The big chill

I’m sorry Bill. Can’t we all just get along?

I’m a living example of what can happen to those who’ve been openly critical of the Gates Foundation. A decade ago, the Small Schools Workshop was on the foundation’s good-guy list. But since I first began making critical comments about the role Gates and other top-down “muscle foundations” are playing in the world of school reform, I’ve become persona non grata.

This story in the Seattle Times talks about the “chilling effect” all this has had on the world’s biggest foundation and confirms that it’s not just me:

"It would be suicidal for someone who wants a grant to come out and publicly criticize the foundation," said Mark Kane, former leader of a Gates-funded program to expand childhood immunizations in the developing world. "The Gates Foundation is very sensitive to PR."

Now they tell me.

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But Bill, I’ve been rehabbed

Ace Chicago Sun-Times journalist Laura Washington interviews ‘60s movement vets Marilyn Katz and Don Rose at In These Times web edition (“The Whole World Was Watching”). It’s all about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and the “revolutionary” decade in which it took place.

Don points to Chicago as “the crucible of everything that was happening in America” in ’68 but thinks times have really changed. A look at the Denver convention makes that clear.

Looking back on '68, Chicago was the crucible of everything that was happening in America. It was a crucible of the student movement. We had the SDS headquartered here. We had the SDS meeting here. It was a crucible of the civil rights movement, beginning with the formation of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). It was the crucible of the anti-war movement. Everything that epitomized the '60s was occurring here, and it looks as if it is beginning again. The movement is not revolutionary, at this point, but evolutionary.

Marilyn then gives me and other ‘60s rads a clean bill of health.

What is really interesting to me is that (’60s radicals) like Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Mike Klonsky have managed to live evolved lives in tune to fundamental social ideals, while figuring out a way to not only join the system but make changes. Small schools movement, juvenile justice, a whole series of things.

Thanks Marilyn (I think). And thank god for evolution.

Spirit of '68

Mixing me up with Henry?

Another thanks (I think) goes out to Time Out Chicago’s Martina Sheehan (“Spirit of ‘68”) who writes about me and other ’68 Chicago activists, like Congressman and former Black Panther leader Bobby Rush, the late, great Fred Hampton, and of course the omipresent Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, in this week’s Museum & Culture section (?????). I’ve got news for you Martina. I ain’t ready for the museum quite yet.

Here's Martina's take on me (90% accurate):

Mike Klonsky
Then National secretary for Students for a Democratic Society, the era’s largest and most radical student-activist group that organized for peace and participatory democracy

Now Author, and cofounder and director of the Small Schools Workshop at University of Illinois at Chicago

Activist legacy Neo-con bloggers still seethe at the mention of the “Maoist hardliner” whom they allege enjoyed more than one state dinner in Beijing. Lately, though, Klonsky’s been busy trying to improve schools and education: His Small Schools Workshop helps educators create new charter schools or restructure large schools into smaller learning communities. He also recently coauthored Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society and writes a blog on education and politics.

All kidding aside, Martina, thanks for the book and blog plugs. And BTW, I don't mind keeping those neo-con bloggers seething. But this I know--I never enjoyed a state dinner (maybe they mean steak dinner) in Beijing or anywhere else. State dinners are usually reserved for other state dignitaries. They must be mixing me up with Henry Kissinger.