By miller727@icloud.com January 21, 2017 Uncategorized 8 Comments
“I would not be so complacent in your position, growled the wolf, the gentle, velvety quality of his voice now gone. Your house may be strong, but wolfish cunning will be your undoing.”~ Glasgow Fairytale by Alastair D. McIver
A few years ago, I published a post entitled, “The Voucher Wolves are at the Door,” detailing at length the duplicitous efforts of out-of-state puppet masters in trying to implement school vouchers in Oklahoma.
While our state has been largely successful keeping the voucher wolves out to this point, we also recognize that they’re ALWAYS out there, lurking.
They’ve been waiting patiently in the shadows – ravenous and calculating – only occasionally showing themselves, yet always circling and probing in search of political sheep to open the gate and welcome them in.
For a while, we felt safe in our brick buildings.
The wolves came knocking in 2014, claiming to be our old friends and pleading, “Won’t you let me in little pigs?” We responded in unison, “Go away. We don’t want you here”
When they threatened to huff and puff and blow our house down, we largely ignored them, believing with hope that our walls would be too strong for their persistent winds.
We heard them huff. We heard them puff. We heard their breath hit the side of our brick house. And then … nothing!
We laughed, yelling out – “Hey Wolfie, my grandma can blow harder than that! Give up smoking and come back!!”
They came again in 2015. Again the wolves huffed. Again the wolves puffed. And, again, our brick house stood its ground.
In 2016, the wolves came a third time. More huffing, more puffing, yet once again the wolves failed.
Regrettably, things are about to change. I fear in a bigly way. In an ominous and potentially permanent way.
Because the wolves are back and they no longer have to huff and puff to blow our house down.
They have been given the key to the door.
The alpha male of school privatization has been inaugurated.
We must all understand President Trump’s vision of public education begins and ends with bad. As he howled to his followers on Friday: “America has an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”
“ALL knowledge?” Really?
At least Trump tells it like it is – “I’m a big, bad wolf and I’m here to eat sheep.”
In a matter of days, Trump’s hand-picked alpha She-wolf, Betsy DeVos, will likely follow him into the front door of the mansion.
She, too, snarls at the failure of public education and the need to empower parents with the ability to siphon off public dollars for private school tuition.
This new wolf wraps herself in a cloak of fine clothes, sparkling with apparent sweetness and charity. Yet, behind her perpetual smile, she hides a shrewd and menacing intent.
It’s difficult for most to see the snarl behind the smile, the venom in her teeth, and the cunning behind the well-rehearsed rhetoric. She’s been comfortable in the shadows and knows her way.
DeVos knows well how to wield power to subjugate the will and diminish the voice of others not blessed with billion dollar fortunes.
Betsy “DeWolf” and her husband have created a fertile territory for school choice by generously dispersing scat to hundreds of pro-voucher candidates across the nation. They have purchased their loyalty and subservience.
As a result, she will likely not take kindly to defiance. It would be unwise to bear one’s teeth to the alpha.
As she famously said, she fully expects her “subordinate wolves” to cower to her demands: “I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return.”
Now that she is at the threshold, she will waste no time marking her new territory, carrying her tail high and standing tall. Other in the wolf pack will soon be courting favors, rolling over, submissively pawing at her feet, licking her muzzle, and acquiescing. It would be naive of us to believe otherwise.
More and more voucher wolves will enter the open door created by this election, grinning nastily with the delicious sensation of impending victory. They will emerge from the shadows to join the pack – to circle around the prey of public education – seeking their piece of the carcass while it’s still warm.
The wolves will become bolder.
They’ve convinced many that their efforts have been misinterpreted, their intentions maligned. They perpetrate a false narrative that they are the ones who truly care about the plight of disadvantaged children trapped in failing schools, not the incompetent, uncaring educators and union slugs.
They are sly and cunning and persistent. And they lie, because they’re wolves.
The question is how much more the walls of public education will be able to sustain now that the wolves have infiltrated the system from the top.
In the Oklahoma pack, Senator Kyle Loveless seems ready to assume the alpha voucher wolf position from previous pack leaders Jason Nelson and Clark Jolley. He will undoubtedly be seeking to capitalize on the voucher wolf pack’s accent to power in Washington D.C.
Despite his lack of education experience, Senator Loveless will seek authority by claiming the high ground. He will avoid discussions of how to adequately fund public education in our state and will instead focus his huffing and puffing on the interests of affluent Oklahomans seeking a new entitlement.
He will say to Oklahomans: “It is me – your old friend. Won’t you let me in, little pigs? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
We cannot believe him. Of course, we should and must be afraid of his intentions. He’s a wolf.
You can’t trust a wolf once they’re in the house and we certainly don’t snuggle with wolves. Wise people also recognize it’s a short distance from having your face licked and having your face eaten.
The wolves are unquestionably back. They are back stronger, angrier, and armed with wolfish cunning. It would be prudent for us to reinforce our walls of our public schools by building on our positive relationships with our communities and fellow citizens.
Let’s hope they are strong enough.