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A curious phenomenon

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

This morning’s Boston Globe recounts the fateof a bill that would have modernized the sex education curriculum in the state of Massachusetts:

At a time when everybody, everywhere, seems to be talking about sexual misconduct, Massachusetts is still having a hard time talking about sex ed.

A bill that would modernize sex education in Massachusetts schools appears ready to die a quiet death for the fourth legislative session in a row — despite its timely attention to healthy relationships and affirmative consent.

Massachusetts is one of 26 states where there is no requirement to teach sex education in public schools — and no way of knowing whether the schools that are teaching it are using unbiased, medically accurate information.

“This seems like a no-brainer,” said Gina Scaramella, executive director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.

This is yet another example of a curious phenomenon that is observed nationwide in this country. Legislators often panic at the thought of legislating on subjects that have become fairly non-controversial among almost all of their consitutents, except possibly the fringe right. The same Massachusetts legislature has tied itself in knots over marijuana legalization, often attempting to scuttle it, despite the expressed will of its voters, in a referendum.

I would submit that this is yet another example of an asymmetry in American politics. I can’t think of any issue on which there is a widely shared consensus that is opposed solely on the fringe left of which any legislator is afraid. Of course, that may be because there is no fringe left in this country, but the point still stands.

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Gilded Age, part 2

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A few days ago, I said I’d be putting up a series of posts comparing our present Age of Corruption, Plutocracy and Kakistocracy to the Gilded Age. Herewith, installment two.

Back around the 80s, the Republican Party began promoting itself as the party of new ideas. The ideas seemed to consist of inventive ways to prove that Billie Holliday was right, and that “Them that’s got shall have; Them that’s not shall lose”.

But in fact, most of those new ideas were simply recasts of old ideas; ideas that had proven disastrous in the past and have or will prove disastrous in the present.

I’ll concentrate on just one of those ideas here: Privatization.

There’s nothing innovative about the concept of privatizing what should be governmental services. Indeed, at some point, reformers must have spent a lot of time and effort de-privatizing various government services. In the Gilded Age, privitization took a number of forms, but the end result was the same as it is now. Those performing what should have been government functions took advantage of their positions to line their pockets, delivering poor services at greater cost in the process.

In many cases, this took the forms of fee based “services”, in which nominal government employees were paid primarily by fees they imposed on their “customers”. Before Chester Arthur became president, he was the beneficiary of the patronage largesse of the corrupt New York Senator, Roscoe Conkling, who got him appointed Customs Collector of the Port of New York. Customs Collectors didn’t simply get a salary, they got half of the penalty on goods undervalued for import. White, in The Republic for Which it Stands, cites an example of a penalty of $271,000 (a lot of money back then) on goods undervalued by a mere $6,000.00, which translated into a revenue loss of $1,600.00. Arthur and his cronies (with a kickback to Conkling) split $135,500. And Arthur was comparatively honest.

The fee based system also incentivized the continued enslavement of black males in the South. Sheriffs got a share of the fines assessed on criminal defendants. Since poor black defendants (and of course, they were always guilty)could not pay the fine, the sheriff’s “leased” them to work under brutal conditions where they were treated worse that slaves, since as one of the leasee’s noted, there was a difference between owning a slave, in which you had an investment, and leasing one, since “we don’t own ‘em. One dies, get another.” And die they did, in staggering numbers.

It’s hard to believe-well, no it’s not really hard to believe- – that this sort of thing goes on to this very day. Read thisand this, about two Southern sheriffs (two among many) who have starved prisoners (and you know they’re mostly black) so they could pocket “excess” food funds under a state law that actually authorizes the practice, thereby actually incentivizing starvation. It makes the almost universal practice of corruptly overcharging prisoners for phone calls seem benign.

In one of his final acts, Obama made an attempt to abolish the private prison system, at least on the federal level, but Trump, of course, reversed that. If you make your money imprisoning people, you have a vested interest in creating new prisoners, and in keeping them for as long as you can, so you do what you can to get more people in prison. They don’t whip or kill (at least as brazenly) their prisoners anymore, but the financial incentives in the private prison industry mimic the incentives that doomed generations of “free” blacks to a more brutal form of slavery than existed before the Civil War. And, as always, people of color are disproportionally affected today, just as they were in the Gilded Age.

Getting back to my introductory paragraphs, the whole “privitization” idea is not only not new, it’s pretty much how we started, and stank of corruption. We are now heading into an era where even the public schools will be privatized, something even the Gilded Agers, bless their little hearts, would never have countenanced. You couldn’t get more Gilded Age than Hartford (after all, that’s where Twain wrote the book), and it was during that period that the good folks in Hartford built a high school (HPHS, say it louder we’re the best!) that they intended to be the best, determinedly public, school in the nation. And it was! Once the charter school industry gets a lock on school funding sources, corruption in that sector will flourish, teacher salaries and quality will decline, and our educational system will be far worse than it is today. And depend on it, once they get their hands on the school systems, they will buy up the legislatures and school spending will go up, while school quality declines.

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Does she contradict herself?

Saturday, May 5, 2018

As the Republican Party in Connecticut becomes ever more like the national party, Republicans running for office here must play an ever more delicate game. They must convince what John McCain’s former campaign manager called “low information voters” that they are not at all like those other Republicans, while acting precisely like those other Republicans when it really matters to the corporations and autocrats that own the party. In the highly gerrymandered districts in other parts of the country, Republicans can let their freak flag fly, but that happy state of affairs has not yet arrived for our locals, which sometimes makes life difficult for them.

Case in point is Heather Somers, the state Senator from the district in which I have the misfortune to reside. Judging just by her actions, Heather is quite ready to sell herself to the Koch Brothers at the earliest opportunity. The first thing she did when she got elected was to propose two bills: one to end the estate tax in Connecticut, and one to end the public financing system for our elections. But as I say, if she wants to keep herself on offer to the Brothers, she has to convince her constituents that she is actually a reasonable person, so she must walk a fine line indeed. It’s not easy. She tried to duck the question during the 2016 campaign, but ultimately had to explain that she voted for Trump, because: 1) while she didn’t like what he said, what Hillary had donewas even worse, and 2) local elections such as the 18th Senatorial District in Connecticut are far more important than presidential elections anyway, so the whole question is trivial. As to the first, we’ve seen how that’s worked out; as to the second, well, no comment necessary.

During her term Heather has taken up the challenge of trying to appear to be all things to all people while, in fact, being nothing but a typical Republican. She has made nice to the local open space folks, but hasn’t done a thing for them, and she’s even tried to curry favor with the Resist groups, from whom, I suspect, she heard complaints about the end of net neutrality. Very likely knowing nothing about the issue, or its importance to her corporate masters, she stepped into a trap.

Heather signed on as a sponsor to a bill to require net neutrality here in Connecticut, yet when push came to shove, she voted against the bill she had sponsored. My wife pointed this out on our local Democratic Facebook page, and got a number of responses from Heather’s Republican apologists. Heather, they said, no doubt giving us a preview of Heather’s own talking points, had voted against the bill because George Jepsen had written a letter saying it was unconstitutional, …and should she simply ignore the opinion of the Democratic Attorney General!!! What self respecting Republican would ever do that???

Well, that seemed odd, because if Jepsen had written such a letter it would be very surprising if not a single Democrat had taken such a warning to heart while all 18 Republicans cast their votes in sorrow in deference to the opinion of a Democrat. So, we did a bit of digging, and not at all to our surprise, Jepsen did no such thing. What he did do was say that if the bill passed, it would likely be challenged in the courts, and he would be happy to defend it. Not only that, he made that statement in December (that would be 2017), while the bill Heather sponsored bears a 2018 bill number, so she knew or should have known about his opinion when she signed on.

So, it seems fairly clear that someone explained to Senator Heather that she could not vote for this bill, as it displeased the constituency of the Republican Party, in this case the telecom companies who want to squeeze ever more money out of us. It speaks volumes about Heather’s incompetence that she did not see this coming. It also speaks volumes that she fell right into line, but that’s only to be expected. The “moderate Republican” oxymoron still plays well around here, so Heather may be tough to beat, even if the blue wave reaches the shores of Southeastern Connecticut. But we won’t let her forget this vote, and we’ll be calling her out on it.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, May 4, 2018

Last week we were on the road, so I didn’t post any music, but we’re back, so here goes. When this song came out I listened to it over and over, and to this day I don’t think a lot of the verses make a whole lot of thematic sense. There’s lots of allusions, and there’s a pervading sense in the song that there’s been a loss of something, innocence maybe, but I defy anyone to explain it in a coherent way. But that’s okay, it’s still a great song, and here’s two versions. One from, if I’m not mistaken, the year it came out (I remember listening to it over and over my senior year in college)

and one more recent, with a much older Don McLean. It should be noted, however, that the crowd, or a major portion of it, is quite young (compared to McLean, anyway), and they appear to know all the words, proving once again that we had the best music ever. Anyway, take your pick, or watch them both.

 

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Looking back: The First Gilded Age

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Having finished Grant,about which I recently wrote, I am now slowly but steadily plowing through The Republic for Which It Stands, a massive history of the Gilded Age, from The Oxford History of the United States, written by Richard White. I highly recommend it. You could build an entire semester course around it.

I don’t know if it’s still true that the Gilded Age (defined for purposes of this book as 1865 to 1896) is fly-through territory when American history is taught in our schools today, but I suspect that it is. In my day they taught us that those terrible carpetbaggers were put in their place and, eventually, so were the monopolists, but we were spared the gory details. We skipped from war to war, and the war against Native Americans didn’t count, so there wasn’t much to say about this period.

As I’ve been reading this book, I’ve been struck more than once by the parallels between then and now. So, since this is my blog, and no one reads it anyway, I’m thinking of writing a few posts about those parallels.

One surprising thing I’ve learned, and I am surprised I’ve never run across this before, because I’ve read a lot of history, is the change from then to now in what it means to be a “liberal”. A liberal in 1876 was, roughly speaking, a Paul Ryan type, right down to his willingness to sacrifice other alleged principles in the cause of comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted. I don’t know when the meaning flipped, presumably it was a long, slow evolution. Anyway, it is somewhat jarring to have to mentally readjust when I see the word “liberal” in this book.

First, one minor difference between the two periods. It truly was a pundit heaven, because Both Sides Really Did Do It! Nowadays, one party has the sole monopoly on race baiting and immigrant hating (plus a dollop of LGBT hate, which the Gilded folks pretty much swept under the rug), but in the Gilded Age, the parties split the pie. Democrats hated black people. Republicans hated Catholics and immigrants. Everyone hated the Chinese. So, just about all black men (sorry girls, no vote for you) were Republicans, and just about all Catholics and immigrants were Democrats. The Chinese simply were not allowed to vote. Give the Democrats their due, they at least gave some of the fruits of the endemic corruption to their immigrant base, while the Republicans pretty much abandoned their black supporters (who continued to support them in the North until at least the Great Depression) in 1876.

I’m on page 406 as I write this, meaning I’m not even half way through, but so far, there are no heroes in this book, and many dimly known, but generally favorably viewed figures, have feet of clay. Actually, some of them are all clay. The cartoonist Thomas Nast, for instance, was a perfect pundit for his times. He didn’t play favorites. He was a racist and anti-immigrant, thus landing safely on Both Sides. Even Wyatt Earp, it turns out, was a “a pimp, probably a horse thief, an embezzler, an enforcer at bordellos, and a gambler”, before he went into the law enforcement business, which was, at the time, more of a protection racket. Once again, it looks like the Landmark Books let me down. I don’t remember any of that, and I’m pretty sure I read one about Earp.

I’m going to return to this occasionally, for some more specific compare and contrast. It’s worth pointing out that it sort of turned out okay, at least to a certain extent. The Progressive Era reversed some of the excesses of the Gilded Age, the New Deal others, and the Civil Rights movement, others, though over the course of the past 38 years (i.e. since the election of Saint Ronnie) many of those gains have been reversed or nullified, leaving us where we are today. There’s always hope that this repetition of history will be succeeded, as was the Gilded Age, by a somewhat more enlightened and less corrupt period. It remains to be seen whether that can be done in an age in which mass propaganda can be so much more effectively disseminated.

Stay tuned for part two. If I ever actually write it, I’ll get down to cases.

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Hurt fee-fees on the right

Monday, April 30, 2018

Has it ever been thus? Over the last few days we have witnessed what should be a strange phenomenon. The institutional press has rushed to the defense of a woman (that would be Sarah Huckabee Sanders) who works for a man who holds them in contempt. She herself holds them in contempt, and habitually lies to them. As to the latter habit, it is one that they should particularly abhor, since their job is to report the truth. At least, that’s what they say their job is.

It would be perfectly alright if they were rushing to defend her against an unwarranted charge, but they are defending her against a comedienne’s observation that she habitually lies to them, something they all must know is true. Not only are they defending her, but they are themselves lying about what the comedienne said, claiming that she disparaged Sanders looks rather than her credibility. For example:

Maggie Haberman of The New York Times praised Sanders for not walking out on the dinner. She accused Wolf of attacking Sanders’ physical appearance, when the joke was actually skewering her propensity for dishonesty. When asked on Twitter to quote the lines to which she was referring, Haberman didn’t answer and unfollowed the questioner.

This is against a backdrop of constant disparagement of all manner of people, including the press itself, by Trump, Sanders, and their ilk, the essential difference being that for the most part they lie in the course of that disparagement. For the most part the same people who have attacked Michelle Wolf accept the barrage of mendacious criticism from the right as simply part of the ordinary national discourse. Liberals and those on the left are simply expected to be punching bags, and no notice is taken when they are unfairly attacked. If I’m not mistaken, it was conservative that coined the phrase “snowflakes” to refer to liberals who objected to being unfairly vilified, but it certainly seems that it’s those on the right who melt in the first ray of sunshine. In fact, they are now demanding that they be kept in the shade:

During an interview on CNN on Monday, frequent Fox News guest and American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp made a case that it is not the job of journalists to inform the public when the president or his spokespeople are lying.

Instead, Schlapp suggested journalists should just provide stenography of what government officials are saying, and let the American people do their best to sort out who is telling the truth — because otherwise the feelings of Trump supporters might get hurt.

“We have political disagreements in this country, and I think it’s wrong for journalists to take that next step,” Schlapp said. “Just present the facts. Let the American people decide if they think someone is lying. The journalist shouldn’t be the one to say the president or his spokesperson is lying, because what that does is to 50 percent of the country, is it makes them feel like they aren’t credible to listen to anymore.”

Yes, while the national press is vilifying Michelle Wolf for telling the truth, Republicans are demanding the right to lie without consequence, because it hurts their dupes’ feelings if they were told straight up that they’re being fed on lies.

This whole episode highlights the incestuous relationship between some elements of the press and the current administration. If the press had any sense of either self respect or respect for it’s self described mission, it would simply boycott Sanders and the White House propaganda machine until she or it commits to telling the truth, at least on occasion. But those jobs are cushy indeed, requiring stenography only, so that’s not likely to happen.

As for Michelle Wolf, she’ll be fine. Like Colbert’s before her, her monologue will wear well, particularly with those of us who think.

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A prediction

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Oliver Willis reportssomething rather astonishing:

Congressional Republicans have released an election year proposal targeting massive cuts to government programs that millions of Americans, including the poorest people, have relied upon.

“A Framework for Unified Conservatism,” the proposal from the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a coalition of more than 100 conservative House Republicans, comes as the party faces the prospect of losing seats because of the unpopularity of the Trump administration.

Since Trump’s election, the party has already been forced to defend seats that have overwhelmingly favored Republicans in the past, and has lost statewide elections in Alabama and Virginia.

But still, the new RSC plan pushes for doubling down on many of the party’s least popular ideas, and further associates Republicans and conservatives with proposals that are extremely cruel.

The framework contains an attack on two of the most popular government programs: Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans often try to portray themselves as allies of the social safety net, their new plan would end the promise of Social Security for Americans that turn 65, pushing them to wait until age 70 to receive their benefits. In addition, the plan calls for raising Medicare eligibility to age 70, while also privatizing portions of the program.

The ads the Democrats could run about this practically write themselves, but alas, I fear that, nonetheless, they never shall be written.

Everyone with brains agrees that the Democrats have to offer the voters more than a promise that they are not the party of Trump, yet no one really expects them to actually run a coordinated campaign in which issues like social security, Medicare for all, pay equity, higher minimum wage, and maybe even a guaranteed jobs program, are emphasized. As I write, the DCCC is still at work recruiting Blue Dogs (rich ex-Republicans preferred) to run against real Democrats. I continue to believe that the Democrats are intent on finding a way to turn the wave into a teeny little splash that just may rock the Republican boat, but will not come close to sinking it. If they do take the House, they will have a paper majority but a Democratic minority, unable to even pass popular legislation that Trump would have to veto.

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Arithmetic Lesson

Saturday, April 21, 2018

The City of Groton, distinct from the Town of Groton (I decline to address the absurdity of the existence of both of these entities) has announced a tax decrease:

The Groton City Council is considering a budget for the coming fiscal year that would lower the city’s tax rate by 0.72 mill, or $72 for every $100,000 of assessed value.

Mayor Keith Hedrick’s proposed $16 million budget would remove the Water Pollution Control Authority from the general fund, covering those costs with user fees rather than taxes.

“We’re steadily working on trying to reduce taxes. We’re maintaining services and we’re reducing taxes at the same time,” Hedrick said.

via The New London Day

To borrow and adapt a phrase from Dean Baker, fans of logic might beg to differ with the mayor (who is, I should add, a good guy). The City is not reducing taxes, it is simply redistributing the tax burden. When people pay for municipal services, no matter the way in which the payment for those services are assessed, they are paying a tax. To borrow from Shakespeare, a tax by any other name still would smell as rancid. In the case of the City, there is no indication that the total amount it will be recovering from its citizenry will be going down. The only question is: who will be the losers and who the winners when this redistribution takes place? The Day goes on to report:

Based on data collected so far, more than three-quarters of city residents would benefit from shifting WPCA costs from taxes to a user fee system.

“Now you will be paying sewer charges not based on the value of your home but based on the amount of water that you use. We think that’s more equitable,” Hedrick said.

So, let’s think about this. Unlike much other consumption, water consumption is fairly uniform across income groups, as it’s usually a function of the number of people in a dwelling unit. Moreover, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to limit water usage below a certain point, so trying to reduce one’s user fee in this area is even harder than keeping the heating bill down. There’s obviously exceptions, but that’s the general rule. That would appear to mean that people whose homes are worth the most will be gaining the most from this change, while those least well off may be seeing an increase in their taxes. That implies, roughly, a redistribution of the tax burden from the better off to the less better off. This may be offset, in whole or in part, by increased income from commercial entities, like Electric Boat.

In any event, it is inaccurate to call this a tax decrease. If the same amount of money goes into the city’s coffers, than it has not decreased taxes, it has simply redistributed the tax burden.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, April 20, 2018

I suppose there are some that might call this a bit schmaltzy, but I think it’s a great song, and John Denver tended to be underrated. He and Mama Cass team up here to sing at an event encouraging young people to register to vote, and what she has to say sounds pretty timely, except the part about it not mattering who you vote for. I doubt she really meant that; it was just sort of an obligatory nod to civic verities. 1972 was the year when the Democratic coalition started to fracture and the Republicans started becoming quite effective in getting people to vote against their own interests. They were aided that year by the desertion of the unions, led by George Meany, who couldn’t stomach supporting a man who didn’t want to wage a purposeless war. Anyway, back to the music.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NKdknYaSHgE
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Is nothing sacred?

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

What’s going on with the Red Sox? They keep winning. I know they let us down and won a few pennants a few years back, but they’ve returned to form in the past few years. Maybe they’re just setting us up for the most spectacular late season collapse in history.

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