Nader on Corporate Socialism

Every time I think that I have come up something original, I start to look around and try to figure out where it came from. Apparently I did not look hard enough when I started using "corporate socialism" to describe the faux capitalism that is based on taxpayer handouts to, otherwise, private enterprises. The current coinage is owed to major muckracker and good guy, Ralph Nader--at least a good guy before he decided to carve out a place for himself in political obscurity by making the 2000 election close enough for the neo-cons to steal. Here is a link to the Nader article that originally appeared in a 2002 Washington Post piece that my colleague, David McCurry, brought to my attention yesterday.

In the meantime, there is a growing understanding of and outrage against corporate socialism and its implications for democracy. The corporate welfare school concept offers a perfect lab to study this corruption at work. Here's part of a commentary from Ohio's cantonrep.com:

LET’S TAR AND FEATHER CHARTER SCHOOL SYSTEM
Sunday, December 4, 2005 MUSTARD SEEDS RICK SENFTEN

You know, if word leaked that the county engineer had sent out a few guys with a couple of truckloads of asphalt to lay a new driveway for a generous campaign contributor, people would scream. They’d want to know why their taxes were spent on a private job and who in the world OK’d this — well, let’s call it what it is — theft. They’d want the boss’s head.

Spending tax dollars on charter schools is pretty much the same scam, or would be considered so had it not been legitimized back in the ’90s by handsomely bankrolled and grandly schmoozed legislators who, by their votes, created a 297-school, $445 million industry — one that drains public schools of the dollars needed to reach education goals that charters, so far, haven’t been made to meet.

OOPS!

When his charters were launched here a few years back, David L. Brennan, chairman of White Hat Management and mega-Republican contributor, urged reporters to check the scores of students in his schools after their first year; he assured they’d do better than public school kids.

We checked. They were struggling, and things haven’t changed much since.

The charters are flopping so badly, in fact, that our lethargic governor recently worked up the energy to warn them to shape up or scram. Of course, with the backing of the Legislature, the charters are free to answer, “Yeah, right.”