Obama’s Coalition Leaves Out The Far Right And The Most Poor

Political columnist E.J. Dionne, who gets it right often enough, writes that President Obama is creating a political coalition inclusive of all with the exception of the far right.

Mr. Dionne says this—

“Over the last week, the true nature of Obama’s political project has come into much clearer view. He is out to build a new and enduring political establishment, located slightly to the left of center but including everyone except the far right. That’s certainly a bracing idea, since Washington has not seen a liberal establishment since the mid-1960s.”

Here’s the  full column.

I think Mr. Dionne misses something here that is picked by Bob Herbert of the New York Times.

From Mr. Herbert–….

“….the Center for Labor Market Studies has compiled data showing that the recession’s effects have been “disastrous beyond belief” for some groups, including young men, men without college degrees and black men. These job losses among young workers have ominous long-term implications for American families and the economy as a whole.”

Here’s the full column. 

It’s possible that President Obama cares about the plight of the most poor. Yet I’m yet to be convinced he cares enough to do anything about that plight or to take real political risks for the poor.

Addressing the needs of the truly down-and-out would require asking some basic questions about our economic system. It would also require asking questions about our Democratic party which uses the votes of the poor to gain office to extent those votes are needed, but often does little to offer hope to the poor the rest of the time. 

President Obama is off to a good start in many respects, but there remains room for improvement. Taking political risks for the good of all Americans would be part of that needed improvement.

Please click here for an article from The Nation magazine about the need for a program of a full employment in our nation. 

Terrible Graduation Rates Show You Can Do Anything To The People Of Houston And Get Away With It

A new study reports that only 58.5 % of Houston-area high school freshmen graduate four years later.

Here is the Houston Chronicle story about the study. 

From the study—

“Children at Risk, a Houston-based advocacy group, commissioned the Texas Education Agency to conduct study of six-year graduation rates for the region’s 130 high schools. They learned that 53 percent of the students who begin as ninth-graders in the Houston Independent School District had not graduated from any Texas high school in six years. The combined graduation rate for the entire region’s high schools is 58.5 percent.”

This report tells me you can do anything to people in and around and Houston and get away with it. Can you imagine people tolerate this? Or take it as normal?

These type numbers exist in cities and rural areas across the country.

You’d might as well put people in camps or brand them with irons. A poor city neighborhood in this society is a camp in any case. One that Republicans ignore all the time and Democrats often only notice at election time.

( And an isolated rural area can often be a kind of more wide-open camp that Democrats ignore and Republicans often only notice at election time.)

You can’t get anywhere in this country without a high school degree. You can’t even be sure of your prospects anymore with a college degree. People should be demanding action. People should have been doing so a long time ago because these bad education numbers are longstanding.

Our Harris County sheriff, Democrat Adrian Garcia, wants Harris County to build a new jail. Yeah–Another jail. That will solve our ills.    

Please click here for my post on the subject of why people believe conspiracy theories.  I assert people often hold such views because nothing is so crazy or brutal that it can’t be true. It seems plausible enough that we as a community in Houston would be content enough with large numbers of our poor just dying off. How would it be so different from how we treat folks currently?