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influence of right wing Hate Radio which more Americans need to recognize.
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Most people don't realize the extent that ultraconservative forces like the KOCH Brothers, their affiliates and other corporations are also influencing UNIVERSITIES, major centers of learning and academia for decades, in the 'Corporatization of Education' process.
In the last 15 years, the Charles Koch Foundation provided around $70 Million to 400 universities and colleges across the US, specifically the economics, business, science, law and other programs and departments of higher education.
Koch funds determine schools' curriculum and staff as well in order to guarantee dissemination of their libertarian, pro corporate ideology. New efforts that call for better transparency and information about major corporate funders of universities exist however, such as "UnKoch My School" included in this Bill Moyers article.
~ "KOCH FUNDING OF UNIVERSITIES SHROUDED IN SECRECY", Bill Moyers, April 24, 2015.
http://billmoyers.com/2015/04/24/koch-funding-universities-shrouded-secrecy/
..Between 2001 and 2013, the Charles Koch Foundation has provided nearly $70 million to almost 400 campuses across the country. This money goes to researchers like Soon or think-tanks like the Beacon Hill Institute housed at Suffolk University in Boston that produce content designed to further climate denial and attack policies they oppose, like the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon rule or state renewable portfolio standards.
But that’s not all the money buys. As students at Florida State University and Clemson University discovered in 2011, grant agreements (Memorandums of Understanding, or “MOUs”) between universities and the Charles Koch Foundation often give the Kochs influence over the hiring of professors and development of course curriculum.
In other words, on top of reshaping scientific studies to further their bottom line, the Kochs are also trying to reshape public education to match their libertarian ideology.
~ This strategy has been in effect for decades and was even referenced outright by Charles Koch during a 1974 speech he delivered to a room of businessmen at a seminar on “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality”:
“We should cease financing our own destruction…by supporting only those programs, departments or schools that contribute in some way to our individual companies or to the general welfare of our free enterprise system.”
Bringing to light the MOUs between the Charles Koch Foundation and universities exposed the Kochs’ dark money campaign on college campuses around the country and rightfully caused an uproar, which explains why Koch Industries is so vehemently opposed to further efforts by students involved in the UnKoch My Campus campaign to increase transparency.
Case in point: Koch Industries is currently paying legal fees for University of Kansas professor Art Hall who sued the university following a Kansas Open Records Act request submitted by a student who sought to gain more information into his hiring. It sure looks shady: From 1997 to 2004, Hall was chief economist of Koch Industries’ lobbying subsidiary, Koch Companies Public Sector and currently serves as the director of KU’s conservative Center for Applied Economics, which receives funding from the Kochs.
But perhaps no other university in the country serves as a better example of the corporatization of education than George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. GMU has received more than $34 million from the Charl Koch Foundation since 2011. But the real impact of the Kochs’ funding on campus remains a mystery. Despite repeated attempts by students to obtain information about the grants and MOU with the Foundation, the school refuses to comply because it has housed the grants under the private George Mason University Foundation instead of the university itself in an attempt to prevent any potentially damning information about their source from being subject to the rules governing public universities like GMU.
Read more, http://billmoyers.com/2015/04/24/koch-funding-universities-shrouded-secrecy/
Methow Valley.
Climate Change Impact Area.
Used to live in Wenatchee.....
I guess the whole area doesn't burn to the ground in coal country. That is for our families.
Home sweet h.....
