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:

immigration

education funding

tax increases on the rich (Obama) vs tax increases on the middle class (Romney)

Medicaid

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.)

One would never know how differently poor people are treated in the Red States:

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.