Moment of Truth for Democrats in Arizona

A few years ago, AZ Republic columnist Doug MacEachern and other conservative commentators in Arizona began reporting on Tuscon Unified School District’s (TUSD) Mexican-American Studies Program (or MAS). The program was revealed to have little to do with Mexican-American history or even Mexican history but was instead being used as vehicle to promote far-left ideologies and anti-Americanism. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro (neither of whom are Mexican I might add) were glorified while the United States was routinely attacked by the teachers and activists whom were employed by the district as part of the program. The program’s directors and TUSD employees admitted as much, after being secretive about the program for a period of time. Even the Arizona Republic’s editorial board (which can’t decide whether or not to support ending the program even though it admits the program is completely nuts) calls the people who run the program “self-acknowledged Marxist activists“.

In response, last year the Arizona legislature passed a law that would penalize school districts by cutting a portion of their funding if they taught programs of studies that: “promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” The law was clearly targeted at TUSD and its MAS program. Arizona Democrats for the most part opposed the bill and screamed their usual battle cry of “RACISM!”. At first TUSD tried to deny that their MAS program was in violation of the new law, however earlier this year the TUSD governing board began to look into changes into the program to avoid state-imposed penalties. However, the changes that were proposed would simply make the MAS courses electives instead of courses that would satisfy core curriculum requirements. The program, for the most part would remain intact, however there was no guarantee that the Arizona Department of Education would be satisfied by these relatively minor changes to the program, especially if the core group of Marxist agitators were left in charge of the program. Regardless of whether or not the state government determined if the program was in violation of the law, it was clearly an attempt to save the program and keep it intact.

You would think that this would make supporters of the MAS program happy. You would think that they would remain quiet and not rock the boat. You would think that they wouldn’t pull any crazy stunts to give opponents of the MAS program any more ammunition. However, if you thought any of those things you are wrong (and should probably haze yourself). More below the fold…

Since these changes have been announced, the supports of the MAS program have conducting would can only be described as nothing short of a harassment and intimidation campaign. One of the leading opponents of changes to the MAS program is a fat commie Ph.D student at the University of Arizona named Abie Morales. Morales blogs at a left-wing blog called Three Sonorans, about which I have written about before. To give you an idea of Morales’s line of thinking, here is a choice quote from one of his recent posts:

I suspect Stegeman and his constituents will continue to be called out onto the carpet for their individual roles in perpetuating violations of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights article on education, which the U.S. Constitution regards as the “supreme Law of the Land.”

I would like to point out again that this guy is a Ph.D student at the University of Arizona. Anyways, Three Sonorans has been inciting radical students and other supporters of MAS to disrupt school board meetings, encouraging harassment of supporters of changes to the MAS program, and attempting to intimidate local politicians into opposing  changes to the MAS program. In one of his recent posts, Morales encouraged people to disrupt the economics class of TUSD governing board member named Mark Stegeman, who is a professor at the University of Arizona. Stegeman had been supportive of the plan to make MAS classes electives, instead of part of the core cirriculum.

Back in March, Morales made a video of himself and other Marxist radicals harassing Arizona’s attornery general Tom Horne. Prior to becoming AG, Horne was our superintendent of schools and he pushed for the law that targeted the MAS program in Tucson. Here is the video:

So much for that new Tucson civility, eh?

More recently, the MAS radicals have taken to shutting down school board meetings. Here is a video of students chaining themselves to a table to end a board meeting that would have voted on the previously discussed changes:

Those are products of the MAS program. Those little punks should have gotten a blast of OC spray to the face.

The most recent board meeting had a SWAT team present and Marxist radicals blocked Tucson PD vehicles. Glenn Beck even has picked up on this and discussed it on his program.

Oh and by the way, guess who showed up at a meeting to support the MAS program:

That ugly mug is disgraced former professor Ward Churchill, who I don’t think needs an introduction to TAH readers (props to Mike Shaw for spotting this clown).

So where does the Democratic Party fit into this? The school board members who are supporting these changes are Democrats, however the Pima County Democratic Party (Tucson being a part of Pima County) has come out in opposition to any changes. The Democrats in the legislature last year voted in bloc to oppose the bill targeting ethnic studies and several Democratic legislators have appeared to support the above actions. Now, Arizona’s Democratic party has taken a beating ever since 2006 and especially after Napolitano jumped ship to DHS. However, this year Arizona Democrats elected a new party chairman named Andrei Cherny, who I even have to admit is talented and has shown an ability to raise a lot of money (mostly due to his Clinton connections). Additionally, probably one of the most prominent Democratic politicians in the country right now is obviously Gabrielle Giffords, who is from Tuscon and whose district incorporates part of the city. While I don’t think the Democrats are going to reverse their losses over the last year anytime soon,  they are getting their act together in the state while the Arizona Republican Party can’t even get the air conditioner fixed in its headquarters.

But if Cherny doesn’t get out in front of this mess in Tucson soon and condemn the actions of these radicals, his party can be accused of being accomplices in the radicals’ harassment and intimidation campaign. Republicans could easily run ads showing the chaos in Tucson and use it against their Democratic opponents in both state and federal races. The post-SB1070 protests and the boycotts without a doubt benefited the Republicans and harmed both Giffords and Grijalva in Southern Arizona. Even with redistricting, 2012 could see similar battles play out over the reaction to changes to the MAS program.

So which way are the Democrats going to go in Arizona? Are they going to condemn the Marxist agitators or are they going to continue to stand by them or pretend they don’t exist? I am betting on (and hoping for) the latter.

Category: Politics, Schools, Shitbags