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eridani

(51,907 posts) Mon May 28, 2012, 04:49 AM May 2012

Article on Cory Booker from 2002

http://www.blackcommentator.com/poisoned_tree.html

The billionaires who fund the American Hard Right are salivating over the prospect of seizing control of City Hall in Newark,New Jersey, May 14. They have found their champion: Cory Booker, Black mayoral candidate from the city's Central Ward, a cynical pretender who attempts to position himself as the common people's defender while locked in the deep embrace of institutes and foundations that bankroll virtually every assault on social and economic justice in America. His benefactors sponsor anti-affirmative action referendums, press for near-total disinvestment in the public sector, savage what's left of the social safety net, and are attempting to turn public education over to private suppliers. Along the way, Booker's soul mates are busy ravaging the environment and trampling civil liberties everywhere they find them.

Booker owes his growing national prominence to this crowd, whose influence has provided the 32 year-old with a campaign war chest rivaling that of four-term incumbent Sharpe James. Never has a Newark election been more closely watched by the super-rich and their political network. Booker is their Black Hope for electoral legitimacy. Although only a first-term councilman from a medium-sized city, the former Rhodes scholar is already at the top of the Right's list of New Black Leaders.

Republicans have a lot riding on Booker, a nominal Democrat. Despite over two decades of financing inept and unattractive Black hired guns, most of them hustlers from academia, ultra-conservatives have failed to place an African American of their own at the controls of a mostly non-white city. The practical and propaganda effects of such a coup would be dramatic - and possibly devastating to the Democratic Party, nationally.

Booker's anointment as a prince in the Hard Right pantheon is based on his support of public vouchers for private schools. This "movement," the creation of right-wing paymasters like the Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, and the Walton Family Foundation, Bentonville, Arkansas, hopes to drive a wedge between urban Blacks and the teachers unions. Without amicable relations between these two Democratic pillars, the Party, as we know it, is finished.

Booker is the Right's eager ally. He is adored in the corridors of the Heritage, Hoover, Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, think tanks that handle publicity and publication for the Bradley and Walton moneybags.

8 replies

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Highlight:

Article on Cory Booker from 2002 (Original Post) eridani May 2012 OP

Wow! Sort of explains Booker's "off-message" Surya Gayatri May 2012 #1

The More Exposure of the likes of Booker and his ilk the better dinopipie May 2012 #2

Ford has a lot about booker's connection to the bradley foundation. as i recall the story, HiPointDem May 2012 #3

Booker's 'true colors' chervilant May 2012 #4

Booker wants to take Harold Ford's place as the BlueDog "D" on MTP 66 dmhlt May 2012 #5

Wow. That article is chock full of good information. A real eye-opener. Demit May 2012 #6

Very interesting and informative. UnrepentantLiberal May 2012 #7

K&R Great find! bupkus May 2012 #8

Surya Gayatri

(15,445 posts)

1. Wow! Sort of explains Booker's "off-message"

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 06:01 AM

May 2012

rant on Press the Meat last week.

There's something too slick by half in this guy's manner and demeanor. Engratiating snake in the tall grass?

Doesn't sound like the Dem's next best black hope to me!

dinopipie

(84 posts)

2. The More Exposure of the likes of Booker and his ilk the better

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 06:30 AM

May 2012

People like Booker need to be exposed as what they really are and who they really represent.

This is why the Democratic Party needs to have standards for being a member.

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)

3. Ford has a lot about booker's connection to the bradley foundation. as i recall the story,

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 07:12 AM

May 2012

that's how he came to the attention of the big money.

chervilant

(8,267 posts)

4. Booker's 'true colors'

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 07:21 AM

May 2012

are apparent to anyone who's been following the corporate decimation of public education. He is right in the thick of that initiative.

66 dmhlt

(1,941 posts)

5. Booker wants to take Harold Ford's place as the BlueDog "D" on MTP

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 07:32 AM

May 2012

And David "Raps-with-Rove" Gregory will be glad to have him, so he can shill Repubican talking points even more.

Demit

(11,238 posts)

6. Wow. That article is chock full of good information. A real eye-opener.

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 08:03 AM

May 2012

And to think it was written10 years ago.

I just have to quote more of this great article:

"...There are many more examples of the slavish and mercenary nature of Cory Booker's school voucher associations. Much of the rest of the BAEO board is in the business of education, eager to expand the private school market in hope of selling more of their products. All are hopelessly entangled in an interlocking network of Right-funded organizations, with the Bradley and Walton Foundations at the center of the web.

Clearly, Booker is wallowing in the funkiest corner of the political barnyard.

According to People for the American Way, the Bradley Foundation distributed $365 million to various right-wing organizations between 1985 and 1999. In the process, the foundation and its collaborating institutions created the appearance of popular movements where none had previously existed, distorting the American political dialogue beyond measure.

Love-Struck Racists

Ironically, the reflexive racism that inhibited The Right from cultivating Black proxies in the past, has been replaced by a kind of born-again enthusiasm to recruit non-whites. Ultra-conservatives have discovered that the depth of African American need, when combined with opportunism in Black political ranks, can bear strange fruit. Cory Booker's candidacy for mayor of Newark is just such fruit of a poisoned tree. ..."

It's sad to think Cory Booker is another trojan horse black politician, but if that's what he is, I'd rather know the full story of who his masters are. Thanks for posting this, eridani.

UnrepentantLiberal

(11,700 posts)

7. Very interesting and informative.

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 08:12 AM

May 2012

Since he lives right across the river from me, I'll be able to help campaign against him in the primary election should he run for higher office.

bupkus

(1,981 posts)

8. K&R Great find!

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Mon May 28, 2012, 08:31 AM

May 2012

Thanks for posting this. I haven't read the Black Commentator in years and after reading this I don't know why I ever stopped. This is the type of journalism we need from our mainstream news media.

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