January 20, 2010

News summaries

War and the deadly privatization of public power
[T]he so-called reconstruction and stability operations (or
"counterinsurgency operations" as the new professors of war label these
efforts) that are underway in Afghanistan and winding down somewhat in
Iraq would be impossible without private contractors. And, as Wedel
points out in Shadow Elite, today these private contractors not only carry out
public functions but oversee, supervise, and manage other contractors
who perform such functions. Such privatization of public power has almost
obliterated the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). On any
given day in either Iraq or Afghanistan, it would be impossible for any
government--i.e., public--individual or office to report definitively
on what is happening with development aid in that country. Private
contractors possess that information, not public officials. And since
information is power--and its possession often leads to accountability
as well, something most contractors want nothing to do with--these
contractors guard it zealously, releasing it only to gain new contracts
and increase profits. Such developments can mean only one thing: more
war more incompetently executed and more long, drawn-out, seemingly
never-ending post-conflict operations costing billions and even
trillions of taxpayer dollars, generating high profitability for the
private corporations and individuals who increasingly are responsible
for conducting such operations. Huffington Post

Privatize everything - Ralph Nader
Outsourcing national security activities, right down to interviewing
job applicants for intelligence agencies, is troubling many retired and
active members of the national defense and security agencies. Yet
corporate contracting, launched big time by Ronald Reagan, seems
unstoppable. There are more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than
there are U.S. soldiers. Over two hundred thousand of them and
counting. Counterpunch

Charter schools: Vehicles for privatization
The original intent of charter schools, to increase the professional
autonomy of teachers so they could explore innovative ways to educate
children and youth, has given way to other agendas that have grafted
onto the movement. Increasingly, charter school policies have been influenced
by market ideology that treats the movement as a vehicle for privatizing public
schools. Research reveals that, in practice, charter school “innovations” too
often occur more on the management side than on the educational side of
schooling. And despite anecdotal reports of local successes, overall, charter
school students perform no better than non-charter public school students...
And international research has found that countries such as the United Kingdom,
New Zealand and the United States that have implemented market-based school
reforms, such as school choice and charter schools, have higher levels of educational
inequality in terms of academic achievement of students. Countries such
as Denmark, Sweden and Japan that have strong publicly supported school
systems and few, if any, market-based educational experiments, enjoy
high levels of both access to education and academic achievement.--
William G. Wraga is a professor in the University of Georgia College of
Education’s Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and
Policy. Atlanta Journal Constitution

MN: AFSCME blocks prison privatizing profiteers
In Minnesota, AFSCME and its correction officer members won a major
victory in the fight against privatizing the state’s prisons when the
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) announced it is shutting down
its 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton next month.
Thanks to lobbying and pressure from AFSCME members, the state is
placing more offenders in state-run facilities. The prison population
at Prairie was down to just 250 at the end of 2009. Those inmates are
being transferred to state facilities...Tim Henderson, a corrections
officer and president of AFSCME Local 2728, says the union successfully
mobilized last year to block an attempt to shut down the state’s Moose
Lake prison and transfer its inmates to Appleton. He says the state
should not be “renting out its responsibilities.” We’ve been at war
with the privateers, and we won’t stop until Minnesota places all of
its inmates in state-run corrections facilities. Our efforts are paying
off. A growing number of legislators are now convinced that privateers
shouldn’t profit from prisons. AFL-CIO

CA: Gov wants to privatize state prisons
...The governor also hinted he wouldn't cut any more funding from state
university systems when he releases his official budget proposal
Friday. Lawmakers cut $2 billion from higher education last year,
prompting tuition increases that led to rowdy student protests. Mr.
Schwarzenegger said he would introduce a constitutional amendment to
bar the state from spending more on prisons than it does on higher
education. The governor said California spent 11% of its budget on
corrections versus 7.5% on higher education, and said he would push
lawmakers to consider privatizing the state prison system to save what
he estimated would be billions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal

CA: Editorial: A poor prison plan for California
Gov. Schwarzenegger's latest proposal combines a destructive budgeting
formula with an untested theory about privatization...Moreover, private
prisons come with a host of complications and trade-offs. Perhaps most
serious is a loss of accountability and transparency. It's already hard
for the public to find out what's going on behind the barbed wire, but
abusive behavior by guards, inmate violence, accounting shenanigans and
other common prison woes would be even further shielded under private
control. What's more, the state might only be trading one influential
lobby (the prison guards) for another (private prison operators and the
communities that rely on them for jobs). Creating a prison-industrial
complex with a financial incentive for locking people up could distort
state politics, escalate prison spending and encourage overcrowding at
least as much as the current system does. Los Angeles Times

CA: Private prison must offer medical care for inmates' babies
A private prison housing mothers with infant children is responsible
for providing the babies with necessary medical care, a state appeals
court has ruled. The ruling last week by the 4th District Court of
Appeal also held that California might be liable if on-site state
employees are negligent, as alleged in the case of a 5-week-old girl
who suffered permanent lung damage when jailers refused to take her to
a hospital for more than a week after she developed breathing problems. Los Angeles Times

TX: US food stamp czar critical of Texas privatization
Texas has the worst-performing food-stamp program in the nation, the
Obama administration's top food stamp program official said. The failed
2005 privatization resulted in "a five-year slide" in how quickly and
accurately the state processes food stamp applications, Undersecretary
of Agriculture Kevin Concannon said. The delays in the state's accurate
processing of food stamp applications means the most-punished are
middle-class Texans who recently lost their jobs and are seeking
government help for the first time, Concannon said. ABC News

GA: Milton ends privatization experiment
When Milton became a city three years ago, its founders embraced
privatization, paying a company to collect garbage, draw up zoning maps
and handle the day-to-day duties of a municipal government. But the
relationship soured when the city needed to cut the budget. Last week,
Milton ended its contract with CH2M Hill, a Colorado-based firm, and
went to a mostly traditional form of government. ..[L]ast spring,
Milton had to trim $1.5 million from the budget because of the economic
downturn. With the $7.6 million CH2M Hill contract basically
untouchable, the city could cut only in areas it controlled: public
safety and capital projects, such as road paving, Lagerbloom said. “The
economy forced us to look deep into the budget at every option we had,”
Mayor Joe Lockwood said.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

MI: Privatization backlash
Crowd takes exception to plans for services at Gladstone schools.
Although the Gladstone School Board has made no decisions regarding the
privatization of janitorial services within the district, concern
continues to grow. A Teamsters steward came to Monday's meeting armed
with letters that included the signatures of over 1,000 community
members, petitioning against privatization...The petition, which
included 1,150 signatures from union employees and community members,
was presented by Dan Bjorkquist, steward for transportation. "I was
told by two board members that they wanted to know what the public
thought of this and we spent a month working hard to solicit those.
They can all be read. It states that the public supports existing staff
we have in place," said Bjorkquist... "My son has been in district
since he was a small child, and I see a lot of the bus drivers here,
and they've done a fantastic job and I hate to lose them as a parent,"
said one parent. "They've always been there for our kids. I would drive
my son to school before I'd let somebody else I don't know drive them."
Daily Press (Escanaba)

GA: County moves forward with airport privatization
Briscoe Field, Georgia's fifth-busiest airport, may be moving up a few
notches. A measure to privatize the airport, passed unanimously by the
Gwinnett County Commission Tuesday, could set the stage for commercial
airline service at the airport. But before privatization occurs, the
county plans to study financial and environmental impacts and gather as
much public sentiment as possible, said Commission Chairman Charles
Bannister....[T]he process could take several years...Early sentiment
from citizens' groups showed strong support of the proposal. However,
several representatives of a private pilots' organization turned out
Tuesday to oppose the move....Established in 1997, the federal Airport
Privatization Pilot Program allows local governments to sell or lease
their airports to private firms without incurring certain penalties. It
provides that federal grants used to construct and upgrade the airport
would not have to be repaid. Briscoe has taken in $34.3 million in such
grants since 1973. The FAA will allow up to seven public airports into
the program. In the 13 years the program has existed, eight airports
have made application. Five have dropped out. Atlanta Journal Constitution