This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Preguntas que Buscan Respuestas

             This graph is from: It's official: Latinos now outnumber whites in California

Latinos now make up the majority of public school students in the two most populous states. California, as usual, got there first.
That influence will only grow as Latino parents – now in the majority – realize many of the schools their children attend are underfunded, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.
“It turns upside down how we think about California students,” he said.
“A lot depends on the extent to which Latino parents come together and organize,” Fuller added. “These are parents who historically have not had much political power. But as they are coming together and feeling their oats, they may organize around education.”
Texas, ironically California’s polar opposite from the standpoint of mainstream ideology, also became majority latino in its public school system during the previous school year.Texas Republicans have seen the future and it is to their south. Their legislative response? Underfund the growth in public education for the first time. A coincidence?
In 2011, the state [Texas] reached two landmarks. For the first time, Hispanics became the majority of public school students. And to cope with a historic budget deficit, the Legislature did not finance enrollment growth in the state’s schools — something that had not happened since the modernization of the state’s public school system in 1949. Though the first turning point passed quietly and the second with much political strife, they both underscored the challenges ahead as a dramatic demographic shift occurs in public school classrooms statewide.
By 2050, the number of Texas public school students is expected to swell to nine million from roughly five million now, and nearly two-thirds will be Hispanic, according to Steve Murdock, a demographer and director of Rice University’s Hobby Center for the Study of Texas. The overall percentage of white students will drop by half to about 15 percent. Without a change in Hispanics’ current socioeconomic status, that also means Texas students will continue to grow poorer — and their education more expensive — in the next four decades, Murdock added.
State population figures over the last decade show the shift is well under way in the public school system. Economically disadvantaged children in Texas classrooms make up 60 percent of all children in public schools, up from less than half in 2000. Students with limited English skills now make up 16 percent of them. Of about 979,000 children added to the state’s under-18 population from 2000 to 2010, 931,000 were Hispanic
Why are so many white middle class progressives seemingly oblivious to the demographic trend other than to wish defeat upon the political party most identified with latinos at this critical juncture of American, indeed Western, herstory?
Why are we not seeking to affiliate politically with minourities in their homes, joining and voting with them, supporting them with our dollars and our abilities, enhancing the future prospects for this tidal wave that will surely crush every obstacle in its path sometime after the middle of this century?
For this tidal wave represents also the future United States of America of our children and our grandchildren.
The Democrats should also emphasize their commitment to education, which Latinos consistently rate as a top concern. Consider that Latino college enrollment has soared in the last few years, according to the Pew Center, and the number of Hispanics receiving college degrees hit new highs. Democrats can contrast their positions on education – ensuring access to college, more funding for public schools – with the GOP’s focus on spending cuts. Romney’s advice to college students was “borrow money if you have to from your parents.” Ryan’s budget would slash funding for Pell Grants, which roughly 40 percent of Hispanic students rely on to attend college.
Likewise, Democrats should make a strong case for the Affordable Care Act. Gallup polling says that 40 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, the highest of any demographic. In Charlotte, the message must be loud and clear: the president wants to guarantee all Americans access to health care, while Romney has vowed to repeal “Obamacare.”
No less important is the Obama administration’s record on constitutional and civil rights. The Department of Justice has fought anti-immigrant laws in Arizona and Alabama. They have taken Sheriff Joe Arpaio to court for racial profiling, investigated Voter ID laws in South Carolina and Pennsylvania, and challenged discriminatory redistricting in Texas. Democrats need to highlight these legal battles to show that Obama is fighting for Hispanics.
Will a soon to be re-reformed (post-collapse) GOP manage to outflank progressives (yet again!) and gain share the future as they previously did by assimilating the white working class and religious voters during the 1980s?
It is progressives, after all, who naturally would seem to be most supportive of multiculturalism, as you would also expect progressives to support unions and the working class.
Racism is also the fundamental flaw in the white middle-class progressivism of the Green Party, or “third party” if you will, since this non-movement is all about symbolic default rhetorical positioning for future blog posts rather than practical (or even ideal) politics. Further, the assumptions used to gain this nihilist absurdist pose are steeped in as many false premises as any in the tea party platform.
When I read diary after diary by whiteysphereans begging for someone, anyone to take the lead for us, its like, ok, you’ve already been led down the drain by giving up your own right of self-assertion, a right the tea parties, for whatever their myriad faults, have demonstrated vociferously since Obama’s election. They have asserted themselves first in the streets, gaining power, self promotion and self identification and then crucially organising at precinct level to gain significance within the GOP.
And WMC progressives are talking about obamabots being trapped in veal pens?
Look first at the log in thine own eye, loosers.
The WMCP disconnect is ironic to say the least.
Another progressive rhetorical fallacy: the Green party represents leftism.
The Green Party is middle class consumerist/environmentalist. Where electorally empowered anywhere (Australia, Germany and Britain), the Greens policies, because of the need to lead and compromise in reality, turn out to be the practical equivalency of Blue Dog Democrats!
The Greens presented themselves as a party to the left of Labour (not too difficult one would have thought). Their policies are radical and many are worth supporting. But as with the situation in Ireland, consistency and veracity are called for. It is not enough to parrot truisms about being unable to challenge the status quo, no matter how urgent it is to do so. How can the Greens seriously challenge the corporate sector, the global corporations, climate change in the Arctic and the prospect of resource wars and famines, if they fall down at the first puff of wind from Eric Pickles and the Department for Communities and Local Government?
Vision requires courage, and courage requires mounting a challenge. On both, the Greens have been found sadly wanting.
How are White Middle Class Progressives racist? Because you’ve disassociated yourselves from the black and hispanic underclasses (the white underclass has long since disassociated itself from you) exactly on those issues over which the two parties (yes, Virginia, there are two parties, “uniparty” = empty rhetorical fallacy) are battling:
For instance, one would never know from reading WMCP rants against Obamacare that the Dems passed a HUGE increase in Medicaid expansion, and while SCOTUS weakened that part of the law, which I’m guessing most WMCP wanted tossed in total, a handful of states have already implemented it for which 500,000+ poor people (remember them?) have already benefitted.
The health care law required states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all residents earning below 133 percent of the poverty line. That expansion was expected to provide coverage to about 17 million of the uninsured, roughly half of the total coverage expansion projected under the law. (The mandate on individuals to buy insurance, with substantial subsidies from the government and the establishment of exchanges where they can shop for competing coverage plans, is expected to provide the other half.)
In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.
Governors in those five states have said they’ll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama’s health law after the Supreme Court’s decision gave states that option. Many of those hurt by the decision are working parents who are poor — but not poor enough — to qualify for Medicaid.
Republican Mitt Romney’s new running mate, conservative Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars. Romney hasn’t specifically said where he stands on Ryan’s idea, but has expressed broad support for his vice presidential pick’s proposals.
Shame on white middle class regressive progressives for turning their backs on the very poor in our society in exchange for nothing but empty, broken rhetorical idealism.
Just so you can maintain your blogging poses post-election.

23 comments:

donkeytale said...

This is mashup of two of my controversial, extremely prescient FDL dairies published in September 2012 but it is still just as relevant today with Bernie Sanders campaign badly needing to break the bounds of his white middle classicism and take latino and black votes from Hillary to stand any chance at all of upending the body politic to elect real leftists into the federal power structure.

I am very interested in learning more about the fake #BernieSoBlack farce which seems as if it is a Clintonian dirty trick.

If I'm Hill I'm fighting tooth and nail to keep these substantial voting blocs (25% of the Dem voters and a large and growing slice of the independent electorate as well-- 500% of latinos identify as independent).

If I am Bernie I am expending tons of energy in large primary states such as Texas, California, NY and Florida that feature large minourity voter populations.

His message should resonate but he needs to overcome 40-45 years of the Clintons assiduously courting the minourity vote only to sell them out time and again with Wall Street and Prison Police State.

donkeytale said...

This thingie also posted to spur you into writing your latest, as I know you enjoy knocking my most substantial work immediately off the top spot, while leaving crap like my video-only posts on top for days and weeks at a time.

But I know you need the motivavtion at time to produce your best work and this is a mailed in FDL re-tread, although timeless in its subject matter.

donkeytale said...

And of course we have the now almost weekly occurrence of murder by internet.

The moron who gunned down to beautiful young women and wounded several others turns out to be a right wing blogger who admired Hitler and hated liberals.

What a shocking surprise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/lafayette-theater-shooting-john-houser.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Tokyo Shemp said...

I actually found a screenshot for this that is appropriate and not of Joe Dirt or Johnny Cash giving the middle finger. This is what I refer to as a non-fun article header. It's like getting a bathrobe and a new desk for your birthday instead of the latest X-Box. You can't always get what you want, but if you try some time and stop being an ungrateful ingrate, you might notice you got what you needed, losers.

Yes, I am a mosaic thinker rather than linear. That means I am not beholden to the latest hot topic and like to reflect and take my darn, sweet time putting something together.

Sometimes there is a current event that gets me moving a lot more quickly. I agree with you there was something very weird about the Netroots O'Malley/Sanders ambush.

I am in a good groove for writing and can pump shite out in little time. I used to write my best stuff the night before papers were due. Sometimes of course we all get writer's block or whatnot. Oh yeah, I forgot that whatnot is the word to use. I've been co-opting your wtf schtick.

I had the same reaction to you for the latest death by internet. I heard about it in the paid fake CNN background. Eventually I picked up on those tidbits of yours. Of course the medium as message would like us to develop a wedgie issue figuring out whether it is a Republican or Democrat behind the latest mass killing.

I made it so your links will open in new tabs. There is a glitch where it changes back to not doing that if you edit later. So the key is to do that at the end. You right click on the links, then hit change/edit, then click that button.

But I don't mind editing. By the way, keepitreal, a regular guy nurse who retired due to back issues is working her way through some other health issues and that's why she hasn't posted in a while. She is very nice and sincere. She is not an unpaid professional blogger like ourselves.

Uhm, so yes, I will try to pound one out like I described on the other thread. And this article of yours I will try to get to also. Wow, you added a lot of links. Good job, Skippy.

Tokyo Shemp said...

She is female. Regular guy is the vernacular.

donkeytale said...

Bernie Sanders is a sellout to the leftier than thou he group with.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-says-hes-a-socialist-his-old-socialist-buddies-say-not-so-much/2015/07/25/a3948256-3145-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html

His campaign strategy to run as a Democrat was "completely informed by Nader."

Donkeytale schtick is now completely vindicated. Always trust donkeytale prescience. Bernie Sanders does.

And never forget, whatever you think of Obama, the road to Sanders for President runs straight through Barack Obama.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Are you working for Hillary? Just kidding, my friend. But I am trying to bang out and quickly publish the piece you requested. You have been ranting for over a decade (at least on social medium as message) that Nader and third party rhetoric is useless. If Sanders ran from the third party slot, you'd be crucifying him. Yet, Bernie is running as a Democrat and you still crucify him? He is trying to become President Jesus. In fact, if people who should support him would stop throwing him under the bus, which by the way helps Hillary, maybe Bernie could become the first Black President Jesus (think Rachel Dolezal without the delusions).

donkeytale said...

Well, That is a moot argument, if you bothered to read my link.

Bernie ain't running third party. Pyrrhiod.

And he has been a more reliable Dem vote in Congress for decades than many Demotards.

His career has been a trade-off of pure idealism for pragmatism in order to win power.

I'm not trying to crucify him. Where did that come from?

He is not going to be President Jesus any more than Obama was.

He will move the cheeze further left than Obama but that is not in opposition to Obama but more a passing of the baton cheese stick.

Please stop trying to force last election's false meme into this one.

Let Glenn Ford be unevolved. Doesn't suit you.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I misread your post. I am still waking up.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Oopsies?

Tokyo Shemp said...

I was starting the new entry and then saw your link, took a looksie and assumed something stupid, making an ass out of you and me, but especially me.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I am interested in this election precisely because Sanders is that much better than the rest of the Democrats. John Edwards? Who has there been to ever rally around and think maybe such and such a candidate could be wonderful, delightful, and not corrupt? McGovern? Only Massachusetts voted for him over Nixon. Don't. Blame. Boston.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Let's start over. Good morning, Mr. Donkeytale! :)

donkeytale said...

Reread your comment and it is worse on the second take. Wow, strikingly wrong you are on this one.

If anything, this article will broaden Bernie's appeal to the not so leftier than thou masses (you know, the ones he will need to attract to have any chance of uhhm, winning).

Purity = loosing. Besides only Blog Jesus was pure. Bernie ain't aiming to be President Jesus. You need to wash your own misconceptions out of your mind. Perhaps actually reading the article with an open mind would be a start

He votes with the Dems. He will no doubt back Hillary if she wins the nom because she will still be an improvement on whatever GOP clown wins their nom.

Bernie's moronic leftier than thou friends are still meeting in the public library (they could fit into the phone booth if such things still existed) and dissing him behind his back while he holds his meetings in front of 10,000 people in Texas of all places and puts across a leftist message.

You are only crediting half my schtick of the last decade and twisting the rest. Change comes slowly in the US system and we are seeing the fruits of that change from Obama through Bernie. And unless you are ready to die on the streets or be imprisoned during a revolution (haha) then you are forced by necessity to win inside the system-as-it-is.

Wow. Just wow. I expect such idiocy from Fairleft. Not from you.

donkeytale said...

OK, didnt see your comment.

You want a do-over.

Sure. This time methinks you need one.

donkeytale said...

And no, I am not "lumping" Obama with Bernie. I am saying there is an evolution going on, a movement from far right Reagan, through center right Clinton and Bushes through center left Obama to left Bernie.

Politics is the art of pushing the envelope in the desired direction over the objections of the opposition, which in post modern Amerikkka means roughly half the population (who because they aggregate in smaller states control more of Congress than their numbers would otherwise allow).

This is my schtick (see a Tale of Two Dicks, for details). Or better yet, read and really try to comprehend, this one from FDL.

http://firedoglake.com/2012/11/12/on-political-movements-and-moving-the-mythical-center/

donkeytale said...

OK, that was a failed fake poli sci schtick from a writing standpoint but I think you can catch my drift.

Here's another that makes the point more illustratively:

http://firedoglake.com/2012/10/27/the-nixon-was-a-liberal-false-meme-debunked/

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yes, I am still shaking the cobwebs out of my eyes. I did just find out my gf isn't visiting tonight, so I am no longer feeling a time crunch. The weekends are usually a bad time for me. I am often scrambling to clean, so she won't realise as a regular guy, I am a slob, and then try to find some mythological metrosexual who is adept at both cleaning and snipping nose hairs.

Tokyo Shemp said...

This is going to be completely mailed in. I might need some feedback from what I already have in order to process it better. But we are certainly on point. I totally hear you. What is good for the cause might entail a bit of politics to get the best candidate elected. Sanders will never come out with a Sister Souljah moment. Yet, if losers want to manipulate what happened in Phoenix and it helps get Mr. Sanders some of the fakeleft vote, then yeehaw!

Tokyo Shemp said...

I come from an internet as medium background that is more interactive than precise. I strive to get people to think and ask the tough questions, to transcend the medium as message, to prod us to the possibility that the medium can be used for non-violent revolutionary movement. So if I make mistakes, and we all do, stuff can be fleshed out and clarified better. I am humbled by my idiocy. It is important for those with greatness to not make too much love to the mirror and keep plugging away. If it takes fouling off twelve pitches to get the walk and keep the rally going, sign me up!

Tokyo Shemp said...

I've got 18 tabs opened, a barely started rough draft under way, and 22 Twitter mentions to check out. Twitter will come last. That's the plan.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Right winger Jake Tapper is on now. It just started. In the preview he said they will be covering the Black Lives Matter versus the Democratic Party story. They are starting with Trump versus the other Republicans. Let's face it. The Democraps are the Western Conference with Republicnuts the East but without any LeBron James.

Tokyo Shemp said...

The rough draft is complete.