General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCory Booker: the inexorable rise of Newark's neoliberal egomaniac
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/11/cory-booker-newark-neoliberal-egomaniac(...)
It'd be one thing if the Soviet-style personality cult and let's-come-together Twitter banalities recent days have seen him post self-help quotations from Bruce Springsteen and the Dalai Lama were just marketing for a progressive political program. But Booker is a far more conservative figure than the Cult of Cory, which is too busy making Superman or Chuck Norris jokes, may actually realize. He is a long-time advocate of charter schools and, more quietly, of voucher programs: a favorite hobbyhorse of the men of high finance. George Will, the paleoconservative columnist of the Washington Post, is a big fan. Michelle Rhee, the fallen DC schools chancellor whose union-busting, corporatist education reforms resulted in a citywide cheating scandal, is someone Booker calls "a friend of mine" and we should add that Newark's charter schools were embroiled in a cheating scandal of their own last year.
And of course, Booker has the unwavering support of the big bad industry just across the river from Newark. Since his days as a city councilor, he has hoovered up cash from the financial services sector but unlike many other tri-state Democrats who seduce the Street in a marriage of a convenience, Booker legitimately thinks that big money knows best and the public sector should do its bidding. When, in May 2012, Booker confessed that he found it "nauseating" for the Obama campaign to impugn Mitt Romney's career in private equity, Democrats were shocked. They shouldn't have been.
Booker's whole career has been a testament to a poisonous financial-corporatist consensus, which dresses up the interests of big money in post-ideological garb. (That helped him win the support this weekend of the most powerful man in New Jersey: George Norcross III, the feared political boss and owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who said he liked Booker because he was "a Democrat that's fiscally conservative yet socially progressive."
Remember that $100m donation to the Newark schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, promoted with its very own Oprah episode? The cash didn't go into the Newark school system; it's controlled by a non-governmental fund, with Booker on the board, and has been so unaccountable that the ACLU had to sue the city to learn what was going on. (Booker's office first denied that the emails the ACLU sought existed; when a judge ordered the emails to be made public, the Booker team released them on Christmas Eve.)
Add to this Booker's privatization of the Newark sanitation department, and his repeated attempts to do the same to the water supply, and the picture becomes clearer. In the world Booker and his cohort inhabit, there are no systemic problems and no class interests. There are only pesky inefficiencies, to be fixed with better data and more money from smart, happy, rich people who can spend their cash far more sensibly than the public sector.
(...)
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Who needs Republicans, when you have these Third Way Dems undermining the working class.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Big education deformer from way back.
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)since I first heard of this man. Too many liberals, including the president, have gone down this rabbit hole which is the usual scheme to transfer public funds to private hands.
When I can quit fighting to keep public schools public I'll worry about the NSA.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)dont want to develop their own infrastructure they just want to tap into existing public infrastructure to suckup public money as cheaply as possible.
malthaussen
(17,219 posts)Once there was journalism in America. These days, we have to find it overseas.
-- Mal
LittleGirl
(8,292 posts)caseymoz
(5,763 posts). . . on the Internet.
KG
(28,753 posts)At Wed Jun 12, 2013, 09:20 AM an alert was sent on the following post:
piss on Cory Booker
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2999838
REASON FOR ALERT:
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)
ALERTER'S COMMENTS:
Gross
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed Jun 12, 2013, 09:23 AM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: "Gross" is not sufficient to play net nanny on this one.
and Piss on Cory Booker - i second that emotion.
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)But I love it!
Cory the Tory.
srican69
(1,426 posts)I always had a funny feeling about Cory Booker. He just seemed too slick, too pretty, for some reason. He seemed genuine, but there was just something about him I couldn't exactly put my finger on. Now I know why... Thanks for educating me, Enrique. I loves to learn.
I really don't know anythign about him and probably shouldn't say anything because of that but he gives me the creeps.
The little I have seen of him he repeats himself endlessly with a lot of empty nothing words. And Rachel Maddow was promoting him on her show a few months back. I heard he was a friend of hers and that felt icky to me. I forget why he was in the spotlight then but it was something negative toward him in the general press but she tried to smooth it over for him. I don't know if she should stick her nose in things that way - but I guess that is how business like that is done all the time.
Maybe one day I'll read up more on him and change my mind, that's always possible.
navarth
(5,927 posts)I really liked this guy. Wished we had him for Detroit's mayor. Damn. Scratch one off the list of people I'm comfortable with. Damn.
zx10r_liberal
(6 posts)When this bastard, along with Ed Rendell, came rushing to the defense of Willard Romney's leverage buyout operations on MSNBC, my response was to hell with these ass holes!. We are up to our eyeballs with corporate hacks in our government. I have no interest in anything they say because it's nothing but word candy covering up a shit-pile of corporate sponsorship. They are on the payroll.
pscot
(21,024 posts)will wake up with a bad hangover.
DinahMoeHum
(21,823 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,982 posts)He hasn't won the primary yet. Go over to Politics 2013 - and you will see -
There are folks in NJ that will NOT be voting for Booker in the Primary. Myself included.
NEWARK elects Booker for Mayor - not Democratics in Hunterdon, Somerset, Warren Counties, etc. etc.
He's got to win in areas of the state are already leaning VERY heavily towards Pallone. Why? It's about the Education. When his platform of vouchers gets out to those of us in affluent communities that pay outrageous property taxes that are DIRECTLY LINKED TO our PUBLIC SCHOOLs he's going to find himself challenged.
All of you - please help us.
Look up Frank Pallone's record. Give him $5.
Then even if it is only $5 - can you please donate to Buono for Governor's campaign> The Democratic Leadership is ignoring her (including President Obama) - and with Lautenberg's death - it's like Democratics have completely forgotten that we have GOT TO STOP CHRIS CHRISTIE IN 2016.
A Senator Pallone with his stellar progressive VOTING RECORD and a Progressive Democratic Governor will make all the difference to the daily life of this Jersey girl!
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)I will send a few bucks to Pallone and to Buono too, because, you know, the hell with Christie!
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,982 posts)Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Holt and Pallone are both members of the Progressive Caucus. I'm inclined toward Holt, a scientist who has a particularly strong record on environmental issues.
Either of them would be far better than Cory the Tory.
JustAnotherGen
(31,982 posts)Holt Interests me too - however I love the fact that Pallone co-sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Apophis
(1,407 posts)How accurate is The Guardian?
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)That has been the push from some (yeah, I'm talking about you Rahm et al) since the late 1980s -- socially moderate to liberal/fiscally conservative and knee bending to Big Business. The perfect political triangulation. And anathema to the Democratic values I grew up with and cherish.
The GOP isn't the only Party having problems within its' ranks.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)May a better Democrat beat him in every single primary he ever runs in.
Ernesto
(5,077 posts)duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Watch the media peddle this creep for the 2016 presidential race despite the fact he got his start by being bankrolled by the far-right Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation in its attempt to destroy public education by having Booker infiltrate the African American community in order to split it and the teachers unions over vouchers and charter schools as a part of education "reform."
If you think Obama the neoliberal is bad, just wait until you get Cory.
YBR31
(152 posts)I've met Cory Booker and couldn't disagree more with the article or the sentiment here. He has had a tough job. The crime rate is down in Newark, affordable housing is being added. He balanced the budget. Commercial development is taking place after years of little to none. I met Mayor Booker on a plane. I was on my way to the lavatory and had a conversation with him. I told him I was traveling with my daughter. He asked me where my daughter was seated and got up and walked back to her seat. He spoke with her for quite a while about education. My daughter teaches low income kids now but at the time was a college student. She was very inspired by the conversation.
I am so tired of this anti-Charter School harping. Public charter schools can be an excellent option for low income families. Some are terrific. Some aren't and those schools should be closed just as the low performing public schools should be. But if the family's neighborhood school is awful and there is an excellent public charter that is educating kids well, what is wrong with giving a child a chance at a good education that opens up doors to a future? Can we put the child first? Isn't that the point of education? We need to improve public education for all kids. That requires making public schools better and including choices like good public charters when the public schools haven't been improved quickly enough to meet the needs of the children now. When a child loses a year or two early on, they lose their future.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)He's a Manchurian candidate.
I know I will quit the Democratic Party if that slimeball is allowed to be the party's presidential nominee.
BTW, there is NO such thing as a "public" charter school. They are private schools designed to steal money from public schools.
You hate public education, then pay tuition for your beloved private schools, but don't ask me to foot the bill for those scams.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Link to Frank Pallone, Booker's primary rival. I don't have work this summer and am short on funds, but I might try to kick down a donation. http://pallone.house.gov/
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)He has a great progressive record in the House.
Rush Holt campaign website
JustAnotherGen
(31,982 posts)And plus one for Rush Holt.
At the end of the day - I think it's good for folks outside of NJ to SEE how varied the New Jersey liberal/progressive is and that we are not ALL for coporate shills.