly follow and never question. You can spin\nwhatever reality you choose to deepen your pockets.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Because children were not taught anything\nabout black history in elementary school, they know nothing about civil rights,\nand systemic racism. Ignorance is bliss for those who wish to further the racial\nand class divide.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Next:\nGo after the free press.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>First you create a divisive\nalternative to main-stream news media, a conglomerate ready to monopolize\nstruggling newspapers. Your business model thrives on their failure; therefore,\nyou must ensure that they will fail.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You create internet alternatives to\nnewsprint, free downloads of news bytes on social media and alternatives to local\nnewspapers. There are no rules. There are no fact checks or hardcore editors\nreminding the writers that their business is to report the news, not construct\nit through opinion.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You are savvy enough to know that\nAmericans will believe anything in print if it supports their own belief system\n(one which you have carefully cultivated by the sheer genius of spin).<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Once you have removed the small local\nnewspapers from the equation, you go after television and radio. You buy small,\nstruggling radio and T.V. stations, and begin to monopolize local news with\nyour conservative spin. The hardcore broadcast stations will not give in. The\nold standby national newspapers, the Times, the Washington Post, continue to slug\non with their old fashioned, fact-checking, old-school reporters. <\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>You can\u2019t quite infiltrate the\nso-called liberal press, so you create your own news conglomerate as an\nalternative. It is stunningly brilliant. A new bobble of distraction. You are\npoised like the fox that you are, to prey upon the populace by telling them\nwhat you think they want to hear. At first, they bristle. But then they begin\nto believe that your spin on the so-called news IS what they want to hear. It\nis addictive, and divisive.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Now you can spin a culture of fear.\nFear of other.&nbsp; You name the other in\nyour nightly broadcasts. The other is the Muslim, the immigrant, the artists\nand athletes who stand up and kneel for justice. &nbsp;While you continue to cultivate\nanti-intellectualism, fear and hatred, you begin to name the enemy.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You cultivate mistrust of the free\npress. You call the press \u201cThe Enemy of the People\u201d. &nbsp;You name what you fear most \u2013 Liberalism. You\ndo not want a free-thinking society which can liberate itself from you.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Then:&nbsp; Erode our inalienable rights, especially free\nspeech<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Now that you have created a\nconglomerate of State-news, you can manipulate the truth. You know how to spin\nand market ideas. You think you know us, because you have created us from\nscratch. You have us in the palm of your hand.&nbsp;\nBut not all of us. Therefore, you must divide and conquer.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Every chance you get, you spin the\nidea that the free press is the enemy of the people, liberal democrats and liberals\nin general are not to be trusted, and those who protest racial injustice, and\nhate are un-American. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You spin the idea that nationalistic\npride trumps Constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, unless that\nspeech benefits you and your narcissistic cause. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You herald nationalism, as\ndemonstrated by massive military parades, flag waving, the singing of a\nnational anthem, and unfailing worship of political leaders.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You identify our worst fears, and you\nprey upon them by dividing us into factions and tribes. You become the\ncheerleader for hate.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You build up the confidence of an\nunderground army of white nationalists who will exercise hatred and do your\ndirty work of suppressing truth and justice.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>At every opportunity, you rile the\nmasses into frenzied hatred for the \u201cOther\u201d on the daily menu, taunting women\nwho speak out against sexual assaults, making fun of disabled people, insulting\nimmigrants and people of color. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You convince your followers that\nkneeling for justice is un-American. <\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You further divide us by spinning the\nuntruth that if \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d, then other lives do not. You especially\nfurther divide us from the police force, making anyone who stands up for\njustice an enemy of the State, and the police.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Finally:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You erode the Constitution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>You take away our rights<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You rescind amendments that were\nmeant to protect us<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You deny us of the right to an equal\neducation<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You obliterate the rights of\nimmigrants to naturalize<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You clamp down on the Press, and\ntheir ability to report the truth<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You imprison peaceful protesters, or\nworse<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You suppress dissention<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You divide the classes even further,\nmaking the rich richer, and the poor poorer<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>You deny the populace the right to\npursue happiness, because your rich friends have shipped all the jobs overseas to\nincrease profits<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>But for some reason, you do not take\naway our guns<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donna Dufresne First:&nbsp; Go after the schools by undermining public education. You create a punitive, high-stakes testing system which further divides communities by race and economic diversity, pushing us back into segregation and widening achievement gaps. &nbsp;You publish district test scores in the newspaper, which leads to an insidious type of red-lining, a secret code &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/how-to-destroy-a-democracy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HOW TO DESTROY A DEMOCRACY&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paDBMs-50","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}