Defeat Trump : The Latino Vote is Important

By Dolores Delgado Campbell and Duane Campbell

Immigration issues along with the changing composition of the U.S. electorate will shape the 2016 Presidential and Congressional races, as well as many state races.

While working class non-union white voters in the upper Midwest appear to be abandoning the Clinton-led Democratic Party in response to immigration and neo- liberal trade policies, Latino voters are putting some traditional Republican and swing states in play, noticeably Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Texas.  In these states with a close electoral contest, the Latino vote may make the decisive victory.

The U.S. electorate in 2016 will be the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one in three eligible voters  (31%) will be Latino, African American, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, up from 29% in 2012.  Much of this change is due to strong growth among Latino voters, in particular U.S.-born youth. Latinos will constitute an estimated 11.9% of the total electorate.

According to Pew Research, the projected number of eligible voters will be:

White – 69%; African American  12%; Latino 12%; Asian 4%.

(For a detailed description of the various national  groups within the Hispanic category  see  http://www.dsausa.org/dl_hispanic_heritage_month)

Latino millennials will account for nearly half (44%) of the record 27.3 million Hispanic eligible voters projected for 2016. (Pew, 2016)

Donald Trump began his campaign for the Republican nomination with an assault on Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S. This was his strategic choice.  He has expanded his assault to encompass additional immigrant groups including Muslims and other Latino immigrants (but not Cubans).

Who’s Stealing Our Jobs? • NAFTA and xenophobia

Who’s Stealing Our Jobs? • NAFTA and xenophobia



Teaching lessons for school about trade, free trade, and prejudice.  From Rethinking Schools.

California Comeback: How a Ballot Measure Brought America’s Largest Public School System Back From the Brink – Capital & Main

Four years ago California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 30, the emergency ballot measure that Governor Jerry Brown and state education leaders had argued was needed to rescue public schools and community colleges from the fiscal free-fall of the 2008 Great Recession.

The good news, according to the California school teachers and officials, parents, college professors, health-care advocates and economic researchers interviewed by Capital & Main for this series, is that the initiative not only performed as advertised, but it may be the most spectacularly successful ballot initiative in the state’s notoriously uneven history of direct democracy.

Proposition 30 averted thousands of new teacher layoffs during the Great Recession.

By raising income taxes on the wealthy and the sales tax on everyone, Prop. 30 dramatically stabilized school funding in the wake of the recession, averting thousands of new teacher layoffs while beginning the work of restoring the jobs and programs lost during the first years of the crisis. It was also instrumental in allowing the state legislature to balance its budget for the first time in years without slashing social programs.

Debate is Over: Trump Lost

Rick T. Wilking/Pool via AP

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton smiles as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Monday, September 26, 2016.

   Harold Meyerson

Hillary Clinton had to do three things in last night’s debate, and she did roughly 2.8 of them very well. First, she had to actually make sounder, and more appealing policy points than Donald Trump did. On the whole, she succeeded—though she still doesn’t really have a good comeback to Trump’s criticism of the past several decades of trade policy (that’s why I only give her a 2.8 of three). Second, she had to get under his skin, so he’d feel compelled to defend himself, which is to say, defend the indefensible. Third, she had to know when to let him go, to rant, to be Donald Trump, and not step on it by interrupting or trying to refute the absurd. On points two and three, she was brilliant. Getting under his skin, she handed him the rope. Letting him rant, she let him hang himself. (So, I might add, did Lester Holt, who obviously went into the debate believing that he’d let the candidates be themselves, largely free from his own interruptions, before the largest audience they’d yet faced—journalistically, absolutely the right call.)

The three issue areas that were actually discussed—as opposed to those that fell victim to Trump’s incoherence, which worked to Clinton’s favor—were the economy, our relation to the world, and the intersection of race relations and police practices. On the last, Clinton was clearly, and I thought effectively, reaching out to young minority voters—a group whose turnout she clearly needs to encourage. Her discussion of the massive over-incarceration of the past decades, and the ongoing racial bias that affects, and in many places, dominates police practices, threaded a needle: Showing her understanding of the urgency behind Black Lives Matter while at the same time making police reform sound unthreatening to moderate white voters—at least, those moderate whites who don’t believe, as Trump would have it, that we’re in a 1968 moment when cities are going up in flames. Trump’s one-note law-n-order shtick, by contrast, doubtless played well with his base, but there’s no way it put any new votes in his column. Clinton’s move to mine her potential base for more votes, by contrast, probably did enable her to win some friends and influence fence-sitters.

Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths - POLITICO Magazine

Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths - POLITICO Magazine

Why We Are Protesting in Charlotte

Charlotte, N.C. —

William Barber. Chair, N.C. NAACP.
 Since a police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday afternoon, the ensuing protests have dominated national news. Provocateurs who attacked police officers and looted stores made headlines. Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard joined police officers in riot gear, making the Queen City look like a war zone.
Speaking on the campaign trail in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Donald J. Trump offered a grave assessment [1]: “Our country looks bad to the world, especially when we are supposed to be the world’s leader. How can we lead when we can’t even control our own cities?” Mr. Trump seems to want Americans to believe, as Representative Robert Pittenger, a Republican whose district includes areas in Charlotte, told the BBC, that black protesters in the city “hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not [2].”
But Charlotte’s protests are not black people versus white people. They are not black people versus the police. The protesters are black, white and brown people, crying out against police brutality and systemic violence. If we can see them through the tear gas, they show us a way forward to peace with justice.
On Thursday, I joined 50 Charlotte-area clergy members who were on the streets this week. Yes, a few dozen provocateurs did damage property and throw objects at the police, after being provoked by the officers’ tear gas, rubber bullets and military-style maneuvers. But as we saw, thousands more have peacefully demonstrated against the institutional violence in their communities.

The Left Under Estimates the Danger of Trump

antiracismdsa: The Left Under Estimates the Danger of Trump: By Arun Gupta (September 21, 2016) I know it’s the fifth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, but there is little to celebrate at such...

Why The NAACP Moratorium On Charters Really Matters To Our Public Schools | Portside

Why The NAACP Moratorium On Charters Really Matters To Our Public Schools | Portside

Over 100 Education Groups Want To Kick Cops Out Of Schools | Huffington Post

Over 100 Education Groups Want To Kick Cops Out Of Schools | Huffington Post

Hillary Clinton At 39th Annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute P...

Why The NAACP Moratorium On Charters Really Matters To Our Public Schools | Huffington Post

Why The NAACP Moratorium On Charters Really Matters To Our Public Schools | Huffington Post

Sacramento Teacher / Community Forum

California Voters Do Not Reflect the Population

antiracismdsa: Dolores Huerta: A Legacy

antiracismdsa: Dolores Huerta: A Legacy: Ken Burt,  For Hispanic Heritage Month. See video link at the end.  Seventy-seven years ago, in March 1939, Juan Fabian Fernandez of N...

Public Education Forum- Sacramento

America has a teacher shortage, and a new study says it’s getting worse - The Washington Post

America has a teacher shortage, and a new study says it’s getting worse - The Washington Post

How Messed Up is California's Charter School Sector ?

Difficult to Believe.

Valerie Straus, 

Ohio and Utah are known in education circles for having extraordinarily troubled charter school sectors, and the same is true in  Pennsylvania, where Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a report this year and declared his state’s charter school law the “worst” in the nation.

But there is another place with a scandal-plagued charter sector that gets less national attention than it should: California, which has more charter schools and charter school students than any other state in the nation, and where one billionaire came up with a secret plan to “charterize” half of  the Los Angeles Unified School District.

There is a never-ending stream of charter scandals coming from California. For example, a report released recently (by the ACLU SoCal and Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group) found that more than 20 percent of all California charter schools have enrollment policies that violate state and federal law. A Mercury News investigation published in April revealed how the state’s online charter schools run by Virginia-based K12 Inc., the largest for-profit charter operator in the country, have “a dismal record of academic achievement” but has won more than $310 million in state funding over the past dozen years.

There was the scandal involving a charter school principal who also doubled as a National Basketball Association scout, traveling first class to basketball games around the country — and charging his travel expenses to his charter school. Don’t forget the one involving a charter school that closed in 2014 after state auditors found a number of issues, including indications that administrators funneled millions of dollars in state funds to the schools’ operator and her family and friends.

Black Teachers Matter | Mother Jones

Black Teachers Matter | Mother Jones

Yuba City teachers on strike

Yuba City Teachers on Strike

District’s Bad Behavior, ‘Take It or Leave It” -- Negotiations Blamed As Cause For Strike-

The 700 teachers in the Yuba City Unified School District (YCUSD) will be on strike as of Thursday, September 8, 2016 because the district prefers to hoard millions in state funding rather than resolve a crisis over competitive pay that will attract and retain qualified teachers in the midst of a teacher shortage.  The strike notice provided by the Yuba City Teachers Association (YCTA) to the district cited both the disagreement over finances and unfair labor practices as the causes of the strike. “The district’s own actions have put us in this crisis,” said YCTA President Dina Luetgens.  This Yuba City strike will be the first in the area since the Stockton strike in January of 1990. Luetgens noted the response to the strike date announcement from YCTA teachers and community members has been overwhelmingly positive and heartwarming. “We’re in this crisis because this district continues to ignore the desperate need to attract and retain quality, qualified teachers,” she said.  YCUSD teacher salaries are 13.4% below the state average. YCTA proposed a 13% salary increase to address the pay gap and the exodus of teachers leaving to neighboring districts for better pay and working conditions. The last, best and final offer YCTA received for the 2015-16 school year was essentially 0% on the salary schedule plus one-time pay for extra duties. This from a district that received $17 million in additional state funding that year, which is over a 15% increase in the general fund for 2015-16. Because of its healthy financial status, YCUSD transferred $3.5 million into other accounts, rather than making those funds available to teachers and students.   Luetgens says the district can afford the teachers’ proposal.  YCTA has also filed unfair labor charges against the district alleging bad behavior, including intimidation, and ignoring information requests or providing inaccurate or incomplete information.

Moonlighting Teachers Learn Hard Lessons from Uber – Capital & Main

Moonlighting Teachers Learn Hard Lessons from Uber – Capital & Main

Parent Revolution (pRev) Repackaging Itself — PS connect

Parent Revolution (pRev) Repackaging Itself — PS connect

Prop 30 Saved the Schools: Proposition 55 is essential

New Report Shows the Significant Impact of Proposition 30

Nearly four years since California voters approved Proposition 30, a new Issue Brief from the California Budget & Policy Center looks at what Prop. 30 has meant for the state’s fiscal picture and investment in key public services. This brief highlights how Prop. 30’s boost to state revenues has helped California reinvest in schools and community colleges and other systems while also increasing the state’s capacity to build its budget reserve and pay down debt.

Passed in November 2012, Prop. 30 raised the personal income tax rates for very-high-income Californians (single filers with taxable incomes above $250,000 and joint filers with incomes above $500,000) through 2018 and raised the state sales tax rate by a quarter-cent through 2016.

Overall, tax rate changes in Prop. 30 have boosted state revenues by $7 billion to $8 billion annually. The effects of Prop. 30 revenues, which predominantly come from California’s wealthiest residents, include the following:
Prop. 30 has helped California reinvest in preschool, K-12 schools, and community colleges. Prop. 30 and a growing state economy together boosted Prop. 98 spending (dollars provided through the state’s minimum funding guarantee for preschool, K-12 education, and community colleges) by more than half (52 percent). Prop. 98 spending has increased from $47.2 billion in 2011-12 to $71.9 billion in 2016-17. Due in part to this boost in spending:
Prop. 98 K-12 spending per student has gone up from $9,168 in 2012-13 to $10,493 in 2016-17 (inflation-adjusted), an increase of more than 14 percent.

Dear Mayor Emanuel: I Resign My Position as Principal of the #1 Rated Neighborhood School in Chicago | Portside

Dear Mayor Emanuel: I Resign My Position as Principal of the #1 Rated Neighborhood School in Chicago | Portside

Labor Day and Farm Workers

Arturo Rodriguez, 

While a few short years ago a $15 minimum wage seemed like a moonshot, today municipalities and states across the country are standing with workers and adopting a minimum wage that will ultimately lift 35 million hard-working American families out of poverty.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration expanded overtime pay protections to more than 4 million working Americans.

And in California we are on the cusp on progress that builds on what the President has accomplished and paves the way for reforms that have the potential to put millions of working Americans on a pathway to the middle class.

Last week, California lawmakers passed first-of-its-kind legislation that allows farm workers to get paid overtime like all other workers.

To Fight the Right, We Need to Understand It Better

Bill Fletcher, Jr. ▪ September 1, 2016 

At a Donald Trump rally, Dallas, Texas, September 14, 2015 (Jamelle Bouie) 

It crystallized for me the other day when I was listening to a radio interview with Glenn Beck. With complete disgust and surprising nuance, Beck attacked Donald Trump and, in so doing, demonstrated the very real differences that exist within the right, differences that many of us on the left all but ignore. Beck called Trump a fake conservative; instead, he insisted, the Republican nominee is a populist, a socialist, and a nationalist. The “socialist” charge was surprising, but the others were predictable. What I found most intriguing, however, was Beck’s critique of Trump as a man who allegedly doesn’t believe in adhering to the Constitution. 

Too many of us on the left treat the right as a monolith. We spend little time trying to distinguish various right-wing currents, let alone disentangling the differences between neoliberalism and right-wing populism. And our failure to do so is hampering our efforts to fight back.

Over the last half-century there has been a demonstrable shift to the right among the political establishments of the global Northern capitalist states. With the global restructuring of capitalism, beginning in the late 1960s, and the rise of what has come to be known as neoliberal globalization, there came an assault on progressive movements and their gains over the preceding decades. Privatization, casualization, tax cuts for the rich, anti-worker offensives, and an increasing restriction on democratic liberties have added up to a slow-moving strategic defeat for the global Northern working class. The blunting of social movements, including but not limited to the women’s movement and the black freedom movement, has gone hand in hand with an increase in a polarization of wealth not only between the global North and the global South, but also within each.

To defeat the working classes of the global North, there had to be a combination of active repression and active disorganization. The active disorganization involved the promotion and toleration of various right-wing social movements that aggressively revolted against the gains of their progressive counterparts. The active repression included military and paramilitary-style repression of the left (varying from country to country), the militarization of law enforcement, and the rise of various forms of preventive detention and extra-constitutional imprisonment, along with mounting, if subtle, restrictions on the parameters for “acceptable” discourse under democratic capitalism (for example, in mainstream television debate). As a result, what was considered “left” kept moving rightward. That conservatives can get away with describing former President Bill Clinton as a leftist shows just how far we’ve come.

California Can't Go Back! : Proposition 55

Credentialism and Corruption: Vile College Presidents Edition | naked capitalism

Credentialism and Corruption: Vile College Presidents Edition | naked capitalism

Teacher Tenure and Due Process Protected

California Supreme Court affirms appeal court decision: “Vergara v. CA” is over

Statement by CFT president Joshua Pechthalt:

August 22, 2106—“We applaud the state Supreme Court’s affirmation of the appeal court decision,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “The teacher shortage facing California has been stoked by the Vergara case, the expensive publicity machine surrounding it, and the constant attacks by so-called reformers on teachers and public education. We can now turn closer attention to solving the actual problems we confront in our schools, such as securing adequate funding through Prop 55, reducing class sizes, promoting and strengthening peer assistance and review, and reinforcing collaborative district practices with a proven record of success. These efforts will result in a more positive climate to address the teacher shortage crisis, bring young people to teaching and encourage experienced teachers to stay in the classroom.”

Donald Trump: demonizing immigrants | The Briefing

Charter Schools: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

37 Times Donald Trump Should Have Apologized

37 Times Donald Trump Should Have Apologized

Back to School Shopping Lists - and State Budgets

Jeff Bryant

“You can exhale now,” the headline in Salon reassures, because “kids have more money than ever to spend on school stuff this year.”

The reason for Salon’s celebratory tone is that a national survey every year by the National Retail Federation finds that preteens preparing for a new school year have a record-breaking average of $80.31 in personal spending money. The author leaps from that nugget of information to conclude this is a sign of a stronger economy ahead. (Disclosure: I’ve written about education for Salon.)

But even if Salon’s analysis makes you breathe easier about the economy, you should understand those school kids aren’t going to keep their cash for very long, because their schools are going to need it.

Indeed, back to school supply lists are likely longer than ever before due to the simple reason that schools increasingly don’t have the funds to pay for items on the list. And because of persistently inadequate budgets that continue to dog our schools, you can be sure the longer your shopping list, the worse the funding situation is throughout your child’s school system.

Not only are school stockrooms increasingly bare of supplies, but teachers aren’t being adequately paid, class sizes are ballooning, programs are being cut, and school buildings increasingly forego required maintenance.

In states like North Carolina – where schools still get less funding than they did in 2008, despite an improving economy – money for necessary school supplies continues to be inadequate.

Trump and His Taxes

Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees - The New York Times

Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees - The New York Times

How Some California Charter Schools Illegally Restrict Enrollment

Report: Unequal Access

Download the full report (.pdf).

How Some California Charter Schools Illegally Restrict Enrollment

All across California, charter schools are implementing admissions policies that exclude students from enrolling. Like other public schools, charters must admit all students who wish to attend. By law, they may not discourage certain students from enrolling based on income, national origin, academic performance or other factors. These admission policies threaten to turn public schooling into a two-tier system where the students who need the most resources receive the fewest.

To realize charter schools’ promise of providing educational choice to all, the ACLU SoCal and Public Advocates released “Unequal Access: How Some California Charter Schools Illegal Restrict Enrollment,” a report that sheds light on exclusionary enrollment policies at 253 charter schools. See full list of charter schools cited.

These charter schools post enrollment policies or forms online that are clearly illegal or exclusionary. Other schools may also maintain similar prohibited policies that are hidden from the public view. The violations we found include:

• Exclusion Based on Academic Performance
• Discrimination against English Learners
• Pre-Enrollment Essays or Interviews
• Requirements that Discourage Undocumented Students
• Illegal Parent/Guardian Volunteer Requirements

Column: The Democrats must be the party of the 99 percent | PBS NewsHour

Column: The Democrats must be the party of the 99 percent | PBS NewsHour

How Black Lives Matter Activists Plan to Fix Schools | Portside

How Black Lives Matter Activists Plan to Fix Schools | Portside

Voting for Funding Schools _ Proposition 55

Current budget projections show that unless we maintain the current income tax rates on the wealthiest Californians, our schools will face nearly $4 billion in cuts. Under Prop. 55 the wealthiest Californians will continue paying the same amount they are now to protect public schools and vital services from deep cuts.

Funding from Prop. 55 will provide local schools the money they need to hire teachers and staff and reduce class sizes. It will help community colleges offer more courses and help keep tuition rates stable. And it will help improve access to health care services for low-income children so they can stay healthy and thrive.

Join the California Democratic Party, California Teachers Association, California State PTA, California Federation of Teachers, California Labor Federation, Children's Hospital Association and so many others and please add your name in support of our kids right now! Because our children and schools matter most.

Thanks for helping us do the right thing for California's children. 

Sincerely,

Tom Torlakson
State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Remembering Michael Harrington- Democratic Socialist

Maurice Isserman, 

In a lifetime of political engagement, Michael Harrington must have given ten thousand speeches, and of those, probably a thousand in New York City, where he had made his home since his arrival in 1949, age 21. He gave his final speech in the city 40 years later, in May 1989. Suffering from the cancer of the esophagus that would end his life in less than three months, he spoke that day to reporters and editors from the city’s union press. 

Dinah Leventhal, a 22-year-old activist, was in attendance. She was about to take on the job of youth organizer for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the socialist group that Harrington helped found and led, and welcomed the chance to speak with him for a few minutes afterward. Mike reminisced about his own days as a young socialist organizer in the 1950s. “He said,” she recalled, that “he had felt an incredible degree of freedom and learned so much in those years”

He said I should make the most of it, being an organizer and traveling around, getting to see the country and getting to know what the country was all about.  He really loved this country, and thought that you had to love the country to be a radical, to be a socialist, and to want to change it.

Over the years, Mike met and worked with many important and famous people, including Dr. Martin Luther King, United Auto Worker president Walter Reuther, Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, and Prime Minister Olof Palme, leader of Sweden’s ruling Socialist Party, to name but a few. The publication in 1962 of his landmark study of poverty, The Other America, helped spark the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty. He had another best-seller in 1972 with the unlikely title of Socialism, which sold over 100,000 copies in paperback and influenced many readers with its argument that the “real Karl Marx” was a radical democrat, not a would-be dictator. His last book, Socialism: Past and Future, came out shortly before his death. He was an editor of Dissent, a commentator on National Public Radio, a frequent contributor to leading opinion magazines like the Nation and the New Republic. As a public intellectual and a moral tribune, in the 1970s and 1980s, he had few equals on the left, or indeed across the political spectrum. Harrington, Senator Ted Kennedy would write, “has made more Americans more uncomfortable for more good reasons than any other person I know.”

Sac Sate's Program for Migrant Students (HEP) re established

Sacramento State has been awarded a five-year, $2.37 million grant to re-establish a High School Equivalency Program (HEP). The competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Migrant Education is designed to help migrant and seasonal farmworkers who are 16 years or older and are not currently enrolled in high school.

The goals are to help them obtain the equivalent of a high school diploma and gain employment, or go on to an institution of higher education, the military, or other postsecondary education or training. Service centers will be located in Woodland and Stockton, as well as at Sac State.

“HEP will provide a second family to migrant students who are typically left to figure out their future on their own, very much the way our College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) does for its students,” says Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen.

“HEP will ensure out-of-school youth are making progress, completing high school equivalency, and ultimately having better opportunities in the future. The work done by HEP benefits the individual, their families, and our society as a whole. We are very proud to have it back at Sacramento State.”

No New Charter Schools – NAACP Draws Line in the Sand

No New Charter Schools – NAACP Draws Line in the Sand

An important development. This is particularly relevant given Sacramento outgoing Mayor Kevin Johnson well funded and extensive advocacy for charter schools.
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/k-j-s-just-released-emails-show-alternate/content?oid=21574281

Hillary Clinton and the DNC

by Peter Dreier: Trump was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple. On Thursday night, Hillary Clinton hit a triple. 

Triples are harder to hit than home runs. They require power AND base-running ability. When you hit a homer, you can jog around the bases. To hit a triple, you have to run full-speed from home plate to third base. You have to know your own strengths and those of your opponent - do I have the speed to make it third, does the outfielder have the arm strength to throw me out? Triples take grit and determination. They don’t always excite the crowd like home runs. But they help your team win the game.

Presidential acceptance speeches should be judged both on substance and on performance. I’d give Hillary an A on substance and a B+ on performance. So, combined, it was an A-. In other words, a triple.

It contained some mildly soaring rhetoric but mostly it was: Here’s who I am, here’s what I’ll do, and here’s why Trump is dangerous. 

Clinton was both self-assured AND self-deprecating. She made fun of her policy-wonk instincts but then said that a good president has to know the details. She talked about coming back from adversity — both the defeat of health care reform (explicitly) and her occasionally troubled marriage (implicitly) — and turned it into a lifetime of grit, determination, and accomplishment. 

Her references to our Founding Fathers, and her reference to the Broadway show “Hamilton,” reminded us that all progressive change involves compromise and negotiation, which is not the same thing as capitulating or selling out. She sounded patriotic, where Trump last week sounded xenophobic.

Some pundits have said that Clinton’s strongest appeal is to women over 50 who remember when the idea of a woman president was considered unthinkable. In 1969, only 53 percent of Americans said they would vote for a woman for president “if she were qualified in every other respect,” according to the Gallup Poll. By last year, that figure had increased to 92 percent. Many younger women, who have benefited from the activism of their older counterparts, take the accomplishments of the women’s movement for granted. Perhaps so. But watching Clinton’s speech Thursday night, my 19-year twin daughters — both fervent Sanders supporters — were moved to tears. 

Clinton basked in her status as the first women to be nominated by a major political party. But she said it wasn’t about her. It was about the progress of women. And although she didn’t refer to the old labor song, “Bread and Roses,” she articulated the same sentiment of that song: “The rising of the women is the rising of us all.”

Oh, and she wore a white dress — the same color clothing that the early 20th century suffragettes wore. Was that a coincidence?

In terms of the policy agenda, she managed to explain it without being too wonky. Plus, it was the most progressive acceptance speech in my lifetime. She was generous in her praise of Bernie Sanders. She clearly was pitching it to win over Sanders’ supporters. 

She took on the gun lobby. She took on Wall Street. She took on the super-rich and big business by calling for higher taxes. She came out for free higher education, and reducing student debt, echoing Bernie’s plan. She called for making the minimum wage a living wage, but didn’t say how big. She called for a major investment in infrastructure as both a jobs program and an energy-efficiency program. She came out for paid family leave and defended a woman’s right to choose. She came out for comprehensive immigration reform. She talked about inequality and poverty - something you’ll never heard from Trump. She mentioned the Flint water crisis. Echoing Black Lives Matter, she indicted the criminal justice system as racist. But she also praised police for their courage and risk-taking. All she had to say was one line — “I believe in science” — and people got the point: Trump doesn’t. He’s a climate change denier.

I wish she had used the word “union” at least once. A stronger labor movement is central to a more progressive America. Plus, she can’t win without organized labor mobilizing its members and their families, and investing in her campaign.

It isn’t fair to criticize her for not being more specific. That’s not what acceptance speeches are for. But the contrast with Trump’s acceptance speech — all bombast, no issues, all fear, no hope — was obvious. 

It was great that she reminded the crowd of FDR with her reference to “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” using it to undermine Trump as a fear-monger. Trump vs. FDR: no contest! And, she had some funny lines. She showed a sense of humor — something many people don’t associate with HRC.

She compared her own view of the world, reflected in her book, “It Takes a Village,” with Trump’s line last week: “I alone can fix it.”

She bashed Trump’s record as a con artist who failed to pay his bills to small businesses and workers. She questioned his principles and his psychological stability. She was tough on Trump, but she didn’t come across (as he did last week) as angry and unhinged. She was calm, steady, cool under pressure.

The speech took full advantage of her strengths and avoided her weaknesses. She’s not good at belting, at modulating, or at barn-burning rhetoric, and she didn’t try to do it. She came off as more of a human being, less as a still policy junkie. 

Watching it on TV, it look liked she had the crowd on her side. Unlike Monday night, the handful of hecklers didn’t get in the way. You couldn’t hear them clearly on TV, and Hillary ignored them and didn’t get flustered. I was worried that 100-200 Bernie-or-busters would walk out as soon as she started talking and that the TV cameras would pan to the walk-outers. But either there was no walk-out or, if there was, the TV cameras didn’t show it — a sign of restraint and good journalism. 

So, from the comfort of my living room, I was very impressed. To me, triples are more exciting than home runs.

Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His latest book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books). 

In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’ - Working In These Times

In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’ - Working In These Times

Elizabeth Warren On Trump: "He Sounded Like A Two-Bit Dictator"

Trump's Dystopia

Trump's Dystopia: Trump’s dark warnings and grandiose pledges that he alone can save the troubled nation sound an ominously authoritarian note.

Harold Meyerson

Yes, Donald Trump’s acceptance speech was remarkably dystopian, painting a picture of America in which good citizens cower in their homes, afraid to stir lest they be mowed down by marauding immigrants. Yes, it was a law-and-order speech—he used the phrase four times—modeled after those of Richard Nixon, whose 1968 campaign came at a time of devastating urban riots, generational upheaval, and a bloody war that would not end. And yes, it was a speech that hurled absurd accusations, backed up by fictitious facts, at Hillary Clinton—the last in a parade of such speeches at this year’s convention.

But what made Trump’s speech truly ominous and without precedent in American politics was the role he assigned himself—and the rest of us. We are mute and defenseless. He is our voice. He alone can fix our problems. That doesn’t really leave much for the other 300 million-plus citizens of our democracy to do. It doesn’t leave much for other elected lawmakers to do, either.

Were Trump to win, he would claim not merely a mandate, but a kind of personal and mystical authority.

Were Trump to win, he would claim not merely a mandate, but a kind of personal and mystical authority. He would amend the phrase vox populi vox dei— “the voice of the people is the voice of God”—to vox Trump vox populi vox dei. Indeed, he so amended it last night.

What Trump has to offer, then, is not merely the right-wing xenophobic populism of, say, a Marine Le Pen. To this already toxic mix, he’d bring a level of personal authority and legitimacy that Le Pen and her ilk don’t claim for themselves. Armed with this additional authority and legitimacy, which no other governmental figure could claim, Trump could govern in a way that unbalances some of our checks and balances, moving our system towards a more personalist and authoritarian regime.

Chicano History Will be in the California Text Books in 2017

By Duane Campbell

History and social science textbooks in public schools in California and most of the nation are racist, class-biased, and ignore LGBT history. This condition will change in California in 2017 when new textbooks are adopted.

It is over. We won !

 At 2:45 PM July 14, 2016,  the California State Board of Education unanimously endorsed a new History /Social Science Framework for California’s public schools that includes a substantial addition of Chicano/Latino history, improved history of LGBT people, and improvements in several other histories.

This completes a 6 year effort against substantial opposition to revise the Framework.  As a result textbooks in California in 2017 will be the most inclusive ever required, and all students will be taught an inclusive history. This has been the major campaign of this blog and the Mexican American Digital History project since 2009. 

Under this decision California students will finally be encouraged to know the history of Latino civil rights leaders like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and Filipino labor leaders like Larry Itliong, as well as an accurate and inclusive history of LGBT activists  as a part of the history of California and the nation. These topics are currently substantially absent from public school textbooks and curricula in California.

antiracismdsa: We Won ! Chicano History Will be in the California...

antiracismdsa: We Won ! Chicano History Will be in the California...: By Duane Campbell History and social science textbooks in public schools in California and most of the nation are racist, class-biase...

President Obama speaks at Dallas police memorial service

Teachers and Violence This Week

Letter Opposing Violence from National Association of Multicultural Education, 
The deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille and Delrawn Small serve as yet another round of reminders that the criminal justice system was born out of American racism, that our police are born in a colonial settler-state country that enforces racism in every way. Whether it is fear or hate that drives our rage and violence against each other, underneath this violence rests an impossible commitment to maintain racism. The hateful attack on Dallas police, during what had been a peaceful protest, further reinforces the violence of our nation. 
This settler-state enforced, media-encouraged violence is not limited by our racism, as the mass shooting in Orlando attests. Yet racialized, gendered, and sexualized violence is not limited to national borders. In South Africa, Black lesbians and transgender communities are regularly violently targeted, while corporal punishment is the norm in Black and Coloured schools. Recent extrajudicial killings in Kenya, persecution of people with albinism in Tanzania, the maintenance of apartheid-like conditions in Palestine, and anti-immigrant violence across Europe reminds the world of a settler-state enforced – or at least silently tolerated – violence against those we frame as “the other.”
While not everyone embodies what we are taught as children, and certainly many educators fight against these notions every day, NAME reminds us that our schools do frame such racism as normal, and the everyday operation of schools fosters a context that allows violence against particular groups of people to be seen as normal. 

While we must continue the long-term struggle to transform schools and society, we must also respond today. Schools and colleges must be at the forefront of addressing the context that justifies the dehumanizing that encourages the killing of particular people. We cannot continue as normal, when our normal justifies the violence we see around us. 

http://www.nameorg.org/docs/2016_Letter_from_NAME_opposing_violence_final-7-10-2016.pdf

http://www.nameorg.org/index.php

Stop Trump's Wall

The Berlin Wall symbolized cold war between the east and west through 1989. The Wall in Jerusalem symbolizes undeclared war today between Israelis and Palestinians.

Completing the Border Wall would be a step towards militarization of the relationship between the US and Mexico and a harbinger of things to come.

The US Mexico Border Is Under Control and Stable

The fact is the US-Mexico border is already under control according to US official reports. Numerous laws and appropriations have been enacted over the last 15 years by the US Congress and three Presidents from both parties resulting in construction of 700 miles of wall and quadrupling the border guard to nearly 20,000 members today. Radar and drones are already in use.

Register and Vote. 

With a Trump victory, we face a serious growth in officially sanctioned racism and anti immigrant prejudice.  Trump’s campaign has made an anti immigrant narrative acceptable in the main stream media- and this strategy works.  It mobilizes right wing voters.

Robert Reich have a special Fourth of July message about patriotism

Extending Prop 30: Not Optional! For Teachers

The new proposition will be Proposition 55. 

Extension of Education Tax Initiative on the Ballot for November

 Sacramento, in front of California Middle School, leaders and members of unions and community groups stood before a large group of reporters and announced that the coalition they belonged to had just turned in more than a million signatures to place the "California Children's Education and Health Care Protection Act" on the November state ballot.

CFT vice president Joanne Waddell said, "During the recession colleges and universities cut classes, laid off faculty and staff, and increased tuition and fees, pricing higher education out of the reach of many working families. We don't want to go back to class cuts and skyrocketing tuition rates.  Our children, our puiblic schools and our community colleges cannot afford tax cuts on the wealthy."  Waddell is also president of the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild, AFT Local 1521.   

This measure proposes to extend Proposition 30.  Prop 30 has been a game changer for public education in California.  The new ballot measure will ask to extend the top bracket income taxes for the wealthiest 2% of Californians, and drop the modest sales tax that had been part of the original Prop 30.  The revenue will help ensure that California continues to move forward toward funding education for all students from pre-school through university.