Limiting Access to Higher Education?

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Hundreds rally at UCLA to protest expected 32% increase in student fees - LA Times - November 19, 2009

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click here for link to photos of the protest

A second day of protests roiled the UCLA campus today as the UC regents prepared to approve a 32% increase in student fees.

Groups of UC students from several other campuses arrived in Westwood to join a noisy demonstration against the fee hike, and a group of protesters was occupying a UCLA classroom building.

UCLA officials declared Campbell Hall, where the sit-in continued, closed for the day. Inside, about 40 to 50 students had chained the doors shut shortly after midnight and were issuing e-mail statements.

“We choose to fight back, to resist, where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university,” their statement said. Campus police surrounded the classroom building, but no arrests were made.

Meanwhile, across campus, a crowd of several hundred gathered outside Covel Commons, where the regents were meeting. Students and UC employees chanted such slogans as “Whose university? Our university!”

Among them was Tommy Le, a fourth-year student at UC Santa Cruz, who left his campus at 3 a.m. today in a convoy of two buses headed south. Le, 21, an American studies major from El Monte, said he was worried about how he being able to afford the higher charges, starting with an additional $585 for the rest of the school year.

“It’s adding more stress and more burden,” said Le, who said he works two part-time jobs and sends.money home to help his family. The fee increase, he said, would be “a lose-lose situation.”

The full Board of Regents is expected to approve a fee hike of $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by next fall. That would bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, plus about another $1,000 for campus-based charges, for a total that would be about triple the UC cost a decade ago. Room, board and books can add another $16,000.

-- Larry Gordon

You can't avoid taxes if you live in Texas - legal or not

This post is especially for the person who wrote that undocumented people are leaches and don't pay taxes. I urge you to read this information before you decide to call people names again.

If live in the state of Texas, citizen, legal resident, or undocumented, you cannot avoid paying taxes. Why? Because we have a sales tax. Every time you buy something you pay a tax on it. Even if you buy clothes at a resale shop. Also, everyone has to pay real estate taxes, if you own, you have to pay taxes on your house - if you rent, the rental payment to your landlord has to cover his/her real estate taxes. Over 95% of undocumented people have regular jobs that take out taxes from their checks. Did you know that our social security system is being saved by undocumented people that are paying SS taxes but can never take them out?

More on the TEA Parties and the Resistance

From

http://hladc-sf.blogspot.com
http://elrinconcitodeaurora.blogspot.com/

Greetings!

This is a follow-up to the emails I sent on Nov. 11th and the 14th RE: "Tea Parties Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration Nov. 14 (ROUND 1)

By now you must to have heard all there is to hear about the ALIPAC's "Tea Parties Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration Nov. 14 (ROUND 1)" , they claimed NUMBER OF TEA PARTIES FOR NOV 14: 53 -- NUMBER OF TEA PARTY AGAINST AMNESTY SUPPORTERS: 5546

Most likely you have not heard much about it afterwards, simply because there was not much to talk about them, except for a few reports coming from the progressive side, I've been checking their websites and forums to read what were their post-actions assessments, they are not even talking about them with the exception of a few of them, but mostly about the one in Phoenix where they had about 200 attendees according to an ALIPAC Forum Post written by a Ms. Connie Cone Sexton of the Arizona Republic Newspaper.

From what I've heard so far, Phoenix was their largest rally and one of very few where there is any mention of it at the ALIPAC's Forum.

But as is often the case with the Right Wing Fringe, they tend to contradict each other when it comes to numbers, they usually inflate attendance, as it is the case in this post at The Frugal Café Zone' written By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 16, 2009 (Includes photos and video, maybe you can see if there were 5,000 people there), where she quotes an Arizona Republic Newspaper account of the event, written by Matthew Benson - Apr. 15, 2009 10:43 PM and citing 5,000 attendees who came to hear "A string of elected state officials, legislators, conservative talk-radio hosts and others who addressed the assembled masses".

Another post at ALIPAC's Forum from "ALIPAC Super Hero, AirborneSapper7" (No kidding), talks about hundreds, not thousands, also links as his source, surprise!!! myFOXphoenix.com, which for a change seems to be telling the truth, that's where the ALIPAC 'Super Hero' (Still not kidding) got his 200 attendees number.

Also at ALIPAC's Forum, there is this report with pics of the event at Ft. Lauderdale, I can't see a large crowd there either.

"One Old Veteran" claims 150 attendees in San Diego.

But giving the same number of attendees at the Phoenix event as Ms. Sexton, is this post at ThinkProgress: Anti-immigration Tea Party activists attempt to distance themselves from neo-Nazis.(video included), (A bit more on this hmmm... issue, further down) -- On Saturday, approximately 200 people showed up to the anti-immigration “No Amnesty” tea party rally organized by American Citizens United in Phoenix. Many people were holding signs that had phrases such as “America not Amexico.”

Porter, at Immigration Clearing House, Light Turnout for ALIPAC’s Tea Bagger’s against Amnesty parties where he also reports the same number of 200 attendees at the Phoenix protest, sourcing the number to a "non-partisan article" In the Arizona Republic written by the same Ms. Connie Cone Sexton who also wrote the entry on the ALIPAC Forum mentioned above: "In a city of 3/4 of a million people, the turnout of 200 people to hear the hateful rhetoric of speakers such as Senator Russell Pearce and Chris Simcox, is negligible. This is the turnout that the Arizona Republic is reporting in a very well written non partisan article."

In this report, Porter gives numbers for 7 cities "7 Cities – 553 protesters (best estimate) Willy might get his 5000 numbers, but it is looking doubtful."

Also at Immigration Clearing House, Porter himself was on the ground and filed this report Observing Gheen’s ALIPAC tea baggers in Snead Alabama.

In spite of regular searches over the last two days, I have not been able to get much information about other events, except for this dandy one from St. Paul MN where 45 anti-immigration activists held a small rally and where Anti-Racists Steal the Show at White Supremacist "Tea Party Against Amnesty", -- Idonthateamerica.com created a video of what transpired there TEA PARTY FAIL!: Sue Jeffers and Ruthie Hendrycks PUNK'D, this post is a MUST SEE and SO IS THE VIDEO when the young Mr. Robert Erickson really PUNK'D them.

And now we move to California where we have reports from Modesto and San Francisco:

Modesto, our dear friend Cynthia I. organized to have a counter-protest, she did show up to find out that about only 5 TEA Partiers attended, BOoooRING.

San Francisco was another DUD for the TEA Partiers, none showed up that we could see or find, ALSO BOooooRING, except that we made the best of it, enjoying the beautiful whether we had in SF for about the 1 1/2 hours we waited for the Anti-Immigrant protesters to show up, I took a little video (Some Spanish, some English and I think there is also a bit of Spanglish) with my Palm Cell "Searching for TEA Partiers, SF Pier 39 Nov. 14, 2009" and "The TEA Party's make believe world and we had a front-row seat", in trying to be on time for the counter-protest, neither my friend Juanita, nor I, had any breakfast, so we decided to have a small (Literally) bite to eat, no, we didn't go for tacos, as the racist and xenophobic anti-immigrants TEA Partiers would have you believe, obviously I took a couple of scenes on a short video "Two unassimilable(?) Mexican Immigrants after the TEA Party DUD"

Getting back about the rift between the Anti-immigration Tea Party activists attempting to distance themselves from neo-Nazis., yeah, that one, Porter from Immigration Clearing House is on top of this one, he reports that In an ALIPAC Statement to David Duke and Stormfront, Gheen rants and Porter says on 11//13/09 regarding this, that "It seems that former Ku Klux Klan Grand Poohbah, Congressman and Presidential hopeful David Duke along with the neo nazi racist organization STORMFRONT are trying to steal Gheen’s thunder. Don’t worry Willy, there’s no shortage of hate or haters to manipulate. In an ALIPAC Statement to David Duke and Stormfront, Gheen rants:" Read about it on this post: "ALIPAC’s William Gheen refuses to share the hate!", by the way, maybe David Duke took Gheen's threats seriously, because he Scrubbed the offending page, but thanks to google's practice of making copies, you can see Duke's original post in the Cached page, if you check out the post, you will see that he was trying to be helpful, make out of this one what you will, is Gheen burning bridges gratuitously?

Needless to say, at the Stormfront Forum, they are talking about it, still trying to be conciliatory in spite of Gheen's nasty open letter, noting that ALIPAC in on Facebook and that "ALIPAC Facebook has 2,995 members. They are 99 per cent white" and that "ALIPAC and ALIPAC Facebook are implicit white communities. Period."

Something to ponder about for the Latin@s and African-Americans who make common cause with ALIPAC.

Porter also reports on 11/15/09 about "Jim Gilchrist on ALIPAC and William Gheen’s Tea Parties", it is a stinging statement by the founder of the Minutemen, himself a rabid racist calling Gheen an opportunistic who "routinely engage in repulsive, defaming propaganda, or present themselves in a very physically hostile manner", WOW! "The Pot calling the Kettle..."

In closing, I would like to mention that ALIPAC's William Gheen, is trying to re-invent and present himself as an all-inclusive really nice guy, heed the warning, this is a man with a long history of racism, xenophobia, nativism, white supremacy positions, eugenics and racial purity, who has been associated with John Tanton and other white supremacist individual, groups and organizations.

Beware, he is trying to be the perennial 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Be well,

Aurora Grajeda

SFCA 11/16/09

"They are Us" - New York Times

The NYT published a nice editorial on the children of immigrants:

Editorial November 17, 2009

Their Future Is Ours

"There is clearly a need for policies and programs to support immigrant parents and children, but the reality is as haphazard and tenuous as these children’s lives often are. Millions are growing up in mixed families, with some members here illegally, others not. Bills to help immigrant families with a path to legalization have died repeatedly in Congress, and small-scale reforms like the Dream Act, a path to college or the military for children of illegal immigrants have been stymied for years. New investments in language education, citizenship preparation and after-school and preschool programs have been derailed by economic crisis, harsh immigration politics and a general lack of attention." link to complete editorial

link to photo