Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Washington Post public editor: Jeff Bezos could solve pay equality tomorrow. He makes token gestures instead.

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I have my own slogan for the Washington Post: "Democracy dies behind a paywall." Like so many other things Jeff Bezos does, the paywall isn't something he does alone (the NY Times, as one, of course; so does the Chronicle of Higher Education, which today hid a story about "Higher Ed's Reckoning With Race"). But democracy also dies in work camps, in fast food joints, and in warehouses, where workers don't earn enough money to eat, let alone take part in civic discourse, even when their lives are on the line. A comeuppance is coming. And democracy dies on college campus, where only the privileged get to attend and where a low-paid underclass does most of the work. And on many campuses, they could address inequality tomorrow without even missing the money. But they won't. And as Hamilton Nolan says, "that's all you need to know." Photo: me, in the rain and the thunder snow at Occupy Wall Street, October 29, 2011.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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