July 7, 2007
Lookout!
The Cap Times recently published a suggested list of things to do and eat in Milwaukee. The sentence that caught my eye was this, "Or do you simply want to stop by the Milwaukee Public Museum before it's permanently placed in receivership?"
You may be tired of my complaints about the clumsy and, some would say, disastrous privatization of our wonderful natural history museum, but it is the canary in the mine. (Or in this case, the mind.) Frank Zeidler joined our rallies opposing this theft of a great public asset, but the powers that pushed were too strong and voilĂ ! A great public entity is now on the brink of bankruptcy. At one meeting sponsored by the Unitarian Church a Foley & Lardner lawyer gave a warning to all of us: "We will prove to Mr. Garvey that we can do a better job of running the Museum, the Zoo, Mitchell Field and the highways." Thanks for the warning.
He forgot to mention the great state University of Wisconsin. Now the neo-con Bradley Foundation sponsored-Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) is attempting to pave the way for corporate control of the Madison campus of our university system. I'm not making this up. In their most recent report the WPRI announced that their favorite "spinner of things corporate," Wood Communications, has found, (I'm not making this up either) "Deep ambivalence" toward the UW System. (What in the world "deep ambivalence" means is your guess.)
But make no mistake. The Bradley Foundation "family," including Bradley fellow Charlie Sykes, will flood you with stories of "efficiency" leading to lower tuition, a cure for athlete's foot, and a solution to life's persistent problems if only the Madison campus goes the way of the Milwaukee Public Museum.
We have been warned. Are the UW leaders ready to fight or have they given up?
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