The question of the hour right after Katrina hit was, “Why didn’t they (po’ folks) just leave?” The silly people, a.k.a. conservative commentators, said it was because they’ve been all welfared out and just expect the govt to take care of them. Makes sense. Why ask local, state and federal disaster officials to have a good plan and put it into action when needed? I guess if we do that, then the terrorists win. I dunno.
Anyway, it’s not as easy for poor folks to jump up and leave as it is for the more bourgeois among us. For one, they have no money.
Not just from being poor. From living in a cash economy. Most of the folks who read blogs on the Internet have debit and credit cards in their pockets. They can pick up, go a hundred miles and have the same access to cash and credit as if they were down at the local strip mall. Poorer folks don’t have that luxury. There are precious few banks on the other side of the tracks. From my experience working in the East Oakland ‘hood for a time, whole generations come and go with only the thinnest idea of what a checking and savings account are, and offer. Paychecks are cashed at local stores or check chasing outlets, where one can usually pay utilities too. The rest goes in the pocket to pay for groceries and household needs.
There is also a huge underground cash economy, from casual labor to hair care to babysitting. Leave and you potentially leave this behind.
So the choice is: leave, and find yourself in a strange place without dime one, or, stay, and run the risk of damage and injury but at stay close to the resource base you know. Being reasonable people, many chose the latter. Is it surprising?
Monday, September 19, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Spin City
One of most interesting things I've read recently is a missive by conservative iconoclast Paul Weyrich on why he supports public transit.
It's an odd thing to see at first. Public transit is supposed to be the darling of kill-your-car hairy legged tree huggers. Car travel represent the American Dream, the thrill of independence and individuality, rock-solid conservatives values. So what's a conservative doing supporting public transit?
Morals, is the answer. Back in the Goode Olde Dayes, Weyrich says, people behaved themselves because they worried about what others might think. Pre-marital sex and pregnancy? For shame! Going to the prom with someone of the same sex? What will the neighbors think? Lyin', stealin', cheatin' at cards, one just couldn't live it down. Our obsession with car travel has moved us away from all that, he says. We jump in cars in garages attached to our homes and drive off without ever seeing or talking to a neighbor. As a result, the social brakes on what he considers to be immoral behavior is lost.
Progressives talk a lot about lost community. You find a lot in urban areas because they like walking on the street on sunny days and warm evenings, and sidewalk cafes. Our community design and subsidization of car travel takes us away from that. Weyrich agrees.
Democrats' biggest frustration is that polls show that most Americans agree with them on many issues. So why doesn't that translate into more success at the polls? Because the GOP is simply better at "framing" the issues.
Dems and liberals are generally wonks, people who think and speak in terms of fourteen point position papers, not broad strokes and definitions. "I believe in God, family and country!!" (implying the opposition doesn't), says the GOP apparatchik. Dem candidates and electeds sputter that they like those too, and that they, well, just sorta believe that, you know, schools are good too. No matter what plan comes after, the argument's already been lost. They get in first and define the question, and Dems have been terrible at either redefining or getting there first themselves.
But the times may be changing. I think we're seeing some of it at work with the Roberts nomination.
Roberts is a good nominee. I'd naturally prefer someone with a nice liberal bent but so far I haven't heard anything which justifies keeping him off the court. He's said the right things about the right to privacy, while still holding enough conservative credentials to keep the nutcases happy, enough. I think this is due to the "nuclear option" accord some months ago. It forced the Bush administration to find and nominate a relatively reasonable candidate. And that came about because Senate Dems, normally the most moderate of the party's electeds, wisely framed the issue.
According to an interesting article, the Dems found that accusing the GOP of trying to push a rightwing agenda didn't fare well as an argument against Frist's threat to end the filibuster. People expect legislators to work for their political ends, big deal.
What they didn't like was changing long-standing and time-honored constitutional rules. It framed the GOP as the crazy radicals and the Dems as the defenders of truth, justice and the American Way. The GOP settled for a draw, and the Roberts nomination resulted.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina offers Democrats another chance to reshape a clearly flawed policy, if the problem is correctly defined. Stay tuned.
It's an odd thing to see at first. Public transit is supposed to be the darling of kill-your-car hairy legged tree huggers. Car travel represent the American Dream, the thrill of independence and individuality, rock-solid conservatives values. So what's a conservative doing supporting public transit?
Morals, is the answer. Back in the Goode Olde Dayes, Weyrich says, people behaved themselves because they worried about what others might think. Pre-marital sex and pregnancy? For shame! Going to the prom with someone of the same sex? What will the neighbors think? Lyin', stealin', cheatin' at cards, one just couldn't live it down. Our obsession with car travel has moved us away from all that, he says. We jump in cars in garages attached to our homes and drive off without ever seeing or talking to a neighbor. As a result, the social brakes on what he considers to be immoral behavior is lost.
Progressives talk a lot about lost community. You find a lot in urban areas because they like walking on the street on sunny days and warm evenings, and sidewalk cafes. Our community design and subsidization of car travel takes us away from that. Weyrich agrees.
Democrats' biggest frustration is that polls show that most Americans agree with them on many issues. So why doesn't that translate into more success at the polls? Because the GOP is simply better at "framing" the issues.
Dems and liberals are generally wonks, people who think and speak in terms of fourteen point position papers, not broad strokes and definitions. "I believe in God, family and country!!" (implying the opposition doesn't), says the GOP apparatchik. Dem candidates and electeds sputter that they like those too, and that they, well, just sorta believe that, you know, schools are good too. No matter what plan comes after, the argument's already been lost. They get in first and define the question, and Dems have been terrible at either redefining or getting there first themselves.
But the times may be changing. I think we're seeing some of it at work with the Roberts nomination.
Roberts is a good nominee. I'd naturally prefer someone with a nice liberal bent but so far I haven't heard anything which justifies keeping him off the court. He's said the right things about the right to privacy, while still holding enough conservative credentials to keep the nutcases happy, enough. I think this is due to the "nuclear option" accord some months ago. It forced the Bush administration to find and nominate a relatively reasonable candidate. And that came about because Senate Dems, normally the most moderate of the party's electeds, wisely framed the issue.
According to an interesting article, the Dems found that accusing the GOP of trying to push a rightwing agenda didn't fare well as an argument against Frist's threat to end the filibuster. People expect legislators to work for their political ends, big deal.
What they didn't like was changing long-standing and time-honored constitutional rules. It framed the GOP as the crazy radicals and the Dems as the defenders of truth, justice and the American Way. The GOP settled for a draw, and the Roberts nomination resulted.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina offers Democrats another chance to reshape a clearly flawed policy, if the problem is correctly defined. Stay tuned.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Labor Day
Ran into an interesting piece in, of all places, USA Today. It described how the labor movement is changing tactics to fight off Wal-Mart anti-unionization and help workers gain a better life.
Instead of going through the long battle for union certification and the rest, they're organizing worker "associations", simply voluntary groups which allow workers to meet, plan and lobby for better pay and working conditions. By casting themselves as consultants as well as organizers, the movement can do a lot more for workers with less.
The American labor movement has never been the equal of its European counterparts. It's never been able to organize anything close to a Labor Party. A lot of this is due to the nature of the American worker and society.
Every Saturday night as a kid I'd take my bath, then turn on the "Flintstones", a nice cartoon blend of "The Honeymooners" and "The Life of Reilly." Fred was a blue-collar guy, moving rocks for a living. But he lived a middle class life. His wife didn't work and loved her credit cards, and Fred pulled into a nice bungalow with garage at the end of every work day. This was and is the image of the workingman (and woman). It's a pretty bourgeois life.
As a result, the American worker has generally considered himself or herself one of the owning class. This has been propelled by the fact that workers nowadays often own and direct part of their own retirement plans through 401(k)'s and the life, and the shift away from manufacturing to office work, even for the grunts. Son and daughter at the tech firm may earn proportionately less than Dad did at the car plant, but they wear business clothes to work, can manage their portfolio from their desk over lunch and don't have to get their hands dirty at work. They think they're even better off.
So the challenge for the labor movement is to recast itself from class warriors to business consultants. It isn't the shop floor vs. the big office. It's working on behalf of your retirement investments, your health coverage and leave policy, as a matter of business. No more firebreathing union meetings. You want a better deal? Get some of the officemates together and we'll meet after work. After all, with no health care policy to rely on, Social Security under fire and the high cost of a tank of gas, you gotta know where and how to cut the best deal with your boss. And labor is here to help.
Instead of going through the long battle for union certification and the rest, they're organizing worker "associations", simply voluntary groups which allow workers to meet, plan and lobby for better pay and working conditions. By casting themselves as consultants as well as organizers, the movement can do a lot more for workers with less.
The American labor movement has never been the equal of its European counterparts. It's never been able to organize anything close to a Labor Party. A lot of this is due to the nature of the American worker and society.
Every Saturday night as a kid I'd take my bath, then turn on the "Flintstones", a nice cartoon blend of "The Honeymooners" and "The Life of Reilly." Fred was a blue-collar guy, moving rocks for a living. But he lived a middle class life. His wife didn't work and loved her credit cards, and Fred pulled into a nice bungalow with garage at the end of every work day. This was and is the image of the workingman (and woman). It's a pretty bourgeois life.
As a result, the American worker has generally considered himself or herself one of the owning class. This has been propelled by the fact that workers nowadays often own and direct part of their own retirement plans through 401(k)'s and the life, and the shift away from manufacturing to office work, even for the grunts. Son and daughter at the tech firm may earn proportionately less than Dad did at the car plant, but they wear business clothes to work, can manage their portfolio from their desk over lunch and don't have to get their hands dirty at work. They think they're even better off.
So the challenge for the labor movement is to recast itself from class warriors to business consultants. It isn't the shop floor vs. the big office. It's working on behalf of your retirement investments, your health coverage and leave policy, as a matter of business. No more firebreathing union meetings. You want a better deal? Get some of the officemates together and we'll meet after work. After all, with no health care policy to rely on, Social Security under fire and the high cost of a tank of gas, you gotta know where and how to cut the best deal with your boss. And labor is here to help.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Welfare Reform = Socialized Medicine
Again, one of my favorite themes in politics is the unintended consequence.
It turns out that Medicaid is being turned into the nation's health care safety net for the working poor as a conscious effort to help folks stay off the welfare rolls.
The full story here:
It makes sense, and amazingly, the Republicans have been both practical and thoughtful. As one said, "The original sin of social policy was tying Medicaid directly to welfare. Now, it's tied to working." In short, it's a needed net for people who are already at the tipping point regarding work and paying the bills.
Of course, the GOP can't take credit for it because they're trapped in their antediluvian mindset that anything from the government is tainted beyond belief, so I will hereby crow that the Democrats are completely responsible for this bold and far-sighted initiative and dare the GOP to disagree.
Many have written and said that the answer to the uncovered was just expand Medicare. Why reinvent the wheel when we've already got the system and the business model in place.
Thanks again, to our great and glorious former President Clinton, who succeeded in ending "welfare as we know it." He'd have known how to handle the New Orleans flood. After all, Louisiana voted for him.
It turns out that Medicaid is being turned into the nation's health care safety net for the working poor as a conscious effort to help folks stay off the welfare rolls.
The full story here:
It makes sense, and amazingly, the Republicans have been both practical and thoughtful. As one said, "The original sin of social policy was tying Medicaid directly to welfare. Now, it's tied to working." In short, it's a needed net for people who are already at the tipping point regarding work and paying the bills.
Of course, the GOP can't take credit for it because they're trapped in their antediluvian mindset that anything from the government is tainted beyond belief, so I will hereby crow that the Democrats are completely responsible for this bold and far-sighted initiative and dare the GOP to disagree.
Many have written and said that the answer to the uncovered was just expand Medicare. Why reinvent the wheel when we've already got the system and the business model in place.
Thanks again, to our great and glorious former President Clinton, who succeeded in ending "welfare as we know it." He'd have known how to handle the New Orleans flood. After all, Louisiana voted for him.
Print vs. Video
Like most people, I've been glued to the new media for updates on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Unlike a lot of people, most of this was radio, print and Internet reporting. I missed the teevee coverage.
So I was pretty surprised to find that the "big" story for several days on teevee was the looting of what remains of New Orleans. Young Negroes scurrying around with items which didn't originally belong to them, acting like, well, like most young men in the aftermath of a disaster. This seemed to be the dominant theme for a couple of days. Teevee viewers shook their heads, tut-tutted and said to themselves, "They don't make much of a case for helping them. Where's the charity, the neighborliness, the warm, fuzzy stories of people helping people we need in these times?"
They were all over the print, radio and Internet. I read them and was amazed at how many children seemed to rise to the occasion. One story told of a boy who pulled his family members who couldn't swim to safety as the house was flooded. Another told of a six-year-old boy who had six or seven smaller children in tow, leading them to safety without adult supervision. These stories were all over print, radio and Internet sources.
Someone once said they preferred radio over television because the pictures were better. With teevee, you need immediacy. You need, "here's a picture of what's happening now" to make it sell. But rescue stories generally come out well after they're reported. They read well, but they don't look good enough, often a static interview, which just can't compare to the naked visual of people running rampant.
Radio and print, in comparison, can draw complex pictures, and tie together disparate images. They can tell more, and in more varied ways. That's where the news is. But in times of trouble, the tendency is to run to the tube and see what's happening, even though it really isn't. We feel more connected when we see pictures. But it's not the news.
So middle America ends up with this weird distorted vision of what really happened in and around New Orleans. Eventually, the whole truth will come out. Fortunately, there's NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, New Orleans Times-Picayune and the rest of the real media to tell the tale.
So I was pretty surprised to find that the "big" story for several days on teevee was the looting of what remains of New Orleans. Young Negroes scurrying around with items which didn't originally belong to them, acting like, well, like most young men in the aftermath of a disaster. This seemed to be the dominant theme for a couple of days. Teevee viewers shook their heads, tut-tutted and said to themselves, "They don't make much of a case for helping them. Where's the charity, the neighborliness, the warm, fuzzy stories of people helping people we need in these times?"
They were all over the print, radio and Internet. I read them and was amazed at how many children seemed to rise to the occasion. One story told of a boy who pulled his family members who couldn't swim to safety as the house was flooded. Another told of a six-year-old boy who had six or seven smaller children in tow, leading them to safety without adult supervision. These stories were all over print, radio and Internet sources.
Someone once said they preferred radio over television because the pictures were better. With teevee, you need immediacy. You need, "here's a picture of what's happening now" to make it sell. But rescue stories generally come out well after they're reported. They read well, but they don't look good enough, often a static interview, which just can't compare to the naked visual of people running rampant.
Radio and print, in comparison, can draw complex pictures, and tie together disparate images. They can tell more, and in more varied ways. That's where the news is. But in times of trouble, the tendency is to run to the tube and see what's happening, even though it really isn't. We feel more connected when we see pictures. But it's not the news.
So middle America ends up with this weird distorted vision of what really happened in and around New Orleans. Eventually, the whole truth will come out. Fortunately, there's NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, New Orleans Times-Picayune and the rest of the real media to tell the tale.
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