Category Archives: Random Blogging

The Language of Crazy

For the past several months, in these and other columns, I have tried to explain (to myself as much as to my readers) the rising tide of anger and vitriol that seems to have engulfed our country.

I’m not naïve, and I’ve read enough history to know that we haven’t suddenly been uprooted from some past Garden of Eden. There have been plenty of other angry times in our nation’s history; the Civil War was the worst, but hardly the only example. In my own adult lifetime, Martin Luther King, JFK and his brother Bobby were all assassinated. The Sixties gave us the Weathermen and the Yippies, the Chicago police’s display of brutality at the Democratic National Convention, the Kent State massacre and the Watts riots. (It wasn’t all Woodstock and “Flowers in your hair.”) A complete list would fill this newspaper and then some.

But there was something really chilling about the news that an Arizona Congresswoman was shot through the head in an attack that killed several others—including a nine-year old child and a federal judge. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding a “Congress on the Corner” event at a local supermarket—one of those predictable, “keep in touch” “meet and greet” events that politicians routinely sponsor—when she and the others were gunned down in broad daylight. As I write this, the Congresswoman is in critical condition following brain surgery; her survival—and if she does survive, her condition—remains in doubt.

In the aftermath of this horrific episode, the national conversation has focused on whether the debased nature of our political rhetoric encouraged a mentally unstable person to take violent action.

Congresswoman Giffords was one of twenty Democrats who had been “targeted” during the off-year elections by Sarah Palin. Palin’s webpage had featured photos showing each of the twenty as seen through crosshairs on gun-sights. (Not surprisingly, Palin quickly removed the page, and scrubbed the inflammatory photos.)  The language employed during the campaign by Representative Gifford’s Tea Party opponent was filled with gun imagery and dark allusions to “Second Amendment remedies.” And who among us did not see the earlier coverage of unhinged people brandishing guns and screaming obscenities at Town Hall meetings about health care reform?

For those who refuse to believe that language has consequences, think about the gay youngsters whose suicides have followed repeated taunts of “faggot,” and other homophobic slurs. Think about the generations of GLBT folks who stayed far back in the closet as a result of the constant, offhand dismissal of gays and lesbians as somehow less than human, less than “normal.”

I am not suggesting that intemperate language “created” this tragedy. There are plenty of other cultural culprits, beginning with the zealots who believe that any restriction of the right to carry a gun, no matter how reasonable, is part of a communist plot. Indeed, last year Jan Brewer, the intellectually-challenged Governor of Arizona, signed into law a bill that lifted all restrictions on the right of Arizona residents to carry concealed weapons. One of the restrictions eliminated by that measure was a requirement of a background check that might have kept a mentally troubled individual from carrying a handgun.

But while violent imagery and intemperate language don’t cause such acts, they absolutely do contribute to the creation of an environment within which the unthinkable becomes just another possibility, where violence becomes a viable option to be explored, and where grievance—real or imaginary—justifies barbarism.

When this sort of rhetoric is employed in the service of bigotry, and a seething, resentful anti-intellectualism, as it currently is, we should not be surprised when violence erupts.

It creates, as they say, a perfect storm.

Moral Deficit

There are plenty of issues that people of good will see differently.

For example, most Americans—at least the ones I know—consider themselves fiscal conservatives, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily agree about which policies are fiscally responsible. Depending upon their understanding of economics, some people will argue that now is the time to cut back spending to concentrate on deficit reduction; others insist that cuts now will delay economic recovery and reduce tax receipts–that we should spend to stimulate the economy and create jobs, because more jobs will both reduce government expenditures and generate more tax revenues with which to pay down the deficit. Both groups want to reduce the deficit; it’s an honest disagreement over the best way to do so.

Other disagreements are harder to understand.

The Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act would pay health care costs for 9/11 first responders who were sickened by toxic fumes and debris when the Twin Towers fell.  I don’t use the word “hero” very often, but that’s what these firefighters, police officers and medics were. They braved the inferno in order to rescue those inside, and they are now suffering from injuries and illnesses caused by that desperate effort. It passed the House with 90% of Republicans opposed. Then Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote on it, because “it would add to the deficit.”

Concern for the deficit would have been more believable had GOP Senators not been holding this and other measures hostage to their insistence that the richest 2% of Americans retain the favorable tax rates they received from George W. Bush.

Extending those rates would cost many billions more than providing much-needed medical care for first responders. Marginal rates are at historic lows: in 1945, the rate was 91% of every dollar earned over 200,000; in 1982, 50% of everything over 106,000; in 1993, 39.6% of earnings over 250,000.  It is now 35% of everything over 357,700. If the Bush tax cuts expire, rates will revert to 1993 levels. Those levels would remain very low by historical standards, but even so, expiration would generate billions to reduce the deficit.

Republicans argue that low taxes on the wealthy spur job creation. The evidence for that assertion is mixed, to put it mildly. If we really want to encourage job creation, we’d be better served giving businesses tax credits for new jobs.

The income gap between rich and poor in this country is wider than it has been since the gilded age. Joblessness is at its highest point since the Depression. These indicators are warning signs, not just for our economic health, but for our civic well-being.

Denying first responders desperately needed medical treatment so that millionaires won’t have to endure a 4.6% marginal tax rate increase cannot be excused as a good-faith policy dispute. It is, quite simply, disgraceful.

Americans are facing two kinds of deficits right now: monetary and moral. Ultimately, our fiscal problems—difficult as they seem—may be easier to resolve.

Management versus Leadership

Mayor Ballard’s much-debated 50-year contract with ACS to manage Indianapolis’ parking infrastructure squeaked through the City-County Council, thanks to the deciding vote cast by Council President Ryan Vaughn, who refused to recuse himself even though his law firm represents ACS.

As a national commentator wrote to Bill Hudnut after that vote, the fact that Indianapolis gave an insider a sweetheart deal is less distressing than the fact that this transaction was yet another piece of a longer-term trend. “When you were Mayor, it seemed to me that the community leadership was really committed to downtown and the City, to the point where they even invested their own cash to make it happen, such as the corporations that helped fund Circle Centre Mall. Today, it’s pretty much a portion of the community elite using government simply to pull money out of the City.  I’m not sensing that there’s the same commitment to the City and its future as there once was.”

My husband and I both served in the Hudnut Administration (we met there), and we can still recall the energy and excitement of being part of a team that was working to create a new Indianapolis.  We were partners with local business and civic leaders who were equally invested in that future.

A local civic leader I admire believes there is an important distinction between leadership and management: as he notes, cities must operate in a businesslike fashion, but they aren’t simply businesses requiring managers.  Leaders understand that a city is the sum of the human values that make it up, the values that give cities their character, their “soul.”

For those who believe that there is no such thing as a city soul, or an identifiable civic culture, who think that this is all soft-headed romanticism, Neal Peirce has news for you: Civic culture drives economic development and fiscal health.

“We know the old and familiar way—grant tax subsidies or other special favors to nail down new office or factory prospects. Local tax bases take a hit and all taxpayers end up subsidizing the favored businesses. But to draw both investment and talented individuals—demonstrably the base of strong economies in today’s globalizing world—cities might focus more intensely on the qualities that most prominently build residents’ attachments to their communities.”

Peirce cites a key finding from three years of Gallup polling: what drives attachment to a community is not “the usual suspects” like jobs, the economy or even public safety.  While these things are important, “soft” quality of life factors—social offerings, openness, aesthetics and education (especially the presence of colleges and universities) drive attachment.

Communities scoring well in these categories also have higher rates of economic growth. The theory is that when people feel more attached to their communities, they spend time and money there, are more productive, and tend to be more entrepreneurial.

Such communities develop when people elect leaders concerned with the greater good, rather than managers interested in cutting deals with favored insiders.

The Crux of the Matter

As Indianapolis prepares to enter into a 50 year contract with ACS, under which it will hand over management of this asset–and an estimated 1.25 billion dollars that would otherwise come to the City during that period–I thought I’d share an observation from my son, made in response to a letter from the Mayor’s office to City Council members, defending the proposal against criticisms. I think he gets to the heart of the matter.

“Having scanned the administration’s response to the analysis of the non-partisan Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), and particularly the Administration’s view that it is leveraging a “non-core asset” (parking meters), it finally struck me why the Mayor continues to press this deal to give so much money, and particularly control, to ACS.  Ultimately, there is one glaring analytical flaw, which is really at the heart of the City’s analysis: The Administration fundamentally doesn’t understand the “value” and “purpose” of the asset it is selling. This leads to a fundamental error in the financial terms and structure of the deal and explains why the city is willing to give away so much in the deal.

The Administration’s ignorance of the true value of the parking meter assets is evident in its label of parking infrastructure as “non-core assets.”  From a revenue raising perspective, they are right in a very limited sense: the city hasn’t used parking meters as a “core” revenue raising tool.  But as Aaron Renn has forcefully argued, parking meters and control of rights-of-way are NOT, first and foremost, revenue raising tools/powers, but instead are central or “core” to a city’s ability to plan and control its use of public space and, ultimately, to control and encourage economic development. The Administration’s analysis actually ignores the “core value” of parking meter assets to the city: that is, control over parking meters gives the city control over how it manages development, transportation, land-use, etc.  And by ignoring this “core value,” or by failing to see the value in it, the Administration is failing to properly value the asset…. Or to fully understand and protect those other rights and benefits that are tied to control of its rights of way.  (It’s kind of like a landowner selling a plot of land that he thinks is barren or only useful on the surface, when there are mineral/oil rights below ground that he is giving up without receiving value.) It’s the City’s ignorance of the true value of the asset that is leading it to agree to terms that it should never agree to.

As some councillors have observed in their very well-stated remarks, the City is not simply striking a very bad deal – it is striking a deal that future councils and future administrations will be effectively unable to undo and will have to live with for decades… As Bill Hudnut observed a few weeks ago in an interview with WTHR, there is no need for the city to give up so much revenue or control.

There are other flaws in the analysis forwarded by Mr. Cochran to City Councillors, but perhaps the most telling one is that they apparently don’t understand the true value of the asset they are selling and so, as day follows night, they have incorrectly valued it and placed inappropriate restrictions on it’s future use.”

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Bad Monkey

I’m writing this before the November 2d elections, knowing that it won’t see print until the election results are known. The timing won’t keep me from making a prediction: voters will reward sleazy tactics, outright liars and buffoons of all political persuasions.

That’s because the election season that will (mercifully) be over when you read this has been dominated by two parties—not Republicans and Democrats, but those I’ll dub “denialists” and “enablers.”

Denialists have a variety of motives, but essentially, they are fleeing the complexity and ambiguity of modern life. They span a spectrum from the outright delusional—the so-called “birthers” who have convinced themselves that President Obama was born in Kenya, and the one in five Americans who believe he’s a secret Muslim—to the various groups of creationists, climate change deniers and others who are suspicious of science and empirical evidence and looking for any opportunity to reject findings that do not confirm their own beliefs or serve their own interests. They include the revisionists who cling to carefully selected and edited versions of America’s history and constitution.

There have always been denialists on the fringes of American political life. What is different today is that they are being enabled by the emergence of a media landscape in which the time-honored function of genuine journalism—truth-telling—has been pushed aside in favor of what sells, and telling people what they want to hear is a sure winner.  The fact that paying talking heads to spout uninformed—occasionally deranged—opinions is so much less expensive than paying journalists to do actual reporting is just icing on the cake.

In this intellectually dishonest, morally distasteful environment, can we really be surprised that candidates of both parties have participated in a content-free, ugly exchange of untruths and half-truths?

In the run-up to November 2d, it has been impossible to avoid the hammering of negative, misleading ads. I am supposed to be outraged over the “government takeover” of Medicare (and too stupid to know that Medicare is a government program). I am supposed to believe that a candidate for prosecutor who once represented a defendant accused of child molestation is thereby disqualified for office (and to ignore the profoundly unethical conduct of a candidate who would make such a charge). Presumably, I am supposed to listen to the out-of-context charges and counter-charges, the grainy photographs and gloomy atmospherics and make my candidate selection based purely on my emotional response.

No wonder Jon Stewart held a rally for sanity. If the antics of this electoral season are any indication, it’s in short supply.

Actually, it was Stewart who came up with the best description of our current politics. In an interview, Terry Gross of NPR asked him about his focus on politicians and the media, and who was most culpable. Stewart said “Politicians are politicians. If you go to the zoo and monkeys are throwing feces, well—that’s what monkeys do. But you’d like to have the zoo-keeper there saying ‘Bad Monkey.’”