José Díaz-Balart, chief political analyst for Telemundo, had one important task during the September 7, 2011, Republican debate—to ask the candidates about immigration. Díaz-Balart asked his question, got his answer and was dismissed from the stage. The stereotype was fulfilled; a Latino asked one question and the one question was about immigration. With that box checked, the moderators and candidates were able to return to “non-Latino” issues.

The problem is, the issues that keep Latinos up at night—like double-digit unemployment rates, living at the poverty end of the wealth gap and having the highest high school dropout rates in the country—go well beyond immigration. Herein lies the challenge for President Obama. He must recast his connection with Latino voters beyond a narrow focus on immigration and engage Latinos as the multi-issue electorate they are.

It’s easy to see why Latinos have been typecast within the narrow frame of immigration. The vast majority are immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. In 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama used the issue to connect with Latinos by highlighting the importance of immigration reform. This strategy was wildly successful and netted him close to 70 percent of the Latino vote. Today that strategy is counterproductive. Latino voters are keenly aware that “La Promesa de Obama”—as his campaign pledge for comprehensive immigration reform became known—was not fulfilled. And now they have other priorities: according to the latest impreMedia-Latino Decisions tracking polls, economics have eclipsed immigration as their top concern. For Latinos, the economy and the related issue of education have come to demand the same level of attention that President Obama once gave immigration.

Since 2009 minority unemployment has been in the double digits. At its height in 2010, Latino unemployment was at 13.9 percent; today it’s 11 percent. Latinos have been the hardest hit in the recession, and they have the steepest climb to recovery. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latino median wealth plummeted 66 percent between 2005 and 2009. The decrease in wealth nationally was the most acute among Latinos, leaving one-third of the community either with debt or no assets.

Latinos are losing not only their jobs, benefits and homes but their hard-earned position in the middle class. Within one generation families have gone from working class to middle class and back to working class again. The wealth gap between minorities and non-minorities is the largest since the Census Bureau began providing this information in 1984. The white-to-Latino ratio of median wealth in 2009 stood at 18 to 1, more than twice the ratio before the recession. The gap between rich and poor has also become a serious problem within the Latino community, with their wealth disparity the greatest of any group.

In addition to having experienced the steepest decrease in wealth, Latinos have the highest birthrates and the lowest levels of education. Latino dropout rates are triple those of whites and double those of African-Americans. Education is particularly important to Latinos because more than one-third are under 18. In 2008–09, in the two largest public school districts, New York City and Los Angeles, Latino children made up 41 percent and 74 percent, respectively, of incoming first graders.

At first glance it would seem that because of the magnitude of their economic losses and their grim educational position, Latinos would be the most punishing of the president’s policies. But the data suggest that Latinos want more government involvement, not less, making them unreceptive to the message of the GOP and particularly the Tea Party. During last summer’s debt debate, an impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll showed that(83 percent of Latino voters supported some sort of tax increase in the debt reduction plan. Forty-five percent supported a taxes-only route. Even a majority of Latino Republicans preferred some taxation over a cuts-only approach to the deficit. For Latinos, economic well-being is intimately tied to the economic recovery of the nation; they are progressives who support a robust federal government. The proposal to create a National Infrastructure Bank to bring about job creation is exactly the type of policy that resonates with them.

The GOP has also failed to win the support of Latinos on education. The impreMedia-Latino Decisions polls show that 57 percent of Latino voters support President Obama and the Democrats’ education policy, which has emphasized early childhood education, school reforms and developing community partnerships. Republicans were seen as the better option by 20 percent and a disillusioned 14 percent lacked confidence in both parties.

Indeed, the Latino community’s most tangible achievements under the Obama administration are in the realm of education. The education gap between Latinos and non-Latinos shows clear signs of shrinkage. Dropout rates are decreasing, and from 2009 to 2010 Latino college enrollment grew 24 percent, an increase of 5 percent over the previous year.

And yet, despite recent comments by Jim Messina, President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, Latino support is not a given for the president. In a December 2011 impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll, 54 percent of registered Latinos said they were certain to vote for Obama. This is a long way from the 70 percent of 2008. Tangible disillusionment was also apparent in the decreased rate of turnout among Latino voters in the 2010 midterm elections, the Pew Hispanic Center reported. In 2011 the president’s approval ratings among Latinos hovered in the 60 percent range. However, this aggregate figure combines “Strongly Approve” and “Somewhat Approve,” obscuring the fact that more than half of his approval is from the lukewarm “Somewhat Approve” category. The implication is grave, since participation is fueled by enthusiastic voters who have strong feelings about their candidate.

If the president is to get past his failed immigration pledge and reconnect with Latino voters, he must do two things: highlight the natural ideological affinities between himself and Latinos, and showcase the economic and educational programs he has implemented and will continue to promote. Simple electoral math puts Latinos at the forefront of the president’s re-election strategy in the 2012 election. Latino voters make up at least 15 percent of the population in half of the top swing states—Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada. They are a crucial part of the electoral formula necessary to prevent President Obama from being the third Democratic president in history not to get a second term in office—and they deserve to have the full range of their concerns understood.

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, a fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, is the director of communications for Latino Decisions. Follow Dr. DeFrancesco Soto on Twitter: @DrVMDS

For the past six years or so I have heard constant threats from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (Canada) and Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal (Indiana) that they were going to ban, destroy and wipe out Mexican American Studies, as well as Occupied America. Now after disregarding a $177,000 report that refutes their charges that the program and the book are racist and un-American, the nativists carry out their threats. They destroy MAS and snatch the books from on looking students. Their stupidity exposed them, so they now say it wasn’t so.

The problem is that witnesses saw Tucson Unified School District Superintendent John Pedicone’s (Illinois) swaggering thugs “remove” the books from MAS classes as students looked on.

Their cowardly behavior reached new lows when blogger Jeff Biggers wrote that the books had been “banned.” They protested that they were not “banned” but only “removed.”

Let me see if I understand: If the books would have been put on a prohibited list of readings they would have been banned, or better still censored. But, because they were already there and ripped from the sight of students, they were removed.

I have been visiting Tucson for the better part of my life. I could always understand white folk there, although I did not always agree with them. For example, Barry Goldwater was my ideological opposite, but he had an affinity for Arizona that few of the carpetbaggers such as Pedicone have today. He knew many of my relatives, and recognized that you better talk the talk.

Not so with the Arizona carpetbaggers (as distinguished from those of the 1860s who had a purpose). This recent bunch has moved there for the sun and the cash. They do not respect the environment, its traditions or the people. Witness the systematic destruction of Mexican American barrios. What is Old Town Tucson but a pseudo replica of Disney Land?

It is difficult to dumb down language to the level of the locust. So to start with, censorship is thought control. The First Amendment reads,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances…

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that this freedom was critical to a free society.

What is happening in Tucson is a political act designed to control what students and the community read and think. It is not a question of good taste or what is true or not. It was the intentional use of naked political power to suppress a particular people.

Huppenthal was elected on the platform of “stopping La Raza [the people].”

On May 12, 2010 Horne said, “The bill [HB2281] was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system.” According to the Los Angeles Times, “He singled out one history book used in some classes, ‘Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,’ by Rodolfo Acuna, a professor and founder of the Chicano studies program at Cal State Northridge.”

Horne continued, “To begin with, the title of the book implies to the kids that they live in occupied America, or occupied Mexico.” Horne’s language was pretty clear. He did not say remove but targeted the book and MAS.

As with Horne, others have labeled the book Marxist. A prominent scholar of European history labeled Occupied America, a Marxist book. When pressed on what he based this assumption, he fumbled around and finally said in a deposition that I used the term “hegemony” several times in the text.

In Horne’s case, he did not like the title because, according to him, it “implies” that the United States invaded Mexico – a historical fact. Evidentially, Horne has not read the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant or Abraham Lincoln’s take on the war.

The truth be told, Occupied America does not refer to occupied Mexico; it refers to occupied America. If Horne had a grasp of Latin American history or geography, he would know that Argentines, Peruvians, Cubans, Central Americans and Mexicans are Americans. Indeed, U.S. secretaries of state have exploited the notion of Pan Americanism for economic advantage. Thus the occupation began in 1492 not 1836 or 1848.

The touted Cambium Audit, which Horne’s successor Huppenthal ordered and the citizens of Arizona paid for, said, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos is an unbiased, factual textbook designed to accommodate the growing number of Mexican-Americans or Chicano History courses. It is the most comprehensive text in this market according to Amazon. The Fifth Edition of Occupied America has been revised to make the text more user-friendly and student-oriented., while maintain its passionate voice. This text provides a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the major historical experiences of Chicanos that invokes critical thinking and intellectual discussion.

The curriculum auditing team refutes the following allegations made by other individuals and organizations. Quotes have been taken out of context. Therefore, the ‘controversial’ aspects are indicated in italics to demonstrate the claims made by concerned constituents.

Thus the nativists’ hypocrisy gives opportunism a bad name. They care nothing about the truth, they care nothing about Latino students, what they care about is controlling thought by “removing” books and killing a highly successful program.

They want to specifically suppress the thought of Latinos. The reason that they have not targeted Native, African and Asian Americans is that these groups are smaller and consequently more manageable. Latino public school students comprise 43 percent of the public schools, and they want to genetically engineer them.

Everyone in this country should be concerned about the removing or banning of books. They are euphemisms for censorship. What happened in Tucson constitutes an attack and constraint on everyone’s freedom.

The locust have a history of trying to control Mexican American Studies through prior restraint. When this did not work, they demolished the program and banned the books. This banning will have a chilling effect on the publication of future books. Usually, there is the opportunity to dispute the charge in court. This has not happened in Arizona – there was no trial.

Aside from Occupied America, Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado, 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez, Message to Aztlan by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, more than a dozen other books have been banned.

The charges of censorship have shaken the administration. After acting brazenly they are drawing the distinction between “banned” and “removed.” However, the record is the record. The banning of the books did not occur in a vacuum.

I have personally never experienced this level of hypocrisy in over fifty years of activism. It seems as if the locust and I do not speak the same language. It is also frustrating because up to now no one seemed to be listening. How do you deal with people who lie with such impunity?

As for me, it is a badge of honor to appear on the same list as the other banned authors. But what I resent is the draft dodgers, Pedicone, Horne and Huppenthal questioning my patriotism. I volunteered draft during the Korean War although I had a student draft deferment. They should check the records; they will learn that Mexican Americans served at a much higher ratio than any group in Tucson.

So my advice to them is not be so be opportunistic and hypocritical. The Tucson cabal is giving these words a bad name. Horne said that 2281 targeted Mexicans and specified which books it was going to get rid of. Huppenthal has not listened to facts and pressured the TUSD to ban MAS and the books. As for Pedicone, he is the bagman.

Welcome to Black History Month.

The idea originated with historian Carter G. Woodson, best remembered for having published “The Mis-Education of the Negro” in 1933. In it, Woodson argued, “The so-called modern education does others so much more good than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in conformity with the needs of those who have oppressed weaker people.” Woodson initiated a “Negro History Week” each February, which in 1976 officially became Black History Month.

Woodson chose this month because it includes the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. By celebrating black history, Woodson believed we would move closer to our nation’s motto of “E Pluribus Unum.”

We’re getting there, but we’re not there yet.

A few months ago I was on a cross-country train ride. I was seated in the observation car alongside several college freshmen. It was a multiracial group, and all the young people were excited by school and the latest fads, music and television shows. One among the gaggle was a young African-American woman.

When the train briefly stopped in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., I rushed to the window because I had to catch a glimpse of the historic site. So did the African-American college freshman. But her friends were less than wowed.

“This is Harpers Ferry,” she explained. “You know, where John Brown … The raid.”

Her friends wore blank expressions.

“You’re kidding,” she finally said with a sigh.

Ignorant of a moment in history they had never been taught — or which they had covered cursorily and then forgotten — the others could only shrug.

These young people were united in many ways, but they had not inherited a common history.

Woodson would not have been happy.

In his vision, the students would all have a modicum of knowledge of the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, Presidents Washington and Lincoln, Gens. Grant and Lee, Thomas Edison, World Wars I and II. But they would also share in equal parts knowledge of the Middle Passage, the stories of Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth, John Brown, Reconstruction, the Buffalo Soldiers, James Weldon Johnson, the Great Migration, Emmett Till and the many heroes of the struggle for civil rights who preceded Martin Luther King.

Yes, today, we have a president who is a black American, and de jure segregation is a thing of the past. But we don’t yet have a shared history of who we are as a nation.

That’s why Black History Month is so important.

Many public libraries will post a Black History Month reading list. Please make use of the recommended titles.

Many schools will offer special programs or assemblies on the month. Please encourage your children or grandchildren to attend.

Black History Month is intended to escort us toward an honorable goal.

Let’s reach it together.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a poet and journalist living in Santa Fe, N.M. He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org. Reprinted from The Progressive (http://www.progressive.org/)

Commentary:
By Juan Cartagena

During the very first week of the new year of 2012 came news of the loss of Robert Carter and Gordon Hirabayashi, two giants in this country’s civil rights movement and two beacons of light for the Latino community. They died only one day apart.

Gordon Hirabayashi is one of three fearless Japanese American leaders who used the courts to resist the nation’s misguided and racist round up and detention of citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In separate prosecutions, Hirabayashi, along with Fred Koretmatsu and Minoru Yasui, stood up to a federal executive apparatus that used the threat of national security to deliberately engage in the purposeful detention of persons because of their race with no individualized determination of disloyalty.

Hirabayahsi, an American born citizen, was studying in Washington State. He refused to register with the federal authorities, refused to obey the curfews imposed upon the Japanese, and was eventually jailed and convicted. In effect, he engaged in that quintessential American act: he dissented. Decades later, his conviction was overruled and the country paid him and other Japanese Americans reparations for the country’s acts during war time.

Latinos also know firsthand the direct effects of being corralled in the name of national interests. During the Great Depression of 1929, half a million people of Mexican descent, from Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Denver, nearly half of them citizens of the U.S., were detained and deported to Mexico as a way to increase jobs for other Americans.

In 1954 another one million persons of Mexican heritage were detained as part of a quasi-military offensive called Operation Wetback aimed at ridding the country of undocumented immigrants. Regardless of citizenship, these Texas residents were then bused, flown and shipped deep into Mexico to make their return even more difficult.

Today’s profiling of Latino immigrants by untrained local police forces in many states echoes these round ups of yesteryear. “My citizenship didn’t protect me one bit. Our Constitution was reduced to a scrap of paper,” Hirabayashi noted. And yet, in Hirabayashi Latinos have a model to follow; a principled person who refused to accept this abuse, and used the law to right a historical wrong.

Robert Carter is a giant in the world of civil rights, one of the masterminds of the strategy that led to the desegregation of our nation’s public schools and the dismantling of separate-but-equal doctrine. At that time, Robert Carter was part of the team of attorneys at the NAACP and one of the advocates for presenting social scientific evidence to the courts to document the psychic harm of racism and Jim Crow on the nation’s black children.

In that vein, Mr. Carter also played a significant role in the arguments presented in the seminal Mendez v. Westminster case by coauthoring an amicus curiae brief to support the Mexican plaintiffs in California. The decision in Mendez resulted in the first court opinion to recognize that segregation of schoolchildren – in that case, Mexican and Latino children — creates an irreparable sense of inferiority among minority children. And these very same arguments were presented successfully in Brown v. Board of Education, years later.

Robert Carter also had a direct connection to the LatinoJustice PRLDEF (then known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund) when he became a federal district court judge in New York City. Judge Carter presided over Guardians Association v. Civil Service Commission where our attorneys successfully proved that the City’s civil service examinations for police officers discriminated against Black and Latino police candidates. Judge Carter’s decision in our favor was eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 and paved the way for the increased diversity of the city’s police force.

Judge Carter also presided over the trial of housing discrimination claims by Puerto Rican and Latino residents seeking entry into the exclusive Grand Street cooperative apartments in the Lower East Side in the 1980s, in Huertas v. East River Housing Corp. Judge Carter ruled in favor of the Latino community’s claims that they were systematically prevented from applying to these units, opening up the opportunity to integrate these 4,500 moderate income cooperative apartments.

LatinoJustice PRLDEF Special Counsel, Richard Bellman, noted that “Bob Carter represented the best of the civil rights bar. He was a dedicated and innovative advocate who never wavered from insisting on true equality for all. Indicative of his passion was his consistent position on the evils of de facto segregation, even when the courts stood idly by and allowed it”. Robert Carter had an incredible reputation as a no-nonsense civil rights attorney and advocate and as a person who constantly pushed the envelope to expose American racism.

They both stand as models for the growing Latino community today. And they both have contributed greatly to the platform that allows LatinoJustice PRLDEF and other Latino civil rights advocates to protect the rights of Latinos throughout the country.

Juan Cartagena can be reached at jcartagena@latinojustice.org. Reprinted from the National Institute for Latino Policy (www.latinopolicy.org).

Teresa Wiltz in America’s Wire writes that despite claims of increased educational opportunities for minorities that the performance of black and Latino teenagers remains the same or lower than 30 years ago. In fact, the math and reading performance of black and Latino high school seniors equal that of 13-year-old white students – so much for the post racial society.

Educators and liberal politicos point the finger at low expectations, inequality of resources, less qualified teachers, the income inequality, teacher bias, and inexperienced teachers. They throw in the tracking of black and brown students into remedial class while whites are put into university bound classes.

Further, minority students are more likely to be given “A’s” for work that would receive a “C” in a rich school giving the illusion that they are being educated. Society would not tolerate this record in a football team at any level, or for that matter if we had fewer weapons of mass destruction than 30 years ago.

However, in my view, the major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.

The truth be told, educators pay less attention today to Mexican Americans than it did 50 years ago. In the sixties educators and reporters at least talked about it. The late Los Angeles Times’ columnist Ruben Salazar attacked the dropout problem and the failure of the schools to devise a relevant curriculum, as well as the failure to recruit and train effective Mexican American teachers.

In February 1963, Salazar began a series on Mexican American education. He titled his first article, “What Causes Jose’s Trouble in School?: Mexican-Americans Problems Analyzed.” Salazar begins:

Kicked out of school, Jose Mendez at 16 has been trapped in a peculiar twilight zone of American life. They tested him, graded him and pigeonholed him…say some educators, the fault may lie in the tests and the teachers –not in Jose. Educational policy and curriculum are oriented towards the education of the middle-class, monolingual, monocultural English-speaking student… [Jose] is at a great dis-advantage…[he] is a hyphenated American, a Mexican-American … he is culturally confused.

Salazar interviewed educators, Drs. George I. Sánchez, Paul Sheldon, Julian Samora and high school teacher Marcos de Leon on why José was dropping out of school. They attributed the dropout problem to the Mexican American’s inferiority complex, which has intensified his marginalization.

Salazar blamed the schools for the Mexican Americans failure. Schools nurtured a negative self-image, which was reinforced by the movies and literature, and failed to correct the stereotyping of poor Mexicans. It was a vicious cycle: the schools did think Mexicans could not learn, students developed a low esteem, they failed and dropped out.

The experts advocated bilingual-bicultural education, and initially there was a consensus for these programs, from President Lyndon B. Johnson to Republican St. Ronald Reagan. Yet, the Greek Chorus gained traction and labeled the programs separatist, un-American and racist. This nativist movement allied itself with right wing thinks tanks and foundations, and by the beginning of the 21st century, bilingual ed died a violent death.

By and large educators were mute as bilingual programs were wiped out and university based teacher training programs specializing on Mexican Americans were eliminated. At teacher training institutions grade point average was favored over knowledge of the child’s background. Although Latinos comprised 75 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, student teachers were given minimal preparation on how to teach Latino students.

The dropout was one of the major reasons for the development of Chicano Studies in 1969. A solution was sought for the high dropout problem that was overexposing Latino students to a life of poverty and not incidentally to the Vietnam draft. One of my first books Cultures in Conflict: Case Studies of the Mexican American was written for fifth graders. The purpose was to build a positive image in order to facilitate the acquisition of skills. These skills would prepare students to enter which ever field they wanted.

The importance of self-image is common sense. I remember looking for engineering computer lab with my future wife at UCLA in the 1980s. We asked several students if they knew where the computer lab was. They all gave us blank looks. Finally, we asked a Latino student who told us to ask an Asian. We did and she told us where it was. Talking to Asian fiends they told me that they exceled in math because the teachers expected them to.

Looking back at my own life, I was fortunate that I ended up in a Jesuit high school where I had to take four years of Latin. My relatives would notice my Latin book on the table, would ask my mother who it belonged to, and they would remark that Rudy must be smart. In contrast, in the first grade, before I knew English, I was pushed out of public school as mentally retarded.

When I became smart, that is adhered to their rules, anytime a Mexican student would act up, other teachers would ask me why? When I told them, they generally did not like the answer. They thought I was flip when I said that my solution for the marginalization of Mexicans was to rewrite the bible and substitute the word Mexican for Israeli. In a couple of decades, Mexicans would start looking at themselves as the “chosen people.”

This identity has helped Jews survive and endure over 2,000 years of persecution. In my view it comes down to self-image.

This was the premise of the Tucson Unified School District’s program. It was the repairing the damage done by marginalization – of being written out of history. The thinking was that learning history, literature and the arts though their viewpoint would repair the image of the greaser, the loser and the numerous other stereotypes.

From the beginning, the xenophobes tried to send the Mexican American Studies program down the same path as bilingual education. It was unpatriotic to learn any language other than English, it was un-American to learn history other than the American way.

The reasoning ignored the past; it was as if the debates of the sixties and seventies never occurred. They disregarded pedagogical principles that even St. Ronald accepted.

One of the books banned in Tucson was Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It was based on a highly successful literacy campaign conducted in Brazil. The xenophobes’ main argument is that Freire was a Marxist, which is ridiculous since the pedagogy goes back to Socrates. With that aside, would we cast aside a cure for cancer because the researcher was a Marxist?

The Cambium Learning Corp’s Curriculum Audit of the Tucson Mexican American Studies Department which was commissioned by Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal and cost the $177,000 concluded,

No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment towards a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people. MASD teachers are teaching Cesar Chavez alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, all as peaceful protesters who sacrificed for people and ideas they believed in. Additionally, all ethnicities are welcomed into the program and these very students of multiple backgrounds are being inspired and taught in the same manner as Mexican American students. All evidence points to peace as the essence for program teachings. Resentment does not exist in the context of these courses observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment towards a race or class of people… No evidence as seen by the auditors exists to indicate that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department program classes advocates ethnic solidarity; rather it has been proven to treat student as individuals.

There has not been any credible proof to refute claims that the program has improved chances of graduation, improved the students’ self-images, and motivated them to pursue a higher education.

A society that has historical dementia or Alzheimers cannot correct the defects of the present just like it cannot correct racism, sexism or homophobia.

Stupidity and fanaticism led to the destruction of the most transformative movements in Latin American, Liberation Theology. The forces of reaction in order to protect the large landowners redbaited Liberation Theology and substituted a reactionary evangelical Christian movement that promised that their reward would come in the next world. So it is in Arizona.

With the destruction of Mexican American Studies and the banning of the books, Mexican Americans are being put in their place. Vicariously, they are burning the infidels. The difference is that students are fighting back! They are reading books and will remember that anybody can learn. It is their right.

Commentary:
By Andrew Kordik

For readers of history, it was not shocking when the Arizona Department of Education decided to close Tucson’s Mexican-American Studies program. In a debate on the popular news program Democracy Now!, Superintendent John Huppenthal defended his position, saying, “I want to make sure these students aren’t being indoctrinated . . . what we want to do is create a society in which everybody is working for a better tomorrow, not working to get even.”

In reality, Mr. Huppenthal’s policies have precisely the opposite effect, leading to the indoctrination of students by ensuring their only exposure to American history is through state-mandated curriculum for U.S. history courses.

Mexican-American history is not shunned because of what it reveals of Mexican culture, but because of what it can teach us about the United States. The history of the United States is strikingly different when viewed from the experiences of Latin America, and these perspectives are avoided in public schools because they fail to meet the goals of state education.

The story of Latin America, since 1519, serves to undermine the most fundamental myths of the United States’ mission. It is in this story, which is only a microcosm of a global phenomenon, that we see how “the West” developed its position of preeminence by stripping the world of its resources, using these resources to feed a developing industrial economy, and eventually forcing the rest of the world (whose most valuable resources had already been stolen) to compete with well-developed European manufacturing.

To be fair, part of this story is found in textbooks, where it is usually viewed as an unfortunate, but ultimately justified movement of “progress.”

Upon arrival in the Americas, the Spanish and Portuguese (and eventually the English) quickly relieved the Aztecs and Incas of their gold and silver possessions.

Looking to gain more from the Americas, Europeans forced monocultures upon much of Latin America, imposing upon them an international division of labor, whereby each region grew only one crop, which was to supply European markets — in many places, it was illegal to grow anything other than the plantation cash crop (sugar in Brazil, cacao in Venezuela, coffee and bananas in Guatemala, Chiapas, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador), thus forcing natives and African slaves into dependence upon Europe for other foods. As historian Eduardo Galeano explains, Latin American economies were designed to be dependent on Europe.

This dependency continued, as a well-entrenched political construct, deep into the 19th and 20th centuries. In large part, the United States became a great industrial power by exploiting the resources of Latin America. The tin used for aluminum came from Peru and Bolivia; copper, with its myriad uses, was taken from Mexico, Peru, and Chile; the rubber used for car tires, among other things, came from the Brazilian Amazon; and, until late in the 20th century, the petroleum used to drive those cars came from Venezuela.

As U.S. companies grew wealthier from the exploitation of Latin American goods, Latin Americans themselves saw almost no benefit or increase in the standard of living, with the exception of a few wealthy plutocrats. When Latin American countries attempted to use the ballot box to remedy their problems and kick out American companies, the United States helped overthrow democratically elected leaders (Guzman in Guatemala; Allende in Chile) while imposing leaders who supported U.S. business interests, and who happened to be brutal dictators (General Armas in Guatemala; General Pinoche in Chile).

Such stories undermine American pretensions to democratic values, revealing that the United States government cares more about financial interests than democracy. The danger here is when people become aware of how the past creates the present, they are empowered to make changes in the present for the benefit of the future. Mr. Huppenthal, who has a master’s degree in business, is unlikely to support any program questions the status quo, since, of course, he is a beneficiary of the status quo.

A more serious problem posed by Mexican-American Studies classes is their ability to reveal that this history is still with us, embedded in the very framework of our international organizations. Colonialism is practiced today, but under different names and usually veiled in the obscure jargon of economics. Colonialism is now achieved through U.S.-backed organizations and policies, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And by studying these issues, students can see how poverty is created in Latin America, giving them an historical understanding of the politically-charged immigration issue.

With the help of the IMF and the World Bank, Latin America has been opened even further to exploitation. Many financially struggling countries, often controlled by U.S.-backed dictators, accepted loans from these organizations. When these countries struggled to repay their loans, the IMF and World Bank offered to lower interest rates in exchange for the privatization of public resources. For example, the IMF offered billions of dollars to Bolivia, under the condition that Bolivia sell its oil and water rights to foreign companies. President Evo Morales refused such offers and, as a result, is vilified by the U.S.

Among the problems plaguing the Mexican-American Studies program is the fear that students will realize U.S. policies have provided Mexicans with few options other than immigration. Mexicans don’t immigrate the U.S. for the weather or the natural beauty; Mexicans make the trip up North because they are destitute, and they are destitute because of centuries of Euro-American exploitation, corruption, and unfair trade policies, like NAFTA.

Under NAFTA, heavily subsidized American corn has flooded the Mexican market, having the effect of displacing millions of Mexican farmers who simply could not compete with U.S. government subsidies (hence the distinction between free-trade and fair-trade). These Mexican farmers move to Mexican cities and create a surplus-labor force, which drives down the cost of labor for Mexican businesses and American maquiladoras. The result of this surplus labor force is high unemployment, which leads to higher rates of immigration. It is not a coincidence that rates of immigration have skyrocketed since NAFTA’s inception.

There is a legitimate pro-American side to these stories, of course, but it is taught to children throughout their public education experience. In our history classes and textbooks, the perspectives of Latin American nations are non-existent. But these stories, when combined with the traditional U.S. view of the past, give us a more complete understanding of how the United States developed its role in the world.

So, why can’t kids in Arizona be exposed to Mexican-American studies? It’s not that John Huppenthal doesn’t want them to be indoctrinated; it’s that he doesn’t want his state’s efforts of indoctrination to be undermined by teaching children the other half of America’s story. Teach your kids Mexican-American and Latin American history, even if the State will not; it’s our duty to the future.

Andrew Kordik, a long-time resident of Escondido, holds an M.A. in history from Fordham University.

If you missed the press conference after the State Department announcement that the Keystone XL pipeline had been canceled, you missed a heck of a show.

House Speaker John Boehner was mad. And the Republican lawmakers behind him were furious. Over and over, Boehner and the gang asked angrily “What happened?” knowing full well that the answer was, well … them.

Despite their indignation, everyone on that stage knew their actions forced the cancellation of the pipeline.

For those of us who follow Congress, their feigned indignation was more akin to that of a spoiled child throwing a fit when things don’t go his way, and yet another example of why people hate Congress.

The Keystone XL pipeline was proposed to bring bitumen, a low grade Canadian pseudo oil that is strip mined out of the sandy soil in Canada’s Alberta province (it is also referred to as “tar sands” oil and “oil sands”) all the way down to Houston. That 1,700-mile route crosses the Canadian-U.S. border, which means the president has to approve the project. Because of the dirty nature of the oil, it has been a long process to evaluate the merits and safety of the project.

Nebraskans were concerned about the route through a sensitive portion of the Ogallala Aquifer, which is central to the region’s agriculture. Environmentalists hate bitumen because it has more greenhouse gas pollution associated with it than normal oil and there have been troubling questions raised about safe transportation of the new, highly corrosive forms of the oil that would run through the pipeline.

The oil industry, on the other hand, desperately wants the pipeline because Canada’s oil is largely stuck in the Midwest, where it has to be sold at a discount. The pipeline gives them new access to foreign markets and the ability to sell their oil for more money: win-win for them!

When prospects for the project looked bad, the Republicans got involved. They stepped in on behalf of their big campaign donors in the oil industry and tried to score on an issue they believe they could use against the president.

What followed was a campaign of misinformation to convince the public that the pipeline was a massive public service from Big Oil that would create loads of jobs while also weaning us from Middle Eastern oil, filling our tanks with fuel from our friendly neighbors. Both couldn’t be further from the truth.

Still, truth is a scarce commodity these days, and even on Wednesday, Boehner kept claiming the project would have brought 20,000 jobs, with others saying it would be hundreds of thousands — all even as the pipeline builders themselves admitted that the permanent jobs would number only in the hundreds (the State Department puts that number at 20 — ouch). With unemployment at 8.5%, this is about the most cynical way I can imagine to sell a project to America, especially when you know the numbers are wrong.

Also unmentioned? The fact that much of the oil coming out of Keystone XL will not end up in American gas tanks, meaning that it won’t offset our ongoing and unfortunate reliance on the Middle East for oil.

The Obama administration understands that. So when the president announced that a decision on the project would be delayed until 2013, the GOP went into overdrive, passing a law that forced the president to make a decision on the project within 60 days, despite the fact that a map of the pipeline route doesn’t even exist, making a reasonable decision impossible.

They seemed convinced they had Obama cornered. They were wrong. The Obama administration would not be bullied. So Wednesday, the president laid the blame for canceling the pipeline exactly where it should be – with Congress. Both he and the State Department made clear that this was what would happen if an arbitrary deadline were attached to the project. And he followed through with the eminently reasonable decision to deny approval of the project.

Reasonable decisions in Washington? Now that, not theatrics, is what we need more of.

Maria Cardona is a Democratic strategist and a principal at the Dewey Square Group, where she founded Latinovations (http://blog.latinovations.com). She is also a former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, and former communications director to the Democratic National Committee.

What is missing in the media’s coverage of the elimination of the Tucson Unified School District Mexican American Studies program is that students were learning and they wanted to go to school. I take this shutdown personal. One of the reasons I have stayed in education for over fifty-five years is that I wanted to do something about the dropout problem. I always heeded John Dewey’s dicta that a student failure was that of the teacher. If students drop out then there is something wrong with the educational system.

Arizona education has many problems: taxpayers do not want to pay for schools and AZ is dead last in student per capita spending. White parents don’t want their children going to school with Latinos and blacks as well as other working class people, so charter schools have multiplied to “balance” student ethnicity by making it whiter.

Arizona has blatantly avoided federal court orders to desegregate: more than fifty years after Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), the TUSD is still under a federal court mandate to “balance” the schools. The federal government, meanwhile, has poured millions of dollars into Arizona to help pay for integrating the schools.

The truth be told, there has been no improvement. The dropout problem remains over fifty percent. As part of an effort to correct imbalances, the federal court included the MAS program in its desegregation plan which federal government paid for.

Because I have been a highly successful educator, I have seen that building student identity ameliorates an inferiority complex ingrained by the educational process. Innumerable studies prove that an increase sense of self motivates students to better their skills and allows them to succeed in school.

The reason that I want to improve education is personal. I am not religious, but I always remember the nuns telling me when I saw a person less fortunate to say, “There for the grace of God go I.”

Although I could not do the work, I appreciate the work of Fr. Greg Boyle and Homeboy Industries. It hurts me every time I see a gang kid because I realize that as a member of society I bear a responsibility for the outcome. My vocation differs from Greg’s and I work with students by giving them an alternative to gangs when they are young. My feeling is every student that goes to college does not end up in a gang.

The TUSD MAS program was contributing to that end. Despite the racist lies of Arizona politicos it is a model to how to teach and motivate Latino students. And, despite the actions of the TUSD school board, other districts will emulate and study it.

My feelings about the people behind the destruction of the MAS program are that they have no redemption. They are no better than the members of the mafia who do not care about the outcome or hardships they cause as long as they make a profit.

Democracy has been dealt a blow. The actions of these racist has contributed to disillusionment among many students. They have brought about a loss of faith, which is always difficult whether it be in religion or politics. This loss leads to an emptiness and hopelessness. For instance, I know people who as a result of the pedophile scandals in the Catholic Church have not returned to mass.

In ending the MAS program, the State of Arizona is complicit in condemning many Latino students to failure. Thomas de Aquinas defined scandal as a word or action that is intrinsically evil, and leads to the spiritual ruin of another person. You don’t necessarily have to physically cause someone’s sin, but only be the moral cause of the sin. A sin of scandal is not accidental but premeditated as in the case of Arizona elites.

From the top on down, Arizona officials know that their actions cause many Latinos to be stigmatized. They know that they are contributing to their dropping out of school, and they don’t care.

Mark Stegeman, Michael Hicks, Miguel Cuevas and the newly appointed Alexandre Sugiyama all know it. They are bought men who don’t care about the consequences as long as they fill their pockets.

For them, education is business and it doesn’t much matter if Mexican Americans get an education. As long as people hate Mexicans, it is easier to cash in on their lack of education.

It is a well-known fact that the Tea Party is not a populist movement. It is racist and driven by right wing funding that includes the Koch brothers who Mitt Romney says are the “financial engine of the Tea Party.”

Most Arizonans know the role of ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council). The People for the American Way Foundation and Common Cause have published a report documenting the fact that ALEC has motivated and written most of the anti- Latino and worker legislation in the state. It is at the forefront of the anti-labor, anti-healthcare and anti-environmental reaction. It is behind the privatization of schools and prisons.

Major corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, ExxonMobil and GlaxoSmithKline are key players in Arizona politics. Two dozen major corporations have sat on ALEC’s board which is insidiously called the “Private Enterprise Board.”

Well aware of the growing Latino population, it is to ALEC’s advantage to keep the state white and Mexicans disenfranchised. Thus, it has sponsored voter suppression bills that potentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of Arizonans.

The report identifies fifty Arizona state legislators who are current ALEC members. These bought politicos wrote and sponsored SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law. It is no accident that privatized prisons are flush with immigrant detainees. Uneducated Mexican Americans also insure future inmate growth. Aside from money to run the prisons, prison labor is competing with free labor.

In Tucson, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council is an ALEC mini-me; an all-white country club whose members overlap with other heavy hitters locally, regionally and statewide. The TUSD superintendent of schools is a former SALC vice-president.

Recently, when Judy Burns, a supporter of the MAS program died, SALC engineered the appointment of Alexandre Sugiyama, a lecturer in Economics at the University of Arizona, to fill her seat. It accomplished its ends by stacking the selection committee.

Sugiyama was obviously selected because he is half Brazilian and half Japanese. He has no ties to the community; he is a lecturer with no publications, or knowledge or interest in education.

His student evaluations are low: “AVOID (reasons): 1. Resents his own job such that he’s consistently 15 mins late to a 1hr class…” Another “if you choose to take this class with this teacher you are in for a real treat. TORTURE. Sugiyama is such a horrid teacher it is unreal. Do yourself a favor and just say NO.”

As soon as Sugiyama was appointed, he voted with Stegeman and Hicks to replace Cuevas as chair and then with a 4-1 majority abolished MAS. Democracy in action.

Thus far, what is lost is what happens to Latino students; no one gives a damn. Nobody cares if they end up in gangs, as long as they make money for the elites — that is what counts. Fear of ending up in a class with a Mexican will generate more Charter Schools and more dropouts will insure larger prison populations in the future. Everyone makes money.

The disillusionment is not limited to Arizona politicos but includes the federal government. The federal courts have not enforced federal laws. The Obama administration is paralyzed furthering the feeling of abandonment and encouraging TUSD Tea Party Board member Hicks to go around saying that state law trumps federal law.

My mother would say about the gaggle in Tucson, no tienen madre. They are disrespectful; they don’t care about the law, or how many people are hurt by their actions.

I am not as nice as my mother was. I feel much like the people in the Boyle Heights area when the Night Stalker, Richard Ramírez, was terrorizing Los Angeles. They put out signs daring him to come East of the River, and then took care of him when he did.

Hopefully the Tea Party will come to L.A.

Howls of laughter bounce off the walls in California’s capitol, Sacramento with the revelation of an exciting new criminal defense that follows the creative “Twinkie Defense” in San Francisco a generation ago that justified murder.

The “tumor” defense of Democratic legislator Mary Hayashi bamboozled a judge enough to lower her felony charges of shoplifting to misdemeanors. It is “Laugh Out Loud” funny, and stupid.

Face it Mary, you stole $2500 from the San Francisco Neiman Marcus Department store, including a pair of sexy leather pants, very tight pants. Oh, what a sex kitten the East Bay legislator is; but, a free sex kitten. The judge gave her no jail time after she pleaded “no contest” to the lowered charges.

More alarming, however, is that a Republican legislator is walking around free, unindicted for a crime of immense seriousness compared to Hayashi’s theft of sexy leather pants. Assemblyman Tom Donnelly of a High Desert-based Assembly district has committed one of the worst crimes ever by a California public official.

He was busted for attempting to enter an airplane at the Ontario airport with a loaded pistol in his carry-on bag complete with an extra bullet-filled magazine. Yes, that’s a loaded pistol. The pistol and magazine were confiscated; he was referred to the San Bernardino District Attorney for potential prosecution.

Question, why wasn’t he arrested, handcuffed, booked and jailed? Hayashi was, why not Donnelly?

While we await the District Attorney’s pleasure, we need to discuss an even greater crime Donnelly is committing by introducing Assembly Bill 26 in the Legislature. It mirrors word for word, the infamous Arizona and Alabama anti-illegal alien laws that federal courts have stopped cold.

The three laws are eerily familiar in wording. Could it be they were written by the country’s infamous Yale-educated racist, Kris Kobach, whose daytime job is Kansas Secretary of State?

Here are two provisions of AB 26 that pistol-packing Donnelly has introduced which are onerous and probably unconstitutional (from the official Legislative Counsel’s Digest of AB 26):

(1) “This bill would prohibit public officials and agencies from adopting a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws or that restricts the sharing of a person’s immigration status, as specified. The bill would allow any person to bring an action against an entity to enforce these provisions.”

(2) “This bill would prohibit an employer from knowingly or intentionally employing an unauthorized alien, as specified. The bill would establish a process for persons to file complaints of violations of these provisions with the Attorney General or a district attorney. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to make a false and frivolous complaint…”

Notice one glaring word – PERSON, PERSONS in these two provisions, not California Resident or citizen or even adult. In other words, a 17-year-old “person” in Georgia may file a complaint in California under either provision. Sneaky!

Like thieves in the night, the bill’s authors and Donnelly have hidden legal elements in the bill that would permit individuals like Donnelly, who founded the California Minutemen and who is close to national Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, to file complaints with the California Attorney General about employers who hire Mexican-looking people resulting in expensive investigations and to punish government employees from doing their jobs by opting in or out of federal programs as permitted.

When a blogger wrote a critical piece about Donnelly’s airport gun, someone – probably Donnelly — from his website wrote the following note that reflects Donnelly’s lack of education, class and political acumen. This California Minuteman founder is famous for his profound hate and racism towards Mexicans.

Sent from Donnelly’s Web Site: “If your (blog) were not so full of inaccuracies, untruths, and outright misinformation, it would be worthy of a true response. You know nothing about me, but don’t let that get in the way of your career in writing fiction. Funny thing is the truth is almost always stranger and more interesting than fiction, but blowhards like you who think they know it all never find that out.”

The Blogger wrote about Donnelly’s airport pistol bust. It pointed out that Donnelly does not have a concealed weapon carry permit. It also questions Donnelly’s truthfulness; he says he forgot the weapon in his bag. Donnelly claims he carried it because of threats of harm rooted in his efforts to rescind the recently enacted California Dream Act that allows state financial aid for certain college students brought illegally into the USA as children, of, say, six months of age.

There is no record in Sacramento or anywhere that he reported threats to any law enforcement agency. Is pistol-packing Minuteman Donnelly telling the truth?

Now through January 31 San Diegans have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to plan for the region’s future. Together, we can create a 50- to 100-year strategic vision and action plan for San Diego by weighing in on our priorities, hopes and concerns for this wonderful place at www.ShowYourLoveSD.org. 

Have you made your voice heard?

Latinos make up more than one-third of San Diego County’s population, yet only 14 percent have participated in the public survey so far. 

Why should you care?

Our quality of life is at stake and also our children’s and grandchildren’s. We all share the same worries—jobs, transportation, housing, cost of living and education. San Diego’s population is expected to grow 40 percent in the next 40 years. Our children and grandchildren will make up two-thirds of the estimated population growth. It’s projected we will need 400,000 more homes and 500,000 new jobs by 2050 to house and employ them. 

Where will they go to work? Where will afford a home? How will they get their education? Will they enjoy the same parks, festivals and natural spaces that we do today?

These questions can be answered by you and all residents, who have an equal opportunity to weigh in on the issues that will impact all of us in the future.

Go to www.ShowYourLoveSD.org and begin with one of four modules – Work, Live, Learn, Enjoy. A Spanish language version of the website is available too. Make your voice count!

Choose where you want high-rise towers or one and two story buildings and how close homes should be to jobs, shopping and more.

Make other choices like favoring roadways, bikeways, transit lines or walkable neighborhoods.

Choose how education will meet tomorrow’s needs—through new education models, technology, globally-inspired curriculum or lifelong learning focus.

Weigh in on the amenities we need to provide for tomorrow – close-by open space, remote access to cultural performances, or a network of community “hearts” of arts and culture.

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to plan for the region’s future. All San Diegans should be heard. Tell your friends, family and neighbors, and ensure that San Diego’s future is brighter for the next generations, that will predominantly be our own children and grandchildren. Visit www.ShowYourLoveSD.org now through January 31. Users can choose an English or Spanish version for each of the four modules.

Kris: Imagine … making a child take something it doesn’t want … just because he bought too many of the wrong toys. That’s what I’ve been fighting against for years … the way they commercialize Christmas.

Alfred: A lot of bad “isms” floating around this world … but one of the worst is commercialism. Miracle on 34th Street

Rebuilding America requires all of us to promote the general welfare of all the people of the United States. For too long, as Robert Kennedy said, we have put the “mere accumulation of material things” ahead of our patriotic duty to serve the common good.

Worse we have surrendered to a form of commercialism based on “force, fraud and unconscionable greed.” We have allowed our competitive markets to erode. The need to provide full and fair disclosure in the sale of securities has been abandoned. We have given up on preventing frauds. Inequitable and unfair market practices go unabated; we foster and reward them.

Our government has been handed over to a small number of financial players who use government favors to deny equal business opportunity. They have extended a network of control in which credit is granted according to connections not character. The government has got into the hands of the bosses and an invisible empire has been set up above our democracy, as President Wilson remarked of a similar time in 1912.

In 2008 the power of selfish commercial interests over our government reached its zenith. A small group of financiers forced the United States government to pay billions of dollars of their losses from high stakes derivative gambling conducted in private casinos in the nation’s largest banks.

Rather than denounce the government for paying off the derivative gambling losses, President Obama cited it for saving us from another Great Depression. Instead of stopping the out-of- control commercialism of the derivate gamblers President Obama facilitated it with new permissive regulations, he hopes will avoid more bailouts but admits will not stop derivative gaming.

These derivative gamesters have infested our political system with their ugly commercial practices. They pay to elect the President, Senators and Representatives. The gamblers have soldered their reckless derivative trading practices to the emergency machinery the government uses to help distressed banks recover financial health.

President Obama has broken with the wisdom of Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, and Roosevelt when it comes to dealing with selfish commercial interests:

President Jefferson: “I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”

President Jackson: “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”

President Wilson:“A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”

President Roosevelt: “Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.”

The election of President Obama was hopeful. When he began his presidency in 2009 Democrats had a 257-178 edge over the Republicans in the House, and a 58-41 edge in the Senate. But the President failed to seize the moment. In his inaugural address he made a passing reference to “greed and irresponsibility on the part of some” and said the financial “crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.” But his were weak, weasel words uttered with no passion or sense of purpose.

President Obama erred in delivering a tepid inaugural address. He has not been strong in character, determined in purpose or bold in vision. He has not discerned or strengthened the tendencies upon which our development as a nation is based. Missing has been a profound sympathy for those whom he was supposed to lead. He has not been a leader of his party, of a legislative agenda, nor a spokesperson for the people. In short, he has not been a success in the arena of national politics in our democracy.

President Obama has been an able voice for the bankers and financial interests who finance his campaign. He proved that by bringing more money to his campaign from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.

President Obama is young enough and good enough to recover from these errors. He can take confidence from the fact that “in every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves.” President Obama can go along ways to advancing his cause by dropping the claims that the bailout stopped a depression and the financial reforms will stop another bailout. The first is an excuse for the bailout, and the second an excuse for more reckless derivative trading. Both represent the ugly face of today’s commercialism.

President Obama can help his reelection and advance his chances for a successful presidency by embracing the tradition of the 4 Democratic Party Presidents. Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson and Roosevelt were all elected to at least two full terms because the people trusted they represented the common good of the nation. All four rank in the top 10 of our best presidents. All possessed moral courage. All four spoke for their generation. All four kept concentrated, selfishness commercialism out of the White House.

Michael J. Aguirre is a lawyer in a private practice at Aguirre Morris & Severson LLP, and is the former City Attorney for the City of San Diego.

Commentary:
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Early on the morning of the 7th day, God wrote HB 2281; then he rested.

That’s the way conservative Arizonans view this clearly unconstitutional and immoral anti-Ethnic Studies measure.

The opponents of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) department – who act as though this state measure was also inscribed on the original tablets God handed to Moses – use this circular logic. An administrative law judge, Lewis D. Koval, also weighed in on the embattled MAS department, with a 37-page finding last week with the same twisted logic. He opined that MAS-TUSD is out of compliance and that HB 2281 is legal because it has not been ruled unconstitutional.

If affirmed, the finding can cost TUSD 10 percent of its monthly state budget, totaling up to $15 million per year. That HB 2281 has not been found to be unconstitutional is true… only because the measure has yet to be actually implemented and the 2010 Acosta federal lawsuit has not yet reached the trial stage. Not only that, the legal process, as established by the state measure, has not yet fully played out. Within a few days, state schools’ superintendent John Huppenthal, who campaigned with the vow to “stop La Raza,” is expected to affirm Koval’s non-binding ruling. TUSD can now petition the Superior Court to reject Koval’s finding, though TUSD superintendent, John Pedicone, has already indicated he wants the district to comply with the ruling.

On paper, MAS-TUSD detractors oppose the department because it violates HB 2281, seemingly not cognizant that the only reason this state measure exists is because the former state schools’ superintendent, Tom Horne, crafted it to ensure that the department would be deemed out of compliance, with the only remedy being elimination.

Horne incidentally, has long-claimed that his effort to eliminate MAS-TUSD was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I have a Dream” speech. Bernard Lafayette Jr., a colleague of MLK Jr. and a freedom rider, along with virtually the entire civil rights community nationwide, begs to differ with Horne. Ironically, along with the racial profiling SB 1070, his animus toward MAS is what has unleashed an unprecedented amount of hate toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans in this state, a clue that Horne has no business invoking MLK’s name for any reason.

Only four things have stood in Horne’s way: the truth, the facts, the independent Cambium Report, which was commissioned by his successor, John Huppenthal, and the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, none of that has stopped Huppenthal either; despite the independent $110,000 Cambium report finding MAS-TUSD in compliance with HB 2281, and recommending that it be expanded, he still managed to rule that the department was out-of-compliance. Huppenthal’s ruling triggered an [weak] appeal by TUSD before judge Koval. Within days, Huppenthal of course is expected to affirm his own decision.

Even though Huppenthal will affirm his own decision, the courts have yet to actually weigh in on the matter. To call HB 2281 a law is premature. The reason Horne, who is now state attorney general, initiated this measure is that he has always claimed that the philosophical foundation for MAS-TUSD is outside of Western Civilization. In effect, Horne is correct; MAS is founded not upon Greco-Roman culture, but upon a maiz-based philosophy, which is many thousands of years old and Indigenous to this continent.

Yet, Horne, along with other opponents, also claim that MAS is un-American. The state measure implies that MAS-TUSD: promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government; that it promotes racial resentment, that it is designed primarily for one group (Mexican Americans), and that it advocates ethnic solidarity, instead of treating people as individuals (This last provision is a seeming attempt to codify individualism, while attempting to destroy culture, which has always been collective).

The department was cleared of all these charges by Cambium. Not satisfied with the report, Huppenthal then overruled it, claiming, on the basis of his own “investigation,” that MASTUSD was in violation of three of the four provisions, excluding the charge that it promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government. In affirming Huppenthal’s June decision, Koval, an expert in liquor law, relied on the state’s principal star witness, Dr. Sandra Stotzky.

This hired gun, who admittedly is not an expert in either Ethnic or Mexican American Studies, actually witnessed nothing; she never set foot in any classroom, never spoke to one MAS teacher or student. This is the opposite of Cambium. Yet in Koval’s ruling, the results of the Cambium audit are diminished, while favoring Stotzky’s assessment. This points to what has been further unleashed; a torrent of people who seem to confuse the idea that opposing MAS somehow confers expert status upon them.

The hearings, which I attended, very much resembled an Inquisition into what is acceptable and permissible teaching, learning and thinking. It was the epitome of attempts at thought control within a cultural context. The supposition is that because Mexican American Studies is critical, contestational and oppositional – in its quest to teach the truth (Panche Be) – that it is therefore un-American.

Words such as Raza or Chicano, conflated with militancy by Horne, Huppenthal and Koval, are viewed as evidence of that assumption. Even the favorable Cambium report recommended that the term Raza be stricken from the curriculum. At best, the ruling assumes that challenging oppression and racial supremacy and asserting Indigeneity, makes MAS “racist,” anti-American and breeds resentment. Arguably, what MAS actually breeds is a desire for peace, dignity, equality and justice.

In its appeal, TUSD arguably put up a less-than-stellar defense, this as representatives of a district that is upwards of 60 percent Mexican American (approaching 80 per cent in the elementary grades). Their lawyers did not aggressively question the two TUSD school board members, Mark Stegeman and Michael Hicks, who have never hidden their disdain for the department. They did not aggressively question anyone. Worse, they could have made the Cambium report the centerpiece of their appeal, but they did not.

Of the many dozens of Arizona university scholars who teach Ethnic Studies, or who have been inside MAS-TUSD classes, none were called to testify. No one from the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Scholars or the National Association of Ethnic Scholars were called to testify, even though both organizations have affirmed their support for MAS-TUSD. This is the same district, led by Superintendent Pedicone, that has treated MAS supporters with contempt, actually militarizing its school board meetings, having elders and students arrested and even beaten (April 26 and May 3, 2011), this while proclaiming support for the MAS program.

In effect, Koval, Huppenthal, the state and even TUSD envision permitting the teaching of a neutered MAS, through antiseptic microscopic lenses, as a phenomenon of the past, and not ever bringing to light unjust laws and unequal treatment today. If the state emerges victorious, the teaching of HB 2281and the role of MAS students in defending their own program, will conceivably also be prohibited.

Judge Koval cherry picked passages from books, articles (including my own) and even lyrics and artwork and posters, to “prove” that MAS is out of compliance. The only thing the judge managed to prove is that Mexican Americans have not accepted land theft, lynchings, brutality, segregation, discriminatory laws, inequality, inferior education, mass deportations and dehumanization sitting down. He also managed to infer that maiz-based values such as In Lak Ech (You are my other self) and Panche Be (To seek the root of the truth) are un-American.

Truthfully, the department shouldn’t have to be in compliance with a clearly immoral and unconstitutional law, whose primary aim seems to be a return to the 1950s policies of forced assimilation. During the colonial era, it would have been referred to as a reduccion – an attempt to obliterate peoples’ Indigenous history, knowledge, culture and memory. Five hundred years later and HB 2281 appears to be an attempt at implementing the final reduccion.

Yet 500 years later, international law is actually now on the side of MAS: virtually every human rights treaty, charter and convention protects the culture, history, identity, language and education of all peoples. These human rights charters exist to prevent cultural genocide. This attack against MAS is actually an attack on all education, not just Ethnic Studies. The notion of censoring and banning the teaching of certain materials – making Swiss cheese out of what can be taught – is antithetical to the very precept of education.

Ironically, the movement against MAS is having an unintended opposite effect; it is “re-Indigenizing” the Mexican American and Latino/Latina communities nationwide. People who formerly sneered at things Indian, or who viewed them as part of the past, are now coming to understand that the reason MAS is fiercely opposed is precisely because of the Indigenous roots of the peoples and their cultures.

In Arizona, one could deem this effort to eliminate MAS, along with the anti-immigrant SB 1070, as a form of Indian Removal – an effort to exterminate or capture or possess the mind, body and spirit [of Mexicans]. Removal in 2012 translates into mass incarceration and mass deportations via racial profiling measures and discriminatory practices. And for those that can’t be deported or incarcerated, this translates into de-Indigenization, de-Mexicanization and forced assimilation. The American Dream.

While TUSD has the option to appeal the Koval/Huppenthal decision in state court, there is no assurance that it will do so (it is possible that other parties may do the appealing in state court). As Horne designed the measure, TUSD, with another turn to the right with the addition of another conservative school board member, may not be willing to risk $15 million to save a department that it barely supports. His design had but one goal: to eliminate MAS.

After the legal recourses have been exhausted at the state level, there is still the matter of the Acosta federal lawsuit; U.S. 9th Circuit Judge, A. Wallace Tashima, is scheduled to first rule on a temporary injunction and other procedural matters, then examine the constitutionality of the measure.

What actually stands in the way of implementation of HB 2281 and MASTUSD is the student group UNIDOS, Social Justice and MEChA students, along with the thousands of supporters, youths and elders who have braved arrests, the unnecessary use of force and death threats, affirming that they will never accept HB 2281 as a law. Not lost on them is the knowledge that the effort to dismantle the department, by what appears to be apartheid forces, including the TUSD school board, is due, not because it is failing, but the exact opposite; it eliminates the dropout problem. It is highly successful, graduating virtually 100 percent of its students and sending more than 70 percent to college.

Apparently, that’s both a problem and a threat.

* The 37-page Koval ruling can be found at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/76617576 ALJ-ruling-against-Ethnic-Studies-in-TUSD. Originally published in LatinoLA.com

When Steve Jobs passed away, I was admittedly surprised by the public outpour surrounding his death. This not only from people who knew him personally, but also from my friends, who told me how much his life influenced theirs. “My iPhone is the first thing I pick up in the morning and the last thing I touch before I go to bed,” they declared.

I decided to read his bio. Turns out Steve was quite the rebel when he was young. He made “bring your pet to school day” posters, convinced kids to give him their bike lock combinations then switched the locks on everyone’s bikes, and set off an explosive underneath his teacher’s chair. When the school complained, his father would say, “Look, it’s not his fault. If you can’t keep him interested, it’s your fault.” Fortunately, he attended schools that accommodated his childish behavior and rebellion rather than criminalizing it.

I work at an organization called the W. Haywood Burns Institute. Our mission is to protect and improve the lives of youth of color, poor youth, and the well-being of their communities. We work to ensure fairness and equity throughout the juvenile justice system by reducing the adverse impacts of public and private youth-serving systems.

What does this work have to do with Steve Jobs and his story?

If Jobs were attending a typical urban public school today, chances are high that he would have been suspended, expelled, or at least, put on a track aimed at failure rather than success. In Oakland, California—where I live—schools primarily serve poor youth of color. If students act like Jobs did, they are labeled with attention deficit disorder, medicated, or charged as delinquents. Even students who behave are rarely recognized as gifted or talented. This is not to say Jobs’ behavior didn’t merit a response from the adults in his life. Here is what happened to Jobs. He was placed in the advanced class in fourth grade. His teacher, “a spunky woman named Imogene Hill,” watched him for a few weeks and figured out how to reach him. In his words,

“After school one day, she gave me this workbook with math problems in it, and she said, ‘I want you to take it home and do this.’ And I thought, ‘Are you nuts?’ And then she pulled out one of these giant lollipops that seemed as big as the world. And she said, ‘When you’re done with it, if you get it mostly right, I will give you this and five dollars.’ And I handed it back within two days.”

Most people can relate to the idea that we all come to crossroads in our lives. We make decisions that take us in one direction or another, but when we are children, decisions are made for us. The adults in Steve’s life decided he was special. His father challenged the school to engage him to his full potential. His teacher learned what it took to motivate him.

This approach should become the norm in our schools and in every child-serving system. Not just for the exceptional Steve Jobs of the world, but for all children—even if their faces do not fit our biases about where potential lies. For too many students, today’s schools resemble prisons more than they do learning laboratories.

Youth of color comprise 38 percent of the youth population in the U.S., yet nearly 70 percent of those confined. The vast majority of brown and black children who fill detention are driven to the justice system from other youth-serving systems (http://www.csub.edu/~danderson_facile/docs/Week8_1.pdf) which neglect to provide appropriate support or services. They are arrested, charged and incarcerated more than White youth for similar conduct. Few are the violent offenders that dominate news headlines. Once in detention, we spend over $200 per night locking them in a place that, research shows (http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/06-11_REP_DangersOfDetention_JJ.pdf) , has a negative impact on their life outcomes. This is morally unacceptable and fiscally unsustainable.

The 2010 census shows that 12 states and D.C. now have white populations below 50 percent among children under age five. At current growth rates, seven more states will flip to “majority minority” among small children in the next decade. As a society, we cannot afford child-serving systems that do not support every child to reach their full potential. Schools are critical, as they are the conduit for ensuring liberal democracy, a sense of shared citizenship, and the reproduction of a sustainable middle class.

We should be working to ensure youth are learning, employable and connected to their families and communities. Now that we know the harmful and racialized impact of zero tolerance policies, schools should eliminate them and return to utilizing child misbehavior as teachable moments. Restorative justice practices, where the goal is to repair harm and to restore victim and offender, have also been shown to have a strong positive effect in reducing violence, decreasing suspensions and expulsions, and creating a safe and respectful learning environment in a number of places around the country, including Oakland. In Juvenile Justice, detention should be used only as a last resort for the small fraction of youth who are real and serious threats to others’ safety. Instead, we should invest resources into their schools and communities so that they are places of opportunity rather than places where some young people of color succeed “in spite of” their surroundings.

Every child should have the opportunities that Jobs had to become the person that he became. He says, “I learned more from [Imogene] than any other teacher, and if it hadn’t been for her I’m sure I would have gone to jail.”

Anna Wong is the Policy & Research Associate at the W. Haywood Burns Institute, where she analyzes data and assists local jurisdictions in developing strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities within their juvenile justice systems.

Tuesday night’s tight contest for the top spot in the Iowa Republican caucuses reflects the ongoing tension that exists within the Republican Party.

This struggle between the conservative religious voters — whose voice is strong and loud in Iowa and was represented by Rick Santorum — and the more moderate, mainstream voters, represented by Mitt Romney, is indicative of a fight for the soul of the Republican Party.

What is so interesting is that four years ago, Romney’s 25% share of the vote was not nearly enough to give him the victory. But this year, that same 25% is enough to keep him alive.

While his campaign will spin that he was not really playing in Iowa, he cannot be totally happy, because the Iowa results cannot be read as anything than a continued rejection of Romney by conservative GOP voters.

Regardless, as long as the anybody-but-Romney vote is split among several candidates, and the longer most of them stay in the race, the better it is for Romney — who can thereby win primaries with far less than a majority.

Social conservatives made very clear in Iowa that it was important for them to take a stand and vote for someone they could feel good about — someone who in their hearts and consciences they could wholeheartedly defend — rather than give their votes to someone they did not like and did not trust.

Again, this is not good news for Romney. He is like the bitter pill that conservatives refuse to take as long as there is still a viable alternative.

It also indicates that Romney still has an uphill battle to convince the majority of GOP voters that he is the one who can fully represent core conservative values and principles. He was not able to make the sale in Iowa. Will he be able to make it in upcoming states where conservatives also have an important voice?

Romney has made a career of changing his stances to match the prevailing political winds. In 2008, that lack of core political values cost him the nomination. Are Republicans desperate enough this time around to support someone who has marketed himself as perhaps not the perfect conservative, but at least the best bet against Barack Obama?

If that is the case, the problem for Romney will be that general election voters will see right through this farce, even as conservative GOP voters have here in Iowa.

He will have a tough time making the case that he is the best candidate on the economy, since when he was governor of Massachusetts, his state was the third-worst in the country on job creation.

When he was head of Bain Capital, he destroyed more American jobs than he created, while making millions for his investors — just ask Randy Johnson, a factory worker who was laid off because Bain Capital closed the factory where he worked.

Romney has also moved so far to the right on other critical issues that it will be hard for him to reconcile those positions with those of more mainstream general election voters. And what about the importance of Latino voters? Let’s not forget that no GOP candidate will see the inside of “La Casa Blanca” without at least 40% of the Hispanic vote, according to Bush pollster Matthew Dowd.

No GOP candidate even bothered to visit the Latino-rich population towns in Iowa, and Romney has already declared he would veto the Dream Act if he becomes president. So let’s be clear — the GOP can say goodbye to the Latino vote in the general election.This overall tension within the GOP between the mainstream and the extreme was in full display Tuesday night in Iowa. As such, the biggest winner of the Iowa caucuses by far is Obama. As I saw someone tweet Tuesday night — somewhere in Iowa, the Obama campaign is smiling.

Maria Cardona is a Democratic strategist and a principal at the Dewey Square Group, where she founded Latinovations. She is also a former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, and former communications director to the Democratic National Committee.

Finalmente empezó la guerra republicana por el “ticket” de las elecciones de 2012. Desde temprana hora del día martes, la batalla política en Iowa estuvo caracterizada por la incertidumbre. Nadie supo quién iba a tomar la delantera final.

De momento, el candidato preferido de los libertarios, Ron Paul, parecía imponerse en la batalla, pero el conteo de las ánforas en horas de la noche hizo notar que el apoyo de sus bases empezaba a debilitarse.

Después la contienda estuvo protagonizada por Mitt Romney y Rick Santorum. Al término del conteo, el primero se llevó la victoria por ocho votos; y el segundo se conformó con una victoria moral.

¿Qué significa para el electorado republicano el Caucus de Iowa? ¿Cuál es el futuro de Romney y Santorum? ¿Qué posibilidades tienen estos dos candidatos contra el presidente Barack Obama?

Iowa no cambió un ápice el espectro político republicano. Desde el momento que se inició la campaña de las elecciones primarias, Mitt Romney fue considerado el candidato a vencer, a pesar de que las bases de su partido, particularmente los cristianos, pusieron traba tras traba en su camino.

En las elecciones de 2008 calculé que si Romney hubiese sido elegido como candidato republicano, su posición en contra de Obama era la más idónea. También supuse que si Hillary Clinton era elegida, Romney hubiera tenido muchos problemas en derrotarla.

Asimismo, supuse que Obama, a diferencia de Clinton, tendría mejores oportunidades contra McCain. Así sucedió en las elecciones de 2008.

Hoy, el Caucus Iowa nos dice algo de lo que podría suceder en el futuro. Empero, las elecciones de New Hampshire, el cual se llevará a cabo el 10 de los corrientes, nos da un mejor parámetro de lo que ocurrirá en el seno del Partido Republicano.

De acuerdo a las nuevas encuestas pro-ducidas por la cadena CNN, Romney se ubica en el primer lugar con 47%. Santorum aparece con menos de 10%, detrás de Paul y Gingrich.

En este sentido, Santorum es sólo otro de los candidatos opositores de Romney. Ante-riormente lo fue Michelle Bachman, luego Rick Perry, Hermann Cain, Newt Gingrich y John Paul, sucesivamente. Todos sucumbieron a los ataque de los medios de comunicación y de la campaña de Romney. Es muy probable que el futuro de Santorum tenga el mismo final.

Así, todo indica que Romney se llevará la candidatura de los republicanos. A diferencia de las elecciones de 2008, cuando su posición contra un posible enfrentamiento con Obama era la más propicia, ahora está en el lado vulnerable. El extremismo de su partido y la retórica divisiva de los otros candidatos lo han obligado a tomar una agenda radical.

La posición moderada de Rick Perry y luego de Gingrinch antes del Caucus de Iowa, lo inclinó hacia una posición de ultraderecha en torno a la cuestión migratoria. John Paul, por su parte, lo empujó hacia el neoliberalismo salvaje.

Con un radicalismo en su espalda, Romney tiene pocas posibilidades en las elecciones de 2012.

Humberto Caspa, Ph.D., es profesor e investigador de Ecomonics On The Move. E-mail: hcletters@yahoo.com

Commentary:
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

In the United States, the most significant event of 2011 hands down should have been the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But for most Americans, the end of this illegal and immoral war and occupation hardly registers a ripple.

The reason: the continued belief in American exceptionalism.

In the United States, only U.S. casualties matter. According to the Iraq Coalition Count, almost 4,500 U.S. soldiers perished during the war and slightly more than 32,000 U.S. soldiers were officially listed as wounded. No U.S. agency officially keeps track of Iraqi numbers.

Not counting “enemy” casualties seems to be the ultimate form of dehumanization (The non-governmental Iraq Body Count group officially lists between 104, 308 – 113,962 Iraqi documented deaths). That’s the point of a war; dehumanize and demonize the enemy. No need to count them because they are not worthy of being identified or even acknowledged.

In Iraq, we were able to witness, from start to finish, the ushering in of a preemptive and unjustified illegal war, by the United States, sans legal consequences for those who engineered this massive crime against humanity. We learned, during this same time, that society takes more seriously the lives of dogs (Quarterback Michael Vick was imprisoned for cruelty to animals) than the lives of Iraqis.

In the U.S. narrative – as repeated in U.S. media – this war was waged to prevent Iraq from terrorizing the world, never mind that all the “evidence” was trumped up. It is mind-boggling the notion of killing and maiming untold tens of thousands of Iraqis and displacing hundreds of thousands of them, and for U.S. politicians to continue to invoke notions of U.S. sacrifice and heroic deeds in the same breath. All this at the cost of a trillion dollars, not counting future costs.

This is how national myths are created. Coupled with the rise of “The Homeland,” since 2001, the United States now shares the ideological space of dictatorships: Everything for the homeland. That was a deft psychological maneuver. Despite being the world’s sole superpower, the United States, with colonial/immigrant roots, could not previously claim a “homeland.” Now, it’s the mother’s milk of politicians: Enter the Homeland Security industry.

This has led to the exponential growth of the U.S. military machine, for permanent preemptive wars to be fought overseas and at home. In fact, especially with the use of drone technology, the entire world has now become a battlefield, including the United States, obviating the need for trials, etc. The mantra now is that the homeland must also be protected with militarized walls and fences, border patrols, and drone technology.

This “need” to protect the homeland against evildoers at all costs gave rise to the unquestioned post-2001 logic of: “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Such logic caused many of us to willingly sacrifice our rights and freedoms. If truth was the first casualty, the U.S. Constitution was the second. But this is not logic; it is evidence that the entire nation appears to live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Either that, or that it is soulless. Not the entire nation, but the merchants of war that have exploited fear and hate.

In the United States, for the past 10 years, the Black Man has gotten a short reprieve; now, it is the fear and hate of brown men, women and children that is driving this frenzied effort to “protect the homeland.” But there has been no reprieve because in the largest penal system in the world (upwards of 2 million inmates), the inmates are primarily black and brown. There is a direct connection between permanent war, “the homeland,” the expansion and privatization of the U.S. penal system, the criminalization of youths of color and the degradation of both the U.S. Constitution and human rights worldwide.

All is not hopeless. Domestically, the Occupy Movement is proof that the 99% are no longer falling for the logic of the 1%. And in Arizona, the ultimate symbols of “Homeland Security,” state senate president, Russell Pearce, has been recalled while his political twin, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is reeling from a series of Justice Department investigations that have found his department guilty of engaging in egregious racial profiling. His days are numbered.

In the bigger scheme of things, both are small potatoes. If the World Court were to affirm that there is no statute of limitations for starting illegal wars and indict those that engineered the Iraq War (The Bush-Cheney cabinet, those who made off with book deals as opposed to trials at the Hague), perhaps the world can begin to have a conversation about justice and “American exceptionalism.” It might even prevent further preemptive wars.

Rodriguez is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona. Reprinted from LatinoLA.com

Home care workers should get standard labor protections.

President Obama is proposing an adjustment to laws governing working conditions for approximately 2 million workers whose job is helping elderly and disabled people with such basic tasks as eating, caring for their wounds and doing physical therapy. Under the Obama proposal, these workers would have to be paid at least a minimum wage and overtime, bringing them under the aegis of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Some Republicans are opposed to the measure, complaining that it will be expensive (government programs pay for much of home care) and may hurt the people it is intended to help.

Home care workers provide necessary services that allow their patients to live at home. With the portion of the population represented by elderly people growing rapidly, the services of these workers is a valuable alternative to institutionalization. They interact with the patients sometimes in very intimate situations and treat them with compassion and patience.

Ninety-two percent of home care workers are women. Nearly 30 percent of them are black and 12 percent are Latina. Almost half of them have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to supplement their wages.

When the Fair Labor Standards Act was last changed about 37 years ago, Congress decided to exclude home care workers from the provisions covering minimum wage and overtime pay and instead put them in the same category as baby sitters. That decision was part of a tradition in this country of devaluing women’s work, and it helped perpetuate the trend of the feminization of poverty. The proposed change in the regulations would be another step toward ending this tradition and halting this trend.

Obama is right. We need to extend basic protections to home care workers.

Starita Smith, Ph.D., teaches sociology at the University of North Texas. She was an award-winning journalist at the Gary Post-Tribune, the Columbus Dispatch and the Austin American-Statesman. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org. Reprinted from The Progressive (http://www.progressive.org/)

Commentary:
By Frank Solis

The cold air was chilly, as I made my way to the store. Outside the entrance was a young Chicano couple asking for spare change. It really hurt to see this because it was right before Christmas and at their age they should be working and not been in such a dire situation. I remember years back another instance, only this time it was an elderly man who had obviously misspent his youth on [i]parrandas]/i]. I watched as he wrapped his old worn out coat as best he could around his body while trying to get some sleep on a park bench, in the freezing cold.

Having grown up in the barrio, I know just how tough life can be. However, I have also learned that the choices one makes as a young person, greatly influences the future of one’s life as well as the lives of our loved ones. So I always share my experiences with young people, experiences gleaned from the tough streets of the barrio and built upon how to avoid most of the serious problems one encounters in life. Since in reality, it seems that most of our problems are self-imposed. I tell young people that the choices they make each day will make the sum of their total success tomorrow, and in well into the future.

Almost every day, we turn the television on and hear the news blaring, someone is murdered in a drive by shooting, robbery, or drug deal gone bad, and I often wonder if most of these types of tragedies can be avoided? I truly believe they can, but it takes all of us working together to teach our young people what is right and what is just plain wrong. As to the ways of achieving a true measure of success, there is nothing better than seeing a young person smile when they realize just how wonderful education really is.

Unfortunately today, many of our Hispanic traditions rich in true valor, nobleness of heart, and honor have been lost, and been replaced by myths and fantasy. Teachings of just how young people should live their lives have been neglected and replaced by teachings about senseless violence, binge drinking, and hard partying. Who really cares about something as mundane and dumb as getting a higher education, right? One can always get a job, and raise a family with just a low wage job, right? Wrong!

The world is changing quickly, and along with it the needs of our young people to get a higher education grows. In order to compete for higher wage jobs and careers now and in the future, our young people need to be prepared. No longer is it possible for Hispanic youth, to just sit idly by as spectators and watch others take the very best jobs.

Hispanics teens have the highest dropout rate from school in the United States, and this is completely unacceptable. It is time for every Hispanic teen to make themselves a New Year’s resolution for 2012. And what should this resolution be? The promise, that each one shall attain a college education for themselves. Hispanic teens need to realize that a low wage job will only pay the bills but a high wage career will give them all of the success that they deserve!

Frank Solis is a Chicano creative writer, poet and songwriter from San Antonio, Texas. He seeks to help Hispanic youth and seek to inspire them to reach for the stars and obtain a higher education and the success that comes with it. Originally published at: http://keyestosuccessforhispanicyouth.blogspot.com

While working families struggle to make ends meet in this sluggish economy, there is a bright spot on the horizon: On Jan. 1, the minimum wage will increase in eight states, raising wages for more than 1.4 million low-wage workers. The increases in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington are a result of state laws that adjust the minimum wage upward each year to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

As a result, individuals who do the hard work of cleaning and securing office buildings, providing day care and serving food will not fall further behind as prices for food, gas and utilities continue to rise. The increase not only helps hard-working men and women provide for their families, but also boosts the overall economy. When Franklin Roosevelt first established the federal minimum wage during the Great Depression in 1938, he emphasized that a strong wage floor is “an essential part of economic recovery.” The same is true today.

When low-wage workers have more money in their pockets, they have little choice but to spend it immediately on basic necessities like groceries, clothing and school supplies. And as demand for goods and services grows, businesses expand and hire; the increased spending resulting from the minimum-wage bumps in eight states on Jan. 1 will lead to an additional $366 million in economic output and create the equivalent of more than 3,000 jobs, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s a shot in the arm our economy desperately needs.

The minimum-wage increase is especially important when so many better-paying jobs in sectors like construction, manufacturing and finance have disappeared, and many families are left supporting themselves with lower-paid service-sector jobs. An analysis by the National Employment Law Project finds that while the majority of jobs lost during and after the recession were in mid-wage occupations, roughly three-quarters of the jobs added since job growth resumed are in low-wage occupations.

And things aren’t going to improve any time soon: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that seven of the 10 occupations with the most job growth between 2008 and 2018 will be low-paying positions. While we know our economy will have an increasing number of positions in home health care, food preparation and customer service, these jobs don’t have to pay poverty wages. At one time, the manufacturing jobs that we now yearn for were dangerous, low-wage and undesirable. But we turned them into good jobs, with safer work places, higher pay, and a voice for workers.

Eight states will take a step in the right direction on Jan. 1 when they raise minimum wage rates to keep pace with inflation. But while more than 1.4 million workers will see their wages increase Jan. 1, millions more must depend on the stagnant federal minimum wage of just $7.25, or $15,000 a year for full-time work. The American people know this isn’t right: A national poll conducted in November found that more than two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. It’s a deeply popular idea that can help boost the economy while not adding to state or federal budget deficits.

It’s time for Congress and state legislatures across the country to take a cue from these state leaders and raise and index the minimum wage.

Christine L. Owens is the Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project.

Commentary:
By Roberto Lovato
Of América 

Does anybody remember “Anybody but Bush” (or “Anyone-but-Bush)? As we ramp up into the next election cycle, many are beginning to rally around the “Anybody-but-a Republican” flag, and as we do so amidst an text epic mix of multiple and intertwined and uncharted crises, some of us are asking ‘What did Anybody-but-Bushism get us?’

A quick review reveals that it got us such “progressive victories” as 3 wars, the deportation of 1 million migrants, the secret transfer of $7.7 TRILLION in loans to failed banks, the shredding of the US Constitution, a sharp acceleration of the police state-militarization within the US borders,not to mention a continuation of many of the worst policies of the Bush era.

War, militarism, anti-immigrant policies, enabling corporate greed and corporate domination of our lives, destroying basic rights,building a police state-this is the essence of Bushism, Republicanism and other isms that constitute the worst of our time. Obama did not just “inherit” these failed Bush policies; He’s expanding and perfecting them to protect the citizens that selected Bush and “elected” Obama, corporate citizens.

There’s no better foreshadowing of the perceived need of the 1% minority to close ranks and “protect” their interests from the 99% majority than Obama’s shocking reversal of his stated intention to veto the defense bill authorizing for the first time in US history, the possibility and likelihood of the secret and indefinite detention of US citizens on US soil.

Already, recent developments in England may preview the ways in which the same federal and local authorities trying to destroy Occupy Wall Street will start the process of morphing an Occupy rally or action into a “belligerent act” of “terrorism” resulting in the swift arrest and disappearance of US citizens by the Pentagon.

In the face of the “disaster” and drastic crisis of civil liberties we face, it’s important to consider how, in our desperation to defeat Bush, we may have created the very conditions for the distortion or even the destruction of the enterprise of “Hope.” Beware: the election year siren’s song of “Anybody-but-a Republican”ism is beginning anew, and ringing louder than the sound cannons at an Occupy rally.

Before the breathtakingly “dangerous” announcement of measures that will, in the words of Human Rights Watch (HRW) President Ken Roth, turn Obama into “the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” (Roth and HRW also called Obama’s decision a “A Historic Tragedy for Rights”), we should interrogate and undesrtand the imminent danger posed by Anybody-but-a-Republi-can(ism); Doing so is urgent, especially when consider that constitutional law professor Obama’s savaging of the Constitution reflects how national and global elites are feverishly preparing for the serious possibility of the Great Depression signaled by International Monetary Fund President Christine Lagarde’s rather stunning statement that our current global economic situation resembles “exactly the description of what happened in the 1930s, and what followed is not something we are looking forward to.”

As should be obvious to all but the “party faithful”, Obama, the”leader of the free world” and the 1%er interests that define him are doing in the US what more nakedly repressive “leaders” and 1%ers across the planet are doing: preparing,arming themselves legally, politically (i.e. the Obama deception) and militarily (as in arming against your own citizenry ala Egypt, Greece, Chile, India, China, Mexico, Russia, ad infinitum) for the crisis that looms, the crisis that Obama and other global corporate and military elite know is coming much better and far deeper than the rest of us do.

Given this situation, we must look soberly at whatever value is left in our degraded vote, our increasingly hollowed-out citizenship after the unholy alliance of corporations, the Supreme Court, the corporate media and other powers ate them. For what little it’s worth (i.e. the vote of corporate citizens matters billion$ more than yours) your vote should be backed up by a moral force greater, a justification smarter than the new Anybody-but-Bushism: “voting for the lesser of two evils.”

If that’s all you’re basing your vote on, then maybe you need a break from living in that 1%er-ruled electoral sewer and should instead try climbing up and marching onto the dignity of the streets, meeting people, organizing people, Occupying, and, most importantly, looking for less polluted political horizons as if your , our future depends on it-because it does.

Those horizons are there if you allow yourself to end the indignity of forcing your wild mind and big heart into the solitary political confinement controlled by corporate overseers; the indignity of a mental dungeon that tortures you by making you lie to yourself, forcing you to repeat mantra-like the words “the second term will be better,”; the indignity that reduces you to creating fantastic, mythological excuses for why Obama is not heralding a newer, friendlier-faced equivalent-or worsening- of the very policy evils you fear and loath in Republicans.

Hope is still there-if you put your mind and heart to work without ceasing to find them beyond your current political horizons. Seek and ye shall find…

Roberto Lovato is a writer and commentator at New America Media, a strategy consultant and a co-founder of Presente.org. Originally published at: Of América (http://ofamerica.wordpress.com/)