The Fetishes of Fox News
Privatizing Education, the Construction of False Dichotomies, and the End Game of the Public/Private Divide
We all knew it was coming, and the good folks at Fox News just couldn’t help themselves. The pundits on America’s favorite (for one reason or another) “news” channel have responded seemingly instinctively to the recent uproar in Wisconsin. That’s right: governor Scott Walker’s attempt to end collective bargaining rights for public sector unions, thus effectively crushing them, and the resistance among citizens across the state can mean only one thing: unionized public school teachers at all levels, from kindergarten to university, are in it only for the money, so the rational capitalist answer must be to privatize education!
The treatment of public educators as lazy fat cats who seek only to get rich and also do not care about educating children is just one of many false dichotomies Fox News and the Right use to push this country’s concept of the public good into a tiny closet that only gets opened when militaristic goals
