Institutes, Foundations and Think Tanks: Neoconservative Influences on U.S. Public Schools (original) (raw)

In the middle of the "liberal" Clinton years, Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado produced a little known text entitled No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda. 1 We include a rather lengthy passage here, as their words have proven to be troublingly prescient. They saw a future dominated by ultra conservative ideology, established and maintained by well-funded think tanks. Black misery will increase. The gap between the rich and the poor (already the highest in the Western world) will widen. Women's gains will be rolled back, foreigners will be excluded…Conservative judges, appointed by conservative presidents with the encouragement of a conservative Congress, will repeal prisoners' and children's rights, and narrow women's procreative liberties. Unregulated industries will require employees to work in increasingly unsafe workplaces, pollute the air and water, and set aside less and less money for workers' health benefits and retirement. Tort reform will ensure that consumers and medical patients injured by defective products, medical devices, and careless physicians will be unable to obtain compensation. Children will be required to pray