Damn Editors

I'd taken the time (I gain respect for those limited by space whenever I try the format!) to craft a Letter to the Editor to my hometown paper just recently in a response to a Column from Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute. This was in addition to a previous post on Palmer's Alabama Policy Institute effort to discredit public education.

The Leader chose a title for the LTE, namely "Conservatism seeks to end public education", that I think goes too far. Surely plenty of opportunists do. Profiteers for privatization added to movement conservatives to libertarians working with bible thumpers wanting vouchers who then find like cause with ... makes that at least partially true. however, some conservatives don't want to end public education.

The Leader leave off the following from what I sent them:

Palmer is on “Wingnut Welfare”. API gets ink into papers across Alabama rather often. API is “dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families.” They symbolize the right’s "think tank" or "policy shop" efforts to create seemingly legitimate information and then get the message to the masses. To gather a tax deduction while promoting their glorious cause of movement conservatism is doubly useful for wealthy true believers.

API is funded by some of the usual suspects like Bradley Foundation money. The Jaquelin Hume Foundation also helps pays the bills.. The Humes are so "free" market oriented that their “Foundation for Teaching Economics” will twist the Civil Rights Movement so that “economic incentives” become celebrated. The Hume family took Reagan from a b-list actor and paid GE shill to Sacramento and DC.

I was under five hundred words. Why'd they need to drop these words? I think people reading The Leader ought to know what is being passed off from a partisan outfit as legitimate is actually bought and paid for. That The Leader runs Palmer's words of wisdom as a "Column" is bad enough yet to now silence me on a LTE bothers me greatly. Any suggestions? P/W