The post Being A Good Democrat Means Being A Good Friend appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>If there is a single word that best describes what is key to being a good friend, and also being a good Democrat, it is empathy. You care. You care about people who you know, and equally important, you care about those who you may not know, but who are in need of support. It is a form of synchrony; you deeply value those who share many of your political views as well as those you don’t know but who benefit from your progressive policies.
That’s why if you take a look at the $3.5 trillion proposal that President Joe Biden and progressives in both the House and Senate are advocating, it is clear that you want to provide essential help for those within our society who are most in need.
The bill offers key support to virtually all parts of our society that are struggling economically or socially. There is $450 billion to provide childcare and universal pre-K for young children, at tremendous help to their parents and other care-givers. Medicare for the elderly is expanded to include coverage of dental, hearing and vision services. Prescription drug prices will be cut; there will be more paid family and medical leave.
For the first time since FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society, a broad and vibrant plan is proposed to address the major societal needs of the day. Yes, there would be some inevitable inefficiencies in funding a bill so large, but both the public and the private sectors of our economy have repeatedly demonstrated that money can be wasted regardless of how much of it is involved. The bottom line, as President Biden and so many progressives have iterated, is that the economic and social benefits provided to the recipients of the goods and services included in the bill is of far greater value than the cost in marginal inflation or normal waste or inefficiency.
Simply put, it is what friends do for one another.
Which brings us to the question of personal friendships among Democratic leaders in our government. We know from the writings of Chris Mooney (The Republican Brain) and George Lakoff (Don’t Think of an Elephant) that most Democrats are warm and caring towards one another, lacking the harshness of many Republicans. Democrats are less authoritarian, less certain of themselves, and more willing to work through compromise with one another. They place more value on the “common good” than Republicans do; while Republicans are more committed to preserving individual liberties, with some key exceptions such as reproductive rights and voting rights.
You rarely see Democrats going hot and cold at one another the way that Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham do with Donald Trump. The reverence with which most Democrats speak of Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi bears no resemblance to the ways in which the Republicans speak of one another.
Democrats are “doers;” they see problems in our society and are committed to using public policy to address quality of life problems. They are impatient with stalling. Every moment wasted is additional time when those in need must suffer.
This gets us to the curious case of Joe Manchin, senior senator from West Virginia. He is a Democrat, and many regard him as the only Democrat who could be elected from his state which over the course of fifty years has essentially flipped from all blue to all red. Manchin, along with Senator Kirsten Sinema of Arizona, have been the sole Democrats in the upper chamber who have not supported President Biden’s 3.5 trillion “soft infrastructure” plan. Both are playing it coy like a cat, making it difficult to ascertain what they really support. Just recently, it was revealed that Manchin had indicated this past July that he would accept $1.5 trillion in spending, though with little certainty as to which programs he supported and which ones he opposed. He seems in no hurry to advance the Biden agenda.
But what may be most interesting about Manchin is how he simply did not act like a friend to his fellow Democrats. He expressed opposition to his colleagues’ support of $3.5 trillion measure and went through the motions of trying to reach compromise. But to date, he has not come close to the neighborhood where his fellow Democrats reside.
What is most baffling about Manchin is the lack of loyalty and friendship that he offers to his fellow Democrats. This is particularly true with the President Biden. Joe Biden is the consummate political professional who makes time to understand the perspectives and positions of all his fellow Democrats as well as a number of Republicans.
No one could be more gracious with Joe Manchin than Joe Biden, yet Manchin seems to offer nothing of substance in return. It is difficult to say this, but what Joe Manchin reminds me of is ….. is a Republican. Manchin shows no urgency to move ahead with progressive legislation. He cavalierly postpones deadlines for when legislation should be considered, all the while forgetting that the Democrats in the Senate are a single heartbeat away from losing control of the chamber.
If Joe Manchin cannot act like a true friend to Joe Biden, and to forty-eight of his colleagues in the Senate who repeatedly bend over backwards to try to accommodate him, then he truly is an outcast.
Not only does he fail to be an active Democrat trying to seize the moment to address a myriad of domestic problems, ones which may have more impact on his home state of West Virginia than any other state, but he refuses to engage in the give and take that characterizes warm friendship.
We mentioned Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain, and it may be that Manchin has personality traits more like a Republican than a Democrat. If that is the case, then we may have to give up hope that he can be part of the solution. I hope that I am wrong.
I’d love to say, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
The post Being A Good Democrat Means Being A Good Friend appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>1. Those mandates that protect the liberties of individuals.
2. Those mandates that protect the common good for society as a whole.
The post Why the Word ‘Mandate” Is so Tricky in our Political System appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>He says, “It’s my right to order a wedding cake with two grooms on the top, a symbol of our gay wedding.”
The proprietor says, “It’s my right to choose the people to whom we want to sell cakes, as well as those to whom we do not want to sell cakes.”
This conflict involving a gay couple from Indiana and a local bakery has become a classic scenario of conflicting rights in America. Perhaps more important than this particular conflict is how it defines the major political divide that separates America into two distinct and fiercely opposed tribes of people.
If there is a key word that draws the ire of Americans and separates them into distinct groups, it is ‘mandate.’ According to Webster’s, the definition of mandate is ‘a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one.’ Most Americans, in fact most of humanity, like mandates when they establish rules to our individual or personal liking. The reverse holds true as well; if we don’t like it, it’s a bad mandate.
In earlier human history, the world was largely bifurcated between those who issued mandates and those who followed them. Life in America now is very different as the two sides of our political polarity (right wing and left wing) have times when they hold more power than the other, and consequently when they can be the issuer of mandates.
Mandates are not all the same. It is helpful to divide them into two categories. The distinction between the two largely defines the differences between the Republicans / Trumpsters and Democrats / Progressives.
It is the Republicans who seek mandates to protect their own personal interests. They want to have the right to refuse to bake or sell that wedding cake to a gay couple. They want to ensure that they can purchase and own powerful guns and do so with a minimal paper trail. They want to own cars that are fast and cheap and that include minimal required safety features.
Progressives largely want mandates that make our society healthier and safer. They want protection against fraudulent behavior by institutions and individuals. They want vaccinations to be mandated so that diseases such as COViD-19 or smallpox can be eliminated. During a pandemic, they want everyone to wear masks to minimize the spread of the virus. They want infrastructure to be built with full safety measures embedded in the construction.
At times, the populace is split close to 50-50. Recently, a poll on vaccines requirements conducted by CNN / SSRS showed the following results about mandated vaccinations:
This survey also reflects how dramatically the nation has moved since the time when the polio vaccines or measles immunizations were mandated for children before they could enroll in public schools.
There are times when the positions of conservatives and progressives flip-flop. The most obvious case is abortion. To progressives, it is clearly a personal right; one in which the woman should be empowered to make the decision in consultation with a physician and anyone else whom she thinks can lend helpful advice.
To conservatives, abortion becomes a religious issue in which “God’s will” says that abortion should be illegal. Progressives view the conservative reasoning with a little more skepticism. They believe that in many ways conservatives oppose allowing women to have control of their reproductive rights, because they feel that the male-dominated government institutions should have control over the rights of women.
Additionally, one could argue that progressives’ support of abortion rights is consistent with their view that it is most important to protect the common good of the society. Abortion rights is one means by which we can minimize the number of unwanted children born into our society.
Neither conservatives nor progressives have an exclusive handle on the word mandate. They each use it to their own advantage; to further their views on a variety of issues.
We all try to use words to our advantage; often to give ourselves, and others like us, a presumed moral high ground. Mandate is one of the key words utilized by all sides of the political spectrum to try to advance their interests. It is another reason why we need to be especially careful about the language that we use in politics.
The post Why the Word ‘Mandate” Is so Tricky in our Political System appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Nine years later, my Model U.N. idea became a reality appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>I was first introduced to Civitas through my middle school gifted program. My teacher had us participate in the Civitas Model United Nations program, which I found both stimulating and engaging. Since my mother is from the island nation The Kingdom of Tonga, I opted to represent Tonga in the Model U.N. program. This would be a trend that continued as I sustained my participation in the Model U.N. program throughout my high school career.
One of the early resolutions I drafted was focused on providing clean water sources to under-resourced communities throughout the islands. The plan of action was to bring over LifeStraws, a water purification and filtration device that can provide an individual user with clean drinking water for approximately five years. Doing research and drafting this resolution opened up my juvenile mind to real issues that citizens face in Tonga, and for the first time ever, as a thirteen year old, I began to think about plausible solutions.
Fast forward 9 years. I graduated from the University of Missouri – Columbia with a degree in International Studies with an emphasis in Peace Studies and a minor in Leadership and Public Service. Following my May 2018 graduation, I went off to Tonga in August to serve as an English Literacy Facilitator with the United States Peace Corps. It was decided by the Peace Corps that I would serve on the outer island of ‘Eua in the most remote and under-resourced village on the island. They hadn’t sent a Peace Corps Volunteer to this village in over 10 years.
My primary assignment was working at the village’s government primary school, G.P.S. Houma. There were only 3 staff at the whole school, with a student body of approximately 47 students. Each staff person was a teacher for one of the composite classes (grades 1 and 2, grades 3 and 4, grades 5 and 6), and the grade 1 and 2 teacher also doubled as the school principal. My chief role within the school was to teach English to grades 3-6.
While working at the primary school I quickly noticed that the principal was calling half-days most days of the week. When I inquired with her why this was the case, she said it was because there was no drinking water for the children on the school compound, and that the only water available was reserved for the use of teachers and their families living on the school grounds. Given this information, I constructed a grant proposal to install rainwater tanks on the school compound. My grant proposal received many rejections from various organizations. Eventually, I was able to pitch the idea to a Rotary Club in the United States and obtain funding for the purchase and installation of rainwater tanks over two fiscal years. 2020 is the second fiscal year, and as of September the Rotary Club has already initiated the second installation of rainwater tanks in the village.
Participating in Model U.N. and other enrichment activities with Civitas has greatly influenced how I have showed up in the world in my adult life. Had I not begun thinking about global issues at age 13, I may not have completed my first global aid project by age 23. I strongly believe that having conversations with young people about the impact they can have on the world will encourage them to become active global citizens.
The post Nine years later, my Model U.N. idea became a reality appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post RIP Michael Brooks appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Michael Brooks passed away yesterday. A journalist, comedian, podcaster, and socialist thinker, he was one of the most important young voices on the left. His family has listed the cause as a sudden medical condition.
More than just a partisan, he combined his “dirtbag left” aesthetic with segments on world history, Marxist philosophy, postcolonial thought, and more. Michael’s humor, kindness, and charismatic demeanor were disarming enough to introduce many people to important, globe-trotting ideas.
Michael was an uncompromising advocate for democracy and other socialist ideals across the world. This led him to a strong focus on the legally shaky imprisonment of President Lula of Brazil, which allowed for the triumph of the unhinged quasi-fascist Jair Bolsonero. Michael’s coverage of Brazil was more in-depth than most major outlets. While The Economist praised Bolsonaro as a dangerous populist, but one with good ideas on fiscal policy, Michael was uncompromising in his support for Brazilian democracy. Eventually, he was able to interview Lula after his release from prison.
He understood the allure of online right-wing thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, and Sam Harris to young white men. It was the recognition of the power of this cadre of “Intellectual Dark Web” denizens that led him to produce a short book, Against The Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right. In it, he argued against Peterson’s advocacy of a return to tradition and Rubin’s shallow libertarianism. They focused too much on insular internet arguments and eschewed real-life catastrophes like climate change, autocracy, and inequality. These issues, Michael wrote, were very real and could only be tackled by an international working-class movement for a humane socialist society.
It was this cosmopolitanism, this drawing from sources across the human experience, that made Michael so special. From Brazil to online discourse, from lectures on Cameroonian philosopher Achilla Mbembe to commenting on the latest NBA game, few modern thinkers had his breadth. “he was more intellectually curious than most socialists I’ve met,” said Bhaskar Sunkara in a tribute piece in Jacobin. “Michael was fascinated by the world and by the movements people built to change it.”
He combined this substantial knowledge base with a warmth and understanding of human flaws. Human beings contained multitudes, and therefore deserved forgiveness and understanding. What was needed, he said, was a mixture of “Machiavelli and spirituality” to tackle the problems of modernity. “He was hungry to cultivate a milieu of people who were both politically committed and loved life,” said Sunkara.
A few weeks ago, Michael joked that he had finished off his bucket list of famous people to interview: Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Slavoj Zizek, President Lula, and more. I’m glad he got to meet his heroes before he passed. Now that he’s gone, I wish I had gotten the chance to meet one of mine.
The post RIP Michael Brooks appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post We’re all in this together. Where we are, where we need to go. appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>It’s already starting to happen. The healing. The power to love one another. The excitement of a shared commitment. The sense of wholeness when we know we belong to something larger than ourselves. It’s been a long time coming, but the blossoms are opening. No one can take this from us now.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York keeps telling us we are going to defeat the “beast” of this virus epidemic and come out the other end better and stronger. It’s tragic that it has taken such a scourge to wake us up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves and our planet, but better late than never.
This is one very short version of how we got to the point of electing a con man as president: During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, American leaders turned to the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes. He taught that the best way to stimulate a moribund economy was to increase government spending and lower taxes. The Roosevelt administration developed dozens and then, eventually, hundreds of different programs to help individual citizens succeed and prosper. Basic necessities were subsidized. Unions built a comfortable life for workers. A sense of community flourished on the local level. And “Happy Days are Here Again” became the national theme song, at least for European Americans.
Post-World War II became “the American century,” partly because most of the other powerful nations had been laid low by the war. With basic necessities such as food and shelter being met for most citizens, the need for more progress became apparent, and we entered the age of Aquarius. Giving birth is never easy, but the heroes of the civil rights, women’s rights, Native American rights struggles helped us keep our eyes on the prize of equality and opportunity for everyone. We had time to study the environment and recognize the damage we were doing to Mother Earth.
So, what happened to Camelot? How did we get from loving our planet and each other to a hundred thousand of us dying from an unseen virus?
In short, some very smart people wanted to become even richer than they already were and financed a plan to tap into the less humanitarian parts of our human nature. They turned to economists like Milton Friedman who preached the philosophy of limited government, personal freedom and winner takes all. Using emotionally charged issues, they cornered the market on voter turnout.
Over time, our more advanced sense of humanitarianism and cooperative behavior began to fade, and folks became downright suspicious of government and each other. We became more interested in stroking our own egos, living the good life, and filling the void in our lives with compulsive consumerism.
And while we were looking forward to weekends and partying, we didn’t notice that very few of us were accumulating a larger and larger share of the wealth we were all creating.
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer over the last few decades. No one can deny that. Automation, globalization and the dismantling of our common bonds brought us to a dark place where murder and suicide now outnumber deaths from some of the major diseases. As the virus spreads across the country, people are buying guns, and domestic violence is a major issue. In short, we are a sick society.
But the pandemic has also given us time to examine our lives, our culture and our future. Despite the damage being done by a tiny virus, we’ve re-imagined a society based on cooperation, sacrifice and love. We are rewriting our common story without even being aware of it. “We are all in this together.”
We’ve seen many examples of shared community on TV:
…using 3 D printers to make face masks
…organizing virtual meetings, family gatherings, church services
…adapting to online learning, expanding broadband
…turning face mask sewing into an artistic competition
…adjusting to working from home and saving on gas
…individual singers and instrumentalists combining their talents online (How do they do that?
…New ways of celebrating traditional events such as birthdays and graduations
…Neighborhood parties with social distancing, drive in theaters for live concerts
…Eager participation in local outreach efforts such as food drives, checking on neighbors, delivering food and medicine to senior citizens
The epidemic has also brought to our attention issues that have been simmering behind the scenes for a long time. The good news is that we are now more open to solving some of those problems.
Gov. Cuomo has filled the role of moral leader left vacant by the White House during this national tragedy. One issue he is addressing head on is the disproportionate effect of this virus on communities of color. Working with church leaders in the hardest hit neighborhoods, the NYC public health department has set up testing sites in those churches to track the virus. The plan is to go well beyond serving those communities during the epidemic. What they learn and accomplish can be replicated in other parts of the country.
The pandemic has brought our attention also to the appalling conditions in some Native American communities. “Navajo Nation,” in the Southwest, has one of the highest rates of disease and death caused by COVID-19. The question is: How is it possible that people living in the richest country in the world don’t have immediate access to potable water? The governor of Arizona is doing all she can with state resources, but the Indian Health Service (part of HHS) is AWOL. This can and will be fixed with a Democratic president in the White House.
Pollution is bad in most of our country but much worse in cities. Now is the time to address urban health issues, especially those affecting children. We’ve known for decades about the rates of asthma in big cities and how children have to miss school on “orange alert” days. Decades ago, when we were, as a society, sincerely interested in making life better for everyone, a big campaign forced paint companies to remove lead from their products because it causes damage to children’s brains. Now imagine a campaign like that directed at fossil fuel companies and other polluters.
We see on TV the before and after photos of polluted cities. When people work from home and don’t drive or use public transit, the air is cleaner and healthier. Now is the perfect time to revive the enthusiasm for saving the environment that began in the 1970’s. For starters, our new president must rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and begin repairing our relationships around the world. Environmental groups have been stigmatized by the big polluters, but we can gradually change that with our support of those organizations. Imagine the creativity of our younger generations and how much they can accomplish in a short time.
“Going to prison shouldn’t be a death sentence.” Sadly, it took a deadly virus to bring prison reform front and center for discussion. The prison industrial complex, aided and abetted by businesses looking for cheap labor, must be thoroughly examined. There is nothing “correctional” about a system that traps people during a pandemic.
Just as shockingly, we’ve been forced to learn about the inhumane treatment of immigrant laborers, especially in meat packing plants. This is the time for Congress to finally face the need for comprehensive immigration reform and for us to elect a president who will inspire that effort. And, yes, it’s time to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Health care…. It’s time to detach health insurance from employment. This issue received plenty of attention during the Democratic debates, but the loss of work due to the pandemic now demonstrates why we need guaranteed medical care for everyone.
Many of us shook our heads watching tens of thousands of pounds of food being plowed under for lack of markets. Milk had to be dumped too. This was happening as people out of work were lining up at food banks. It’s time for some federal agency to work out a plan for transportation and distribution of food, not just in case of another pandemic, but also for the next wave of climate induced weather disasters.
We need a new story to tell ourselves what we expect our “new normal” to look like. It’s pretty obvious we are never going back to the America of 2019. And that’s a good thing because we have the opportunity now to rewrite our vision of the future. What have we learned from the worst disaster to hit our country since the Great Depression? In a way, we are seeing many of the same problems… hunger, homelessness, high unemployment, a fractured political system that plagued us back then.
As described above, we, the people, have risen to the challenge of facing this epidemic head on. When hospital workers needed us, we rushed in to help. When leadership at the national level failed us, we organized and did amazing things in our own communities. This new spirit of togetherness and service to others has rekindled the love of community that was stolen from us in recent decades.
Now we can build on those local connections/
Suggestions:
…Get to know someone new and different…. There is a wonderful example in St. Louis each Christmas Day when Jewish and Muslim neighbors work together on hundreds of local projects while giving Christians a day to celebrate their holiday. The best way to reduce our fear of others or discomfort with people we are not used to being with is to work together on some local project of mutual interest. Local elected officials can facilitate these connections.
…Promote the arts…. As President Kennedy said, “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement.” Those who want to control us work constantly to confuse us with “alternative facts,” emotional distractions and ways to tempt out that lower part of human nature. Why else would they be promoting competitive and increasingly violent forms entertainment as “sports”? Why do they insist on cutting funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio and Public Television? Why is it, when school budgets come under the knife, it’s always the arts that go first? Think about it. Remember the Maslow hierarchy of needs? Once we are fed and housed, we yearn for something psychologically and spiritually satisfying.
…Offer people a chance to be part of the decision-making process locally and nationally. We need to work on expanding voter participation starting with teaching some form of civics (and not just a “course” in it) to children and teenagers. Given the natural desire to join forces to help one another shown during the pandemic, this should be an obvious next step. Maybe we can reimagine how local government works to bring more citizens into the decision-making process. How do we include non-citizens who are essential members of our community and who pay taxes?
…Finally and most importantly, we need to rewrite the story we live by. George Monbiot, writer for the London Guardian, has written about this extensively. He describes the toxic ideology of extreme competition and individualism that has come to dominate the world that must change if we are to build a healthier society. What is needed now is the same “story” people needed in past centuries after a cataclysmic disaster laid them low. Monbiot calls it the “restoration story.” We obviously need to restore the foundation of a healthy economy that meets people’s basic needs. But, more than that, we need to listen to those better angels of our human nature Lincoln spoke about and create a new politics of belonging. The Biden campaign slogan has already been written: We are all in this together.
The post We’re all in this together. Where we are, where we need to go. appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Socialism and the Loop Trolley appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>I wrote most of this essay on the day (12/29/2019) of the last Loop Trolley ride. For those outside of St. Louis, the Delmar Loop is a famous cultural street, connecting University City with the City of St. Louis proper. Revitalized in the late twentieth century primarily by local entrepreneur Joe Edwards, it was voted one of ten “Great Streets in America” by the American Planning Association in 2007.
And the Trolley? Well, the Trolley is, or was…. not so Great. It cost over $50 million, of which around $30 million came from federal grants, $4 million came from City tax abatements, and $3 million from the County; its construction caused nightmarish traffic in the Loop, stagnating commerce in the area; and it didn’t really do anything, other than provide a shuttle from the Missouri History Museum to the Loop, which is kind of cool, I guess. The whole thing endured for about a year. Now it’s dead.
In a political ideologies class in my undergraduate degree, I read an essay that so stuck with me that the closing of the Loop Trolley provided an instant connection to it in my mind. Titled “Town Meetings & Workers’ Control: A Story For Socialists” and written by political theorist Michael Walzer in 1978, it is a parable about a man who builds a town, and echoes the present situation of St. Louis governance pretty strongly.
This fictional entrepreneurial fellow, J.J., who, “when the frontier was still somewhere east of the Great Plains…set out to make his fortune.” First, J.J. establishes a ferry at the bend of a river (not unlike St. Louis itself). Taking pioneers from one bank to the other earns him some wealth. He buys up some land in the area and, when settlers arrive, lends them the acres needed to build a church, a blacksmith, and the other necessities of an American frontier town. When Indians attack (a somewhat problematic use of language and example on Walzer’s part), J.J. orders the rifles and gear needed to fend them off. In this way he becomes the informal mayor. When he borrows money from a bank and builds the town hall, he formalizes this role. What was previously a functional economic arrangement becomes a formal political one.
J-town, as the settlement becomes known, prospers. J.J. is the default leader, though “the settlers were not surprised; neither was there any opposition. J.J. was still a gregarious man; he knew them all, talked to them all, always consulted with them about matters of common interest.” J.J. built the town; that he would own it made a sort of sense. Years pass.
Growth requires a degree of formalization, and an elderly J.J. is obliged to appoint other town officers. In an act of hubris, he makes his idiot son chief of police. It is at this point that the citizens stage an electoral revolt. Here’s the crux of the arguments: J.J. is appreciated by all for his leadership of the early town. But this role only entitles him to “honor and glory, but not to obedience.” The citizens are workers, after all. They were the ones who built and operated the business J.J. arranged, and more to the point, his poor governance impacts their lives. The revolt is successful, and the town moves from informal and lax capitalist dictatorship to formalized workers’ democracy. The moral of the parable, writes Walzer, is that “what touches all should be decided by all”. If it will impact you, you should have a say in it. This could be the thesis statement of the entire socialist movement.
Back to St. Louis, with apologies for the diversion. Joe Edwards is our own local J.J. He is widely recognized and positively acknowledged as the man who built the Loop via his ownership and/or support of fruitful businesses like Blueberry Hill. St. Louis Magazine even called him the “Duke of Delmar”. But not all of his ideas have been so brilliant. Edwards has long been a supporter of installing the trolley system in the Loop. Whether or not such a plan could have been viable, its real-world implementation was not, costing taxpayers millions and providing neither increased tourism nor much of a public good.
Joe isn’t alone in St. Louis-area publicly-funded foibles. Consider, for instance, the public opposition to a Major League Soccer stadium over the past few years, which would have involved tens of millions of dollars in public funds. When the proposal was defeated, the organizers began a plan to create a stadium without spending state and local treasure. And a more recent example, the proposed privatization of Lambert International Airport, was defeated by local groups like Don’t Sell Our Airport and the St. Louis Democratic Socialists of America chapter. One might point to these as examples of the system working: A public vote defeated the MLS stadium proposal, and public opposition defeated the airport privatization plan, led by multimillionaire Republican investor Rex Sinquefield, a man with all Joe Edwards’ defects and none of his virtues. But the system clearly didn’t stop the Loop Trolley, and we’re all poorer and worse off for it.
My opposition to these projects doesn’t come from the fiscal conservative’s impulse to save money in the public treasury. Rather, I use the leftist’s critique that instead of playgrounds and attractions for the professional managerial classes, the money should be spent on social services, the homeless, jobs programs, desperately-needed police reform, and greening the city. I think much of the electorate knows this. Imagine if their representatives on the Board of Alderman and the local Democratic Party weren’t mostly weak shills for property developers and investors. Better yet, imagine if the electorate could determine where the money went themselves. Imagine, in short, a community where what touches all is decided by all.
P.S. The Trolley broke down on its final ride in front of Joe Edwards’ Peacock Loop Diner. On a thematically-related note, when Edwards rolled out plans for the diner in 2013, he said he chose the name because “everybody likes [peacocks]—I don’t think anyone has a bad thing to say about a peacock.” Amazing.
The post Socialism and the Loop Trolley appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Getting to know the lives of immigrants appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Seven days a week, at eleven in the morning, Imad Khachan opens the door of his Greenwich Village chess shop. Chess Forum is the last of the old-style chess parlors in New York City—a holdout in the Big Apple’s rapidly homogenizing retail scene. It’s a place where grandmasters, beginners, celebrities, students, seniors, kindergartners, subway train engineers, policemen, and firemen rub elbows at the well-worn tables. At Chess Forum, $5 an hour gets you a spot for a game of pickup chess or backgammon. If you’re a senior, you’ll get your board time discounted for $1 an hour. And true to Mr. Khachan’s commitment to families and his hope that one day he’ll be lucky enough to help mentor the next big chess champ, kids play free.
Most days, it’s midnight when Mr. Khachan closes up shop. Sometimes, if the competition gets intense, Mr Khachan keeps the lights on until dawn—or at least until the last of the most indefatigable and determined of his regulars have exhausted either their game strategies or their caffeine-induced wakefulness.
Mr. Khachan, a Palestinian immigrant from Lebanon with an abiding love of the written word, emigrated to America with the intention of earning a PhD in literature. Instead, he became a shopkeeper and a chess vendor with writers’ portraits and quotes lovingly arrayed across his shop’s walls. It’s a display that not only seems to broadcast Mr. Khachan’s lifelong commitment to writing and writers but also serves as a gentle nudge to his patrons to take some time out from the game and the daily grind to reflect on some of life’s lessons as illuminated by the writings of some of the greatest of America’s wordsmiths.
In the bittersweet video below, directed by Molly Brass and Stephen Tyler and featured on The Atlantic’s online video series, we get a glimpse into the life of the extraordinary Mr. Khachan. The portrait of this warm and reflective gentleman is deeply moving. As we get to know Mr. Khachan, it seems inevitable to be reminded of how little many of us know about the distinctive life stories of the millions of immigrants, both legal and illegal, living amongst us as our neighbors or working alongside us or for us. After watching the video, I was struck by how important it is not just to listen to the stories of immigrants but also to actively seek out and share those stories as the most powerful antidote to the corrosive and false anti-immigrant rhetoric bandied about by Trump and others. If the intention of Molly Brass, Stephen Tyler, and Imad Khachan was to encourage us to question stereotypes and to always be reminded of the distinctiveness of each individual’s life experience, then they have succeeded in that and more.
There is another dimension, too, to Mr. Khachan’s story that goes beyond a single individual’s life story. There is the much larger narrative of how essential immigrants like Mr. Khachan are to the economic life of their adopted homes—whether that’s New York City or cities, towns, and villages across the country.
And how essential to New York’s powerhouse economy are individuals like Mr. Khachan and others who make up the city’s immigrant communities? The answer is unequivocally that immigrants are an irreplaceable part in the engine that powers the city’s economy. The numbers are simply staggering. The facts are nothing less than a deep rebuke to the false narrative that paints the immigrant as a burden to society.
Here are the facts—not the spin—according to the New York City Comptroller’s Office:
Watch the video here:
The post Getting to know the lives of immigrants appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post The Superstructure Triumphant appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>One of the crucial trends in the 2016 election was the 80-plus percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump. A likely explanation is Trump’s ostensibly pro-life position, but there’s more going on here. A particularly interesting article that came across my Facebook feed this morning suggests other reasons evangelicals might continue to support the far-right.
The piece is a Christian Post editorial from the Rev. Mark H Creech, entitled “Can a Christian Be a Democrat?”. Creech lists six reasons that the Republicans are more in line with Christianity than the Democrats, quoting from a tract by Wayne Grudem entitled Politics According to the Bible. They are as follows (I paraphrase and quote for brevity):
Before we tackle these principles, I’d like to note that my purpose here isn’t to prove that Creech is a hypocrite or politically and historically uneducated. I also don’t endeavor to prove that Democrats are better than Creech says; I’m a socialist, not a liberal, so I feel less obligated to defend liberals. The point, rather, is to illustrate how a certain type of Christian, generally older and white, reliably vote for hard-right candidates. I put it down to the superstructure.
In Marxist thought, the “base” refers to the physical forces and relations of production in society, i.e. how employers and employees interact and how people produce what they need to survive. The “superstructure” is cultural and political customs, power relations, institutions, and ultimately, the state itself. As Marx and Engels tell it, the superstructure is largely created to justify the base. In feudal society, the concept of divine right was created to justify serfdom. In capitalist societies, more complex mechanics are at work: racism, classical economics, and power dynamics help justify why our economy is normal or Panglossian. It’s a crude distinction but it works for our purposes here.
Creech and his ilk have given religious significance to every aspect of the superstructure, not just religion. When Creech talks about how “smaller government and allowing people to keep the fruits of their labor” is Godly, he only looks at the exact distribution of wealth in this exact moment. By this logic, progressive taxation and social programs are just stealing, which violates one of the Ten Commandments. But this assumes that the economic system is natural, the product of hard work and nothing else. It might surprise Creech to know that the entire world-system on which his economic beliefs rely is the result of five hundred years of outright slavery, the exploitation of poor farmers and workers, colonialism, and a century of American-led coups against regimes that might in any way disrupt the Western wealthy. Then again, Creech might see all of this as Godly, too: America had to enslave Africans and dominate Native Americans to bring them the light of Christ (though Christianity in Africa predates America’s very existence). He would probably also explain away the tens of millions of deaths from late European colonialism, roughly 1870 – 1970. But more likely Creech didn’t even think of the historical sources of wealth. With little emphasis on history, all he can do is to protest that redistributing the wealth squeezed from the workers of the world is anti-Christian. A certain passage about a camel passing through the eye of a needle comes to mind.
In this vein, capitalist consumption becomes holy, and its end result, the destruction of global ecosystems, is only an “assumption that development of the earth’s resources will cause damage to the environment.” Never mind that the UN and David Attenborough warn us that the collapse of civilization and its natural resources are now within sight. Never mind the politics of how we get our fossil fuels. God put them there for us to consume, so go nuts.
That’s how economics is folded into religion: It’s only natural, not the result of human endeavor and malfeasance, and is therefore correct and Godly. But it’s not just economics: everything else gets sucked into the superstructure, which to Creech is righteous because it is simply the way things are. Take military force, which is necessary because “evil is something innate, which requires strong military and police forces”. Evil exists and must be combated. Thus, every bit of interventionist foreign policy is justified, from the Indian Wars to the Middle East. For instance, radical Islam, especially ISIS, must be fought tooth and nail. However, the righteous Christian should definitely not think about America’s support for the source of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, or the fact that Bin Laden himself was a US puppet in the Afghan rebellion against the USSR. Because if historical context is applied, the US foreign policy and intelligence apparatus never comes out looking Godly.
Domestically, it justifies police brutality. I’ve even seen a few Christians online who think Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games was anti-Christian because “God Bless America” is sometimes played too.
In this way worship of God becomes the adoration of every aspect of currently existing society: The military, the police, the intelligence community, the uniformity of suburban life, gender roles, and on and on. It’s all holy, even if Gospel refutes it or the Jewish tradition from which evangelicals claim to take inspiration outright contradicts it. It would be amusing, for instance, to see hard-right evangelicals try to explain how the Jubilee Year promotes capitalism.
But this isn’t a Christianity with theological depth. This is a Christianity of cliché and pablum. It’s telling that in the article, Creech mentions that he told an elderly parishioner that her “use of tobacco wasn’t consistent with a better Christian walk.” Smoking is bad, he says, but I suspect his concern has less to do with lung cancer than it does with the aesthetic of smoking. Gangsters smoke. So do hippies. Therefore, the upright Christian should refrain from smoking or talking to smokers. Jesus would never stoop to associating with lepers or prostitutes.
In the same way, Creech and company say, we should vote for the normal, the traditional, the comforting, and not the foreign, the weird, the rabble-rousers. A retreat into an imagined past by making American great again; Politics as aesthetic normalcy. In this final stage, religion degenerates into the enforcement of conventional wisdom, the deployment of clichés: “socialism doesn’t work”, “Don’t worry about money”, “America is the greatest country”, “God bless our troops”, “Obama is vaguely foreign and dangerous,” and, ultimately, “Good Christians vote Republican”.
The post The Superstructure Triumphant appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Municipalism: the next political revolution? appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Glancing at the national headlines it is easy to feel hopeless. Turning to the “World” section one becomes defeated. Scrolling through the social media, in between burst of joy from the cat/dog/baby videos, there is often pain and struggle. But alternatives are brewing on the horizon. Alternative ways of creating change and standing up for progressive causes.
I am talking about municipalism. It is hyper-local, yet not parochial. It is aspirational, yet deeply solutions oriented and practical. It traces its roots to the past, but is modern, inclusive and forward-looking. It is global, and taking hold across North America too. It has captured the attention of young and old alike.
Also known as radical municipalism and municipal socialism, it traces its roots back to the American anarchist Murray Bookchin. His life’s work was focused on finding ways to build an egalitarian society and erode oppressive power. He didn’t shy away from acknowledging that power exists. Instead, he questioned who has it and how it is wielded. Bookchin believed it should be the people, not the elites.
Bookchin left the world in 2006. However, his daughter, Debbie, is keeping her father’s ideas alive. Just last year, she made a strong case for their revival:
Municipalism — or communalism, as my father called it — returns politics to its original definition, as a moral calling based on rationality, community, creativity, free association and freedom. It is a richly articulated vision of a decentralized, assembly-based democracy in which people act together to chart a rational future.
Bookchin’s ideas have inspired municipal leaders across the world. In diverse places such as Barcelona (Spain), Jackson, Mississippi, and Rojava (a Kurdish area in Syria), among others. Activists there are championing causes such as promoting participatory budgeting, supporting workers starting cooperatives, piloting city IDs, re-municipalizing water and energy supplies, making public procurement gender- and eco- sensitive, introducing independent citizen audits of municipal budgets and debt, and utilizing online participatory tools for community engagement.
Under the leadership of a housing activist turned mayor, Ada Colau, Barcelona is leading the way in piloting radical ideas on a city level. Some of the specifically feminist initiatives implemented include: mainstreaming gender across all areas of local policy, especially in budget allocations; ending a city-wide ban on the use of full-face veils in public space; and expanding public childcare for 0-3 year olds.
Unsurprisingly, the municipalist movement’s first-ever conference took place in Barcelona in 2017, attracting more than 700 mayors, councilors and activists from across the world. In attendance were who’s-who of radical and progressive city-politics.
In July 2018, the movement, under the banner of Fearless Cities, is coming to North America with a conference in New York City. Up for discussion are topics such as solidarity economy, tools for participatory democracy, and ways to democratize and feminize local political institutions.
Discussions about municipalism in the U.S. are also entering the mainstream political media. Just this month, Politico spotlighted municipalist work in Seattle, to protect labor rights and standards in a rapidly changing economy. The efforts include initiatives such adopting a domestic workers bill of rights to protect those working in often the most invisible, highly exploitative, gendered and racialized sectors of economy.
These efforts are worth supporting, promoting and replicating. By working on a hyper-local level, we stand a chance against the forces of populism and pernicious nationalism. By working with our neighbors, while drawing on knowledge and examples from across the world, we can build inclusive communities at home.
Municipalism might just offer us a handy roadmap and framework to do this work. The late Ursula le Guin characterized it as “not another ranting ideology,” but “a practical working hypothesis, a methodology of how to regain control of where we’re going.”
The post Municipalism: the next political revolution? appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Hard to tell where the pendulum of normalcy will swing next appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>After Barack Obama was elected, it seemed that America had a new normalcy, one that some described as “post-racial.” For any who took that too seriously, Mitch McConnell popped their balloon when in October, 2010 he said that his main goal was to make Obama a one-term president. Couple that with the rise of the Tea Party which began right after Obama’s election and the new normal included increased levels of racial discord. But despite all the unreasonable criticism that Obama endured, he maintained his level of civility throughout his administration. While his legislative and foreign affairs accomplishments may have been limited, he established a norm of dignity, respect, thoughtfulness and tolerance the likes of which we had not seen since John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
And then Trump. No need to list the thousands of lies and the multitude of indignities. Suffice it to say, we have a new normalcy characterized in large part by discord and anger.
In the past few days, we have seen some liberals begin to follow Trump, the pied piper of the low road. First it was the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, VA; then California Congresswoman Maxine Waters who said,
“The American people have put up with this president long enough. What more do we need to see? What more lies do we need to hear?” Waters shouted at a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them!”
Changing the tone and the demeanor of the Trump years will be one challenge, but another will be how to return to normalcy in all areas of policy. The problem is that there is not just one definition of normalcy. One year ago, Trump was saber-rattling against North Korea as no president had ever done before. Now Trump is best buddies with the authoritarian leader of North Korea. We may live in blissful ignorance about the real American-North Korean relationship so long as Trump is in the White House, but eventually there will be someone new and that will lead to a new normalcy.
The problem with the word ‘normalcy’ is that it implies that there is only one standard. But if you ask leading American politicians, including the many who may run for president in 2020, there is a multitude of normalcies that could characterize our relationship with Kim Jong Un and his compatriots.
If our post-Trump president is someone like George W. Bush, we will have a policy that will be characterized by a combination of intellectual laziness and bullying. If we elect someone like Barack Obama, our policies will be thoughtful, but also tentative.
It would be a different kind of normalcy with someone like Dwight Eisenhower. The country might be reassured by a genuine military “hero” who steers with a steady hand. On the other hand, a Teddy Roosevelt-type figure might be an adventurist who would try to use an intellectual basis for “American exceptionalism.”
The point is that all Americans will need to take a number and get in line to try to define the “normalcy du jour” post Trump. There will be a lot of shoving and jostling in the line. It’s not clear whether taking the high ground of the low road will be preferable in winning the day.
But if progressives have principles that guide them both in policy and behavior, we must keep our eyes on the prize and make wise decisions. The Democratic candidate for president in 2020 will have to be someone with clear vision and the ability to articulate. Our first goal is to find someone we can respect and who can win, and then for us to help him or her raise the bar. It’s been down too low for too long.
The post Hard to tell where the pendulum of normalcy will swing next appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>