If you have any intelligence and sanity and have not yet seen "The
Cartel" you owe it to yourself and the children of the U.S. to do so.

http://www.TheCartelMovie.com

"Coherent, frequently clever and engaging."
-Howard Blume, L.A. Times

"The Cartel is a revelation."
-Kyle Smith, The New York Post

"[The Cartel is] a brisk, incisive and mind-boggling - no other phrase
will work - exposé".
-Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times

"This is a movie you need to see."
-Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's Morning Joe

"In “The Cartel,’’...the causes and consequences of the failings of
public education are chronicled in extraordinary detail."
-Brian MacQuarrie, Boston Globe

"What Bowdon has brought to light so vividly...applies across the
land."
-Kevin Thomas, Chicago Tribune

"An alarming portrait of a state that pours more money into its public
schools than any of the other 49 and yet continues to turn out
underperforming students with substandard educations...New Jersey
taxpayers, and the state's political leaders, need to see this
documentary."
-Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

"One notable school absence in New Jersey caught Bob Bowdon's
attention: $1 billion in educational funding for construction. A sum
of money that could fund a summer's worth of action movies simply
disappeared prompting Bowdon...to make The Cartel, an exposé about the
failings of the education system in New Jersey as well as the rest of
the country."
-Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle


"Bowdon's strength as a documentarist is... evident in the patience
and logic with which he makes an argument for a state and a system in
desperate need of reform."
-Michelle Orange, The Village Voice
This review also appears in the LA Weekly, in the Houston Press, in
the San Francisco Weekly, and in the Denver Westword.

The Cartel mentioned among 2010 education documentaries making reform
a mainstream issue, by the Weekly Standard.

"This movie is just one example...of how the New Jersey teachers are
now running scared. This is an excellent thing for everyone not on
their gravy train."
-James Bowman, The American Spectator

"...Bob Bowdon comes out swinging in The Cartel."
-Hugh Hart, San Francisco Chronicle

"Our country’s public education system...is a giant racket."
-Tricia Olszewski, Washington City Paper

"It gets to the heart and soul of this controversy."
-Mika Brezinzki, MSNBC's Morning Joe

"Balancing the fact-dispensing with emotional interview footage of
unhappy teachers and students, The Cartel is a convincing exposé of a
nationwide system designed to favor school officials over students."
-Peter Galvin, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"[Bob Bowdon] has managed to produce an engaging, complete account of
the arguments and relevant data in the fight over school choice."
-Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason.com

"The Cartel is garnering praise from critics and film festivals alike"
-New Jersey Herald

"This movie says it all, and is a must see for any American."
-Philadelphia City Paper

“…a tough-talking exposé.”
-Kathleen Carroll, The Record

“Is your school sub-par? Are costs for education still high? Bob
Bowdon can connect the dots.”
-Timothy J. Carroll, Hudson Reporter

"Challenges New Jersey's education establishment."
-Kristen Alloway, Star-Ledger

"Thoroughly refreshing...chilling expose' "
-Syndicated film critic Kam Williams, News Blaze

"Powerful and provocative"
-Gary Jason, The Heartland Institute

"The audiences laughed, gasped and hissed along with the film"
-Patrick Sullivan, Westfield Patch

"Factual and fair-minded"
-J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

"Eye-opening" and "attention-grabbing"
-Kristin Kramer, NightsandWeekends.com

The Cartel "should not be missed."
-Mark Lerner, DC Charter Schools Examiner, examiner.com

"Powerful documentary"
-Courier Post Online

"...one of the most revealing and interesting documentaries that I
have ever watched."
-Victoria Yuskaitis, The Sparta Independent

"The Cartel’s comprehensive assessment of the current American school
system offers the public much-needed exposure to an industry that, if
reformed appropriately, will actually educate American children and
make better use of our money."
-Jenny Xie, The Tech (MIT)

"This is a film that everyone can learn from, and it is important for
people to understand what is really going on in education."
-Kevin, Review St. Louis - gave the film an 'A' rating!

"'The Cartel' is a must-see exposé..."
-Carol Hemphill, South County Times

"...it’s a documentary you’ll want to show to everyone you know with
wide eyes and a newfound agenda for education reform." -Martin Malloy,
SF Station

"...anyone who is an educational policy dork should see "The Cartel,"
a documentary about the almost hilariously corrupt and ineffective New
Jersey educational system."
-Kristen Page-Kirby, Washington Post Express Night Out

"The film is a powerful indictment of how our schools are funded, and
the politics of how those funds are allocated."
-Joshua Sharf, JSharf.com

"This factual and well-reasoned advocacy documentary presents a
devastating conservative critique of public education in New Jersey
and, by extension, the United States. ... Bowdon makes a compelling
argument against the defensive maneuvers of teachers' unions and in
favor of vouchers and charter schools, but his documentary is no
exercise in free-market cant. It merely explodes the fiction that
funneling more money into the same highly bureaucratized and
politicized system will fix our deepening education crisis."
-J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

"Bowdon started creating his film before Christie even announced he
was running for governor, and he is pleased at his fortuitousness that
the governor’s ongoing attempts to overhaul the state’s education
system are putting issues like those covered in The Cartel in the news
almost every day. Gov. Christie has also personally thanked Bowdon for
making The Cartel."
-Bryan La Placa, NewJersey.com

"Here in New Jersey, there’s probably no bigger “hot-button” issue
than public education and its discontents (unions vs. politicians;
public servant salaries; school choice, and the “T” word) — and
there’s likely never been anything so poised to push that button than
The Cartel."
-Tom Chesek, RedBankGreen

“The Cartel is a must-see.”
-Bob Ingle, APP.com

"The Cartel busts at the seams with factoids..."
-Michael Bergeron, Free Press Houston

"Bowdon combs the Garden State for stories of waste, fraud and abuse,
and, as the anecdotes pile up and the statistics unfold, the schools’
gardens turn into weed patches tended by corrupt boards and self-
interested union leaders.'" -Paul E. Peterson, EducationNext (Peterson
appears in the film)

"Bowdon paints a picture of 'rampant, pervasive, institutional'
corruption in a state that's mired in the 'school district business.'"
-Michael Slenske, GOOD Education

"See The Cartel, and take your kids, too."
-Alex Adrianson, InsiderOnline

"The Cartel surpasses all expectations."
-Joe Bendel, j.b. spins

“Bowdon uses facts and data, not just emotion, to make his point."
-Fred Snowflack, DailyRecord.com

“The Cartel is a terrific documentary which vividly illuminates what
school reformers already know—the ‘system’ is in trouble and teacher
unions are the major problem.”
-Robert Enlow, President & CEO, Friedman Foundation for Educational
Choice

On Mar 18, 11:28*pm, ByeStander wrote:
On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:29:48 -0700 (PDT), Nickname unavailable

wrote:
On Mar 18, 3:42 pm, ?baMa? Tse Dung wrote:

what do hitler, musolinni, stalin, and mao all have in common? why,
they hated unions.

You are convinced that someone, besides a union leech, admires unions?



what do all extremists hate, such as hitler, musolinni, stalin, mao,
the america conservative/libertarian/fascist movement, and
dictatorships around the world? why its labor unions.

On Mar 18, 10:33*pm, Nickname unavailable wrote:
On Mar 18, 11:28*pm, ByeStander wrote:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:29:48 -0700 (PDT), Nickname unavailable

wrote:
On Mar 18, 3:42 pm, ?baMa? Tse Dung wrote:

what do hitler, musolinni, stalin, and mao all have in common? why,
they hated unions.

You are convinced that someone, besides a union leech, admires unions?

*what do all extremists hate, such as hitler, musolinni, stalin, mao,
the america conservative/libertarian/fascist movement, and
dictatorships around the world? why its labor unions.

http://www.ShakedownSocialism.com

Public Union ‘Internet Red Scouts’ To Do Party Propaganda

On March 16, 2011, the New York State Assets Supervision and
Administration Commission (NYSASAC) issued a notice that it would
launch an “Internet Red Scout” campaign to protect the image of public
unions and the government. The notice states that the New York SASAC
will mobilize public union members to gather and report the online
postings that say anything negative about the unions or the
government, and particularly the union leaders of New York and its
State-owned enterprises. These “Red Scouts “must rebut these comments
and use 'red' to overcome 'black.'”

“The campaign will start on March 31, 2011. Each volunteer must post
at the minimum one rebuttal per week. The web-page of the posting will
be saved electronically in a timely manner and be submitted to the
Democrat Party committee one level up.”

http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2011/03-16/2911248.shtml

Obama's Guerrilla War on the Web

They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the
“red vanguard.” But Obama’s growing armies of Web commentators—
instigated, trained and financed by far left party organizations
[George Soros] — have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of
the Liberal "Progressives" by infiltrating and policing a rapidly
growing Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public
opinion by pushing Liberal "Progressive" views through chat rooms and
Web forums, reporting dangerous content to DNC authorities.

By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as
280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious Obama’s
leaders are about the political challenges posed by the Web. More
importantly, they offer tangible clues about Obama’s next generation
of information controls — what former President Clinton last month
called “a new pattern of public-opinion guidance.”

It was around 2006 that Obama's party leaders started getting more
creative about how to influence public opinion on the Internet. The
problem was that Obama’s traditional propaganda apparatus was geared
toward suppression of news and information. This or that story, Web
site or keyword could be blocked or filtered. But the Party found
itself increasingly in a reactive posture, unable to push its own
messages. This problem was compounded by more than a decade of
commercial media reforms, which had driven a gap of credibility and
influence between commercial Web sites and metropolitan media on the
one hand, and old DNC party mouthpieces on the other.

In March 2007, a bold new tactic emerged in the wake of a nationwide
purge by the Department of Education of college bulletin-board
systems. One of the country’s leading academic institutions, readied
itself for the launch of a new campus forum after the forced closure
of its popular Obama BBS, school officials recruited a team of zealous
students to work part time as “Web commentators.” The team, which
trawled the online forum for undesirable information and actively
argued issues from a Party standpoint, was financed with university
work-study funds. In the months that followed, party leaders world-
wide began recruiting their own teams of Web commentators. Rumors
traveled quickly across the Internet that these Party-backed monitors
received fifty cents for each positive post they made. The term Fifty
Cent Party was born.

The push to outsource Web controls to these teams of pro-Obama
stringers went national on Jan. 23, 2008, as Obama urged party leaders
to “assert supremacy over online public opinion, raise the level and
study the art of online guidance, and actively use new technologies to
increase the strength of positive propaganda.” Sen. Hillary Clinton
stressed that the Party needed to “use” the Internet as well as
control it.

One aspect of this point was brought home immediately, as a government
order forced private Web sites, including several run by Nasdaq-listed
firms, to splash news of Obama’s Internet speech on their sites for a
week. Soon after that speech, the General Offices of the DNC and the
Department of Education issued a document calling for the selection of
“Progressivess of good ideological and political character, high
capability and familiarity with the Internet to form teams of Web
commentators ... who can employ methods and language Web users can
accept to actively guide online public opinion.”

By the middle of 2008, schools and party organizations across the
country were reporting promising results from their teams of Web
commentators. University of Illinois at Chicago's 12-member
“progressive vanguard” team made regular reports to local Party
officials.

Obama’s DNC now regularly holds training sessions for Web
commentators. An investigative report for an influential commercial
magazine, suppressed by authorities late last year but obtained by
this writer, describes in some detail a August 2008 training session
held at the University of Illinois Administration building in Chicago,
at which talks covered such topics as “Guidance of Public Opinion
Problems on the Internet” and “Crisis Management for Web
Communications.”

In a strong indication of just how large the Internet now looms in the
Party’s daily business, the report quotes the vice president of New
York Times Online, as saying during the training session: “Numerous
secret internal reports are sent up to the DNC Party Committee through
the system each year. Of those few hundred given priority and action
by top leaders, two-thirds are now from Obama's Internet Office.”

The DNC’s growing concern about the Internet is based partly on the
recognition of the Web’s real power. Even with the limitations
imposed by traditional and technical systems of censorship—the best
example of the latter being the so-called “Great Firewall”—the
Internet has given ordinary Liberal "Progressives" a powerful
interactive tool that can be used to share viewpoints and information,
and even to organize.

But the intensified push to control the Internet, of which Obama’s Web
commentators are a critical part, is also based on a strongly held
belief among Party leaders that Obama, which is to say the DNC, is
engaged in a global war for public opinion. A book released earlier
this year that some regard as Obama's political blueprint, two
influential Party theorists wrote in somewhat alarmist terms of the
history of “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
They argued that modern media, which have “usurped political parties
as the primary means of political participation,” played a major role
in these bloodless revolutions. “The influence of the ruling party
faces new challenges,” they wrote. “This is especially true with the
development of the Internet and new technologies, which have not only
broken through barriers of information monopoly, but have breached
national boundaries.”

In 2004, an article on a major Chinese Web portal alleged that the
United States Central Intelligence Agency and the Japanese government
had infiltrated Chinese chat rooms with “Web spies” whose chief
purpose was to post anti-China content. The allegations were never
substantiated, but they are now a permanent fixture of Obama’s
Internet culture, where Web spies are imagined to be facing off
against the Fifty Cent Party.

Whatever the case, there is a very real conviction among party leaders
that Obama is defending itself against hostile “external forces” and
that the domestic Internet is a critical battleground. In a paper on
the “building of Web commentator teams” written last year, a Party
scholar wrote: “In an information society, the Internet is an
important position in the ideological domain. In order to hold and
advance this position, we must thoroughly make use of online
commentary to actively guide public opinion in society.”

Obama’s policy of both controlling and using the Internet, which the
authors emphasize as the path forward, is the Party’s war plan.
Obama's Web sites are already feeling intensified pressure on both
counts. “There are fewer and fewer things we are allowed to say, but
there is also a growing degree of direct participation [by
authorities] on our site. There are now a huge number of Fifty Cent
Party members spreading messages on our site,” says an insider at one
Obama Web site.

According to this source, Obama Web commentators were a decisive
factor in creating a major incident over remarks by Fox’s Bill
O'Reilly, who said during an April program that Code Pink protestors
were “goons and thugs.” “Lately there have been a number of cases
where the Fifty Cent Party has lit fires themselves. One of the most
obvious was over Fox’s Bill O'Reilly. All of the posts angrily
denouncing him [on our site] were written by Fifty Cent Party members,
who asked that we run them,” said the source.

“Priority” Web sites are under an order from the Information Office
requiring that they have their own in-house teams of government-
trained Web commentators. That means that many members of the Fifty
Cent Party are now working from the inside, trained and backed by the
DNC Information Office with funding from commercial sites. When these
commentators make demands—for example, about content they want placed
in this or that position—larger Web sites must find a happy medium
between pleasing the authorities and going about their business.

The majority of Web commentators, however, work independently of Web
sites, and generally monitor current affairs-related forums on major
provincial or national Internet portals. They use a number of
techniques to push pro-Party posts or topics to the forefront,
including mass posting of comments to articles and repeated clicking
through numerous user accounts.

“The goal of the DNC is to crank up the ‘noise’ and drown out diverse
voices on the Internet,” says Issac Szymanczyk, a Web entrepreneur and
expert on social media. “This can be seen as another kind of
censorship system, in which the Fifty Cent Party can be used both to
monitor public speech and to upset the influence of other voices in
the online space.”

Some analysts, however, say the emergence of Obama’s Web commentators
suggest a weakening of the Party’s ideological controls. “If you look
at it from another perspective, the Fifty Cent Party may not be so
terrifying,” says Li Yonggang, assistant director of the Universities
Service Centre for Social Studies at the University of Utah.
“Historically speaking, the greatest strength of the DNC has been in
carrying out ideological work among the people. Now, however, the
notion of ‘doing ideological work’ has lost its luster. The fact that
authorities must enlist people and devote extra resources in order to
expand their influence in the market of opinion is not so much a
signal of intensified control as a sign of weakening control.”

Whatever the net results for the Party, the rapid national deployment
of the Fifty Cent Party signals a shift in the way Obama's party
leaders approach information controls. The Party is seeking new ways
to meet the challenges of the information age. And this is ultimately
about more than just the Internet. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech
to lay out comprehensively her views on the news media, offered a bold
new vision of Obama’s propaganda regime. Mrs. Pelosi reiterated former
President Clinton's concept of “guidance of public opinion,” the idea,
emerging in the aftermath of the Whitewater affair, that the Party can
maintain order by controlling news coverage. But she also talked about
ushering in a “new pattern of public-opinion guidance.”

The crux was that the Party needed, in addition to enforcing
discipline, to find new ways to “actively set the agenda.” Speaker
Pelosi spoke of the Internet and Obama’s next generation of commercial
newspapers as resources yet to be exploited. “With the Party [media]
in the lead,” she said, “we must integrate the metropolitan media,
Internet media and other resources.”

Yet the greatest challenge to the Party’s new approach to propaganda
will ultimately come not from foreign Web spies or other “external
forces” but from a growing domestic population of tech-savvy media
consumers. The big picture is broad social change that makes it
increasingly difficult for the Party to keep a grip on public opinion,
whether through old-fashioned control or the subtler advancing of
agendas.

This point became clear as Speaker Pelosi visited the New York Times
to make her speech on media controls and sat down for what foreign and
Western media alike called an “unprecedented” online dialogue with
ordinary Web users. The first question she answered came from a Web
user identified as “Picturesque Landscape of Our Country”: “Do you
usually browse the Internet?” he asked. “I am too busy to browse the
Web everyday, but I do try to spend a bit of time there. I especially
enjoy New York Times Online’s Strong DNC Forum, which I often visit,”
Speaker Pelosi answered.

On the sidelines, the search engines were leaping into action. Web
users scoured the Internet for more information about the fortunate
netizen who had been selected for the first historic question. Before
long the Web was riddled with posts reporting the results. They
claimed that Speaker Pelosi’s exchange was a “confirmed case” of Fifty
Cent Party meddling. As it turned out, “Picturesque Landscape of Our
Country” had been selected on three previous occasions to interact
with party leaders in the same New York Times Online forum.

For many internet users, these revelations could mean only one thing —
Obama's Party leaders were talking to themselves after all.

http://cmp.hku.hk/2008/07/07/1098/

Camp Alinsky-Obama

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress....alinsky-obama/