Listening to WWOZ, our hometown "indigenous music" public radio outlet while cutting the grass and tending to other yard work this morning, I enjoyed dancing the lawn mower and curb edger through the tail end of the Traditional New Orleans Jazz show, followed by the Irish themed, Music From The Glen, and the start of the Latin based, Tiene Sabor.
We have always been a port city to beat the band. In fact, this whole country has been a great safe harbor in the storm for wave after wave of immigrants. We should be awash in a multitude of languages, but we never quite picked-up on the chance to get the lingo. Mind you, I really do not believe this arose so much from some sort of oppressively suffocating jingoism, imposed by the already established citizen base, as from the determination by the newly arrived to insist their children shed the old country markers, especially the language, and adopt that of the dominant culture. Who could blame them? Assimilation on all fronts was the ticket to upward mobility. Yet, I can't help thinking, "What a shame!"
My maternal grandmother, Eva Bielenberg, managed to retain some German; I have none. My paternal grandmother was English; oh, well, you might say, but I did manage to learn American. And too well do I know that that is not nearly the same as the rich inheritance of a completely distinct intellectual and cultural legacy. I studied Spanish for two years in secondary school, and two semesters in college. But today I have very, very little Spanish. Absent complete immersion or at least a daily dip in or dousing by a new language, becoming fluent in it is very hard woik. As you can see, though, I have a natural affinity for the pleasures of diverse linguistic patterns, as reflected by my undying affection for the Irish Channel neighborhood dialect of my New Orleans roots.
Today, the rising world is coming up and coming at us in the music of many tongues. And while I believe we have been tone deaf for far too long, this should in no way be taken as some sort of hard boiled criticism of this great country. Hardly. I am, in fact, rather hard core red, white, and blue for a raft of reasons, parochial and general. Some of which I would bet my life even our most hard bitten critics would have to bow to. Here I have in mind the fact that this great land of freedom and liberty and fealty to the principle of individual human dignity sacrificed mightily and successfully fought like hell to rescue the world from the scourge of Nazism, Imperialism, and Communism during most of the last century. If it does nothing else worthy of praise in the course of human events, that alone will stand through the ages as testament to a great people.
I believe that the last century indeed deserves the title, "American century." Our energy enlivened almost every crucial area of human societal organization; it was clearly dominant, and, for the most part, undeniably admirable. You can hear it to this day in the American songbook of great standards from the 1940s and 50s, feast on it from the most bountiful tables agriculture has ever produced, and take heart that despotism and tyranny of every form will one day be chased from the face of the earth, as our imperfect but consistently freedom loving voice chastises and challenges both the dauntingly powerful dictatorial regimes in places like China and Russia, as well as the tin-pot potentates of a lesser order.
I also believe we can and will be a light unto the world in the century now unfolding. Two friends I have made while building the new Algiers Regional Library during the last eight months are Ricardo and Carlos, a painter and carpenter, respectively. They are de Honduras. And they have been graciously indulging my rudimentary Espanol, while generously endeavouring to assist me in acquiring a stronger facility. They both are pretty damn proficient in English, and they are determined to pass both Spanish and English on to their children. To which I say, "Salute!"
These sentiments are those of a committed labor advocate. The plutocratic, profit seeking, greed driven approach to the globalization of economic affairs has undermined unions and working standards in this country, as well as driven many desperately poor and dislocated "third world" people to illegally find a way here. The immigrant, legal or illegal, is not your enemy. He and she are you and me, only differently situated. It is up to us to come together to overcome our common enemy. And to tell the truth, in whatever language I can get it across to you, the first enemy is bigoted ignorance.
New Orleans Labor Voice
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Twice Trapped
We are caught and having one hell of a time shaking free. Why? Is it because the thing holding us back is beyond our understanding or just too damn powerful to break from? Let's give it some thought and see what turns up.
By now, the central economic malady is very plain. There is a terribly insufficient demand in the private sector to produce a healthy rate of economic growth, or perhaps any persistent growth at all. The arguments over what is needed to get us out of this mess have been blowing at full gale since the collapse of 2008.
But anyone with an open mind realizes that the serious debate part of the economic storm has long passed. The liberals, with Noble-Prize winner Paul Krugman in the lead, have the wind at their backs, and the conservatives have been blown away. What we need, what the global economy needs, is to follow the same prescription which rescued a gone to rot, moribund capitalist system from being measured for a shroud during the Great Depression.
We need the public sector to step in massively and revive an impotent and wasting private sector, which otherwise will bury all but the Romneyrich in poverty and pain for generations to come.
The present crisis has in no way been occasioned by government debt. On the contrary, the crash was completely a function of towering private debt, brought on by largely unregulated piratical financial sector excesses, combined with the most wide-spread and ridiculously unsustainable real estate bubble in history. Now, the vast majority of citizens here, and in other parts of the developed world, are significantly less flush than before the fall. Millions are still drowning in underwater mortgages, while remaining shackled to other forms of consumer borrowing for household expenses as well as education. In such circumstances, almost everyone tries to cut back, pay-off old bills, and save for the future. But a society in which everyone wants to be a saver is one in which the economy essentially stops growing. Hiring stops. People lose jobs by the millions. Opportunities for new investment dry-up. And when the chances of maintaining, let alone improving income disappears, the difficulty of working off debt increases exponentially. This is known to economists as the paradox of thrift.
In a healthy economy, individual saving can be a sound strategy for improving one's financial health. But in a crash, wide-spread retrenchment produces much slower potential for growth on the upswing, a much delayed upswing, or even no upswing at all, meaning intractable stagnation possibly marinated in a double-dip decline.
This is where we are. Even though most people don't have a lot of money, more people are trying to save it than almost ever before. So, on balance there is a lot more of it than what is needed or desired for investment. Hence, interest rates have remained at historically low levels for years, without regard to the growth of government debt, which results from declining tax revenues and climbing safety net expenses, exacerbated by the general economic pain.
The Federal Reserve has virtually pulled out the stops and used all of its tools to restore growth, by pushing even harder to lower interest rates, but there is a limit against which the Fed is leaning, it is known as the zero bound. Money simply can't get any cheaper than free. And, after accounting for the albeit scant inflation we are experiencing, short term interest has been essentially zero for some time. But the private economy does not want the money, because it sees no sufficiently profitable opportunity for investment when no one is in the market to buy whatever new goods and services may be produced. The only quick way out of such a sticky patch is for the government to use a lot of this free money to put millions of businesses and people back in business and working to repair and rebuild the innumerable areas of our common physical and social needs, so long neglected during the long dark night of mindless conservative economic confusion and corruption. For now, we are stuck in this mire known to economists as a liquidity trap. We have a lot more money piled up than the private sector is willing to use. So we save and suffer, and save and suffer some more.
This is not only obvious, but is daily proven over and over again by examples throughout Europe, wherein the austerity regime has produced only greater pain and suffering, along with a second round of the catastrophic recession. Here at home, even though we have thus far managed - because of the too small, yet literally life saving Obama stimulus - to avoid a double-dip, we are barely limping along, and easily could stumble again if the radical reactionary right has any political success in the near term.
Not a pretty picture. But the second trap is even uglier. It grew out of the great and noble successes of the progressive movements in the middle part of the last century, which were embodied in the general policies of the Democratic Party. The backlash by white working class people against the civil rights victories of the 1960s led to their wholesale abandonment of every decent and sound social and economic principle, which had provided the basis for a middle class lifestyle and a progressively better economic outlook generation after generation. So we are in the mess we have today.
To be sure, the typical working class conservative is probably no longer as given to crass racism as once was the case, but that was the juice which produced their allegiance to the suicidal hatred of all things the government can do and must do in the interest of justice and social stability. We remain trapped in grave error because too many have imbibed a discredited economic and political theory like a delicious poison and been overtaken by it. They cannot be persuaded by mere facts.
By now, the central economic malady is very plain. There is a terribly insufficient demand in the private sector to produce a healthy rate of economic growth, or perhaps any persistent growth at all. The arguments over what is needed to get us out of this mess have been blowing at full gale since the collapse of 2008.
But anyone with an open mind realizes that the serious debate part of the economic storm has long passed. The liberals, with Noble-Prize winner Paul Krugman in the lead, have the wind at their backs, and the conservatives have been blown away. What we need, what the global economy needs, is to follow the same prescription which rescued a gone to rot, moribund capitalist system from being measured for a shroud during the Great Depression.
We need the public sector to step in massively and revive an impotent and wasting private sector, which otherwise will bury all but the Romneyrich in poverty and pain for generations to come.
The present crisis has in no way been occasioned by government debt. On the contrary, the crash was completely a function of towering private debt, brought on by largely unregulated piratical financial sector excesses, combined with the most wide-spread and ridiculously unsustainable real estate bubble in history. Now, the vast majority of citizens here, and in other parts of the developed world, are significantly less flush than before the fall. Millions are still drowning in underwater mortgages, while remaining shackled to other forms of consumer borrowing for household expenses as well as education. In such circumstances, almost everyone tries to cut back, pay-off old bills, and save for the future. But a society in which everyone wants to be a saver is one in which the economy essentially stops growing. Hiring stops. People lose jobs by the millions. Opportunities for new investment dry-up. And when the chances of maintaining, let alone improving income disappears, the difficulty of working off debt increases exponentially. This is known to economists as the paradox of thrift.
In a healthy economy, individual saving can be a sound strategy for improving one's financial health. But in a crash, wide-spread retrenchment produces much slower potential for growth on the upswing, a much delayed upswing, or even no upswing at all, meaning intractable stagnation possibly marinated in a double-dip decline.
This is where we are. Even though most people don't have a lot of money, more people are trying to save it than almost ever before. So, on balance there is a lot more of it than what is needed or desired for investment. Hence, interest rates have remained at historically low levels for years, without regard to the growth of government debt, which results from declining tax revenues and climbing safety net expenses, exacerbated by the general economic pain.
The Federal Reserve has virtually pulled out the stops and used all of its tools to restore growth, by pushing even harder to lower interest rates, but there is a limit against which the Fed is leaning, it is known as the zero bound. Money simply can't get any cheaper than free. And, after accounting for the albeit scant inflation we are experiencing, short term interest has been essentially zero for some time. But the private economy does not want the money, because it sees no sufficiently profitable opportunity for investment when no one is in the market to buy whatever new goods and services may be produced. The only quick way out of such a sticky patch is for the government to use a lot of this free money to put millions of businesses and people back in business and working to repair and rebuild the innumerable areas of our common physical and social needs, so long neglected during the long dark night of mindless conservative economic confusion and corruption. For now, we are stuck in this mire known to economists as a liquidity trap. We have a lot more money piled up than the private sector is willing to use. So we save and suffer, and save and suffer some more.
This is not only obvious, but is daily proven over and over again by examples throughout Europe, wherein the austerity regime has produced only greater pain and suffering, along with a second round of the catastrophic recession. Here at home, even though we have thus far managed - because of the too small, yet literally life saving Obama stimulus - to avoid a double-dip, we are barely limping along, and easily could stumble again if the radical reactionary right has any political success in the near term.
Not a pretty picture. But the second trap is even uglier. It grew out of the great and noble successes of the progressive movements in the middle part of the last century, which were embodied in the general policies of the Democratic Party. The backlash by white working class people against the civil rights victories of the 1960s led to their wholesale abandonment of every decent and sound social and economic principle, which had provided the basis for a middle class lifestyle and a progressively better economic outlook generation after generation. So we are in the mess we have today.
To be sure, the typical working class conservative is probably no longer as given to crass racism as once was the case, but that was the juice which produced their allegiance to the suicidal hatred of all things the government can do and must do in the interest of justice and social stability. We remain trapped in grave error because too many have imbibed a discredited economic and political theory like a delicious poison and been overtaken by it. They cannot be persuaded by mere facts.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
In Our Favor
I wish this could be a celebratory post on good economic news. But, alas, the most recent monthly employment numbers will not permit that. Likewise, would that I could express at least partial sympathy with my fellow football fans, who rashly - and with impressive ferocity - have come out in full-throated support of the New Orleans Saints organization. Unfortunately, in my opinion that outfit has now incontrovertibly been shown to have operated as a criminal enterprise.
But, do not despair, for as I was pleasantly reminded yesterday, there is so much more to our story. In the morning I rode my bicycle to view the running of the Crescent City Classic 10K footrace, where it passes through the Treme neighborhood along Esplanade Avenue. Last year, I got to my favorite spot just in time to catch my older son as he ran by, and pass an ice cold sports drink to him. It was a pretty hot and humid day, and I felt good for having done what I could to help insure his safe conduct of the long run. This year, I was too late getting there, and shortly realized I had missed him. But the morning was fairly cool and the air relatively dry. And knowing how strong a runner he is from having done this endurance race with him numerous times in years gone by - um, too many years gone by - I had no concern for his easy negotiation of the route. So, I settled in to enjoy the rest of the procession.
What a procession: tens of thousands of New Orleanians and visitors poured out a traveling tableau of sweating humanity, colorfully costumed in an assortment of wardrobes bespeaking everything from the most serious of athletic commitment to spooferry of the highest hilarity. The sleekest from the Reebok collection to the silliest of Bunny Rabbit outfits were raced and tumbled along in accordance with the specific or peculiar personal calculus behind their exhibition. It was almost as if the Mississippi River at the foot of Esplanade Avenue had opened up and spilled out some heavenly treasure trove of living party favors. Three fellow carnival club members shouted greetings as they passed, and another IBEW union member pulled-up for a brief chat and sports drink hand-off.
Then, as the end finally neared, a remarkably strange, rather surprisingly inappropriate image and thought came to me. Out of nowhere, memories of countless pictures of rutted roads, choked with desperately bedraggled crowds of human misery, fleeing the advance of ruthless armies throughout history caused me to surrealistically speculate about what big, bad army could have been pushing all these folks down the Avenue. I decided to stay as long as it took to see.
And, just as I suspected, it turned out that the long and gaily outfitted parade was being trailed by a mere couple of non-menacing municipal vehicles. I delighted in the fancy that years ago three boyhood friends and I with sling-shots could have easily overwhelmed them. All of a sudden, I was consciously grateful for living in a civil and stable society, despite its infirmities. We are lucky not to have to wake up in a new world every day, as so many throughout history have had to and so many still do.
On the bike ride back home, I stopped by the weekly Farmers Market at the corner of Magazine and Girod. I picked-up four little potted herb plants, which fit comfortably in my basket, and ate a remarkable and delicious Avocado Cream ice-cream bar. I admit there was a lot more cream and sweetness to the taste than anything else, but the color and flavor of avocado were both definitely in evidence. Later in the day, I joined my son - the runner- and daughter-in-law for yet another annual public party, which fills up seven or eight blocks of Freret Street with food and music and fun.
As I said, we are lucky. This truth perhaps is most pointedly anchored in the fact that we can sensibly and confidently make plans to prepare to happily engage in events even another year away. I have done so by promising myself, and "threatening" my son, to be in shape enough to once again personally test his strength as an endurance runner in the next Crescent City Classic.
In other words, I have decided to give my knees a break. No, not the literal kind that Greg Williams specializes in, but by not lying on them anymore. I am going to stop blaming them for my giving in to laziness and age. I am actually going to run the Classic with my son again. I'm coming back. As the saying has it, "Next year in Jerusalem." Shalom and Happy Easter.
But, do not despair, for as I was pleasantly reminded yesterday, there is so much more to our story. In the morning I rode my bicycle to view the running of the Crescent City Classic 10K footrace, where it passes through the Treme neighborhood along Esplanade Avenue. Last year, I got to my favorite spot just in time to catch my older son as he ran by, and pass an ice cold sports drink to him. It was a pretty hot and humid day, and I felt good for having done what I could to help insure his safe conduct of the long run. This year, I was too late getting there, and shortly realized I had missed him. But the morning was fairly cool and the air relatively dry. And knowing how strong a runner he is from having done this endurance race with him numerous times in years gone by - um, too many years gone by - I had no concern for his easy negotiation of the route. So, I settled in to enjoy the rest of the procession.
What a procession: tens of thousands of New Orleanians and visitors poured out a traveling tableau of sweating humanity, colorfully costumed in an assortment of wardrobes bespeaking everything from the most serious of athletic commitment to spooferry of the highest hilarity. The sleekest from the Reebok collection to the silliest of Bunny Rabbit outfits were raced and tumbled along in accordance with the specific or peculiar personal calculus behind their exhibition. It was almost as if the Mississippi River at the foot of Esplanade Avenue had opened up and spilled out some heavenly treasure trove of living party favors. Three fellow carnival club members shouted greetings as they passed, and another IBEW union member pulled-up for a brief chat and sports drink hand-off.
Then, as the end finally neared, a remarkably strange, rather surprisingly inappropriate image and thought came to me. Out of nowhere, memories of countless pictures of rutted roads, choked with desperately bedraggled crowds of human misery, fleeing the advance of ruthless armies throughout history caused me to surrealistically speculate about what big, bad army could have been pushing all these folks down the Avenue. I decided to stay as long as it took to see.
And, just as I suspected, it turned out that the long and gaily outfitted parade was being trailed by a mere couple of non-menacing municipal vehicles. I delighted in the fancy that years ago three boyhood friends and I with sling-shots could have easily overwhelmed them. All of a sudden, I was consciously grateful for living in a civil and stable society, despite its infirmities. We are lucky not to have to wake up in a new world every day, as so many throughout history have had to and so many still do.
On the bike ride back home, I stopped by the weekly Farmers Market at the corner of Magazine and Girod. I picked-up four little potted herb plants, which fit comfortably in my basket, and ate a remarkable and delicious Avocado Cream ice-cream bar. I admit there was a lot more cream and sweetness to the taste than anything else, but the color and flavor of avocado were both definitely in evidence. Later in the day, I joined my son - the runner- and daughter-in-law for yet another annual public party, which fills up seven or eight blocks of Freret Street with food and music and fun.
As I said, we are lucky. This truth perhaps is most pointedly anchored in the fact that we can sensibly and confidently make plans to prepare to happily engage in events even another year away. I have done so by promising myself, and "threatening" my son, to be in shape enough to once again personally test his strength as an endurance runner in the next Crescent City Classic.
In other words, I have decided to give my knees a break. No, not the literal kind that Greg Williams specializes in, but by not lying on them anymore. I am going to stop blaming them for my giving in to laziness and age. I am actually going to run the Classic with my son again. I'm coming back. As the saying has it, "Next year in Jerusalem." Shalom and Happy Easter.
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Turn For Home
In the last post, we spoke of the loss of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is the day another man made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the rest of us.
I know to many this sounds blasphemous. Many of those lost souls adore Ronald Reagan, who campaigned against Medicare relentlessly, while on the payroll of GE and other Corporate Plutocratic interests, as LBJ was working day and night to get it passed. They also tend to think the wrong side won the Civil War. They worship false idols, and celebrate Easter. Now, how's that for blasphemy?
For the real moral majority, a word about the long race. Yes, we stumble, get boxed in, cut off, sometimes even thrown from our horses, but we keep getting back in the saddle. One day we will make that big turn for home, and finish the race against all odds.
I know to many this sounds blasphemous. Many of those lost souls adore Ronald Reagan, who campaigned against Medicare relentlessly, while on the payroll of GE and other Corporate Plutocratic interests, as LBJ was working day and night to get it passed. They also tend to think the wrong side won the Civil War. They worship false idols, and celebrate Easter. Now, how's that for blasphemy?
For the real moral majority, a word about the long race. Yes, we stumble, get boxed in, cut off, sometimes even thrown from our horses, but we keep getting back in the saddle. One day we will make that big turn for home, and finish the race against all odds.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
It Matters
"What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?"
Martin Luther King, Jr.
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone in support of striking sanitation workers. Suddenly, it was all about class, it was all economics, it was the end game. Just as suddenly, it was over.
Wealth had won, and its power would not soon be challenged again. The great organizer and leader, the man who had proven a broad based people's movement could take on, take down and take out social injustice, no matter how hardened and strong, through the much greater strength of moral conscience, had been felled by the only weapon a ruling elite finally has for its own otherwise unsustainable maintenance: raw violence. Whether the actual deed was done by some lone wolf nut case or not, the ultimate winner was the top sliver of concentrated and abusive economic power, in an egregiously unjust and imbalanced social order.
But there is an even greater violence. It is the pounding and punishment the poor and average working people have taken ever since. The poor have been so marginalized they no longer have any semblance of political identity, awareness, or effective action. And it has become nearly impossible for average workers, union or not, to secure a middle class existence for themselves and their families. Middle class itself seems to be a term entering into some weird and pitiful stage of nonviable economic life support. This will not get better if left alone. The body politic is not self-healing. Revival has be undertaken with intention.
And what you do, or choose not to do, matters.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone in support of striking sanitation workers. Suddenly, it was all about class, it was all economics, it was the end game. Just as suddenly, it was over.
Wealth had won, and its power would not soon be challenged again. The great organizer and leader, the man who had proven a broad based people's movement could take on, take down and take out social injustice, no matter how hardened and strong, through the much greater strength of moral conscience, had been felled by the only weapon a ruling elite finally has for its own otherwise unsustainable maintenance: raw violence. Whether the actual deed was done by some lone wolf nut case or not, the ultimate winner was the top sliver of concentrated and abusive economic power, in an egregiously unjust and imbalanced social order.
But there is an even greater violence. It is the pounding and punishment the poor and average working people have taken ever since. The poor have been so marginalized they no longer have any semblance of political identity, awareness, or effective action. And it has become nearly impossible for average workers, union or not, to secure a middle class existence for themselves and their families. Middle class itself seems to be a term entering into some weird and pitiful stage of nonviable economic life support. This will not get better if left alone. The body politic is not self-healing. Revival has be undertaken with intention.
And what you do, or choose not to do, matters.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
911
911
Hello.
Yeah, Captain Lynch with the neighborhood Mob.
Again?
Yeah, huah, huaah, huaahh, I keep tryin'.
What you got?
Another bad actor, these a-holes always huah, huaah, huaahh get away.
He's running away?
Huah, huaah, huaahh, huaahhh Don't know how they move so fast with all that hardware.
You're chasing him?
Huah, huaah huaahh, huaaahhh F'ing coon.
We don't need you to do that.
Huaaahh all you do is huaahhhh huaaahhhh answer the fucking huaahh huaaaahhh phone.
- - - - - -
Huaaahhhh stohuaaahhhp STOP!
Why you following me?
Huaahh hand huaaah huaaah it over... Who the fuck you thhuaaahhhink yohuaaahu are, Ice T?
- - - - - - - -
Officier, I had to shoot. Self defense.
What happened to your head?
I was just gonna grab him, but he juked me out, and I fell on my fat ass.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Well, partner, what do you think? If we let him go, before you know it Al Sharpton and his gang will be down here.
Let's take him for a ride, maybe take him in, and think about it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All and all, it looks like a legit shoot to us.
Yeah, besides, even if Sharpton comes, no one else gives a shit. In New Orleans all they protest over is their millionaire scab coach being bitch slapped..
You're free to go Captain.
Hello.
Yeah, Captain Lynch with the neighborhood Mob.
Again?
Yeah, huah, huaah, huaahh, I keep tryin'.
What you got?
Another bad actor, these a-holes always huah, huaah, huaahh get away.
He's running away?
Huah, huaah, huaahh, huaahhh Don't know how they move so fast with all that hardware.
You're chasing him?
Huah, huaah huaahh, huaaahhh F'ing coon.
We don't need you to do that.
Huaaahh all you do is huaahhhh huaaahhhh answer the fucking huaahh huaaaahhh phone.
- - - - - -
Huaaahhhh stohuaaahhhp STOP!
Why you following me?
Huaahh hand huaaah huaaah it over... Who the fuck you thhuaaahhhink yohuaaahu are, Ice T?
- - - - - - - -
Officier, I had to shoot. Self defense.
What happened to your head?
I was just gonna grab him, but he juked me out, and I fell on my fat ass.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Well, partner, what do you think? If we let him go, before you know it Al Sharpton and his gang will be down here.
Let's take him for a ride, maybe take him in, and think about it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All and all, it looks like a legit shoot to us.
Yeah, besides, even if Sharpton comes, no one else gives a shit. In New Orleans all they protest over is their millionaire scab coach being bitch slapped..
You're free to go Captain.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
The Fire This Time ... Or ... Skip The Vote
In The Blood Drenched Hand, posted here on Thursday morning, I cited the sad fact that only 16.6% of voters turned out to cast a ballot last Saturday in a very important citywide election. I was in that number, as I almost always am. What else are you going to do, set yourself or something else on fire? Well, sadly, some may.
I voted for zerObama last time. And I will do it again. But I had no illusions then, and have none now. We got what I expected from zerO, and if he wins again we will no doubt get more of the same: a false liberal sell-out to the plutocrats, slightly diluted by a messy thin gruel of limp progressivism for the rest of us. I give you the Obamacare morass. 'Nough said.
So, as crazy as the Republicans are, they may well find a way to win next time. Of course, it will be mostly a corrupt victory, as so many are, not least of which was the stolen 2000 presidential election. This time it will come on the strength of the countrywide plutocrat funded (read Koch brothers and ALEC) state level disenfranchisement of the poor, minorities, and college students living away from home. If it happens, it will be another asterisk emblazoned win with all the brutal attendant consequences, just the same as before. I give you George W. Bush. 'Nough said.
Nothing describes the trashing we have handed democracy or any notion of self-government better than a paraphrase of Oscar Wilde, to wit: We are a nation of 300 million politicians, the worst of which are in elective office.
And so we come to the push behind this post. On Thursday evening, as usual, I took an after work bicycle jaunt. Bounding through the side-gate, I pumped straight for Central City: New Orleans' urban heart beat, the pulsating neighborhood next door to mine.
Permanently precarious, planted deep in the intersection of peril and persistence, it is pound for pound pure community syncopation: a symphony of shifting accents on social currents. Cruising down the home grown shock and awe venue ironically named Felicity Street, I engaged in an interior dialogue regarding where to stop for a cold one. Smiling and waving greetings, people everywhere, it seemed the whole of the neighborhood had turned out on the side-walks and street sides to greet me like some ridiculous Lone Ranger style second line on two wheels. I passed through a flood of memories pooled in the boarded-up, abandoned home of Podna's Bar-B-Q at the corner of Magnolia; a now disappeared stand-up/take out lunch counter type sandwich joint and restaurant, owned by the large Sicilian immigrant family of my boyhood friend, Lenny Rizzuto. I rode on, listening via headphones to my Android, tuned to some west coast NPR radio station broadcast of the BBC World Briefing program.
The World Briefing reported the deepening economic crisis visiting hardship and austerity in Spain, and the protests occurring there. It went on to an even more disturbing story about two recent instances of self-immolation by Italian citizens, pummeled into utter desperation by the punishing effects of the severely austere economic policies insisted upon by the autocrats of the Euorzone financial structure. The shocking images of Vietnamese Buddhist monks setting themselves ablaze in protest of our napalm fueled rape of that country in the 1960s came to mind. And I thought, yep, while the modality of violence laid down on an innocent people may be different in kind, the effect is as unjust, devastating and intolerable.
Central City spilled out like a brusquely decanted canto of an epic tragedy. It grew more lyrical by the block. LuLu, a watery-eyed, well lubricated and happy soul greeted me at the Claiborne Avenue Discount Zone convenience store with congratulations for locking my bike before going in to get a beer. On the Martin Luther King Blvd. neutral ground (median, for non-New Orleanians), an itinerant preacher was megaphoning the Gospel and group prayer to his not inconsiderable, spontaneously assembled flock, while volunteer apostle stumpers passed out hand-folded and home-printed invitations to join the congregation among those of us on the periphery. Blocks on, Kimmie, a too neatly tight and prim guy offered hotel comp bar soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and knock-off "glam" clothing on the cheap. Next, Walter and I passed half a block together as he walked his newly "found" bike with two flats, and I slowed to make another friend.
My "peeps" live in Central City. Yeah, my neighborhood is next door. But it is literally just blocks down the street, and from my porch it's easy to see what's coming. There will be no high-energy, pumped-up "rock the vote" movement of the kind that helped zerO get elected the first time. It more likely will be a "skip the vote" experience. And the fire this time will not be suicidal.
I voted for zerObama last time. And I will do it again. But I had no illusions then, and have none now. We got what I expected from zerO, and if he wins again we will no doubt get more of the same: a false liberal sell-out to the plutocrats, slightly diluted by a messy thin gruel of limp progressivism for the rest of us. I give you the Obamacare morass. 'Nough said.
So, as crazy as the Republicans are, they may well find a way to win next time. Of course, it will be mostly a corrupt victory, as so many are, not least of which was the stolen 2000 presidential election. This time it will come on the strength of the countrywide plutocrat funded (read Koch brothers and ALEC) state level disenfranchisement of the poor, minorities, and college students living away from home. If it happens, it will be another asterisk emblazoned win with all the brutal attendant consequences, just the same as before. I give you George W. Bush. 'Nough said.
Nothing describes the trashing we have handed democracy or any notion of self-government better than a paraphrase of Oscar Wilde, to wit: We are a nation of 300 million politicians, the worst of which are in elective office.
And so we come to the push behind this post. On Thursday evening, as usual, I took an after work bicycle jaunt. Bounding through the side-gate, I pumped straight for Central City: New Orleans' urban heart beat, the pulsating neighborhood next door to mine.
Permanently precarious, planted deep in the intersection of peril and persistence, it is pound for pound pure community syncopation: a symphony of shifting accents on social currents. Cruising down the home grown shock and awe venue ironically named Felicity Street, I engaged in an interior dialogue regarding where to stop for a cold one. Smiling and waving greetings, people everywhere, it seemed the whole of the neighborhood had turned out on the side-walks and street sides to greet me like some ridiculous Lone Ranger style second line on two wheels. I passed through a flood of memories pooled in the boarded-up, abandoned home of Podna's Bar-B-Q at the corner of Magnolia; a now disappeared stand-up/take out lunch counter type sandwich joint and restaurant, owned by the large Sicilian immigrant family of my boyhood friend, Lenny Rizzuto. I rode on, listening via headphones to my Android, tuned to some west coast NPR radio station broadcast of the BBC World Briefing program.
The World Briefing reported the deepening economic crisis visiting hardship and austerity in Spain, and the protests occurring there. It went on to an even more disturbing story about two recent instances of self-immolation by Italian citizens, pummeled into utter desperation by the punishing effects of the severely austere economic policies insisted upon by the autocrats of the Euorzone financial structure. The shocking images of Vietnamese Buddhist monks setting themselves ablaze in protest of our napalm fueled rape of that country in the 1960s came to mind. And I thought, yep, while the modality of violence laid down on an innocent people may be different in kind, the effect is as unjust, devastating and intolerable.
Central City spilled out like a brusquely decanted canto of an epic tragedy. It grew more lyrical by the block. LuLu, a watery-eyed, well lubricated and happy soul greeted me at the Claiborne Avenue Discount Zone convenience store with congratulations for locking my bike before going in to get a beer. On the Martin Luther King Blvd. neutral ground (median, for non-New Orleanians), an itinerant preacher was megaphoning the Gospel and group prayer to his not inconsiderable, spontaneously assembled flock, while volunteer apostle stumpers passed out hand-folded and home-printed invitations to join the congregation among those of us on the periphery. Blocks on, Kimmie, a too neatly tight and prim guy offered hotel comp bar soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and knock-off "glam" clothing on the cheap. Next, Walter and I passed half a block together as he walked his newly "found" bike with two flats, and I slowed to make another friend.
My "peeps" live in Central City. Yeah, my neighborhood is next door. But it is literally just blocks down the street, and from my porch it's easy to see what's coming. There will be no high-energy, pumped-up "rock the vote" movement of the kind that helped zerO get elected the first time. It more likely will be a "skip the vote" experience. And the fire this time will not be suicidal.
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