Let's try this:
1: An historic building is grandfathered in to a zoning change
2: The buiding changes owners
3: The building closes for needed renovations
4: The renovations take some time
5: During that time, the city removes the historic building's historic use
6: There is no other way to use the building
7: The city offers a longer, more tedious, and possibly less successful process to amend the zoning
For a city like New Orleans, where historic character is theoretically held in high esteem, this is ridiculous. It proves the lie behind what passes for historic preservation in this town, and the joke that is zoning here. This city is in such terrible condition in many ways because there are government regulations that force it to be this way.
And that's not just some sort of Tea Party "goverment = bad" rhetoric. Regulations are necessary, but you have to make sure they work for your city and don't kneecap your neighborhoods. You have to have a process where historic buildings can be purchased and updated and renovated so those properties can maintain value. If you require specific, specialized renovations, that work is going to take time. If that work takes time, you have to recognize that when it comes to zoning issues.
Most importantly, some aspect of reality must be factored into your decision-making process. Who the F wants to buy a 14 unit aparment building off the current owners and renovate it again for one or two family living?
Here's a few scenarios:
A: This will artificially drive down the value of the property for the current owners, who have already sunk money into the project. Some well connected individual can come along and buy the property so the current owners take a loss, then use their connections to get the zoning fixed and make bigger profits.
B: This will artificially drive down the value of the property for the current owners, who have already sunk money into the project. Some very wealthy individual comes along and buys the property, tears down the historic building, and constructs something more realistic to reflect the zoning.
C: This will artificially drive down the value of the property for the current owners, so they let the property deteriorate. It won't appraise for as much, but what is their incentive to keep up a property they cannot use? As a St. Charles Avenue home, this isn't likely to happen, but anywhere else this could contribute to blight.
You'll notice that "make a reality-based decision about the property; charge the owners a small fine for being late on the renovations; allow the property to go back into commerce and increase the city's property tax base, historical character, and housing stock" are not a part of the viable scenarios here. That would be to "win-win-win" for a city like New Orleans.
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Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
ENOUGH
Volunteers in London take a stand against the rioters. As it always has been, and God willing, will forever be.
We are reminded, at times like these, not to confuse thuggery like this with civil disobedience. We should also remember that riots or looting has not been a problem in other places often accused of being riot and looting-prone.
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"As I watched those white fires flame up and die down, watched the yellow blazes grow up and disappear, I thought, what a puny effort is this, to burn a great city."
- Edward R. Murrow, October 10, 1940
We are reminded, at times like these, not to confuse thuggery like this with civil disobedience. We should also remember that riots or looting has not been a problem in other places often accused of being riot and looting-prone.
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Labels:
History,
law enforcement,
United Kingdom
House of Cards
You play with fire long enough, you're liable to get burned.
If your object is to get back to the pre-1929 world economy, we're well on our way and it looks like the whole world is coming with us. Of course, all of this should have been expected, because what else do you think happens when the American government - maybe the one entity with the ability to spending enough money to land the economy safely - says they're going to stop spending money? Business leaders and stock brokers know that there is no one left to spend the money. Companies aren't spending money, despite massive tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes. Individual people aren't spending money, because they're too busy trying to make ends meet. People in other nations aren't spending money, because their economies are based of the USA spending money.
Not only that, but if you borrow money from the USA, there is the very real possibility that a completely untrustworthy political group is going to put the brakes on you getting paid back so they can further curb the spending ability of the one organization left that can still spend money.
Thanks, Tea Party! Y'all own this economy, now. While all the kids may have pushed on the antique vase that ended up broken, the kid holding the baseball bat should recieve the most scrutiny. This isn't just the Tea Party Economy, y'all, this is the exactly stated results of their policies.
For a little while, it looked like we might get let down easy. The unsustainable economy America has been building over the last two generations was finally being exposed for the fraud it was. The panic of 2007-08 evaporated trillions of dollars in Monopoly Money from the economy, to the shock of many. The nation was bleeding jobs even as real estate oversupply sent house values tumbling below what owners and developers borrowed from the banks to pay for the land. Those are the types of jobs that aren't coming back, so not only are people going to need to find new jobs, they have to discover new ways to live within their means or create new jobs on their own. The whole time, the cost of health care continues to rise, along with prices of food and energy.
Of course, few politicians were willing to say in public how screwed the country is, lest they be called out for "making the situation worse" with a dose of reality. Out of our political caste, President Obama comes the closest to the truth the most often with the most consistentcy. And while that reality might draw derision from the Professional American Left, their national influence wanes the further away you get from the New York Times editorial pages.
On the other hand, talking about reality only draws howls and hatred from the fanatic and ideologically pure Right-Wing, content to sell cultural panic for the political capital necessary to win elections. At this point, the Right-Wing's stated policy goals include returning this country to a mythical utopia of stars-and-stripes-colored unicorns and business-friendly faeries where the government is based only on the parts of the Constitution they agree with. After all, the theory goes, how bad could things have been back in the days when the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery after Paul Revere raised his guns and bells to warn the British of an insane and armed American population?
And if you think incredible historical misconceptions are very different from the historical buffoonery of Bachmann and Palin, you're just kidding yourself.
Anyone mildly versed in United States history knows that pre-1929 economics would take us back to the boom and bust cycles of pre-1929 America, where the economy didn't experience "recessions" as often as it experienced "panics." Sound good? Try this: those economic panics happened so often they had to be labeled by the year instead of the decade, and often evaporated entire regions of national economic health.
The Right-Wing political sales pitch is more American Pie than Jim Crow, Segregation, and the legacy of slavery; more Strict Constructionist than Louisiana Purchase; more "right to work" than children in the coal mines; more seperate but equal vouchers instead of public education; and more Whistlin' Dixie than the Battle Cry of Freedom that eventually mtobilized the Union for total war.
Bobby Lee might have been revered by his soldiers and, later, an America that adores tragic heroes, but Grant and Sherman came after him with more men, more guns, more ammunition, more food, railcars to move all of those things and shoes on their soldiers' feet. I think of that any time a Tea Partier from the eleven states of the Old Confederacy talk to me about government being the problem.
These howlers aren't interested in the reality of the situation with the American economy, it only matters what they can sell the loudest to the 24 hour cable news consuming public. Discussing the real problems and real solutions would be difficult professionally and would make for boring television, after all.
Well, I doubt pre-1929 America was a boring place to live, based off the history I have read. Thanks to the Tea Party Economy and the right-wing, I think we're about to get a taste of just how "exciting" that kind of life would be.
(NOTE: This was scheduled to post Monday around lunch, and then I saw that Dante had posted Monday around breakfast, so I pushed it back.)
.
If your object is to get back to the pre-1929 world economy, we're well on our way and it looks like the whole world is coming with us. Of course, all of this should have been expected, because what else do you think happens when the American government - maybe the one entity with the ability to spending enough money to land the economy safely - says they're going to stop spending money? Business leaders and stock brokers know that there is no one left to spend the money. Companies aren't spending money, despite massive tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes. Individual people aren't spending money, because they're too busy trying to make ends meet. People in other nations aren't spending money, because their economies are based of the USA spending money.
Not only that, but if you borrow money from the USA, there is the very real possibility that a completely untrustworthy political group is going to put the brakes on you getting paid back so they can further curb the spending ability of the one organization left that can still spend money.
Thanks, Tea Party! Y'all own this economy, now. While all the kids may have pushed on the antique vase that ended up broken, the kid holding the baseball bat should recieve the most scrutiny. This isn't just the Tea Party Economy, y'all, this is the exactly stated results of their policies.
For a little while, it looked like we might get let down easy. The unsustainable economy America has been building over the last two generations was finally being exposed for the fraud it was. The panic of 2007-08 evaporated trillions of dollars in Monopoly Money from the economy, to the shock of many. The nation was bleeding jobs even as real estate oversupply sent house values tumbling below what owners and developers borrowed from the banks to pay for the land. Those are the types of jobs that aren't coming back, so not only are people going to need to find new jobs, they have to discover new ways to live within their means or create new jobs on their own. The whole time, the cost of health care continues to rise, along with prices of food and energy.
Of course, few politicians were willing to say in public how screwed the country is, lest they be called out for "making the situation worse" with a dose of reality. Out of our political caste, President Obama comes the closest to the truth the most often with the most consistentcy. And while that reality might draw derision from the Professional American Left, their national influence wanes the further away you get from the New York Times editorial pages.
On the other hand, talking about reality only draws howls and hatred from the fanatic and ideologically pure Right-Wing, content to sell cultural panic for the political capital necessary to win elections. At this point, the Right-Wing's stated policy goals include returning this country to a mythical utopia of stars-and-stripes-colored unicorns and business-friendly faeries where the government is based only on the parts of the Constitution they agree with. After all, the theory goes, how bad could things have been back in the days when the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery after Paul Revere raised his guns and bells to warn the British of an insane and armed American population?
And if you think incredible historical misconceptions are very different from the historical buffoonery of Bachmann and Palin, you're just kidding yourself.
Anyone mildly versed in United States history knows that pre-1929 economics would take us back to the boom and bust cycles of pre-1929 America, where the economy didn't experience "recessions" as often as it experienced "panics." Sound good? Try this: those economic panics happened so often they had to be labeled by the year instead of the decade, and often evaporated entire regions of national economic health.
The Right-Wing political sales pitch is more American Pie than Jim Crow, Segregation, and the legacy of slavery; more Strict Constructionist than Louisiana Purchase; more "right to work" than children in the coal mines; more seperate but equal vouchers instead of public education; and more Whistlin' Dixie than the Battle Cry of Freedom that eventually mtobilized the Union for total war.
Bobby Lee might have been revered by his soldiers and, later, an America that adores tragic heroes, but Grant and Sherman came after him with more men, more guns, more ammunition, more food, railcars to move all of those things and shoes on their soldiers' feet. I think of that any time a Tea Partier from the eleven states of the Old Confederacy talk to me about government being the problem.
These howlers aren't interested in the reality of the situation with the American economy, it only matters what they can sell the loudest to the 24 hour cable news consuming public. Discussing the real problems and real solutions would be difficult professionally and would make for boring television, after all.
Well, I doubt pre-1929 America was a boring place to live, based off the history I have read. Thanks to the Tea Party Economy and the right-wing, I think we're about to get a taste of just how "exciting" that kind of life would be.
(NOTE: This was scheduled to post Monday around lunch, and then I saw that Dante had posted Monday around breakfast, so I pushed it back.)
.
Historic Truths
Right now, a bunch of Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives are whining loudly about the Debt Deal, a political battle they lost to a group of opponents whose every policy and political priority was exposed as either a failure or a fraud between 2000 and 2008, and from 2008 to 2010. So, of course, the most important thing they want to do today is remind people about how terrible they are at politics, and expect people to reelect them so they can continue losing to occupants from the clown car.
The excuses are plentiful, but the "American people are just a bunch of racist, ignorant, Bible-thumping rednecks biding their time until the South Rises Ag'in" train is never late. (HT: Jeffrey) Yeah, I know that article makes a lot of very good points, but the macro topic is the old DLP abdication of political agency at the hands of Americans who "just don't get it."
The article discusses symptoms while ignoring the actual illness. Yes, the far right will never accept policy victories delivered to them from Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives any more than from Centrists or Pragmatists. To those true believers, anyone to their left is a baby-killing, terrorist-sympathizing, America-hating, Godless, Kenyan anti-colonialist, fascist, communist, Marxist, homosexual-agenda-following illegitimate, and no amount of giving them what they want is going to change their mind. Seriously, everyone to their left could vote unanimously for their entire platform tomorrow, and we'd still be trying to destroy America in their eyes.
That is a fundamentally ridiculous set of beliefs for a party to hold, and they strain the bounds of credibility. So what is the larger illness that keeps the Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives from winning political victories against these individuals? Very easily stated: the right wing chooses what political issue to fight over, makes an issue out of it, makes a bunch of stuff up about it and then dares members of the DLP to address their make believe claims and come and knock them off their hill. That is not a winning proposition, because you can't meet crazy with crazy. The right knows how the DLP is going to respond before the DLP even knows what they're going to be talking about. The DLP responds by repeating right-wing talking points, disputing right-wing talking points, and generally giving more credibility and attention to right wing talking points than they are due.
Here's the rub: they sacrifice their own momentum to do so. If we're discussing right-wing issues, we are not discussing progress-prone issues. By the time the right has won a political battle, like the Debt Deal, the DLP's only recourse is to try and figure out what is to blame. The blame usually lands on the people in the "red states" who are "voting against their personal interests" because they are "dumb." That way, anyone who was even considering giving ear to DLP priorities is turned off or written off. Nowhere do I see critiques of DLP's own political marketing strategois.
As a Southern Liberal who has watched the professional political class hand the South over to the GOP, the Tea Party, and the Fire-Eaters Born Anew, this drives me crazy.
For example, there is a way the DLP could spool up a huge progress-prone political campaign right this instant that reminds people that the right wing has zero credibility and is in fact attempting to re-write American history to replace it with bullshit, reminds people the progress our nation has made when it comes to our social justice history - advances owed to unabashed small-l liberalism, comes down on the side of family values, legitimizes African-Americans as part of the American society, and exposes the mythology of the "good ole days" as nothing more than unvarnished feudalism that we are happy to be rid of. And it teaches a little bit about real American history and how our nation has overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles in the past to become a better, more exceptional place. Not only is that something we should all be very proud of, it celebrates America with regard to this nation's unique story.
I am, of course, discussing the Antebellum Myth About Slave Families and the Right Wingers Who Tell Such Lies to the American People. Every Democrat, every Liberal, every Progressive should be on the news right now talking about this issue.
Stop whining about losing the Debt Deal politics, start talking real American values, start pointing out the foes to those values, and start winning the next round of Debt Deal politics. That's how this stuff works, y'all.
.
The excuses are plentiful, but the "American people are just a bunch of racist, ignorant, Bible-thumping rednecks biding their time until the South Rises Ag'in" train is never late. (HT: Jeffrey) Yeah, I know that article makes a lot of very good points, but the macro topic is the old DLP abdication of political agency at the hands of Americans who "just don't get it."
The article discusses symptoms while ignoring the actual illness. Yes, the far right will never accept policy victories delivered to them from Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives any more than from Centrists or Pragmatists. To those true believers, anyone to their left is a baby-killing, terrorist-sympathizing, America-hating, Godless, Kenyan anti-colonialist, fascist, communist, Marxist, homosexual-agenda-following illegitimate, and no amount of giving them what they want is going to change their mind. Seriously, everyone to their left could vote unanimously for their entire platform tomorrow, and we'd still be trying to destroy America in their eyes.
That is a fundamentally ridiculous set of beliefs for a party to hold, and they strain the bounds of credibility. So what is the larger illness that keeps the Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives from winning political victories against these individuals? Very easily stated: the right wing chooses what political issue to fight over, makes an issue out of it, makes a bunch of stuff up about it and then dares members of the DLP to address their make believe claims and come and knock them off their hill. That is not a winning proposition, because you can't meet crazy with crazy. The right knows how the DLP is going to respond before the DLP even knows what they're going to be talking about. The DLP responds by repeating right-wing talking points, disputing right-wing talking points, and generally giving more credibility and attention to right wing talking points than they are due.
Here's the rub: they sacrifice their own momentum to do so. If we're discussing right-wing issues, we are not discussing progress-prone issues. By the time the right has won a political battle, like the Debt Deal, the DLP's only recourse is to try and figure out what is to blame. The blame usually lands on the people in the "red states" who are "voting against their personal interests" because they are "dumb." That way, anyone who was even considering giving ear to DLP priorities is turned off or written off. Nowhere do I see critiques of DLP's own political marketing strategois.
As a Southern Liberal who has watched the professional political class hand the South over to the GOP, the Tea Party, and the Fire-Eaters Born Anew, this drives me crazy.
For example, there is a way the DLP could spool up a huge progress-prone political campaign right this instant that reminds people that the right wing has zero credibility and is in fact attempting to re-write American history to replace it with bullshit, reminds people the progress our nation has made when it comes to our social justice history - advances owed to unabashed small-l liberalism, comes down on the side of family values, legitimizes African-Americans as part of the American society, and exposes the mythology of the "good ole days" as nothing more than unvarnished feudalism that we are happy to be rid of. And it teaches a little bit about real American history and how our nation has overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles in the past to become a better, more exceptional place. Not only is that something we should all be very proud of, it celebrates America with regard to this nation's unique story.
I am, of course, discussing the Antebellum Myth About Slave Families and the Right Wingers Who Tell Such Lies to the American People. Every Democrat, every Liberal, every Progressive should be on the news right now talking about this issue.
Stop whining about losing the Debt Deal politics, start talking real American values, start pointing out the foes to those values, and start winning the next round of Debt Deal politics. That's how this stuff works, y'all.
.
Labels:
civil rights,
History,
left-wing,
Media,
narratives,
politics,
right wing,
South,
we really suck at this
The War of When?
Jonathan Rauch at The Dish starts a discussion about who really won the war of 1812. Several emailed comments seem confused. I guess the answer to "who won" depends on who you ask, and everyone's got a claim to fame.
Down in New Orleans, there damn sure ain't no questions.
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Down in New Orleans, there damn sure ain't no questions.
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Labels:
History,
New Orleans,
the war,
United Kingdom,
United States
Development & Density?
No thanks. By failing to approve a new mixed use, high density urban development, the "preservationists" would rather keep Canal Street's "historical character" of boarded up buildings, shut down hotels, shoe shops, and faux-voodoo tourist kitsch.
That's a shame for a streetscape that should be one of the bustling, dynamic, walkable commerical avenues of the Southeastern United States.
Wide streets can be fronted by tall buildings, that's one of the way urban design is supposed to work. I find the complaints of this building's height to be baseless. There are plenty of other buildings on that streetscape of that height, and they work because they front Canal.
Historical character? The building design does look "modern" in the aspect that it appears to use state of the art building design and materials. While this may not fit perfectly with the rest of the street towards the river, it isn't like this is some concrete-block monstrosity or post-modern experiment going in on that street.
As for the building it is replacing, it is a ramshackle low rise with a boarded up first floor covered in graffiti and posters. There is a need here to balance historical character with needed economic expansion. You'll be more able to preserve the historical character of other buildings and this part of the city as a whole if it is part of a working, dynamic downtown economy.
In other words, the Saenger Theatre, the Lowe's Theatre, and the Broadway South concept for that intersection isn't going to work if the theatres have no economic support nearby. If the University Medical Center ever does get built, people who work there could live in this building and walk to work, increasing the value of properties between this location going up Canal Street - an area that desperately needs commerical dollars.
And the folks making these decisions need to look up the definition of "leverage." They have some leverage in that a location like this on Canal Street should be quite valuable. But that knowledge needs to temptered with the reality that a location like this on Canal Street currently isn't as valuable as it could be, because of a lack of developers willing to take a risk of locating there.
Because, while the location has the potential to be very valuable based on the proximity of planned theatres and hospitals, those planned theatres and hospitals aren't yet done deals. Going ahead with developments of this nature assist the critical mass required for those projects to be successful. Otherwise, you'll end up stuck with the street the way it is now.
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That's a shame for a streetscape that should be one of the bustling, dynamic, walkable commerical avenues of the Southeastern United States.
Wide streets can be fronted by tall buildings, that's one of the way urban design is supposed to work. I find the complaints of this building's height to be baseless. There are plenty of other buildings on that streetscape of that height, and they work because they front Canal.
Historical character? The building design does look "modern" in the aspect that it appears to use state of the art building design and materials. While this may not fit perfectly with the rest of the street towards the river, it isn't like this is some concrete-block monstrosity or post-modern experiment going in on that street.
As for the building it is replacing, it is a ramshackle low rise with a boarded up first floor covered in graffiti and posters. There is a need here to balance historical character with needed economic expansion. You'll be more able to preserve the historical character of other buildings and this part of the city as a whole if it is part of a working, dynamic downtown economy.
In other words, the Saenger Theatre, the Lowe's Theatre, and the Broadway South concept for that intersection isn't going to work if the theatres have no economic support nearby. If the University Medical Center ever does get built, people who work there could live in this building and walk to work, increasing the value of properties between this location going up Canal Street - an area that desperately needs commerical dollars.
And the folks making these decisions need to look up the definition of "leverage." They have some leverage in that a location like this on Canal Street should be quite valuable. But that knowledge needs to temptered with the reality that a location like this on Canal Street currently isn't as valuable as it could be, because of a lack of developers willing to take a risk of locating there.
Because, while the location has the potential to be very valuable based on the proximity of planned theatres and hospitals, those planned theatres and hospitals aren't yet done deals. Going ahead with developments of this nature assist the critical mass required for those projects to be successful. Otherwise, you'll end up stuck with the street the way it is now.
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Labels:
economy,
government,
History,
infrastructure,
local politics,
medicine,
New Orleans,
red tape,
theatre
Revisionism Kills
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast explains one right-wing tactic that's importance always seems to escape the progressives, liberals and Democrats: the revisionism complete and utter re-engineering of common American History.
Why is acceptance of a common history important? I'll use the example of the libertarian fantasies surrounding the Civil Rights Act.
It isn't just the left that gets snowed by this sort of thing. When Rand Paul got into a mess about the Civil Rights Act, a lot of older conservatives I spoke to (like my Dad) thought he was a kook who would never win that election. There was simply a refusal on their part to believe me when I told them that, far from losing that election, by getting involved in that "controversey" he had ensured his evenutal win. When the media got involved and talked about those views for a few days, they must have been shocked to find out how uncontroversial many viewers found Paul's position. They kept trying to play Maddow's gotcha moment into something beyond the left wing internets. They failed. They failed badly. And they've never seemed to understand why.
Now Paul's father Ron has been able to discuss his position about the law at length with hardly a notice, and every time this issue is brought up it is discussed in terms of government intrusion into business.
In the larger context, a fair number of voters start to question whether government intervention was necessary at all in the decisions of private business owners, based on the incredible historical inaccuracy that private businesses would have integrated peacefully without being coerced by government intrusion or the howling mad historical "theory" that private businesses would have integrated peacefully if governments hadn't specifically required them to discriminate.
Make no mistake, this demonstrates a stunning, jaw-dropping ignorance of historical racial, legal, cultural, and economic conditions that dominated this country from British colonization to around the Reagan administration. We still find pockets of that cancerous economic discrimination, and we are damn sure dealing with the economic, cultural, and social legacy of that discrimination.
Part of it is the understandable forward movement of history - the further you get away from a thing, the less present it is in the national conciousness. Part of it is the shame and rationalization of the mainstream population that benefited from the old status quo; everyone wants to fondly remember the "good ole days" when life was simpler and safer and more stable. But you cannot underestimate the effect blatant historical reengineering has on the national conciousness when combined with those preceeding two factors.
Of course, folks on the left tend to recieve the wrong signals from this type of thing and try to hang the "racist" tag around the necks of anyone who would challenge the CRA. That's because folks on the left accept history as a given, tend to think everyone else does as well, and think they don't need to reiterate why the CRA was needed in the first place because of that. Doing so concedes the historical argument to CRA opponents, allowing the popular narrative to completely dismiss the devastating effect of American racial, economic, cultural, legal conditions in the United States, especially post-Reconstruction.
A lot of folks on the left don't get that these people aren't making racial arguments. Instead, they are undermining the history and calling into question the need to discuss racial issues at all. When the liberals take the bait and go after them on race, they walk right into the "crying-racism" punch because the audience isn't primed to discuss race on those terms. That such factors as racial economics could be eliminated from a conversation about the Civil Rights Act is a mere demonstration of how effective it is to challenge common American history, and cut it off at the knees. Remove or confuse the context, and your policy opponents simply cannot contribute. This, of course, fulfills a completely seperate right-wing narrative that liberals are constantly "playing the race card."
The sports analogy to this would be that CRA defenders on the left constantly show up to play a ice hockey game in soccer uniforms and cleats. Then they spend the game wondering why it is so cold in here; why they are unable to move around the field of play or score goals by kicking the puck; and why the referees won't card their opponents for checking them into the walls.
When the right turns to historical reeingineering, the left needs to get into that game. In many cases, the left already won those arguments, and the right is simply inviting them to revisit those victories. When it comes to the CRA, and "libertarians" start utopianizing their fantastic "government coercion of business" theory of racial economics, here's what liberals need to do:
1. Government was coercive, but it wasn't business on the recieving end. Cue up film of Birminham 1963 when Bull Connor turned loose the dogs and fire hoses on black children. Follow that with film and radio from White Citizen's Councils, the "business" and "white collar" wing of the KKK.
2. Government was only following the will of the voting majority. Cue up the film of those segregationist governors leading their people in rallies. Follow that with images of the white race riots that burned over the South in the 1960's.
3. Show how businesses reacted to the thought of integration. White's Only. Colored entrances. Sharecropping. Businesses closing once Jim Crow laws failed.
4. Show how necessary federal government intervention was to tear down Jim Crow. Little Rock. Ole Miss. Alabama. Truman's decisions. Eisenhower's decisions. LBJ's decisions. Kennedy's speeches.
All that needs to be done is to dust off some old footage and replay the old news feeds. Again. And Again. And Again. And Again. Retake history, don't assume people accept it.
.
The standard, non-crazy history we’ve all been taught is being contested every day by Beck and others. Next time you’re on a long-ish drive, flip over to the AM dial and listen to any of the several Christian news-talk stations you’ll find. You will see what I mean. And I’m not talking about arguably controversial liberal assertions about history—Thomas Scopes was a great man, say, or Charles Beard was dead-on about the Constitution. I’m talking about stuff in the grade-school textbooks. The Civil War was caused largely by slavery? Lib propaganda, all of it.
Why is acceptance of a common history important? I'll use the example of the libertarian fantasies surrounding the Civil Rights Act.
It isn't just the left that gets snowed by this sort of thing. When Rand Paul got into a mess about the Civil Rights Act, a lot of older conservatives I spoke to (like my Dad) thought he was a kook who would never win that election. There was simply a refusal on their part to believe me when I told them that, far from losing that election, by getting involved in that "controversey" he had ensured his evenutal win. When the media got involved and talked about those views for a few days, they must have been shocked to find out how uncontroversial many viewers found Paul's position. They kept trying to play Maddow's gotcha moment into something beyond the left wing internets. They failed. They failed badly. And they've never seemed to understand why.
Now Paul's father Ron has been able to discuss his position about the law at length with hardly a notice, and every time this issue is brought up it is discussed in terms of government intrusion into business.
In the larger context, a fair number of voters start to question whether government intervention was necessary at all in the decisions of private business owners, based on the incredible historical inaccuracy that private businesses would have integrated peacefully without being coerced by government intrusion or the howling mad historical "theory" that private businesses would have integrated peacefully if governments hadn't specifically required them to discriminate.
Make no mistake, this demonstrates a stunning, jaw-dropping ignorance of historical racial, legal, cultural, and economic conditions that dominated this country from British colonization to around the Reagan administration. We still find pockets of that cancerous economic discrimination, and we are damn sure dealing with the economic, cultural, and social legacy of that discrimination.
Part of it is the understandable forward movement of history - the further you get away from a thing, the less present it is in the national conciousness. Part of it is the shame and rationalization of the mainstream population that benefited from the old status quo; everyone wants to fondly remember the "good ole days" when life was simpler and safer and more stable. But you cannot underestimate the effect blatant historical reengineering has on the national conciousness when combined with those preceeding two factors.
Of course, folks on the left tend to recieve the wrong signals from this type of thing and try to hang the "racist" tag around the necks of anyone who would challenge the CRA. That's because folks on the left accept history as a given, tend to think everyone else does as well, and think they don't need to reiterate why the CRA was needed in the first place because of that. Doing so concedes the historical argument to CRA opponents, allowing the popular narrative to completely dismiss the devastating effect of American racial, economic, cultural, legal conditions in the United States, especially post-Reconstruction.
A lot of folks on the left don't get that these people aren't making racial arguments. Instead, they are undermining the history and calling into question the need to discuss racial issues at all. When the liberals take the bait and go after them on race, they walk right into the "crying-racism" punch because the audience isn't primed to discuss race on those terms. That such factors as racial economics could be eliminated from a conversation about the Civil Rights Act is a mere demonstration of how effective it is to challenge common American history, and cut it off at the knees. Remove or confuse the context, and your policy opponents simply cannot contribute. This, of course, fulfills a completely seperate right-wing narrative that liberals are constantly "playing the race card."
The sports analogy to this would be that CRA defenders on the left constantly show up to play a ice hockey game in soccer uniforms and cleats. Then they spend the game wondering why it is so cold in here; why they are unable to move around the field of play or score goals by kicking the puck; and why the referees won't card their opponents for checking them into the walls.
When the right turns to historical reeingineering, the left needs to get into that game. In many cases, the left already won those arguments, and the right is simply inviting them to revisit those victories. When it comes to the CRA, and "libertarians" start utopianizing their fantastic "government coercion of business" theory of racial economics, here's what liberals need to do:
1. Government was coercive, but it wasn't business on the recieving end. Cue up film of Birminham 1963 when Bull Connor turned loose the dogs and fire hoses on black children. Follow that with film and radio from White Citizen's Councils, the "business" and "white collar" wing of the KKK.
2. Government was only following the will of the voting majority. Cue up the film of those segregationist governors leading their people in rallies. Follow that with images of the white race riots that burned over the South in the 1960's.
3. Show how businesses reacted to the thought of integration. White's Only. Colored entrances. Sharecropping. Businesses closing once Jim Crow laws failed.
4. Show how necessary federal government intervention was to tear down Jim Crow. Little Rock. Ole Miss. Alabama. Truman's decisions. Eisenhower's decisions. LBJ's decisions. Kennedy's speeches.
All that needs to be done is to dust off some old footage and replay the old news feeds. Again. And Again. And Again. And Again. Retake history, don't assume people accept it.
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Labels:
civil rights,
History,
left-wing,
Media,
narratives,
right wing
Preservation Starts at Home
Owen Courreges at Uptown Messenger points out the good one individual can do to make a place better.
I absolutely respect the impact that just one citizen can have on a place. But let us never forget how well a place can be preserved when a city's preservation initiatives are citizen oriented, progress-prone, and helpful.
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I absolutely respect the impact that just one citizen can have on a place. But let us never forget how well a place can be preserved when a city's preservation initiatives are citizen oriented, progress-prone, and helpful.
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Labels:
History,
New Orleans,
Savannah
The Intervention
Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone is absolutely right to bring up the flip-flop of pro-war right wingers, as they're now turning on international interventions they couldn't get enough of when a Republican was in the White House. Though be assured, now that President Obama has declared that Americans will be drawing down troops in Afganistan, even the newly reenergized isolationist wing of the right will hammer him on tactics as if the tactics of the last 10 years didn't exist.
But this is nothing new. The GOP is able to flip-flop at will over American wars without any reasonable accountability because they are so good at marketing their changing position. Either way they go, they are "on the side of Americans," at least on TV or radio.
They loved Iraq War I, but were split on Somalia before they were against it. The GOP almost completely bailed on the incredibly successful US military involvement in the Balkans, which American political culture rarely references. With that one, they questioned every item of American priority from why we were getting involved to the open ended mission to how much it would cost the US taxpayer. At one point, there was even legislation: the House passed a bill not to fund the Balkans operation, while in the Senate
Does that sound like GOP behavior from the last decade? What would have been said about actions like that if Democrats had been the ones taking them? Luckily, we have that answer, and it is maddening to critics and opponents of the Iraq war, the Afganistan engagement, and the whole partisan tone of war politics during the Bush II years. It didn't matter if a position was right or wrong, supportive or non-supportive, or based on tactics alone: if it wasn't part of the GOP talking points, it was WRONG, not only WRONG but AMERICAN-SOLDIER-HATING, FLAG BURNING, TRAITORS SHOULD BE BURNED AT THE STAKE wrong, and that's how every public debate was framed. Taibbi sums up these feelings well:
Bill O'Reilly drew a direct line in response to Dick Durbin's equally ridiculous hyperbole (the Democrats and the left, never able to miss an opportunity to make a right-winger's point for them, only encouraged the bad behavior). Or we were led to believe that actually examining the war was akin to surrender. And all this went on for years, every day, every hour on Fox News and Talk Radio.
It even continued into the Obama Presidency, with right-wingers, hawks, and Republicans breathlessly anticipating American military surrender or defeat, now that a Democratic President was in the White House.
Then a funny thing happened. Obama called the right-wing bluff and went all in with the Cheney/McChrystal strategy. Y'all want to keep going in Afganistan? Let's really spool things up there and see what you do.
From a purely tactical standpoint, it still wasn't enough. Not nearly. We simply don't have the manpower or materiel or international support or national popular committment to "win" in Afganistan the way many Americans envision "winning" a war. And that cultural tactical confusion is what's been used by partisan politicians since the first troops showed up there.
But if you're trying to find a political solution to end the war - and I'm talking about here in the United States, not in Afganistan - you have to do some things that change the national conversation on a fundamental level. The President did the only thing he could plausably do considering the political climate: bulk up the forces with as few troops as possible to end this thing as close to our terms and cultural needs as possible. Work away from a goal to acheive a goal. Which is what is happening.
Though, thanks to Bush's strategic blunders of not sending adequate manpower or materiel at the onset, and the recent success against Osama Bin Laden personally, popular opinion has turned to ending the wars sooner rather than later. A financial crisis at home is driving home the point. And now GOP Presidential candidates are starting to use the machinery of right-wing marketing to advocate ending the war and bringing the troops home.
It is hard to call a political opponent out for "surrendering" when your stated positions advocate an even quicker exit - an exit that for a decade has been demonized by the right - when said political opponent is delivering not only on his campaign promises but yours. This gives Obama tremendous political capital in the face of defense contractor interests and neoconservatives that the left was simply unable or unwilling to manufacture on their own accord for the past decade. The national narrative has turned from "when will the Democrats make our brave troops surrender" to "how fast can we bring our brave troops home?"
In 2 years, President Obama has reconfigured the terms of the entire national-security discussion. That's something the liberals and progressives and true believers were wholly unable and unprepared to do for the last decade. Working away from a goal to acheive a goal.
Which brings me to the Libya intervention. US involvement is a huge gamble here. The Administration's going at it without Congressional authorization, and our Consitutional law professor President basically throwing that authorization need back into the faces of Republicans in Congress, is confusing. Why would such a deliberate administration act in such ways? Especially when Obama's stated position on Executive authority is so well known.
Of course, there are bipartisan internationalist members of the US Senate working to acquire Congressional authorization for the Libya action, even as isolationist Republican and anti-war Democratic members of the US House work to defund it (the old Balkan War trick).
This seems to be the par-for-the-course behavior. Isolationists and anti-war folks will get their voices heard, but the majority will back the Administration and the Libya operation will continue. But this President is despised among the Tea Party wing, who appear unafraid to salt the earth to keep the President in check. Add to that the rage of the anti-warrriors of the Democratic left, and you've got a good sized chunk of the Congress. Even if they aren't successful at defunding the Libya operation, they're going to want revenge for Obama's marginalization of Congress.
This became clear to me when I read the quote from Senator John McCain regarding how such behavior affected the Bush administration, and how it could affect future GOP Presidents.
Think about this politically: Obama has stated a desire for war powers to require more robust Presidential approval. Many Republicans oppose him to the point of distraction. The President could have gone to Congress for the Libya operation (especially when all the GOP folks currently complaining were calling on him to intervene) and recieved Congressional authorization in a heartbeat.
He chose to pick a fight with this Congress over the Executive powers to use the military, in the most in-your-face way possible. If nothing legislatively happens, the status quo remains.
But what if the anti-Obama GOP team up with the anti-war Democrats to propose legislation specifically limiting a President's authority to engage in military adventures? What if they amend the War Powers Act to be more specific, and more in tune with Obama's stated Constitutional beliefs?
That means this President could topple Quadaffi WHILE creating political conditions necessary to legislatively restrain a President's future ability to get the nation into wars BY engaging in a conflict with minimal exposure and cost to American troops by emboldening our NATO allies. This could be some Michael Corleone level plans.
Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. But this President has already demonstrated a willingness to work away from a goal to acheive a goal, and an ability to allow American popular opinion to shift of its own accord. We'll see if anything really comes from this, but it sure does make for interesting viewing.
Update: The votes are in, and an big majority of Congress is standing up to the President on Libya. They're even entertaining a notion later that will "defund" American operations, except for search and rescue, intelligence gathering, refueling, and logistical operations. You know, the kind of operations that pretty much define the current US involvement in Libya.
So the mission continues as planned. Anti-Obama Republicans and anti-war Democrats are now working together against American adventurism abroad. Wonder what comes next?
.
But this is nothing new. The GOP is able to flip-flop at will over American wars without any reasonable accountability because they are so good at marketing their changing position. Either way they go, they are "on the side of Americans," at least on TV or radio.
They loved Iraq War I, but were split on Somalia before they were against it. The GOP almost completely bailed on the incredibly successful US military involvement in the Balkans, which American political culture rarely references. With that one, they questioned every item of American priority from why we were getting involved to the open ended mission to how much it would cost the US taxpayer. At one point, there was even legislation: the House passed a bill not to fund the Balkans operation, while in the Senate
Another resolution sponsored by a group of Republicans led by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas would support the troops but not the President's decision to send them.
Does that sound like GOP behavior from the last decade? What would have been said about actions like that if Democrats had been the ones taking them? Luckily, we have that answer, and it is maddening to critics and opponents of the Iraq war, the Afganistan engagement, and the whole partisan tone of war politics during the Bush II years. It didn't matter if a position was right or wrong, supportive or non-supportive, or based on tactics alone: if it wasn't part of the GOP talking points, it was WRONG, not only WRONG but AMERICAN-SOLDIER-HATING, FLAG BURNING, TRAITORS SHOULD BE BURNED AT THE STAKE wrong, and that's how every public debate was framed. Taibbi sums up these feelings well:
Six or seven or eight years ago, I seem to remember, anyone who even hinted that not using military force to resolve any foreign policy dispute, no matter how trivial or how imaginary the justification, was to be considered a traitor.
Bill O'Reilly drew a direct line in response to Dick Durbin's equally ridiculous hyperbole (the Democrats and the left, never able to miss an opportunity to make a right-winger's point for them, only encouraged the bad behavior). Or we were led to believe that actually examining the war was akin to surrender. And all this went on for years, every day, every hour on Fox News and Talk Radio.
It even continued into the Obama Presidency, with right-wingers, hawks, and Republicans breathlessly anticipating American military surrender or defeat, now that a Democratic President was in the White House.
Then a funny thing happened. Obama called the right-wing bluff and went all in with the Cheney/McChrystal strategy. Y'all want to keep going in Afganistan? Let's really spool things up there and see what you do.
From a purely tactical standpoint, it still wasn't enough. Not nearly. We simply don't have the manpower or materiel or international support or national popular committment to "win" in Afganistan the way many Americans envision "winning" a war. And that cultural tactical confusion is what's been used by partisan politicians since the first troops showed up there.
But if you're trying to find a political solution to end the war - and I'm talking about here in the United States, not in Afganistan - you have to do some things that change the national conversation on a fundamental level. The President did the only thing he could plausably do considering the political climate: bulk up the forces with as few troops as possible to end this thing as close to our terms and cultural needs as possible. Work away from a goal to acheive a goal. Which is what is happening.
Though, thanks to Bush's strategic blunders of not sending adequate manpower or materiel at the onset, and the recent success against Osama Bin Laden personally, popular opinion has turned to ending the wars sooner rather than later. A financial crisis at home is driving home the point. And now GOP Presidential candidates are starting to use the machinery of right-wing marketing to advocate ending the war and bringing the troops home.
It is hard to call a political opponent out for "surrendering" when your stated positions advocate an even quicker exit - an exit that for a decade has been demonized by the right - when said political opponent is delivering not only on his campaign promises but yours. This gives Obama tremendous political capital in the face of defense contractor interests and neoconservatives that the left was simply unable or unwilling to manufacture on their own accord for the past decade. The national narrative has turned from "when will the Democrats make our brave troops surrender" to "how fast can we bring our brave troops home?"
In 2 years, President Obama has reconfigured the terms of the entire national-security discussion. That's something the liberals and progressives and true believers were wholly unable and unprepared to do for the last decade. Working away from a goal to acheive a goal.
Which brings me to the Libya intervention. US involvement is a huge gamble here. The Administration's going at it without Congressional authorization, and our Consitutional law professor President basically throwing that authorization need back into the faces of Republicans in Congress, is confusing. Why would such a deliberate administration act in such ways? Especially when Obama's stated position on Executive authority is so well known.
The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Of course, there are bipartisan internationalist members of the US Senate working to acquire Congressional authorization for the Libya action, even as isolationist Republican and anti-war Democratic members of the US House work to defund it (the old Balkan War trick).
This seems to be the par-for-the-course behavior. Isolationists and anti-war folks will get their voices heard, but the majority will back the Administration and the Libya operation will continue. But this President is despised among the Tea Party wing, who appear unafraid to salt the earth to keep the President in check. Add to that the rage of the anti-warrriors of the Democratic left, and you've got a good sized chunk of the Congress. Even if they aren't successful at defunding the Libya operation, they're going to want revenge for Obama's marginalization of Congress.
This became clear to me when I read the quote from Senator John McCain regarding how such behavior affected the Bush administration, and how it could affect future GOP Presidents.
"We were right to condemn this behavior then, and we would be wrong to practice it now ourselves, simply because a leader of the opposite party occupies the White House," he said. "Someday, a Republican will again occupy the White House, and the President may need to commit U.S. armed forces to hostilities.
"So if my Republican colleagues are indifferent to how their actions would affect this President, I would urge them to think seriously about how a vote to cut off funding for this military operation could come back to haunt a future President when the shoe is on the other foot," he continued.
Think about this politically: Obama has stated a desire for war powers to require more robust Presidential approval. Many Republicans oppose him to the point of distraction. The President could have gone to Congress for the Libya operation (especially when all the GOP folks currently complaining were calling on him to intervene) and recieved Congressional authorization in a heartbeat.
He chose to pick a fight with this Congress over the Executive powers to use the military, in the most in-your-face way possible. If nothing legislatively happens, the status quo remains.
But what if the anti-Obama GOP team up with the anti-war Democrats to propose legislation specifically limiting a President's authority to engage in military adventures? What if they amend the War Powers Act to be more specific, and more in tune with Obama's stated Constitutional beliefs?
That means this President could topple Quadaffi WHILE creating political conditions necessary to legislatively restrain a President's future ability to get the nation into wars BY engaging in a conflict with minimal exposure and cost to American troops by emboldening our NATO allies. This could be some Michael Corleone level plans.
Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. But this President has already demonstrated a willingness to work away from a goal to acheive a goal, and an ability to allow American popular opinion to shift of its own accord. We'll see if anything really comes from this, but it sure does make for interesting viewing.
Update: The votes are in, and an big majority of Congress is standing up to the President on Libya. They're even entertaining a notion later that will "defund" American operations, except for search and rescue, intelligence gathering, refueling, and logistical operations. You know, the kind of operations that pretty much define the current US involvement in Libya.
So the mission continues as planned. Anti-Obama Republicans and anti-war Democrats are now working together against American adventurism abroad. Wonder what comes next?
.
Labels:
Afganistan,
History,
Iraq,
left-wing,
Libya,
narratives,
Obama,
politics,
President,
right wing,
the war
Disaster Funding
Attempting to solidify his "fiscal conservative" credentials, Mitt Romney wants to send responsibility for disaster relief back to the states, if not private industry. Continuing to handle disaster relief at a Federal level "jeopardizes the future for our kids" and is "immoral."
Which makes me wonder just how bad disasters have to get in this country to remind someone so out-of-touch why the Federal government started getting involved in this in the first place.
And maybe I've got the wrong definition of "fiscal conservative" in my mind, but I thought one of the bottom lines of that belief system was to make sure any tax dollars spent were done so in the most efficient and effective way possible, with a subtext of keeping the overall national economy sound. Removing disaster relief as a responsibility of the Federal government only makes sense if your definition of "fiscal conservatism" is don't spend any money, ever and you don't give a shit about localized or regional problems dragging down the whole national economy.
Here's something Romney needs to be reminded of: the states already pay for disaster relief. Private organizations already pay for disaster relief. Do you know why the Federal government also needs to be involved, Mitt? Because even with their efforts combined, the states and private organizations cannot touch the level of funding required to relieve even moderately sized disasters in terms of economic and material damage, let alone the big ones.
So let's look at the numbers from the big leagues of disasters. One low estimate places the damage figures of Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood at $81 Billion*, not including overall economic impact to the states and regions most affected or the nation at large. Keep in mind that, at the time, gasoline got up to $4 a gallon many places far, far away from the Gulf Coast.
Let's do a little common sense math. Compare that figure to the state budget of Louisiana for FY 2005 ($17.5 Billion), the state budget of Mississippi for 2005 (just under $13 Billion), and the state budget of Alabama for 2005 ($33.2 Billion).
All three of those total state budgets combined ($63.7 Billion) only make up 78% of the total low damage estimate. That means three states of the union most affected by Katrina and the levee failures would have had to spend every single tax dollar they recieved that year and it still wouldn't have covered the recovery. And that's a total figure, which means the states wouldn't be able to pay for anything else without massive deficit spending.
While private organizations contributed a tremendous effort and generous sums of money and materiel to the recovery, do you think they'd be able to come up with $17.3 BILLION?
Of course, the states could have rebuilt without Federal help, given a generation or three. But who can estimate the economic fallout to these most affected states, the larger regional impact, and to the Union at large if these areas were forced into a local or regionalized recovery that the most affected states couldn't pay for before the disaster destroyed huge swaths of their state economies?
I can only imagine that Louisiana would have had to levy higher duties on shipping interests bringing products through what was left of New Orleans to even begin making a dent in their recovery needs. The economic ripples would have affected every suburban commutuer in America who drives a car and every American whose diet depends on the Midwestern corn crop. Things that happen one place tend to affect the lives of others someplace else. A butterfly flaps its wings and all that.
Now run that same scenario against these figures. Or just look at the map (PDF).
Sure looks like a national problem needing national solutions to me. And if "conservatism" means we throw responsibility for all that back on the states, private organizations, and - make no mistake - the individual familes who fall victim to such disasters, maybe it is time to start thinking of "conservatism" as its own dirty word.
(* - NOAA estimates the damage at $133 Billion)
Which makes me wonder just how bad disasters have to get in this country to remind someone so out-of-touch why the Federal government started getting involved in this in the first place.
And maybe I've got the wrong definition of "fiscal conservative" in my mind, but I thought one of the bottom lines of that belief system was to make sure any tax dollars spent were done so in the most efficient and effective way possible, with a subtext of keeping the overall national economy sound. Removing disaster relief as a responsibility of the Federal government only makes sense if your definition of "fiscal conservatism" is don't spend any money, ever and you don't give a shit about localized or regional problems dragging down the whole national economy.
Here's something Romney needs to be reminded of: the states already pay for disaster relief. Private organizations already pay for disaster relief. Do you know why the Federal government also needs to be involved, Mitt? Because even with their efforts combined, the states and private organizations cannot touch the level of funding required to relieve even moderately sized disasters in terms of economic and material damage, let alone the big ones.
So let's look at the numbers from the big leagues of disasters. One low estimate places the damage figures of Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood at $81 Billion*, not including overall economic impact to the states and regions most affected or the nation at large. Keep in mind that, at the time, gasoline got up to $4 a gallon many places far, far away from the Gulf Coast.
Let's do a little common sense math. Compare that figure to the state budget of Louisiana for FY 2005 ($17.5 Billion), the state budget of Mississippi for 2005 (just under $13 Billion), and the state budget of Alabama for 2005 ($33.2 Billion).
All three of those total state budgets combined ($63.7 Billion) only make up 78% of the total low damage estimate. That means three states of the union most affected by Katrina and the levee failures would have had to spend every single tax dollar they recieved that year and it still wouldn't have covered the recovery. And that's a total figure, which means the states wouldn't be able to pay for anything else without massive deficit spending.
While private organizations contributed a tremendous effort and generous sums of money and materiel to the recovery, do you think they'd be able to come up with $17.3 BILLION?
Of course, the states could have rebuilt without Federal help, given a generation or three. But who can estimate the economic fallout to these most affected states, the larger regional impact, and to the Union at large if these areas were forced into a local or regionalized recovery that the most affected states couldn't pay for before the disaster destroyed huge swaths of their state economies?
I can only imagine that Louisiana would have had to levy higher duties on shipping interests bringing products through what was left of New Orleans to even begin making a dent in their recovery needs. The economic ripples would have affected every suburban commutuer in America who drives a car and every American whose diet depends on the Midwestern corn crop. Things that happen one place tend to affect the lives of others someplace else. A butterfly flaps its wings and all that.
Now run that same scenario against these figures. Or just look at the map (PDF).
Sure looks like a national problem needing national solutions to me. And if "conservatism" means we throw responsibility for all that back on the states, private organizations, and - make no mistake - the individual familes who fall victim to such disasters, maybe it is time to start thinking of "conservatism" as its own dirty word.
(* - NOAA estimates the damage at $133 Billion)
Losing the Drug War
I don't agree with a lot of what Bob Barr says, but the man is an honest civil libertarian and has not wavered much from that stance. I'm glad one of the things he talks about negative impact of the Drug War on America, and America's need to lead the world out of this mess.
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Labels:
crime,
History,
law enforcement,
libertarians,
United States
How Not to Build Stuff
Maybe they should have thought of this, or something like it BEFORE they declared imminent domain and bulldozed the neighborhood that existed there before. You want to talk about government waste?
Step 1: Your city has a teaching hospital run by the public state university that treats a high volume of at-risk patients. The system has big problems, but the building is solid and would be viable given some serious renovations.
Step 2: Man-made disaster seriously damages the teaching hospital.
Step 3: Agents of the government attempt to repair the teaching hospital. It is a hospital in the middle of a disaster area. Such facilities tend to be useful.
Step 4: Agents of the public state university allegedly stop repairs and close the teaching hospital. They want to declare the old hospital a loss, collect insurance money, collect national disaster money and build a new teaching hospital.
Step 5A: Powers that be know where they would put a new hospital. Friends, family, and connections begin buying cheap land in and around that area. These properties are left to moulder because they'll all get torn down when the new teaching hospital gets built.
Step 5B: Regular citizens who live in that area move back into their homes, and use what little insurance and government disaster aid they can apply for to renovate their homes. They aren't informed by the powers that be that all of their properties will be seized by imminent domain and torn down to make way for a new teaching hospital.
Step 6: Argue in public over the option to renovate the old teaching hospital (for $600 million) or build a new teaching hospital (for $1.2 billion). Ignore homeowners and businesses and other government agencies who have sunk money into properties that will be demolished. Let several years go by without much action, because who really needs a public hospital in the middle of a disaster area to serve at-risk populations?
Step 7: Convince the US Department of Veterans Affairs that the new teaching hospital is a done deal, and that they should start building their new hospital nearby.
Step 8: Convince developers and investors that the new teaching hospital is a done deal, and that they should start building new retail and residential use facilities as if the new hospital is guaranteed to be built.
(Seriously, I have a friend in another city, and some NOLA booster organization gave them a sales pitch that this hospital would be ready to open this fall or winter, with 5,000 new professional jobs coming to town.)
Step 9: Win the argument despite divisive local opionion and viable, cheaper alternatives. A Shiny New Hospital Will Be Built! Begin declaring eminent domain and bulldozing buildings. Move a few historical buildings to shut up the most agitating homeowners and preservationists. Clear dozens of city blocks of structures.
Step 10: Have state and federal officials representing competing intereststs attempt to derail the project at the last minute under the name ofhostage taking fiscal conservatism.
Because if you think anything above describes fiscal conservatism (or fiscal liberalism, for that matter) you watch too much cable network news and don't understand the definition.
As a whole, words just fail.
.
Step 1: Your city has a teaching hospital run by the public state university that treats a high volume of at-risk patients. The system has big problems, but the building is solid and would be viable given some serious renovations.
Step 2: Man-made disaster seriously damages the teaching hospital.
Step 3: Agents of the government attempt to repair the teaching hospital. It is a hospital in the middle of a disaster area. Such facilities tend to be useful.
Step 4: Agents of the public state university allegedly stop repairs and close the teaching hospital. They want to declare the old hospital a loss, collect insurance money, collect national disaster money and build a new teaching hospital.
Step 5A: Powers that be know where they would put a new hospital. Friends, family, and connections begin buying cheap land in and around that area. These properties are left to moulder because they'll all get torn down when the new teaching hospital gets built.
Step 5B: Regular citizens who live in that area move back into their homes, and use what little insurance and government disaster aid they can apply for to renovate their homes. They aren't informed by the powers that be that all of their properties will be seized by imminent domain and torn down to make way for a new teaching hospital.
Step 6: Argue in public over the option to renovate the old teaching hospital (for $600 million) or build a new teaching hospital (for $1.2 billion). Ignore homeowners and businesses and other government agencies who have sunk money into properties that will be demolished. Let several years go by without much action, because who really needs a public hospital in the middle of a disaster area to serve at-risk populations?
Step 7: Convince the US Department of Veterans Affairs that the new teaching hospital is a done deal, and that they should start building their new hospital nearby.
Step 8: Convince developers and investors that the new teaching hospital is a done deal, and that they should start building new retail and residential use facilities as if the new hospital is guaranteed to be built.
(Seriously, I have a friend in another city, and some NOLA booster organization gave them a sales pitch that this hospital would be ready to open this fall or winter, with 5,000 new professional jobs coming to town.)
Step 9: Win the argument despite divisive local opionion and viable, cheaper alternatives. A Shiny New Hospital Will Be Built! Begin declaring eminent domain and bulldozing buildings. Move a few historical buildings to shut up the most agitating homeowners and preservationists. Clear dozens of city blocks of structures.
Step 10: Have state and federal officials representing competing intereststs attempt to derail the project at the last minute under the name of
Because if you think anything above describes fiscal conservatism (or fiscal liberalism, for that matter) you watch too much cable network news and don't understand the definition.
As a whole, words just fail.
.
Guns, Bells, & American History
No, Palin does not get a pass. Any reasonable person viewing the video knows that she totally flubbed it. That's excusable. Defending a flub as if it were real reality? Inexcusable. That rolls into "these aren't the droids you're looking for territory." "Everything is a gotcha question with her." (Remind you of any other famously foot in mouth politicians?) And, no, I won't be letting this go any time soon.
A lot of folks peddling the "messiah," the "anointed one," and "the one" narratives about an American political candidate were all correct - they just attributed it to the wrong candidate.
This gaffe is a gift that keeps on giving. And giving.
.
A lot of folks peddling the "messiah," the "anointed one," and "the one" narratives about an American political candidate were all correct - they just attributed it to the wrong candidate.
This gaffe is a gift that keeps on giving. And giving.
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Labels:
History,
Massachusetts,
Media,
narratives,
republicans,
right wing,
United States,
WTF
Body Counts in the Drug War
DADvocate makes note of the police killing of Jose Guerena in Pima County, Arizona.
At least in Arizona, the police are still using the drug war as an excuse to terrorize the population. Some police departments have a bar far, far lower. Once you accept that the police can violate your rights for one reason or another, you'll have to defend everywhere else.
For those keeping score at home, Guerena was a United States Marine, a veteran of the Iraq War, and members of his family had recently been killed in a home invasion. So the SWAT team comes pouring into his yard in military garb, as part of a marijuana investigation. In the confusion, he takes up a weapon - who wouldn't, with armed men invading your home - and is killed in a hail of 77 bullets.
The police initially claimed that he had shot at them, and that illegal drugs were found on the property. This would justify their actions. Of course they feared for their life, as Guerena feared for his. Why do we put our police and citizens in such situations?
Of course, it is now coming to light that this might be a CYA story, that Guerena never got the safety off the weapon, and nothing illegal was found in the house. Nothing really connected him to the marijuana investigation at all other than the word of a secret, confidential informant. An informant that provided information into a home where nothing illegal was found. Why am I not surprised?
When I grew up, I remember hearing stories about despotic governments, where the thought police would keep track of people, and report on them to the government. In such places (thought to be the Third World, the Asian Tyrannies, and the Eastern Bloc) secret informants could destroy your life with a few words. The informed-upon would be "disappeared" to a camp or a mass grave, leaving the family only wondering.
The drug war has already been like that for a long, long time.
.
The war on drugs has become a war on the freedom in America. Too many police departments have taken on the cowboy/Dirty Harry mentality and are terrorizing the populace.
At least in Arizona, the police are still using the drug war as an excuse to terrorize the population. Some police departments have a bar far, far lower. Once you accept that the police can violate your rights for one reason or another, you'll have to defend everywhere else.
For those keeping score at home, Guerena was a United States Marine, a veteran of the Iraq War, and members of his family had recently been killed in a home invasion. So the SWAT team comes pouring into his yard in military garb, as part of a marijuana investigation. In the confusion, he takes up a weapon - who wouldn't, with armed men invading your home - and is killed in a hail of 77 bullets.
The police initially claimed that he had shot at them, and that illegal drugs were found on the property. This would justify their actions. Of course they feared for their life, as Guerena feared for his. Why do we put our police and citizens in such situations?
Of course, it is now coming to light that this might be a CYA story, that Guerena never got the safety off the weapon, and nothing illegal was found in the house. Nothing really connected him to the marijuana investigation at all other than the word of a secret, confidential informant. An informant that provided information into a home where nothing illegal was found. Why am I not surprised?
When I grew up, I remember hearing stories about despotic governments, where the thought police would keep track of people, and report on them to the government. In such places (thought to be the Third World, the Asian Tyrannies, and the Eastern Bloc) secret informants could destroy your life with a few words. The informed-upon would be "disappeared" to a camp or a mass grave, leaving the family only wondering.
The drug war has already been like that for a long, long time.
.
Labels:
Arizona,
crime,
History,
law enforcement,
United States
"Resegregating the South"
Cynthia Tucker at the AJC reexamines the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act of 1984. She starts with a mea culpa and then blisters the effect gerrymandering redistricting has had on our nation as a whole, and particularly the South.
And if it is to change, we will need many voices ready to overcome the racially-based demoagougery we are sure to hear from the left. Especially the machine politicians who benefit the most directly from turning majority-minority districts into personal fiefdoms.
I'm glad to hear someone saying it. Y'all what has been going on is bad for everyone. We need more demographically balanced districts all over the country, and we will need them if we ever, ever hope to rationally address the problems this nation is facing.
Case and point: Louisiana just got some new Congressional districts. Take a moment and look at the map. See if you can guess which one is specifically drawn to concentrate as many minority voters as possible.
Then look at the demographics. For a state that is one-third African-American, African-Americans have a voice in only one-sixth of the state's Congressional delegation.
Unintended consequences don't begin to cover it.
.
And if it is to change, we will need many voices ready to overcome the racially-based demoagougery we are sure to hear from the left. Especially the machine politicians who benefit the most directly from turning majority-minority districts into personal fiefdoms.
If black voters think they have made substantial gains simply by having more black representatives in Congress, they’re wrong. They’d have more influence if they were spread through several legislative districts, forcing more candidates to court them.
I'm glad to hear someone saying it. Y'all what has been going on is bad for everyone. We need more demographically balanced districts all over the country, and we will need them if we ever, ever hope to rationally address the problems this nation is facing.
Case and point: Louisiana just got some new Congressional districts. Take a moment and look at the map. See if you can guess which one is specifically drawn to concentrate as many minority voters as possible.
Then look at the demographics. For a state that is one-third African-American, African-Americans have a voice in only one-sixth of the state's Congressional delegation.
Unintended consequences don't begin to cover it.
.
Refighting the Past
You're never really done with legislation. You're never really done with human freedom or civil rights. Once you think you have them, there will always be someone who wants to try and roll them back. The price for freedom is eternal vigilance in so many definitions of the word.
Sometimes that vigilance means keeping your eyes open when the guy next to you in the subway keeps trying to light a fuse in his jacket. Other times that vigilance requires you to keep people from re-writing history to move political goal posts today.
The ongoing battle over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and yes I said ongoing because we aren't really done with it - got another boost with Ron Paul recently. While liberals and progressives stand around shocked to find out that people will actually say in public that they don't support the CRA (and are more shocked to find out these individuals still command political support), the forces of revisionism are hard at work to justify such political beliefs.
And it works. Remember folks, "the free market didn't enforce segregation, the government enforced segregation." Or that's the narrative, at least.
While hardly all-in with this narrative (like the Pauls), Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway comes dangerously close to rationalizing it.
"Big Government" strikes again? Hardly.
While this article's explorations of SCOTUS decisions kneecapping the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 (involving New Orleans) and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 are quite valuable, I take issue with the idea that,
There's a big concern I have with saying things like that. You see, Jim Crow was under legal assault from the time of its birth - The Civil Rights cases represented the first wave of such assaults, and Plessy vs. Ferguson represented the second wave. What we also know from our history is that these robust legal assaults, as well as others, failed.
An argument that:
Is a almost an identical argument used by the Supreme Court to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And look what that philosophical matter got us - nearly 100 more years of Jim Crow and ongoing Jim Crow legacy today.
This issue is another place where I take exception with "libertarianism," even as I have my own robust blue libertarian streak of cynical distrust of the government.
Sorry folks, I. Live. In. The. South. Down here, you can't go six months without some popular politician reminding folks the importance of "state's rights" to ignore Federal laws (like the CRA) or complaining that all redistricting has to go through Justice Department approval in the same breath that carries discussions of diluting or off-loading minority voting strength.
Segregation and Jim Crow were state government mandates, free-market mandates, and cultural mandates all wrapped up in one. Businesses were getting subsidies and contributing to political campaigns back in the day just as much as they are today. As a matter of fact, that era is often described as the "good ole days" before all the "government regulations" came in and "ruined business." One wonders if more regular health inspections are the "government regulations" being discussed...
Should we even talk about the social stigma that would be ascribed to businesses that served "mixed" clientele during that time? After all, once schools and businesses were legally forced to integrate, white people fled to the suburbs and exurbs. There, they spent time socially engineering their own communities far away from the cities and the colored folks. They didn't have to go to school, shop with, or hire the colored folks if there ain't no colored folks around. And yet, the government doesn't interfere with their right to do so. As a matter of fact, it subsidizes the ability to self-segregate, by subsidizing road construction and oil exploration.
I think about all those free market forces at work when I drive through New Orleans East, an area where 71,000 people live where there's only ONE grocery store. Guess what race most of the residents there are.
The author sums up my whole opinion on the CRA in his closing:
So, yeah, you could say that I don't mind "Big Government" robustly enforcing the 14th Amendment through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While it may be philosophically OK to think that parts of the CRA are coercive in nature, and a little bit of overreach on the part of the government, I only wished we lived in a society so perfect that we didn't need a government to make sure doors of opportunity are open to all citizens. Until we get to that More Perfect Union, I don't mind "Big Government" telling people interested in starting a business that they will be unable to segregate based on race, creed, or color if they would like to do business in the United States. We ain't yet far enough removed from the bad ole days yet.
.
Sometimes that vigilance means keeping your eyes open when the guy next to you in the subway keeps trying to light a fuse in his jacket. Other times that vigilance requires you to keep people from re-writing history to move political goal posts today.
The ongoing battle over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and yes I said ongoing because we aren't really done with it - got another boost with Ron Paul recently. While liberals and progressives stand around shocked to find out that people will actually say in public that they don't support the CRA (and are more shocked to find out these individuals still command political support), the forces of revisionism are hard at work to justify such political beliefs.
And it works. Remember folks, "the free market didn't enforce segregation, the government enforced segregation." Or that's the narrative, at least.
While hardly all-in with this narrative (like the Pauls), Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway comes dangerously close to rationalizing it.
Racial segregation in the South wasn’t a product of the free market, it was the product of a state imposing racial prejudices under the threat of criminal prosecution.
"Big Government" strikes again? Hardly.
While this article's explorations of SCOTUS decisions kneecapping the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 (involving New Orleans) and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 are quite valuable, I take issue with the idea that,
different outcome in The Slaughterhouse Cases and The Civil Rights Cases, the entire system of mandated racial segregation known as Jim Crow would have been under direct legal assault at the time of it’s birth.
There's a big concern I have with saying things like that. You see, Jim Crow was under legal assault from the time of its birth - The Civil Rights cases represented the first wave of such assaults, and Plessy vs. Ferguson represented the second wave. What we also know from our history is that these robust legal assaults, as well as others, failed.
An argument that:
So, as a philosophical matter, the Pauls are both correct that the state should not have the authority to tell businesses who they can choose as customers.
Is a almost an identical argument used by the Supreme Court to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And look what that philosophical matter got us - nearly 100 more years of Jim Crow and ongoing Jim Crow legacy today.
This issue is another place where I take exception with "libertarianism," even as I have my own robust blue libertarian streak of cynical distrust of the government.
Sorry folks, I. Live. In. The. South. Down here, you can't go six months without some popular politician reminding folks the importance of "state's rights" to ignore Federal laws (like the CRA) or complaining that all redistricting has to go through Justice Department approval in the same breath that carries discussions of diluting or off-loading minority voting strength.
Segregation and Jim Crow were state government mandates, free-market mandates, and cultural mandates all wrapped up in one. Businesses were getting subsidies and contributing to political campaigns back in the day just as much as they are today. As a matter of fact, that era is often described as the "good ole days" before all the "government regulations" came in and "ruined business." One wonders if more regular health inspections are the "government regulations" being discussed...
Should we even talk about the social stigma that would be ascribed to businesses that served "mixed" clientele during that time? After all, once schools and businesses were legally forced to integrate, white people fled to the suburbs and exurbs. There, they spent time socially engineering their own communities far away from the cities and the colored folks. They didn't have to go to school, shop with, or hire the colored folks if there ain't no colored folks around. And yet, the government doesn't interfere with their right to do so. As a matter of fact, it subsidizes the ability to self-segregate, by subsidizing road construction and oil exploration.
I think about all those free market forces at work when I drive through New Orleans East, an area where 71,000 people live where there's only ONE grocery store. Guess what race most of the residents there are.
The author sums up my whole opinion on the CRA in his closing:
by the time the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into being the distinction between private and public behavior under Jim Crow was a hard line to draw, especially when social pressure by Southern whites made it virtually impossible for any business owner who didn’t want to discriminate against blacks from doing so. The only way to bring down the whole system, a system that arguably might not have existed if the 14th Amendment hadn’t been virtually gutted in the latter years of the 19th Century, was to use the authority of the Federal Government to do so.
So, yeah, you could say that I don't mind "Big Government" robustly enforcing the 14th Amendment through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While it may be philosophically OK to think that parts of the CRA are coercive in nature, and a little bit of overreach on the part of the government, I only wished we lived in a society so perfect that we didn't need a government to make sure doors of opportunity are open to all citizens. Until we get to that More Perfect Union, I don't mind "Big Government" telling people interested in starting a business that they will be unable to segregate based on race, creed, or color if they would like to do business in the United States. We ain't yet far enough removed from the bad ole days yet.
.
Labels:
History,
narratives,
politics,
race,
really real conservatives,
republicans,
South,
United States
Flood History
It is a shame that with almost every problem that faces the United States, our nation has already dealt with a similar problem in the past. At some point between then and now, we've either willfully forgotten the lessons or fallen prey to the snake-oil salesmen who convinces us that his medicine works the best.
Has it occurred to anyone why we have problems with flooding in this country? John Barry penned a must-read Saturday Essay in the WSJ on April 30 to describe, in layman's terms, what is going on here. (HT: YRHT)
Some of the questions Barry takes a crack at:
1. Why do all these people live in danger of flooding, and can't they just move somewhere else?
2. When did this become the Federal government's problem? What group of socialists decided that the government should be in the flood control business?
3. When did African-Americans abandon the Republican Party?
4. How do decisions made in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota end up contributing to massive property damage in Louisiana?
5. What kind of person lives in flood-prone areas and doesn't have flood insurance?
6. If the USACoE know how to build better levees, why don't they do it?
Of course, you can find more detailed answers to most of these questions by reading Barry's book, Rising Tide, but actual US history may not be compatible with an already made-up mind.
Update: Oh, here are a few ideas.
(HT: EJ)
.
Has it occurred to anyone why we have problems with flooding in this country? John Barry penned a must-read Saturday Essay in the WSJ on April 30 to describe, in layman's terms, what is going on here. (HT: YRHT)
Some of the questions Barry takes a crack at:
1. Why do all these people live in danger of flooding, and can't they just move somewhere else?
2. When did this become the Federal government's problem? What group of socialists decided that the government should be in the flood control business?
3. When did African-Americans abandon the Republican Party?
4. How do decisions made in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota end up contributing to massive property damage in Louisiana?
5. What kind of person lives in flood-prone areas and doesn't have flood insurance?
6. If the USACoE know how to build better levees, why don't they do it?
Of course, you can find more detailed answers to most of these questions by reading Barry's book, Rising Tide, but actual US history may not be compatible with an already made-up mind.
Update: Oh, here are a few ideas.
(HT: EJ)
.
Labels:
flood,
History,
infrastructure,
Media,
United States
Torture Worked!
Well, at least in the delusional fantasy land of make believe that affects most American right-wingers these days. Folks, here's where credibility is important.
The people who brought you "Not One Drop of Oil [Spilled Due to Gulf Hurricanes in 2005]" proudly present:
"Torture Years Ago Killed Osama Earlier This Week."
(This of course creates the offspring narrative: "George W. Bush Had Much More To Do With OBL's Apprehension than Barack Obama.")
And you know what? They're going to repeat this as much and as often as is necessary to convince the American media consumer that this nonsense is true. Just like they did with the "Not One Drop" narrative. This is how they work, after all: create a talking point and repeat it until enough people have heard it so often they assume it is true. And they do it very well.
It doesn't even matter how easily their arguments can be deconstructed (NSFW Image).
Update: The only thing that has been proven right in this episode of American history are the folks who warned us that, once our popular culture embraces torture in such ways, it was only a matter of time before the uses of torture were officially expanded.
.
The people who brought you "Not One Drop of Oil [Spilled Due to Gulf Hurricanes in 2005]" proudly present:
"Torture Years Ago Killed Osama Earlier This Week."
(This of course creates the offspring narrative: "George W. Bush Had Much More To Do With OBL's Apprehension than Barack Obama.")
And you know what? They're going to repeat this as much and as often as is necessary to convince the American media consumer that this nonsense is true. Just like they did with the "Not One Drop" narrative. This is how they work, after all: create a talking point and repeat it until enough people have heard it so often they assume it is true. And they do it very well.
It doesn't even matter how easily their arguments can be deconstructed (NSFW Image).
[A]lthough neither torture victim gave up the correct information, and one gave an entirely false lead, it was their refusal to tell the truth that proves torture worked! Seriously. It was the failure of torture to get accurate information that proves the validity of the torture!
Update: The only thing that has been proven right in this episode of American history are the folks who warned us that, once our popular culture embraces torture in such ways, it was only a matter of time before the uses of torture were officially expanded.
.
Labels:
crime,
History,
law enforcement,
narratives,
Obama,
President,
United States,
War on Terror
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