"Won't Back Down" revenues after 21 days |
For both of these privateers, their apparent desire to
dismantle the public schools apparently won over their greed.
Will they manage to keep the film going nationally for
another week? In NYC, starting Monday
the only theater that will still be showing the movie is in Glendale
Queens; offering discounted tickets at 5:40 PM.
As Diane Ravitch points out, however, the US
Chamber of Commerce along with other corporate reform and astroturf groups are
holding free screenings of the film nationwide, to aid in their privatization campaign as part of a nationwide tour called “breaking
the monopoly of mediocrity."
Speaking of monopolies, Murdoch is set to expand his
control of the mainstream media and is in negotiations to buy up the LA
Times and Chicago Tribune to further grow his mega-empire. As we know too well, he has expanded into “education
technology” products in a division run by Joel Klein, now renamed “Amplify.”
Klein has
expressed outrage that he and the division he runs for Murdoch are solely
motivated by profit. To some extent the
marketing and continued promotion of this film might support his claim, which has
been a money loser at least in the short run.
Murdoch, Anschutz and the cadre of privateers they
represent are focused on the long-term goal of putting public schools and
educational services into corporate hands; arguing that this will somehow
improve outcomes for kids.
Of course, to the
extent they achieve the privatization of the public schools, the more potential
profits they are likely to reap in the long run. In this regard, the film “Won’t Back Down” represents
a “loss leader,” defined by Wikipedia
as follows: “an item is offered for
sale at a reduced price and is intended to "lead" to the subsequent
sale of other items, the sales of which will be made in greater numbers, or
greater profits, or both.”
usually a loss leader is something people want, in this case is more like a fire sale or "distressed" merchandise sale :)
ReplyDelete"Loss leader" Kind of like Doombag's $1 a year salary, wich masks the massive quid pro quo pay to play money flowing by wire to his offshore accounts from all those lovely contractors,metastasizing standardized testing providers and privatizing charter school operators, enter alia, wouldn't you think?
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