Random Blogging – Page 385

Mirror Images

There must be a special blind spot that allows people to engage in precisely the same behavior that they (correctly) criticize in others.

In one particularly distasteful example, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to counter religious prejudice, recently opposed locating a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero. Evidently, the ADL’s commitment to civil rights doesn’t extend to Muslims.

Closer to home, a number of local Democrats have savagely attacked three Democratic City-County Counselors for voting to sell the water company to Citizens Gas. They have been especially harsh in their criticisms of Jackie Nytes, one of the most thoughtful, productive and hardworking members of the Council.

These are members of the same party that has complained—justifiably—about the Party of No in Washington. Democrats criticize the GOP for its sustained and uniform opposition to anything the Obama Administration proposes; in just the past few weeks, Republicans have blocked votes on the DISCLOSE Act (increasing disclosure and reporting requirements in the wake of the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to make direct campaign contributions), a bill to provide medical aid and compensation for 9-11 first responders, and a bill to expand credit to small businesses. The Party of No has also blocked votes on at least twenty judicial nominees who received bipartisan support in committee.

What is appalling about this behavior is its transparent motivation to deny the Administration any credit for getting anything done, even when the measures being proposed have previously been supported by Republicans.

Local Democrats have been among those who have strongly criticized this conduct, and it is ironic—to put it mildly—that they are now engaging in it by suggesting that a vote for a plan put forward by a Republican mayor is an act of disloyalty.

If I were on the Council, I don’t know how I would vote on the water company sale. I think the transfer itself makes sense; what I don’t like is that we are getting money to fix our decaying infrastructure by shifting the tax burden to ratepayers. We are pandering to the purveyors of the fiction that we can run a city on the cheap, and our cowardice will inevitably come back to bite us in the future. That said, the infrastructure needs are critical, and a direct tax increase is politically untenable.

Councilor Nytes has a well-deserved reputation for integrity and responsiveness to her constituents, and the accusations of betrayal by more partisan members of her party do not reflect poorly on her—such accusations diminish her critics, and reduce the effectiveness of their justifiable criticisms of the Party of No.

We elect people to the Council to make decisions on our behalf in the exercise of their best judgment, not to play politics. It is one thing to disagree with a colleague’s vote on the merits—that’s fair enough. It is another thing altogether to insist on lockstep partisan voting.

It’s wrong to be the Party of No in Washington—or in Indianapolis.

Game-Playing

When I was growing up, parents and teachers used to tell us “it isn’t whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Honor was a higher goal than winning. Playing fair, displaying sportsmanship, generosity in winning and gallantry in losing were the goals. Adults worthy of our admiration and respect were those who modeled such behaviors.

Need I say that times have changed?

There has been a great deal written about the Shirley Sherrod fiasco, and plenty of egg for all the faces involved. A right-wing blogger and Fox News favorite, Andrew Breitbart, was evidently offended by the NAACP’s demand that the Tea Party denounce those among them who had exhibited racism. In another echo from my childhood—nah, nah, you’re a bigger one—he posted a videotape purporting to show a speech by Sherrod, an African-American employee of the Agriculture Department, in which it appeared she was sharing anti-White sentiments after receiving an award from the organization. The tape, it turned out, had been doctored—when viewed in its entirety, it was a heartfelt plea to get beyond racism of all varieties.

The elderly farmer who was the supposed object of her bigotry emerged to protest the smear; his wife told how Sherrod had actually saved their farm. Fox News, which had heavily promoted the Breitbart version, backpedaled. Before the whole story emerged, however, the Obama Administration demanded Sherrod’s resignation. No due process, no fact-checking, despite Sherrod’s long and distinguished tenure with the agency.

Let me suggest that none of this was really about accusations and denials of racism. It was about game-playing.

American politics has become so rancid, so sordid, that lying to advance one’s party is evidently considered a perfectly acceptable tactic—so acceptable that even those of us who try to follow the news and separate fact from convenient fiction find it increasingly difficult to know what is true and what isn’t. Organizations like snopes.com and factcheck.org can help, but most of us haven’t the time to sit at our computers double-checking every “fact” uttered by self-serving politicians.

Historically, we relied upon the mainstream media to do our fact-checking. But in the mad dash for eyeballs and audience share, in the era of the 24-hour “news hole,” even the outlets trying to practice legitimate journalism too often fail to check the accuracy of the charges and countercharges that have all but entirely replaced principled policy debates.

And what about those we have elected, ostensibly to run the agencies of government? The saddest feature of contemporary politics is the wholesale abandonment of seriousness and policy expertise for game-playing. And what an ugly game it is, where control of a day’s news cycle is more important than the destruction of a lifelong public servant’s reputation.

It’s bad enough that these political operatives never learned the lesson that how you play the game is more important than winning or losing, but what is really depressing is that self-government has degenerated into a game to be played.

Us versus Them, Redux

When I was growing up in Anderson, Indiana, Jews were often viewed as an alien species. I can remember being asked—in all seriousness—whether Jews had tails, and whether we lived in houses, like “real people.” In addition to these innocent if disconcerting questions, I also remember being called a “dirty Jew” for the first (but not last) time, when I was in second grade.

Fast forward. I was in my late teens and in college when John F. Kennedy ran for President. I vividly recall fellow students assuring me that Catholics were stockpiling arms in the basements of their churches (presumably to be used if he lost, but that was unclear). Those with less vivid imaginations nevertheless muttered darkly about “popery” and warned that a Kennedy Presidency would mean American obedience to Rome.

America has largely moved beyond those particular bigotries, and it would be comforting to believe we’ve matured enough as a society to avoid that sort of crude stereotyping of whole groups of people.

Apparently, many of us haven’t.

Recent news articles have reported on efforts in several cities—including supposedly cosmopolitan New York—to prevent Muslim congregations from building mosques. Opponents of those building permits have characterized Muslim places of worship as “terrorist cells,” and the religion as an incubator of anti-Western, anti-democratic values. Here in Indiana, where perennial candidate Marvin Scott is running for Congress against Andre Carson, one of two Muslims serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, ugly anti-Muslim sentiments are regularly posted to Scott’s Facebook page.

Are there Muslim terrorists? Sure. There are also Catholics whose devotion to the Church trumped their American duty to report child molestation to the authorities. There are Jews who engage in “sharp” business practices. There are lazy black people, emotionally volatile women and gay pedophiles. There are also all-American Christian terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, WASP crooks like Enron’s Ken Lay, strong women like Hillary Clinton and innumerable lazy white guys and heterosexual pedophiles. Judging people on the basis of invidious stereotypes doesn’t get us very far.

One of the foundations of the American value system—embedded in our legal system and culture—is this recognition that people deserve to be judged on the basis of their individual behaviors, not on the basis of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

We are living through some very tough times right now, and it is understandable that many of us are looking for scapegoats—someone to blame for a world that seems increasingly out of our control. It is human instinct to look askance at those who are unfamiliar, who look different, who come from other places or who follow different customs. There are also genuine issues that arise when groups new to the American landscape are in the process of assimilating to that landscape. But we dishonor the American principles of equality and fair play when we treat any community as monolithic.

Muslims—like Protestants, Jews, Catholics and other believers and nonbelievers—are just “real people.”

Comments

Paradigm Shift

In a recent column about urban relocation, Neil Pierce noted that “for humans, displacement from their known settings may be exceedingly painful…the psychological impact of forced removal from a familiar neighborhood is like a plant being jerked from its native soil.” He went on to acknowledge that holding neighborhoods static isn’t practical.

Of course, it isn’t just neighborhoods that cannot remain static. The whole world is in a state of flux, what scientists might call a “paradigm shift,” and the pain and discomfort that undeniable fact is causing is manifest in our communications, our economy, and especially our politics. (How else do we understand the angry and frightened voices insisting that they want “their country” back?)

Most of us do manage to handle social change and the discomfort it brings without taking to the streets or indulging in paranoid conspiracy theories. We learn to accept new technologies and discard old prejudices, and to recognize the benefits that accompany the dislocations. But even those who welcome the new paradigm need to recognize its challenges, and that is especially true for those of us who care about our cities.

Let me offer just one example. When I was a young professional, civic leadership in Indianapolis was provided by people like Tom Binford and P.E. MacAllister, people who did not hold—or want—public office. They had deep roots in this community and believed they had a civic obligation to nurture it. Many leaders were drawn from locally-owned banks and industries—enterprises that depended for their viability upon the health of their city. Whatever the benefits of globalization and nationalization, those trends have largely robbed us of the corporate headquarters and local banks from which we used to draw people committed to the civic enterprise.

Political actors and elected officials can’t fill these roles. Furthermore, elected officials are less able to be effective without the help of a cadre of civic leaders who are committed to the long-term health of the community and who are not constrained by political considerations. (Long term to a politician, understandably, is ‘until the next election.’)

The challenge we face is to simultaneously embrace our roots and our wings: to cultivate a city with a quality of life that rewards our allegiance on the one hand, and to welcome the opportunities that come with increasing globalization on the other. To meet that challenge, we need to figure out how we will cultivate the next generation of civic leadership.

A couple of years ago, a television commercial proclaimed “This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile.” Today, of course, it isn’t your Oldsmobile either—it is no longer manufactured, and the American auto industry no longer dominates the economy. This isn’t your father’s Indianapolis or America either. If the old saying is right, if change is the only constant, we need to do what previous generations did: accept reality and inhabit the world as it is.

Our job isn’t to whine about the inevitable—our job is to make it better.

Political Con Game

The incessant political ads leading up to the primaries all seemed to assume that we voters are either children or idiots. Every candidate for every office will protect our perks and cut our taxes! For the record, guys, most of us know there is no such thing as a free lunch. We know—or we should know—that if we want government services, we have to pay for them, and that actually might mean paying taxes.

On the other hand, perhaps the candidates are right. Perhaps we are children.

Look at what is happening in Indianapolis right now: Six libraries are closing. IndyGo—already one of the country’s most inadequate bus systems—is cutting out additional routes. My own neighborhood, the Old Northside, is working with other downtown neighborhoods on a plan to hire private police to supplement IMPD. In too many places, our streets and sidewalks are disintegrating. And don’t even look at the condition of our parks.

When I worked for city government, back in the days when Bill Hudnut was mayor, there was a recognition that city services had to be paid for, and that there were better and worse ways to do that. Sinking funds (savings accounts) were preferable to bonds (borrowing from future taxpayers) for operating costs. Ongoing maintenance of infrastructure was more cost-effective than cycles of neglect and repair.

The Hudnut Administration wasn’t perfect, but it was probably the last Indianapolis administration to operate on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Hudnut was succeeded by Stephen Goldsmith. Goldsmith (recently installed as Deputy Mayor of New York) was very good at convincing people that he could deliver government on the cheap. “Privatization” initiatives were used to shift costs from the operating to the capital budget; debt was refinanced over longer periods; maintenance skimped or deferred. The Peterson Administration chose not to confront the dire fiscal problems it inherited, resisting even modest tax increases as long as possible. Ironically, when an increase could no longer be avoided, the timing was politically disastrous.

The Ballard Administration has taken a leaf from the Goldsmith book. A simple transfer of our sewer and water utilities to Citizens Gas actually might make a lot of sense, fiscally as well as politically. But as the Star recently documented, the up-front “payment” is nothing more than a deferred tax that will be paid by ratepayers in the future.

The money to fix our decaying infrastructure has to come from somewhere, and our childish belief that we can expect something for nothing—a belief nurtured by years of dishonest political rhetoric—means the administration will not raise taxes directly. The problem is, when these “creative” tax mechanisms are employed, they end up being much more arbitrary and unfair than property or income taxes. In this case, ratepayers living in million-dollar homes will pay precisely the same amount as ratepayers living in hovels, so that we can pave our streets and fix our sidewalks without admitting that we are raising taxes.

Shouldn’t we all just grow up?