Erik Prince
Our own, Michigan grown, Eric Prince is off to bigger and better things in Dubai. It seems that business is good since September 11, 2001 for mercenary soldiers. His business was Blackwater. Now that Blackwater has its problems, he has changed the name. It seems he didn’t like that word, mercenary, back in the day. I grabbed this from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
When the term “mercenaries” was used to describe Blackwater employees, Prince objected, characterizing them instead as “loyal Americans”. (According to Pelton, who interviewed Prince on his military vision, Prince sees Blackwater’s role in American affairs as similar “to that of Baron von Steuben, Kościuszko, Rochambeau, and LaFayette” — soldiers of fortune who helped fight in American War of Independence. He also compares them to the Flying Tigers, World War II-era fighter pilots who fought for pay in the Pacific theater.[64])
Of course now, that’s exactly what his team of soldiers is currently in Dubai. This article in the New York Times is quite interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp
You have to wonder about everything from the technology he is using to the knowledge that he knows about American affairs and think about how he is applying all of this in Dubai. Of course Wikipedia has all of these silly ideas about what he may be up to. One of them is to be a high school teacher. That is laughable except for the fact that he is a major contributor to the Mackinac Center by way of the back door version of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. Teachers in Michigan should be well aware of the Mackinac Center as that organization has been breeding contempt for public education and teacher labor unions for years. I remember getting pamphlets in my school mailbox that were not exactly public school teacher friendly. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/mackinac-maddow-conservative-koch-prince
You may recall this segment of the Rachel Maddow show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eAJzTXyczM
From the New York Times article I found this:
The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.
What I really want to know is what does that mean? Is this just one more way that we are funneling more money to military exploits and war profiteering businesses? I am left wondering about these things. I found this article during my search today. If you read nothing else from the links that I have given you today, read this article.
http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/7358/2011-05-14.html
We are in a cycle of never ending war created by the war profiteers who are continually fed by our government. Life as we know it is over unless we stand up and demand changes in Washington D.C. We cannot sit silently and watch our public schools system continually chastised as “broken”. Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid also considered “broken”. Our government, through the use of a media with a penchant for just making money and politicians who also like that good old lobbyist money, keeps telling us that government can’t do anything right. Everything must be privatized because private companies are better than government. Erik Prince is a part of all of that private company meme. We have given the war profiteers the keys to the kingdom and now they rule everything. They will even decide what your kids are going to learn in school. I love this video because this guy, Will Richardson, says it like it is. He says, “Life prep is not test prep.” In the video he is appalled at the constant use of testing our students are faced with. At one point he has a Tweet from a parent that bemoans the fact that her Kindergarten child is looking for ways to get out of school. Richardson goes on to say, “This system is killing our kids. It is taking all of the imagination, all of the creativity, all of the initiatives, all of the engagement right out of it.”
If we want to suck the life out of our children, let’s keep teaching for a test and test till the cows come home. It seems to be what the war profiteers want this because it keeps everyone under control. However, if we want an engaged society that knows how to problem solve and students that can think for themselves, let’s try a different approach. You may think it is funny that I put this in here. What, you are thinking, does all of this Eric Prince business, have to do with education. Well, if he’s connected to the Mackinac Center, it speaks volume and you and I should all be alarmed! It’s all about making money folks. Everything is for profit, even your child’s education.