Category: Uncategorized

Talk about criminalization. The Honorable Aaron Pena dragged
up this story from a San Francisco source: After spending $20 million
of our money investigating the life and friends of Henry Cisneros, a
special prosecutor has been ordered by the US Senate to release his
final report already. It has been kept under seal since August
2004.
We used to be among the good rep’s short list of links, but no
more. He’s gone all Quorum Report on us and AP, not even a
PinkDome link anymore. But we understand, he needs voters, not
philosophers on his side. For example, his answer to the border
drug wars is a committee
on substance abuse. That’s how one behaves in front of voters,
nurturing commonsense hypocrisies with warm milk. Apparently, it
can’t be helped. Here at TCRR we say, legalize it all: the drugs
and the people, too. BEFORE the border war breaks out.
Whatcha wanna bet  Quorum Report readers would think about that?

On page 45 of the Texas Supreme Court decision on school funding, we
find ambivalence on how to measure Texas education through a
standardized national exam. In the first half of the paragraph, the
court buys into the argument made by a State witness that scores should
be adjusted for "socioeconomic and family characteristics" meaning that
poor and non-white students should be compared not to rich white
students but to other poor and non-white students. Since half of Texas
students live in poverty, the choice of comparison makes a big
difference.

In the second half of the paragraph, the court admits that if the
purpose of a public school system is to get students ready for college,
then unadjusted scores in Texas indicate some worrisome failure:

Academic success is also measured by the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) achievement test, as witnesses for all
parties at trial acknowledged. In 2000, controlling for socioeconomic
and family characteristics, Texas was first out of 47 states overall,
first for white students, fifth for African-American students, ninth
for Hispanic students, first for fourth- and eighth-graders in math,
and second in rate of improvement. In 2003, Texas ranked first in the
nation in closing the gap between African-American and white
fourth-graders in math, and second in the nation in closing the gap
between Hispanic and white fourth-graders in math and reading. But
unadjusted NAEP data, which may more accurately reflect college
preparation, showed Texas sinking to 37th among the states in
fourth-grade and eighth-grade reading, although it had risen to 22nd in
fourth-grade math and remained 34th in eighth-grade math.

The issue is crucial to deciding on the adequacy and
worthiness of education in Texas. Does the Constitution allow the
Supreme Court to consider education of poor students in Texas ‘good
enough’ so long as it’s no worse than the education of poor students
elsewhere? Or does it flatly mandate widespread college-level prep? Of
course one answer IS more expensive than the other. In choosing the
cheaper path, the Supreme Court seems to rely on rankings of
‘improvement’–a criterion that sounds something like ‘all deliberate
speed’. The court goes on to note that:

In 2003, Texas ranked last among the states in the
percentage of high school graduates at least 25 years old in the
population. Texas also has a severe dropout problem: more than half of
the Hispanic ninth-graders and approximately 46% of the
African-American ninth-graders leave the system before they reach the
twelfth grade. The gaps between white students on the one hand and
African-American and Hispanic students on the other are especially
troublesome since the African-Americans and Hispanics are projected to
be about two-thirds of Texas’ population in 2040. According to the
plaintiffs’ expert, if these gaps are not reduced, Texas will ‘have a
population that not only will be poorer, less well-educated, and more
in need of numerous forms of state services than its present
population, but also less able to support such services . . . [and]
less competitive in the increasingly international labor and other
markets.’

Yet with all these existing challenges the court finds that because
Texas is improving steadily with respect to other states, the education
system is not ‘arbitrary’ and thus cannot be ruled inadequate by
constitutional standards.

Having carefully reviewed the evidence and the district
court’s findings, we cannot conclude that the Legislature has acted
arbitrarily in structuring and funding the public education system so
that school districts are not reasonably able to afford all students
the access to education and the educational opportunity to accomplish a
general diffusion of knowledge.

"We recognize," said the court, "that the standard of arbitrariness
we have applied is very deferential to the Legislature, but as we have
explained, we believe that standard is what the Constitution requires.
Nevertheless, the standard can be violated." The court rejected
all the state’s arguments that would keep the court from staying
involved if facts of Texas education do not continue to improve.

–gm

Each year, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from our nation’s high
schools. Brought by their parents as young children, many have grown up
in the United States, attended U.S. K-12 schools, and share in our
American culture and values. Some have little memory of their homeland
or their native language. Like their U.S.-born peers, these individuals
share the same dream of pursuing a higher education. Unfortunately, due
to their immigration status, they are typically barred from many of the
opportunities that currently make a college education affordable –
in-state tuition rates, state and federal grants and loans, private
scholarships, and the ability to work legally to earn their way through
college. In effect, through no act of their own, they are denied the
opportunity to share in the "American Dream." If passed, the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien
Minors (DREAM) Act,” S. 2075, a bipartisan federal proposal led by
Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Richard Lugar
(R-IN), would facilitate access to postsecondary educational
opportunities for immigrant students in the United States who currently
face barriers in pursuing a college education. The “DREAM Act” would
also allow hardworking immigrant youth who have long resided in the
U.S. the chance to adjust their status, enabling them to contribute
fully to our society.

The “DREAM Act” was introduced in the U.S. Senate in November
2005. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of the bill, and the
lead Republican cosponsors are Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard
Lugar (R-IN). The Senate Judiciary Committee must now consider and
approve the “DREAM Act” before the bill can be considered for a vote by
the full Senate. Similar versions of this bill garnered significant
support from both Democrats and Republicans last Congress when it was
approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 16-3 bipartisan vote.
In addition, last year, 48 senators and 153 representatives signed on
in support of the “DREAM Act” and its companion bill in the U.S. House
of Representatives. The House version of the “DREAM Act”, which has
been championed by Representatives Chris Cannon (R-UT), Howard Berman
(D-CA), and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), currently awaits
reintroduction.

NCLR Position

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
urges passage of the “DREAM Act,” S. 2075. The “DREAM Act,” which
provides a path to U.S. citizenship for hardworking and talented
immigrant students who have been raised in the U.S., is critical to
improving the pipeline from high school to college and providing
meaningful employment for Latinos.

it’s not the dagger through the swastika that bothers me. fascism as a social practice should be killed.

but to say that "the only good fascist is a dead one" evokes for me
re-inscription of the form of masculinity that empowers fascism in the
first place (what Stan Goff calls the gendered degeneration of American
politics).

it also sounds like an echo of the public morality of a death penalty
state where imagining the deaths of real people is not the moral
equivalent of war, but war itself.

Woody Guthrie’s guitar said "this machine kills fascists", but it was not a dagger that he carried, was it? besides, if there are fascists, as there are racists, the problem is
poorly understood as individual existence of any sort. fascism and
racism are ways of ordering social reality. and like I say, I have no
problem killing those orders. but how do you touch the problem of
killing an order of things via the symbolic execution of individuals?

it is precisely by mistaking racism and fascism as something confined
to Klan membership that encourages everyone to ignore widespread
ignorance and apathy. notice for example how Klan arguments against gay
marriage are no different than arguments propounded from pulpits and
podiums everywhere else in Texas. they are fascist and racist arguments
no doubt.

the slogan that "the only good fascist is a dead one", because
it re-inscribes fascist masculinity, death penalty mentality, and
ideological misdirection as to the problem that fascism poses, takes
the bait that Klan logic offers. it is therefore an expression of pure
reaction.

please re-consider–gm