There have been many calls on this site, since the election of 2004, to essentially write off "red" states in the South and Midwest -- to concede them to the forces of theocratic ignorance and concentrate on building a 50-percent-plus-one electoral coaltion to win back the white House and Congress.
From a cold, logical, practical point of view, such a strategy makes sense. There's only one problem: There are real, live human beings living in those states. A lot of them are children. They desperately need, and deserve, an opportunity to grow up in the light of reason rather than the shadow of ignorance.
Not to get all Sally Struthers on you all, but: Think of the children. More below.
No doubt you're familiar with the political circuses going on in my home state of Kansas. Attacks on the teaching of evolution. Attempts to force Intelligent Design nonsense down the throats of public school students. Race-baiting attacks on Hispanics by far-right wackos, including attempts to ban immigrant children from the public schools. Huge achievement gaps between black and Hispanic kids and their peers. Schools forced to go to court to get adequate funding to try to close those gaps.
Most of these battles, as you can see, center on kids and schools. Please note that these are, indeed, ongoing battles. The purveyors of ignorance are not having their way in every case, and even when they win, they have to fight like hell.
Fighting those battles is why I joined an organization called Kansas Families United for Public Education, and eventually became its president. We have organized parents across the state to badger the state legislature for more school funding. We have protested in the streets of the capital and other communities against theocratic assaults on schools and ruinous budget cuts. We have testified before legislative committees, we have lobbied, we have spoken out against the infamous extremist majority that runs the state board of education.
We did pretty well for while -- as well as you could expect a rag-tag, underfunded group of parent volunteers to perform. We helped elect a pro-education, pro-children governor, Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, as well as moderate legislative candidates from both parties.
Unfortunately, we performed well enough to get the attention of national groups such as Americans for Prosperity and regional economic jugggernauts such as Koch Industries (essentially the Richard Mellon Scaife of Kansas). They poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns to defeat our legislative candidates and retake the majority of the state Board of Education -- leading to the most recent evolution controversy. They've just hired an anti-tax crusader and voucher advocate, with no educational experience at all, to serve as the state's education commissioner.
Now, they're pushing dangerous, short-sighted Constitutional amendments that would mimic Colorado's disastrous Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and limit the jurisdiction of the state Supreme Court to protect children's rights.
We're determined to fight back, but to be blunt, we're hurting for money. We've just placed a classified ad on this site with a link to the donation page on our web site. (Yes, I am pimping my organization and my ad with this diary. Sue me. It's not like you're going to collect anything.)
Kossacks, help us out! Please help us fight Intelligent Design, vouchers and theocratic public schools at the source, here in Kansas. Visit our web site at http://www.fundourpublicschools.com or go straight to the donation page at http://www.kfupepac.com/...