Our Deteriorating Public Services

I’m officially pissed.

The rant I’m about to embark upon was triggered by the City’s recycling contractor, Republic, which–for the third straight time–picked up everyone’s recycling except ours. We’ve had plenty of reasons to be less than enamored of the recycling program, which charges extra for the service (thus incentivizing environmentally irresponsible behavior). My biggest gripe has been the refusal of Republic to come down the alley, as our regular garbage pick-up does. Since we live in the city–the “hood”–that means we have to schlep our container down one alley, then another, in order to get it to the street. Not only is this inconvenient for elderly folks (and we’re pretty elderly!), it means that the street looks cluttered and trashy for two or three days, while cans are taken out and then returned to garages.

It isn’t just recycling. Regular trash pickup has gotten hit-or-miss of late. Crime in our neighborhood has increased to a worrisome degree–initially, the increase was mostly petty thefts, or cars being broken into, but more recently, people have been mugged and homes invaded while the occupants were still there. Scary stuff that we haven’t previously experienced.

When apartments being built a couple of blocks from our house caught fire a couple of months ago, it took IFD what seemed like a long time to arrive. That may have been an incorrect impression, but several people in the neighborhood reported a discomfiting wait between their 911 calls and the first truck. In those minutes, the blaze became a huge conflagration (we could feel the heat on our front porch, which is a good two and a half blocks away, and the flames could be seen for miles).

Not far from where that fire raged is a city park that–despite repeated promises–continues to shows signs of neglect. It has a very nice pool, but the hours of operation have been sharply cut back since it first opened.

It’s hard to remember that during the Hudnut Administration, streets in the Mile Square were swept every day. Now, from the looks of it, they aren’t being swept at all.

Part of the problem is management. Construction and especially street repairs drag on for weeks more than necessary (and let’s not even talk about the Cultural Trail segments that kept parts of Mass Avenue and Virginia Avenue closed for months on end while little or no work got done). Accountability for garbage collection is a management issue. But the major culprit is lack of money. So we have too few police, too few lifeguards, too few managers generally.

It’s bad enough that we’ve starved local government; it’s worse that we’ve actually built that starvation diet into our state constitution. Indiana taxpayers have spoken, and what they’ve said is that they don’t care enough about the quality of public services to pay for those services.

Unfortunately, we get what we pay for.

One of the unintended consequences of a city with inadequate public services and a deteriorating quality of life is that the people who can, leave.  And they take their tax dollars with them, triggering a cycle of further decline.

We aren’t there yet, but the signs are ominous.

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Different Worldviews

The party’s conventions are over, and if there is one thing they showed us, it’s that Democrats and Republicans live in very different realities (as the President noted in his speech, Democrats understand that climate change is not a hoax) and have starkly different approaches to the age-old question: how should we live together?

From the composition of the crowds to the policies offered by the speakers, Americans saw two very different messages. It wasn’t simply that–as the President memorably noted–the GOP’s prescription for everything and anything that ails us is “Take two tax cuts and call me in the morning.” It was the difference between a longing for the past–for an America that only existed, if it existed at all, for a small group of middle-class white guys–and a determination to build a fairer, more inclusive, more stable future.

That difference in focus goes a long way toward explaining why the GOP has so much more party discipline than the Democrats do. When you are focused on defeating the other guys because you believe that will magically reinstate a time when women knew their place, gays were hiding in the closet where they belonged, immigrants picked the crops and then went home (or at least stayed out of sight), and black people did not occupy statehouses and most definitely did not live in the White House, the goal is clear and cohesion around that goal relatively easy.

When you are trying to cope with real problems, trying to come to agreement about the future you are trying to build, rather than focusing solely on the man and party you are trying to defeat, the conversation is different. There are many more areas of disagreement–where, precisely, do we want to go? What are the policies most likely to get us there?

Despite the Tea Party’s insistence that Obama is a socialist, what was striking about the rhetoric coming from the Democratic convention was its full-throated endorsement of market economics, of the meritocratic vision that used to be a Republican vision before the party was captured by its anti-rationalist extreme. That affirmation of an economics that rewards hard work and innovation differed from the  exaltation of wealth we saw at the Republican convention, however, because it was situated in a larger concept of citizenship and mutual obligation.

The President said it clearly.  “We also believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations.”

In November, we’ll see which worldview American voters endorse.

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The Guy in the Chair

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is a penetrating observer of today’s politics, and the other night–while delivering a very funny review of Clint Eastwood’s “dialogue” with an empty chair at the Republican convention–he delivered one of those “Aha” moments.

Stewart noted that he’d had trouble getting his head around many of the accusations Republicans leveled at Obama, but that now he understood: there are TWO Barack Obamas, one of whom only Republicans can see!  It’s the invisible guy they keep talking about!

There’s more than a little truth to that, and it is unfortunate for a lot of reasons.

I’m not the only person who has been mystified by charges that a moderate Democrat implementing a healthcare program devised by Republicans is somehow a “socialist,” or that a President who has presided over the slowest growth in government spending since Eisenhower is engaged in ruinous and unrestrained spending. I’ve been stunned by accusations that a man who entered the national consciousness with an “only in America” speech at the 2004 Democratic convention is routinely accused of “hating America.”

Stewart is right, of course, as he usually is: the Barack Obama who is the target of these accusations isn’t the Obama who actually occupies the White House. It’s the Barack Obama of fevered–and let us be honest here, essentially racist–imaginations.

There are two major problems with the nature of these attacks. The obvious one is that the Romney campaign’s willingness to “go there,” to engage in dog whistles and worse, exacerbates an ugly divide that America has tried hard to erase. It is analogous to picking at the scab on a still-unhealed wound. If the strategy wins–if, in the wake of the election, Romney is perceived to have benefitted from it–racial tensions will make it even harder to rebuild a politics of reason.

The other problem with the Republicans’ fixation on an imaginary Obama is that it has foreclosed debate on the actual policies of the actual Obama. This President–like all of his predecessors–has implemented, or failed to implement, a wide variety of policies that deserve to be critically examined. Like most citizens, I agree with some and disagree with others. Elections are intended to provide citizens with discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of policy positions held by the candidates, as well as giving voters a sense of the character of those who are asking for our votes.

That discussion–that reasoned critique of this Administration’s performance and priorities–has been virtually absent from this campaign.   It has been drowned out by hyperbole and outright fabrication.

The campaign against the real Barack Obama has been obscured by the one directed at the invented version sitting in the empty chair.

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It’s Getting REALLY Ugly….

In the wake of the firestorm over remarks made by incumbent Representative and Senate candidate Todd Akin, most members of the GOP establishment loudly distanced themselves from him. At the same time, the platform committee was adopting his position–no abortion and no exception for rape or incest. There’s been a lively discussion about the number of Republican candidates and office holders who agree with him but have been too politically savvy to say so publicly. (Yes, Mike Pence, I’m looking at you.)

But ignorant comments about rape and contraception are beginning to look tame. There’s the candidate who recently “explained” that the AIDS virus can only be spread through homosexual encounters–never mind Africa, where the disease is almost entirely a heterosexual phenomenon.

Of course, the use of anti-gay stereotypes and rhetoric is almost a requirement for Republicans these days. Anything short of Fred Phelps-variety homophobia is unlikely to elicit a reproach from the party’s powers-that-be. Ditto anti-immigrant animus.

Race is a more delicate issue. We’ve come a distance (how far is a matter of opinion) since Nixon’s (successful) Southern strategy, and for several years, moderates and people of good will within the party tried to avoid racially inflammatory rhetoric. Those people have largely abandoned the GOP, however, and this election has seen considerable backsliding in that regard. During the primaries, Gingrich and others referred to Obama as “the food stamp President,” and Rick Santorum made his infamous remarks about “blah” people. (“Black?? I didn’t say black!!)

More recently, the Romney campaign has doubled down on a claim debunked by every reputable fact-checker–that Obama has “gutted the welfare work requirement,” and Romney himself has engaged in a little lighthearted birtherism. It’s not exactly subtle. The campaign has clearly determined that they need the votes of resentful whites–racists, to be blunt–if Romney is to have any chance of unseating Obama. If that requires playing to the fears and biases of a voting bloc described as older white men without a college education, why, full steam ahead. (For the record, I doubt that Romney is racist himself–despite the Mormon church’s unfortunate history with African-Americans. I think he wants very badly to be President and is willing to do whatever he thinks will work. His lack of integrity is so profound, it may be worse than genuine racism.)

It’s pretty clear that the GOP has written off the black vote, and the rhetoric aimed at Latinos hasn’t exactly endeared the party to the fastest growing demographic in the country. Then there are the Muslims–granted, a small minority, but one that is culturally conservative and could have been expected to be fertile ground for the party–who have been characterized by numerous Republicans as jihadists and terrorists. The recent, shameful effort by crazy lady Michelle Bachmann to target Huma Abedin, an assistant to Hillary Clinton who is married to Anthony Weiner, a Jew, as some sort of double agent is just one example.

Now we have the spectacle of Arthur Jones, 64, a Lyons, IL, insurance salesman who evidently organizes “family-friendly” neo-Nazi events around Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Jones is running in the Republican primary that will choose a candidate to run against Democratic Congressman Dan Lipinski in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District.

“As far as I’m concerned, the Holocaust is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews,” Jones said. “It’s the blackest lie in history. Millions of dollars are being made by Jews telling this tale of woe and misfortune in books, movies, plays and TV.”

When I first became active in the GOP, older family members were wary. They warned me that the Republican party had long harbored  anti-Semitic factions, and that history goes a long way toward explaining why so few Jews vote Republican. The party has persistently wooed the Jewish vote, mainly by being more rabidly pro-Israel than most modern Jews, but people like Jones do keep surfacing.

I expect Party “elders” will condemn Jones. But thing about the Jewish vote is this: thanks to our own history and experience, most Jews understand that we are not safe in a society that discriminates against any minority. As long as we see the GOP engaging in anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-black rhetoric–as long as we see Republicans as the party of old, white, heterosexual men unwilling to accord equal treatment even to their own wives and daughters–most of us just aren’t going to vote for them.

The uglier the rhetoric gets, the louder the “dog whistles” become, the clearer it becomes that the GOP has become a party willing to exacerbate some of this country’s deepest wounds and divisions if that’s what it takes to win an election. Members of minority groups understand that when people like that are in charge, no one is safe.

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A Bit Long, But Worth It

My friend P.E. MacAllister shared a fascinating history of the real Tea Party. It bears little resemblance to the cartoonish version that is too often cited and emulated. It’s a bit long, but well worth the read.

Some Notes About Tea & Tea Parties

The emergence of a new political initiative called “The Tea Party Movement” has jolted American political equilibrium, altered political races and challenged the agenda of the Republican Party. “Tea party” resonates with most Americans who think “Boston… Patriots… British oppression”.  But few of us can get specific on “why Boston”, what was achieved; what impact it had on American history.  The full story reveals an amazingly convoluted train of events, bungling by a meddlesome government; colonial truculence and mutual mishandling of events that wreaked havoc Colonial America.  An observation from this bias observer will suggest that governments which do not know how to finesse explosive situations often cause irreparable-damage when they opt to take action.

Common place in the 17th century America and critical to our story was a popular familiar commodity called tea.  Its origin as reported in a Chinese legend goes back to 2737 B.C. and its discoverer is the emperor himself, one Shen Dung (who I never heard of either).  Very quickly his new delicacy quickly spread outward endlessly and finally got to Europe, maybe via Marco Polo (1300AD).

When the age of discovery dawned (15th and 16th centuries), a ceaseless flow of ships plowing unknown waters, linked large parts of the remote world into a new galaxy of commerce.  Access to the orient proved profitable;  The commodities imported were generally light in weight but high in value i.e. pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ointments, incense, precious stones, silks and ultimately tea in abundance (coffee came later).  Great Britain ultimately assessed the nature of the new opportunity and following the track of Magellan and Drake, sailed eastward in search of new opportunities and new profit (from which were derived new taxes).  With respect to tea however, China presented a problem.  It was a monopoly they guarded with some diligence.  So when the Britts found adequate supply unlikely, they secured Chinese tea seeds or cuttings and created new plantations in Ceylon and India.  I mean big time.  In twenty years they were in business with a burgeoning supply to satisfy a growing market. To encourage and assure expansion, the British Parliament gave the East India Company an exclusive monopoly on the tea business in 1698.

At which point we have segued from the Far East to Britain and then extended to the new west i.e.; North America.  Where Britain had claimed ownership of the land and allocated portions of it over the years to 13 separate quasi self- governing entities. Among the most noteworthy of these was Massachusetts:  successful commercially; a vibrant intellectual center, sensible government; and a superb port in Boston.  Its large fleet of merchant men nurtured a growing economy and the colony retained strong ties with Britain.  Tea was a common commodity with respect to both merchandise as well as diet, and Boston consumed more per capita than any other city in North America.

Complicating the marketing was a strange provision that prohibited the East India Company from selling tea directly to the colonies, combined with an even goofier condition; Americans had to purchase all their tea from Britain.  This required British middlemen who in turn sold to American importers who then sold to retailers.  Note 18th century bureaucracy:  the three stages, each with a fee.  To recompense the government for their exclusive monopoly, the East India Company paid a whopping 25% ad valorem tax on all tea imported into Britain.  The government then also levied a sales tax on tea.  The market, functioning freely, senses the disadvantage here and shops with Dutch traders or black marketers who have no ad valorem thus a cheaper product.  In 1760, the crown was losing 400,000 pounds sterling a year to the smugglers. (In today’s dollar value, that is just over $41,000,000).  Let’s say it is enough to get ones attention.  To wiggle their way out of this snarl in 1767, Parliament passed the Indemnity Act which refunded the 25% they were collecting on tea but then faced a short fall of revenue.  To recover it, they passed the Townshend Revenue Act.  These levied taxes on glass, lead, paper, paint…. and tea.  Note all these are imports; none are produced in Boston.  More significant and more odious is the fact that Parliament assumed the right to tax the colonies.  Since they were not represented in the Parliament they could not be taxed: (Bill of Rights, 1689).  So the responses to the Townshend tax were protests and boycotts.  People stopped drinking British tea and sought out smugglers or Dutch merchants.  Again groping for a response, (This is getting like tick-tack-toe) Britain finally abolished all taxes except the one on tea (three pence a pound) and America relented by sipping English tea.

But, hold on a minute.  The Indemnity Act, refunding the 25% tax, had a time clause in it, ending automatically in 1772, so the ad valorem tax popped back in place though modified to10% it nudged up the prices enough so buyers again looked to the Dutch or the black market. British tea sales plummeted, while back at the ranch, it piled up, filling London’s warehouses.  One of Europe’s largest commercial enterprises was on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to government policy.  The Tea Act of 1772 removed the ad valorem tax and also allowed The East India to sell direct to America, eliminating the middleman.  Instead it appointed its own agents or consignees to process tea and collected the 3 penny per pound tax.  Wiser heads asked why Lord North continued the tariff and insisted on antagonizing the colonials when abolishing it would have resolved the problem.  Two reasons.  It affirmed the right of Parliament to tax the colonies; secondly it provided revenue to pay its agents.  The slogan “Taxation without representation is tyranny” appeared as bumper stickers and tea shirts; “Occupy Parliament” rallies occurred and the truculence of the crown was trumpeted by Boston rabble rousers (think Fox news).  Enmity toward Great Britain took on a truly ugly look.

In September and October 1773, seven ships carrying 2,000 chests or 600,000 pounds of Bohea tea (That’s about 120,000,000 cups.) were sent to the colonies, four of them headed for Boston with a retail price of 2 shillings per pound, making it cheaper than Dutch or smuggled tea, but still included the now odious 3 penny tax.  Aware of the shipment while it was en route the malcontents began planning an organized reaction or reception committee.  These were Whigs, some calling themselves “Sons of Liberty”, and may have included both smugglers and legitimate tea merchants now bypassed by the East India Company.  Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina had already convinced the local consignees (wholesalers) of the tea to resign their offices and each sent its ships back to England.  But not Boston.  The Dartmouth, Beaver and Eleanor arrived in Boston Harbor because Governor Hutchinson insisted on the ships landing.  Two of his sons coincidently were consignees of the shipment; beyond that, he wanted to collect the docking fees. A ship had 20 days to unload and pay the duty.  After 19 days of wrangling … with nothing unloaded, the Sons of Liberty decided to break the stalemate.  On the night of December 16, 80 or 90 men, dressed like Mohawk Indians, feathered, painted and in buckskins, boarded the three ships and proceeded in the next three hours to throw 342 cases of tea into the Boston Harbor.  (We are talking 6-7 million dollars of private property.  It was enough tea to supply the entire city of Boston for a year.)  All returned ashore, washed off the paint and joined big bonfire parties adjoining the harbor, none were unidentified, no one was imprisoned.  The crowds of on lookers were jubilant.

Was the Tea Party a bold, brave move or an irrelevant “Quixotic Gesture”?  “Why the raid? Why destroy the tea?”  The answer “Taxation.”  So the issue was taxes. Except the crown did not own the tea.  It was the product of merchants who had been supplying same to Boston for years.  It was their balance sheet that took the rap.  Fact is they “Party” did nothing whatsoever to retaliate against Parliament.  Then beyond that, why drag poor John Malcolm into their Walpurgis Night.  John had no more to do with the taxes than you or I have to do with tomorrow’s temperature.

He was one of the agents of the Crown, hired to process tea and collect the taxes.  After completing a day’s work was resting quietly at home the night of all the hoopla when without warning, six or eight thugs broke into his home; hauled him downtown to the big campfire and, with great glee, both tarred and feathered him.  Hot tar blisters the flesh and a month later one is still trying to get the darn stuff out of his eyes, ears and nose, as well as the rest of his body.  To the Mohawks this was great fun and tells more about Boston Patriotism than we wanted to know.  Having a bunch of goons torture and humiliate another human being who had done nothing personally to justify the abuse is hardly a commendable, much less “Patriotic”, gesture.  Then one wonders about the random destruction of private property which is the inviolate right of free peoples.

The English authorities were rightly indignant at this random vandalism and demanded payment for the tea.  No way.  So Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts which closed down the Boston Harbor to all incoming or out going vessels.  Next, and most significant, the symbol of representative government was removed with political control taken from the governor and given to General Gage, a military commander who now called the shots.  To enforce the edict and the blockage, he needed more troops so we count an accelerated roll call of Redcoats from now on.  And to make matters worse before long there is no tea to drink.  In Britain, where America had its fair share of sympathizers and supporters, the violence in the harbor quickly changed attitudes and support for America and Boston – dropped appreciably.

As Gates increased his military force to deal with this sulky and truculent city, the response was to drill local city militias, acquire arms and begin storing gunpowder and shot.  It was this set of circumstances in April of 1775 that moved the British to march out of Boston and seize the stores of ammunition at Lexington and Concorde resulting in “the shot heard round the world”, the opening salvo of the Revolutionary war.  The Boston Tea Party (never call that til 1834, by the way) was a direct precursor to the American Revolutionary War and thus more than a passing incident.

Viewing these events of 220-239 years ago, he who leaps readily to conclusions comes up with these for starters:

  1. Governments are better served doing nothing… when they have no solutions in mind…  Except taking action in order to mollify the public. The current phrase would be:  “Don’t do something, just stand there.”
  2. Failing to really understand the nature of a public’s discontent makes it impossible to find solutions.  If we can’t define what is wrong how can we produce a remedy?  If we think the Tea Tax is a monetary problem rather than one of principle, we aren’t going to find accord.
  3. Conditions imposed arbitrarily are less effective than condition reached thru “buy in” by both sides.
  4. Using short term measures to manage problems is building short term success… we ought to start with “where do we want to be” and then taking deliberate steps to get there.

Would the Revolution have occurred without the Tea Party?  The answer is “Yes”.  Would the Revolution have occurred if parliament had granted us seats in the House of Commons or even treated us as peers in the fraternity of western nations instead of country bumpkins?  The odds now drop to fifty/fifty.  To understand an opposing disagreement on given issues is not necessarily to agree with it.  The “Loyal Opposition” is integral to British political structure and the process of debate between two sides tends to make for better legislation than arbitrary dictates.  But failing to grant an opposing position, is to close the door not only on the argument but on the democratic process which relies on wide interchange which is critical to sounder management.  If we thus have no role in this game, we are going to create a system wherein our rights of opinion and expression are respected.  In our story, the intractable posture of British politicians, ironically, worked to our advantage.  It was their unwise and unjust policies that provoked us to going where we did not want to go and that was to collecting arms and training militias in Lexington and Concord and creating the United States of America.

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