Sen. Cory Booker is a mercenary in that war. He entered politics as
an advocate of public funding for private schools, two of which he
operated in Newark, New Jersey. While a first-term city councilman,
Booker became deeply entangled with the most right-wing corporate sugar
daddies (and mommas) of the private school vouchers “movement” --
actually, a billionaires club encompassing many of the main funders of
the Hard Right in the U.S. (See “Fruit of the Poisoned Tree,”
The Black Commentator, April 5, 2002.) Booker’s rise to national
prominence has been funded and promoted by these same right-wing
networks, to whom he remains loyal. From 2004 to 2008, Booker sat with Betsy DeVos
on the board of the Alliance for School Choice, a pro-charter and
school vouchers outfit founded by John Walton, one of the heirs to the
Wal-Mart fortune. Hakeem Jeffries, a Black congressman from Brooklyn, is
a protégé of Booker and fellow supporter of tax credits for private schools.
In the wake of Obama’s eight-year crusade on behalf of charters, much
of the Congressional Black Caucus is now amenable to various
privatization schemes.
In their zeal to confront and delegitimize Donald Trump, the
Democrats primp and posture as if in genuine opposition to President
Cheeto’s governance-by-billionaires. But, charter school privatization,
like U.S. wars, is a project of both wings of the ruling class duopoly.
When you scorn DeVos, you must also curse Obama, and reject Booker -- or
you are no better than Trump.
-- Glen Ford, "DeVos, Obama, Booker, Trump – All Enemies of Public Education" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).