Once again, we humans pull out of the continuum a discrete moment as somehow more important than the infinite flow, this one
where night and day balance each other. Here’s wishing you more balance in your own life.
At the precise nanosecond of the
equinox — so powerful is science to measure — at that precise moment, MR and I will be wading the Alamosa Creek in the vicinity of the
Monticello Box, celebrating the temporary stopping of the relentless profiteers, wishing the wolves were there,
but glad they’re only an easy trek away. Science, bless it, could tell you our precise location in at least 4 dimensions; its child,
medicine, could tell you what it does to our state of being. But nothing can recreate it or preserve it forever. peace, mjh
PS: I’ll balance my happiness
by sending you to j f l e c k : : a t : : i n k s t a i n: Annual Heartbreak
Monthly Archives: September 2005
Public Space
Here’s an update
to that neighborhood street corner that had up to a dozen political signs — they’re all gone. Yup. I assume a city crew did the right
thing. Thanks! mjh
FUD you, Vern Raburn
Vern Raburn, President and CEO of Eclipse Aviation
has an opinion piece in the Albuquerque Journal, throwing his weight against the proposition to raise the standard of living of the
working poor closer to the poverty line.
You know Eclipse Aviation, right? Eclipse has received millions in public dollars from
the county and state. Politicians at all levels have bowed, scrapped and done everything to bring Eclipse here, including kissing
Raburn’s ass. Now, Raburn raises his snout from the public trough and oinks he wouldn’t have brought his business here if this
ordinance had been in place. Albuquerque would be hostile to business with this ordinance. Never mind the money we’ve thrown at Eclipse.
Never mind the money we’ve given to Intel, whose long straw drank the 100 Year Aquifer in ten. Never mind the money we gave Siemens,
which left us with a toxic waste dump right on I-40.
Slyly, Raburn claims an increase in minimum wage would not affect any of his
employees. What he opposes is an add-on that opponents of a fair wage are using to fuel fear, uncertainty and doubt — FUD — the most
powerful force in business. I believe there is some uncertainty where this clause came from and what it really means. A proposal to
remove it was voted down; among those voting against clearing this up was the conservative block of the city council. Is it possible that
profiteers inserted this language as a poison pill, or at least want to keep it there, so they can fight the ordinance tooth and nail but
claim they aren’t cheap, stingy bastards, just protecting the American Way. Simply put, it’s Unions that opponents fear. Raising the
minimum wage a couple of bucks is nothing; Unions might demand actual benefits. Don’t these folks realize how impotent Unions are
today?
Notice that Raburn, as all fat cats do, appears to side with the little guy, that Engine of Capitalism, the entrepreneur.
You know, that person who says, screw you, boss, keep your lousy benefits package, I’m breaking free. The kind of person who will never
in his or her life see the kind of public money Raburn has to burn. For the record, truly small businesses are exempt from the Living
Wage Ordinance. You can screw a handful of employees as long as they’ll take it; get a little larger, and you’ll have to share the
wealth.
Raburn has been very lucky that local politeness has prevented anyone from asking, “are you really going to be able to
sell any planes?” His principal competitor is quire confident Eclipse can’t do it. Until they finally put one in the air briefly, I was
sure it was a scam. Note that recently an Eclipse plane crashed. Raburn blamed the pilot — don’t want those potential buyers or
investors getting nervous.
The previous opinion piece by Raburn that I read was a long defense of Richardson for not buying an
Eclipse as the state jet. I wondered why, but now I realize he couldn’t produce one in any timely way and didn’t want the headline,
“New Mexico Governor Dies in Eclipse Plane Crash.” Bad for business.
I fully expect Eclipse to leave the state someday, though it
won’t be because of the minimum wage. Guys like Raburn have no loyalty to place or people; they follow the money and stay a step ahead
of the indictments. I assume he’ll be flying out on someone else’s jet. Good riddance. mjh
PS: if you
find my language hostile, read Raburn’s piece and count the number of times he calls proponents of a Fair Wage “deceptive.” It’s the
opponents who are appallingly deceptive.
ABQjournal: Wage Proposition Clause Poison to New
Business By Vern Raburn, President and CEO, Eclipse Aviation
In reviewing the Albuquerque Journal’s coverage of the complex
issues related to the proposed minimum wage ordinance, it is clear to me that the proponents for the ordinance intended voters to
make a decision on this issue without knowing what they were actually voting on. …
My concern is with the fact that
the proponents of this ordinance have been less than forthright with voters and that the hidden components of the
ordinance will have a very negative impact on the economic vitality of Albuquerque and on the community at large.
I agree with
the assertion of many that the minimum wage ordinance is deceptive on its face. …
When a law is passed that
fosters the opportunity for a disruptive workplace, limits an employer’s ability to protect his employees and
encourages government to intrude in the day-to-day relationship of an employer, employee and customer, then that law is
wrong. [mjh: time to undo health and safety codes!]
Mainstream Media (MSM) – Can’t live with it, can’t really be free without it
To me, journalism is a mechanism for delivering information, including
interpretation, analysis and opinion. Above all, Journalists should be considered the loyal opposition, another check in our system of
checks and balances. Journalists should question those with power, liberal or conservative.
The Radical Right has done many things
very well. Among those, they have simultaneously discredited the “liberal” Media while building a very powerful conservative Media. (This
assault on the media began as it helped topple a conservative president.) Don’t believe what you read, unless you read it in a
sanctioned place like the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox, or the Bible. Bias is everywhere, but Truth belongs to God’s
Party. Don’t dare to question the Righteous Authority — that would be disloyalty, anti-patriotism, and socio-communo-atheo-homo-
feminism.
This was a sensible tactic when the leaders of the far right were ignored as a small band of extremists. Indeed, they
were left out of day to day culture, as kooks often are. But they never gave up; they never let down the attack. Unfortunately, the
attack involved poisoning the well. By undermining the role of the Free Press to protect all our freedoms while developing a Sanctioned
Media to advance and defend their cause, they have weakened the entire System. Even this possibly accidental fallout advances the avowed
goal of destroying the Federal Government, through legislation and bankruptcy.
So, what’s a liberal to do with MSM? Eschew it?
Trust it? Use it? Are we to imitate those who successfully captured the flag by closing our minds to all but the One True Word as spoken
by our own Limbaughs and Roves? Will Liberal Blogs topple the King?
We need a free and antagonistic National Media. As important
as local media is, it can’t defend the Nation anymore than your local NRA chapter can. So, we need MSM — MSM we don’t trust without
question, but which we can trust more than advertisers, marketers, spin-doctors and king-makers. We need to challenge the value of
separate and unequal media that simply tell you what you’re supposed to hear. True conservatives, not the Radical Wrong, believe that,
as should true progressives.
It was a recent pulse in the blogosphere that got me to thinking about this this way. But that
discussion was about local MSM more so than national MSM. Local MSM has all the burdens of national and more, while having fewer
resources. It is the job of the Albuquerque Journal, et. al., to inform us about national issues and local, and, maybe, even to connect
the dots between the two levels — corruption and reform move in both directions.
We’ve recently seen “The Media” perform well
nationally and locally with Katrina and the Gulf Coast (not a band). Thanks in large part to MSM (yes, yes, I read the local blogs, too),
we saw what was happening outside of our community and we have heard much of how our own community was affected and reacted — dots were
connected. Key to this was a large number and diverse group of unembedded journalists in the area, including many from communities all
around the country. We’ve also seen the old adversarial Media reappear, asking questions those with power, from President down to Mayor,
would rather not have to answer. (When did we last discuss Race and Poverty as a nation? Just before the Radical Wrong began their
march.) This performance was so much better than the Media’s handling of Iraq (far away & embedded) and 9-11 (overwhelming pain and
passion crushing all discussion). Until Rove shot back, the issue lacked the knee-jerk “you’re with us or you’re against the troops”
spin, where the administration claims it is the nation. We’ve all seen failure and suffering on a massive scale at home, where it is
harder to ignore than “over there.”
Great storms leave more than destruction. They recharge and reinvigorate, they sweep clean and
make room. Perhaps we will remember Katrina and its victims less for supposed harm to petty players soon to be forgotten and more for
restoring our vital, aggressive, alert, adversarial Free Press to its rightful role and honor. mjh
Flat Earth, Anyone?
During Bush’s early clumsy fumbles after Katrina, some said “The Bush Era is over.” Just remember
the Republican Juggernaut is as relentless as a terminator — nothing will make them give up their mission to bankrupt the Federal
government and discredit all forms of government. So, once the new TV season is in full swing, expect them to resume as if nothing has
changed. Because nothing has, other than a few more people seeing Bush for what he is — and they hardly need him anymore. mjh
Bush Repackaged By Eleanor Clift, Newsweek
To hear Bush talk,
we’re about to witness a Republican utopia in the hurricane zone. Children will go to school with vouchers. Wages will
be lowered and regulations waived to accommodate the big contractors. The entire area will become a free-enterprise zone. And the GOP,
under the guise of economic revival, will impose one of its favorite ideas, the flat tax. It’s reminiscent of the Jim Carrey movie “The
Truman Show,” where Carrey lives in a picture-perfect town–except it turns out all the residents are actors. In Bush’s version,
everybody’s a Republican. …
Democrats are up against a coordinated, energetic effort on the right to implement policies
conservative theorists have been hoping to put into place for a long time. The rebuilding effort is ideologically motivated and
influenced by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that fueled the Reagan presidency. The proposals in a report titled
“Tragedy to Triumph” are premised on the belief that corporations freed from labor unions, environmental restrictions and onerous taxes
will reap huge profits and those profits will grow the pie for everybody–and at least create some crumbs for the masses.
This is a pivotal moment in politics with a president severely compromised and the country poised to embrace a
contrary view of government that rejects the Darwinian capitalism of the Reagan-Bush era. …
The White House, in order to repair
Bush’s image, is doing what Republicans used to accuse Democrats of doing–throwing money at the problem. … Majority leader Tom DeLay
had the gall to boast of an “ongoing victory” under 11 years of Republican control, but he may have to eat those words next November. The
’06 election will be a referendum on Republican governance, and in the wake of the Katrina debacle, the GOP has lost its aura of
competence. If they can’t get hurricane relief right, how can they keep us safe from terrorists? …
There is already a lot of
money flowing to the gulf region, and people with close ties to the White House could be among those who benefit. The gold rush is on.
Progressives better make a case for reinvigorating government before Bush and his pals dismantle what’s left of the New Deal.
vision for New Orleans: a profiteer’s paradise
Corporate profiteering from the disaster is only the tip of the
iceberg. Bush’s allies in the Republican-controlled Congress are urging that reconstruction be accompanied by measures limiting victims’
right to sue, establishing school vouchers, lifting restrictions on federal funds for religious groups, suspending environmental
regulations on new oil refineries, waiving the estate tax, and enacting a flat tax. “The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas
to the Gulf Coast is white hot,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana. …
This rejection of “big government”
applies, however, only to those federal functions left over from the past that have to do with protecting the physical and economic
security of working people. When it comes to maintaining law and order and protecting the property of the wealthy, however, Bush is
emphatically in favor of federal power and the use of military force. …
Bush concluded: “It is now clear that a challenge on
this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces—the institution of our government most capable of
massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.”
Thus the failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the
Homeland Security Department in Hurricane Katrina is used as the justification for making the military takeover of New Orleans a
precedent for future and broader exercises in martial law. The posse comitatus law, Bush implied, which bars the military from domestic
policing, must be weakened or repealed outright.
Gulf Coast’s recovery :: The Daily Herald, Provo Utah
The president’s call for a “Gulf Opportunity Zone” is intriguing, but
he needs to make sure storm relief doesn’t become a Trojan horse for every conservative ideologue’s favorite pet project. Flat tax,
anyone?
big-government conservatism & predatory crony capitalism
government liberal? Look who’s talking
By Steve Rundio
Still don’t believe big-government conservatism exists? Compare
spending patterns of the Clinton and Bush years. Under Clinton, federal spending went up 13.3 percent over eight years. Bush needed just
four years to jack up spending by 19.7 percent. The difference isn’t defense spending. Clinton raised non-defense discretionary spending
by 15.1 percent in eight years. Under four years of Bush, it’s up 25.3 percent. …
There’s nothing good about big-
government conservatism. It’s an iron triangle of politicians, lobbyists and industry wallowing in the spoils of government
contracting and favoritism linked to campaign contributions. The recipient of big-government liberalism is likely to be a 90-year-old who
can’t get out of bed, or a pregnant teen in need of pre-natal care. The recipient of big-government conservatism is a
Halliburton executive or someone who lobbies on Halliburton’s behalf.
[via Coco and Tim McGivern]
—–
The Progress Report – American Progress Action Fund
KATRINA: New Problem, Same Mistakes
by Judd Legum,
Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel, Payson Schwin and Christy Harvey
Already, watchdog groups, “including two in New York
that have monitored the post-9/11 reconstruction of Lower Manhattan,” are warning Gulf Coast leaders to “closely monitor the design of
Hurricane Katrina aid packages so that low- and moderate-income people, unemployed workers, and small businesses are treated fairly.”
They pointed out that after 9/11, “rules that normally restrict federal economic funding to primarily benefit low- and moderate-income
communities were stripped out,” as is being suggested now. As a result, the groups says, “much of the $20 billion allocated for
economic development has benefited real estate developers and wealthy neighborhoods.”
—–
Reconstruction of New Oraq By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
Leading the list was Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a
subsidiary of the energy firm Halliburton, the mega-corporation Vice President Dick Cheney once presided over. From providing
fuel to building bases, doing KP to supplying laundry soap, it supported the newly privatized, stripped-down American military — and for
that it “received more money from the U.S. involvement in Iraq than any other contractor,” a sum that has already crested ten billion
dollars with no end in sight. The Bechtel Corporation, the San Francisco-based engineering firm, known at home for its staggering cost
overruns on Boston’s “Big Dig” and its especially close ties to the Republican Party, raked in almost $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction
contracts just in the nine months after the fall of Saddam Hussein. …
In fact, with Congress already making a $62
billion initial down payment on post-Katrina reconstruction work, the Bush administration has just given out its first 6 reconstruction
contracts, five of them — could anyone be surprised — to Iraqi reconstructors, including Fluor. Small world indeed.
The Bush version of crony capitalism should perhaps be termed predatory capitalism, following as it does so closely in
the wake of war and natural disaster much as camp followers used to trail armies, ready, in case of victory, to loot the baggage train of
the enemy.
But let’s pull back for a moment and try to reconstruct, however briefly, at least a modest picture of the massively
interconnected world of the reconstructors. A good place to start is with George Bush’s pal Joseph Allbaugh, a member of his “so-called
iron triangle of trusted Texas cohorts.” Allbaugh seems to display in his recent biography just about every linkage that makes New Oraq
what it is clearly becoming. He ran the Bush presidential campaign of 2000; and subsequently was installed as the director of FEMA which,
in congressional testimony, he characterized as “an overstuffed entitlement program,” counseling (as Harold Meyerson of the American
Prospect pointed out recently) “states and cities to rely instead on ‘faith-based organizations… like the Salvation Army and the
Mennonite Disaster Service.” …
George Bush’s version of capitalism is of a predatory, parasitical kind. It
feeds on death, eats money, goes home when the cash stops flowing, and leaves further devastation in its wake. New Orleans, like a
rotting corpse, naturally attracts all sorts of flies.
Upcoming Albuquerque Election
Over at DukeCityFix, there is an
interesting exchange of comments about mayoral candidates — interesting in part because, until I last checked, there wasn’t any
name-calling or ugliness.
The alibi has its endorsements and, on the blog, notes from a recent mayoral forum. mjh