The Fury of Me

Egan at His Best

From time to time I repost columns by who I consider to be the New York Times' best columnist, Timothy Egan.  Maybe it's because he lives in the West Coast and covers the world from the view of the West, but he manages to do it thoughtfully, passionately, while at the same time being subdued.

The column I am going to repost today is about the closing of California's state parks due to the state's inability to raise taxes.  It's a damn shame is what it is. California Republicans hold one vote more than 1/3 in the state assembly which requires 2/3 vote to pass any tax increase. And Republicans have become absolutely dogmatic about not raising taxes. It's kind of scary.  So because Jerry Brown was forced to pass a balanced budget which meant cuts only, in September, California will shutter its state parks.  An absolute travesty of the "American dream."

Here is his article.

GLEN ELLEN, Calif. — Dead at the age of 40, Jack London left behind more than 50 books produced by his fevered pen, a string of opinionated lovers and a Sonoma Valley ranch he described as heaven on earth.

For a few months, still, you can see the sunlit room where the author of “Call of the Wild” wrote his daily thousand words before noon, and walk under redwoods and wild oaks on his 1,400-acre Beauty Ranch, where he pioneered “sustainability” before anyone was pushing $20 plates of arugula with a such a claim.

It belongs to you and me — the ranch, the cottage, the pond, the stone scraps of an old winery — an inheritance that is now being dismantled. California created the state park idea with Yosemite in 1864, before it was a federal reserve; it is destroying it in 2011 with a plan to permanently close one-fourth of its parks.

Along with 69 other sites, Jack London State Historic Park will be shuttered, gates locked, and left to meth labs, garbage outlaws and assorted feral predators. Nearly 50 percent of all of California’s historic parks are on the closure list. This is not a scare tactic from the state. Parks go dark starting in September.

Even during the Great Depression, when this state had 30 million fewer people, California somehow found a way to keep its parks and heritage sites open.

The nuclear option is being executed to reach a budget cut of $22 million mandated by a failed state that is forcing lethal whacks for all, even with an improved budget forecast. That’s right, $22 million — one-fifth the price of a recent sale of a single private mansion in Los Altos. It’s a broken California, sadder by the day, that is not only padlocking parks but may soon release thousands of prisoners, per a Supreme Court order.

In the great scheme of things, a park and a place that shows off the guiding passion of the most popular novelist of his day are small potatoes, yes. Who needs history and open space when a child may go hungry or a bridge may collapse? But what is happening now, the death of American life by a thousand cuts, is the collateral damage of our frozen politics. We don’t have to commit suicide, as California is doing.

Original link is http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/fall-of-the-wild/

We're All Trapped

Do you ever start to feel trapped by your life? It could geographically, financially, socially, or occupationally.  It’s probably the feeling I hate most. It eats at me and winds me up so that it’s all I can think about.  And the more you try to figure it out the more you realize there is nothing you can do.

Since I can count the number of people that read my blog on one hand, you all at least know the generalities of my situation.  I haven’t had a permanent job since December 2008 when I go laid off after playing Santa for co-workers’ kids in the office Christmas party.  (Keep it classy former employer.)  That means no paid time off, no health care, no retirement contributions nothing in the last two and a half years of my life.  It’s infuriating.  For me, anyway, it makes me wonder if there will ever be a way to climb out.  It’s easy for some of my less empathetically inclined friends to say, “why don’t you just move?”  All that does is tell me they have no idea what they are talking about.

All I can think of is moving out of my current geographical area.  It’s overpriced, the financial services industry is dead and most likely will never be meaningfully resurrected here again, and it’s basically a black hole for a young person’s life.  Moving requires the ability to save.  You have to pay for movers or the U-Haul to do it yourself.  You have to have first and lasts month’s rent, etc.  If people could “just move” then believe me, more people would.  But for someone who is in my situation, and I know there are others, you just start to feel crushed.

I frequently meet people who don’t realize how lucky they have it.  Or have a skewed perspective on what they have achieved themselves and what roads were paved for them by others.  You’re probably thinking, the same could be said for me, which is true to a degree. I grew up in a household with two parents who gave me everything they could and helped me in anyway possible.  And that is something I’m eternally appreciative of.  But I frequently meet people who take for granted family connections, parents’ credit cards, familial financial security, etc. and think that they have had the same issues as me.  Some of that is because where I live suffers from a severe case of townyism.  Many people haven’t really ever lived anywhere else or spend considerable time in another part of the country or world.  My city is a pretty insular place and unless you are really lucky or well connected in some way, it’s really hard to make it here.  There are many people who have the smarts, talent, ability, and experience to be successful here, but with a population that is predominantly from here taking up whatever jobs there are, it leaves little room for new people to move in.  Ultimately, it just creates a very walled off environment that can often be out of touch with reality and suffer from imaginary victim-hood.

Another terrible thing is that I know I’m not the only one. There are 20-somethings all across the country that are in similar situations.  They graduated college, went off somewhere thinking they’d be forever employed only to get thrown out on their asses in a couple years because of political corruption and affluent greed.  And now our government is paralyzed by partisan bullshit that makes me want to jump off a bridge.  Wages haven’t increased for the bottom 80% or so in 30 years.  Meanwhile they’ve doubled several times over for the most affluent.  And the smaller the percentage at the top the more their salary has increased relative to the rest of Americans.  And now those Americans are out of work, homes, and life.  I’m not talking about the idiots that bought five houses and took out three mortgages. I’m talking about the people who watched it happen and either didn’t realize what was going on or had no power to stop it. The collateral damage.

Republicans don’t want Americans to understand what the debt ceiling really is.  They have the utmost faith in private business to do everything.  At its best you can call it naïveté and it’s worst corrupt.  There is no demand to get the economy going again.  Tax cuts don’t create demand.  Tax cuts don’t create jobs.   Poor people hardly get any money back and if they do it goes to helping pay for bills, rent, or medical care.  Rich people aren’t buying another yacht, Mercedes, or designer shoes because they either don’t need any more or it doesn’t matter because they aren’t made in the US anyway.  The biggest customer the US economy has is the US government.  It’s simple Keynesian economics.  Because common Americans can’t afford to buy anything and stimulate demand that way, the government needs to step in.  That means building things.  Investing in things Americans can make or develop better than other countries.  That means a short-term increase in the national debt with a long-term aim on paying it down which means means-testing for social security (I still don’t understand why this is so controversial), a national health care system, and reduced deductions, tax loopholes and subsidies for corporations.  It means all of those things and more.

But instead, as a country, are trapped. I look at the Republican presidential candidates and they are all jokes.  Not one of them can be taken seriously.  Have we not had our fill of privatizing, evangelical Christians who want to privatize everything but social policy?  I wish there was a strong, serious candidate because then Obama would be challenged mentally, philosophically, and politically. Instead we have the same tried and failed Republican ideas with an extra dash of crazy thrown in.  It is completely demoralizing.

And when I look at all that going on in our country’s leadership, I wonder how the hell I am ever going to have a career, move and live somewhere more appealing to me, and become financially secure in my present and my future.  Instead I’m trapped in a city I don’t like, doing temporary jobs between stints on unemployment, and living paycheck to paycheck.  Meanwhile, employers aren’t hiring anyone that has been unemployed for too long, wages are falling, and my generation will be forever behind in lifetime achievement and earnings because of it.  I look at our politicians, Supreme Court justices and the CEOs of Wall Street, oil, and big business, and I honestly can’t find a bone in my body that wouldn’t mind if they all died tomorrow.  Otherwise, I don’t know how young people are ever going to have a fighting chance in this country or world when the old, connected and corrupt are methodically destroying it and us.

Must Reads for March 22, 2011

Most of these come from today's New York Times, and one from USA Today.  They all deal with unions in some way and should be read by everybody.

The first one is an op-ed by a professor at the University of Wisconsin about Wisconsin's political traditions and history, the majority of which Republicans are responsible for, that Scott Walker is currently trying to destroy.

The second is by Naomi Schaefer Riley, a conservative author, making a (thin) argument for why university faculty around the country shouldn't be allowed to unionize.  Stanley Fish, currently a professor at Florida International University and columnist, has a conversation with a former colleague on how Riley's column caused him to change his mind on faculty unionization (from against to for unionization).  As usual, Fish is pithy, eloquent, and funny.

All three should be read.  I'll post more as I come across things during the day.

The Millionaire Teacher Next Door

I am really confused about the bashing that teachers are taking right now.  I’m not talking about teachers unions, which I have conflicted feelings about, especially the NEA, but the teachers themselves.  I never hear any of the Republican politicians delineate between the teachers individually and the unions which are run by an organizational executive group.

According to PolitiFact (non-partisan fact checking) Wisconsin teachers make about average for the nation and Wisconsin public employees make similar or a little less in wages to their counterparts in the private sector.  Important things that often get left out are that to be a teacher you are required to have a four year degree and 52% of Wisconsin teachers also have a master’s degree.  You would expect Wisconsin teachers with advanced degrees to make more than the general population, but when compared to those in the private sector with four year degrees they are not making the killing that many in the media would have you believe.

Then there is the other question, is it really right to get up in arms about teachers in the United States. Does anybody really feel, truly deep inside, that teachers are overpaid and over appreciated in this country.  Personally, my plan is to have a successful career, retire and then teach because I know I won’t make as much with a career in teaching as I would in the private sector.  Needless to say, I have complete admiration for those that go into teaching as a career choice.  It isn’t because of the money, and it isn’t because of the “fringe benefits.”  It’s because of the job and love of teaching others.  Without teachers, this country would be spinning around the crapper drain faster than it already is.

When we have Wall Street paying out billions in bonuses after being saved with government money, we are getting pissed off about teachers, snow plowers, city workers, and similar?  Are you fucking serious?  Why don’t the tea bag idiots try to claw back some of the Wall Street billions and take away oil subsidies instead of take it out on teachers or unions?  I realize that as a state Wisconsin has little control over this matter, but maybe Scott Walker shouldn’t have passed the tax break for millionaires that created the exact size deficit that exists right now.  Wealth distribution is completely out of whack and idiot tea party politicians think that stratifying it even further is somehow the answer.

Do I think there are crappy teachers out there that need to be fired and are protected by their union?  Absolutely.  But the answer isn’t union busting.  Maybe we should make teaching more attractive so some of our best and brightest decide to teach for monetary reasons as well, instead of counting on the small percentage that feels a moral compulsion to give back to society but sacrifice any kind of financial wealth that could be accumulated elsewhere.  When teachers are harassed and vilified but then we complain that our education system sucks (which it does) you want to slam a door on your head.  It’s the same concept as banks taking tax payer dollars and giving to the people who come up with ridiculously complicated ways of cheating the system.  If our government paid competitive salaries to get some of those people over to the “good” guys, then the tea idiots would scream about government waste.  It’s all enough to make your head go numb.

And now here are a couple other random thoughts. I am sick and tired of hearing Republicans say that they were elected with a mandate and elected to do a specific job – cut spending.  First off, if that was the case, you didn’t win the Senate so maybe you don’t actually have a mandate.  And secondly, if you were elected to do a specific task upon which most of you campaigned on, and that that is what Americans want, then you have to admit that Obama has a mandate to reform health care so that it covers everyone because he won a national election and he campaigned on reforming health care.  You don’t get to have it both ways.

And lastly, I’m sick and tired of hearing about how the “far left” is a bunch of Islamic sympathizers and Islamo-fascists.  First off, whoever believes that is a fucking retard. PERIOD!  Secondly, if any party understands hard-line, no cost too great, fundamental religiosity, it’s the Republicans.  Why would liberals, who are generally more scientific and unreligious, align with Islam?  I mean seriously?  I get that fundamentalist Christians hate Muslims and think their Satan worshippers, but that doesn’t mean the political left is aligning with them.  Give me a break.  Maybe the more tolerant people in this country are accepting of fundamentalist Islam (not terrorism) in the same way they are accepting of fundamentalist Christians (not the ones that blow up abortion clinics or shoot doctors in the middle of church).  Use your fucking noodles and think this one out.  If you want Democrats or more open minded people to be anti-Islam then guess what, they need to be anti-Christian as well, because there are a bunch of idiots out there that believe Jesus rode dinosaurs or dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden (this link is hilarious) and that God hates fags.  Funny, I think hardcore Muslim “Islamo-fascists” hate fags too.  Maybe you guys have more in common than you think.